Flood HSM Road Rally

We just got done with our digital picture road rally last night. I wanted to post the best pictures of the 5 teams!

Team 1
Team 2
Team 3
Team 4
Team 5 We will annonce the winner on Wednesday Sept 6th and show a slideshow of the best pics!

80's Culture.

Many of you grew up watchiung Sesame Street. I can remember many of the sketchs of Grover doing "Near...Far" or Ernie and Bert, or Big Bird and his "Only-Big-Bird-Can-See-Him" friend Snuffalupagous (sp?)

Times have changed.

Now that my son is watching the show, I can't beleive how he instanlty connected with Elmo. I never remember Elmo from when I was a kid (he was introduceded in 1985) But Colin loves him! Of course I knew all about Elmo, you can't go through life never hearing of him, but I was just amazed at how Colin attached so quickly.


Also, I am very disapointed becasue now everone sees Snuffalupagous. Its the end if an era...like when we found out MacGyver's real first name... (Could this mean that Sesame street has "Jumped the Shark?")

Day at Barrymores

I just spent the day with a ton of Middle School kids at CJ Barrymores (A family fun park)

Let me tell you--they have tons of energy! I don;t think I am letting any cats out of any bags though, because people seem to know this info. Well, except for this one guy...

You see about 10 3rd-6th graders (even younger than middle school) were awaiting our turn at Laser tag (Oh yeah, and I smoked them all!) We were told to go stand over in the holding area and wait for the guy to explain stuff to us. We did, and all their excitment insued as they came up with names for themselves, pretended to shoot one another, and came up with their strategy ("I'm gonna go over there and shoot them all!!!") Of course, they were all chatting. The guy came over and just stood there. And then he stood there. And then he continued to stand there untli about 3 or 4 minutes went by. Finally another adult with us asked, "When are we gong to start?"

He replied, "I am just waiting for everyone to be quiet to listen to directions." To which I told him, "Look, buddy, you have to ask us to be quiet first." Ok maybe I didn't say it like that, but I wanted to. Anyway, he just stood there expecting 10 youngen's to just awe in his reverence. What a goof.

Colin's 1st Birthday!

So this is my son eatring his first Birthday cake. I love this boy!

Colin!

Today is Colin's First Birthday. This video is a few months old, but maybe I'll get some video today at the party. Gifts of cash and prizes can be sent to my house!

My To-Do list

Just so you know why I get paid the big bucks, here's my list for the next few weeks:

Youth Ministry Related

• Format resources for new discipleship table
• Clean room in prep for new year launch
• Finish new painting/decorations
• Finish messages for Sept.
• Have a Volunteer Staff meeting
• Work on Back To School Road Rally

Church Wide Related

• Promo material for our October "Together we're Better" series at Lakeview Auditorium!
• Training for specific Teams needed for this event.
• Finding resources for this event and working on the website

Personal

• Take time with my wife and family
• Finish backyard landscaping
• Have Colin's 1st Birthday Party
• Plan California Trip for the end of Sept!

Wow--I am busy. Why am I posting blogs?

Some teaching updates.

So last Sunday I had the oportunity to teach in "Big Church."

It is always fun, but a little intimidating I must add. You see, in the past, we have had people actually come in and see Pastor Ken (Render, not me) was not teaching that morning and they actually walked out! How depressing when you have to fill in those shoes!

But I think I was able to really share something that is deep within me. John 10:10. This is like my favorite verse--Its what I live by: Living an awesome, maxed out life.

I tralked about how Jesus relates us to sheep and how we need to follow him as our Shepherd who knows way more than we ever could know. And so I found this picture that I thought was funny!

Mountain Dew

The nectar of the gods. The juice that keeps all youth pastors going. The temptation of students everywhere.

This is the new color scheme of the Flood's lounge area, meant for selling soda and snacks, T-shirts and apparel, and simply hanging out and relaxing. Hope it lives up to the Dew!

Hard work.

I love projects. Currently I am installing a pation at home which requires diging a hole in my yard 16 feet by 12 feet, and 1 foot deep. I used to love digging in my parents backyard, and now I have a reaso to do so--But it is hard work!

Also, (not that I have done anything yet) we are painting lots at the church during the day. It will be Mountain Dew Green with sweet black trim. I like it alot. It will help freshen up the space--plus add a whole new dimension to the Flood room--place to just hang out. At the same time we are (and by we I mean my wife) painting the Storm Room, for the middle school.

In only about 10 days we will be having Colin's 1 year party and Jaime has a lot of hard work getting the house ready for 50 people.

It is a busy few weeks!

Boot Camp

Well, I just did a whirlwind tour of Jackson, MI to speak for a friend's church retreat, "Boot Camp." There were about 20 something middleschoolers their and they were learning about the 5 purposes for their lives; Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Ministry, and Evangelism. I had the privilage of speaking on Worship and Evangelism.

Evangelism Talk: I basically laid out the three story method; My Story, God's Story, and Their Story. I also used my famous PIF3 model of Prayer, Invite, and Follow-Up. It is neat to see students get excited about sharing Christ with their friends.

Worship Talk: My premise here is what I have been working on for the start of the school year--Everyone Worships. Understanding that we all worship, but the question is, "What do we worship." We have to choose to worship God as we read about in Romans 12. Offer ourselves as living sacrifices, and to be transformed. Awesome stuff.

Check out more stuff that I like to do here

Finally, I get recognized!

Ok, I know I didn't write the following email for the recognition, but I have written in to my favorite podcast, the SimplyYouthMinistry.com podcast, many times. I realized many of my emails seemed sarcastic and too long, so I decided just a word of encouragement was needed for these guys. So I write them and they posted it as the "Email of the week"

You have to scroll down past the list of links to see what I've written and if you are checking this after like Aug 8th, chances are they are featuring a new email!

A little PacMan

I thought I'd share a fun past time with all my friends. I like wasting time to my 2nd favorite classic arcade game Pac Man (I haven;t found a good online version of my fav-Ms.PacMan) It is just a clone, but a pretty darn good one. Click on the picture to play!

Pizza the Hutt

Yep I had pizza agin.

Sunday Night we bought pizza. 1 Cheese, 1 Pepperonni

I had pizza for lunch today at "Taco Hut" (Taco Bell/Pizza Hut combo)

Then I reheated pizza for dinner tonight.

I likes my pizza!

MySpace : MyFrustration Part #2

Ok, time for another myspace frustration.

I get very annoyed by "multiple bulletin poster people" or MBPPs. These people post 3+ bulletins at a time, usually begging for comments, showing off new pics, or answering stupid questionnaires. Basically this ruins the bulletin people. If I want to post something for you to see, I will post ONE bulletin at a time, you look at it and then move on. But when MBPPs post so many bulletins, the chances of you seeing my posts are rare--You have to search through pages of posts just to find one worth reading!

So MBPPs... Stop posting so many bulletins!!!

Power Outage

Yesterday I was just about to sit down to some pizza when all of a sudden everything went dim. We had a brown out becasue too many people were running air conditioners in our area. The junky part was that it was only our street and the street next to us. So we haad to go to bed in the dark and wake up at 4:00 AM to realize the power had come back on.