Bobby is 4 today! He is on the Left.

Current Thoughts on Pastors and Bible College/Training

I don't know why I have been thinking about this lately, but I am amazed how many pastors have absolutely no biblical training whatsoever. I am probably thinking about it because I can't wait to start my Masters and hopefully I will in the winter of 2007, hopefully. I am either going to do a Masters of Theology or maybe a Master's in something like CE, or something other than an MDiv. I have always wanted to do one in Communication but I go back and forth.

But, it just amazes me how many pastors/youth pastors I know without any ministry training or biblical training. I went to bible college and majored in Youth Ministry and it has been incredibly valuable to my last 11 years in ministry. But sometimes, I struggle with folks who don't think any kind of ministry training or biblical study is important. They say things like..."Well, I don't want mess up my thinking and bible college will do that". I don't know, I guess if I went to my doctor and he said that he had a business degree, I guess I would leave pretty quick. I know that is a very simplistic answer, but I don't understand why they wouldn't want at least some kind of training. I hated taking Greek, but now I am glad I did. I didn't want to take all those youth ministry classes but they have been extremely valuable to me. So, I don't know why I struggle with it. I had somebody tell me once that there isn't anything in higher learning that they couldn't teach themselves from some book. I highly disagree.

So, do I think it's absolutely nescessary for a pastor to have some kind of bible college/seminary. No, I guess I don't. But, for some reason I have a whole more respect and admiration for folks who have worked their tales off getting the education.

I know these thoughts are incomplete, but I have been thinking about this a lot. One of life goals is to complete a masters and I have been doing a lot of wrestling as of late if it is the best choice for me and family. We have decided it is, now I just have to figure what school and what degree and oh yeah, how to pay for it and how to do homework with three small kids. Little things.

What a Night

I can safely say that tonight's session did not go that well. The worship was awesome and Shinn and the guys did an awesome job in the auditorium. But when the middle school students left and came over to my room, something just didn't connect. I can definately say that my talk tonight didn't go all that well. Couple of problems:

• There are quite a few kids who have heard me speak more than a dozen times. The crazy thing is they remember my stories, why do they? I am trying to tell new stories or reworked stories, but they catch on. They say stuff like..."I love this one, you already told that 2 years ago, you told it differently last time".
• We had some sleepers tonight.
  
• I don't know if I can say this, or it will sound toolish, but I just don't do as well speaking to crowds of 100 or less. I know that sounds bad, but it's been a long time since I have spoke to smaller groups of kids. My comfort zone is definately bigger groups, and I need to retool to connect with the smaller groups. It's a whole different ball game speaking to smaller groups than the larger groups.
  

Then we had some Jr. high guys, just being jr. high guys and during a prayer, the serious moment of the night, they just started laughing and couldn't stop. It was funny, but probably came at the wrong time.

Well, I don't know what the purpose of this post was, other than being disappointed with myself. 2 talks to go, got to finish strong.

On a different note, my folks came down for Bobby's birthday, he is 4 years old July 28th. Yeah.

Coming Soon

I am going to post very soon, my (to become yearly)..."If I picked the Speakers for the National Youth Workers Convention" List. I know most people won't care who I think would do a great job, but I am an event lover and there is no event I love more than this one. So, I am going to post my list very soon.

PS...I can't believe Group & Doug Fields is starting another Convention for Youth Pastors. Don't know how I feel about this. I love Group and Doug Fields and I love NYWC and I know there probably isn't any competition going on between the companies, wink? So, we will see. I hoping to make it to both, but don't know if I can swing it.

More Summer of Love Tour

I can't believe we only have 2 days left! The tour has gone really well and I will be sad when we are all done. One of the original dreams for Project311 was to put on tours like this one, so it's a little sad that we won't get a chance to do any more tours for awhile. They are just too time consuming and expensive. We tried to save youth pastors as much money as we could by borrowing equipment and a trailer. With that being said, I am glad God opened up some doors for us to partner with some great churches and youth pastors this summer.

I have one more summer camp Aug. 16-18 that I speak at and then I have Elevate's summer camp Aug. 7-11 at SpringHill, IND. It will be my first time there and I am excited to see it. I also can't wait to get to know the staff and leaders of Elevate. I spoke at SpringHill Camp, MI last winter for one of their teen retreats, but I didn't get inited back this year. Very sad I am.

Big Zach and Little Zach

These are two Zach's in my life. The one of the left is my Zach, the tornado himself (who almost, somehow just pulled over the dresser in our hotel room), and the one on the left is one of my very best friends.

As a youth pastor, I have had a hand full of kids through out the years that my wife reminds me of when I have wanted to quit and didn't think I was making any kind of difference. Well, Zach is one of them. I met him in 1998 and we instantly made a connection. He was always the first to serve and we had so much fun his senior year of high school when we interned at the church.
Anyway, we named our Zach after him. I love this guy and I am so proud of him. He is the Project311 worship leader and he just graduated from Taylor University. He is heading out east in the fall to do some further study on the music industry. I am so blessed to have him in my life.

What a Great Camp!

Summer Celebration was a great camp. Project311 did all the production/worship and speaking for this middle school camp on the campus of University of Miami, OH.

What made it a great camp? Well here are some thoughts:

• Veteran Leadership. There is just something about partnering with youth pastors that have a ton of experience. No knock against young youth pastors, but the difference is unbelivable.
  

• Tom Robinson has been a youth pastor for over 30 years and this man just oozes wisdom and patience and love. He's amazing. He treated our team like Kings and shepherded us all the entire week. I look up to Tom and he is definately going to make my..."If I picked the speakers for NYWC".
• History. This camp has been going on for at least 15 years. All of the younger youth pastors and volunteers had all attended this camp when they were in Jr. high, so it makes for a cool time.
• The students were really cool. Responded great to the worship team and for some reason, talks. Although, I am not entirely happy with the talks, so it was cool students still responded.
• Freedom. I think the # 1 mistake camp planners make is when they schedule too much and make students do something at all time. I think it's wrong. They need some freedom, not crazy freedom, but some choices and some opportunities for them to decide. Summer Celebration has some great freedom for kids.
• Happy Schedule. I think the # 2 mistake camp planners make is the schedule. They just have to plan every second and most of the time the schedule doesn't work with middle school bodies. Why do we have breakfast at 7:30am at camp? Because that's the only time the camp will do it...wrong, we are paying, they will move the time. I am speaking at a camp in August that has the breakfast at 10:00am and they let kids sleep in, how cool is that.
• Godly Leadership.
  

I Like Cheese

Call me a "Tool" but Project311 made some T-Shirts with some of the stories/phrases I use in the comedy stories I tell. One of them, which I don't think is that funny, is the "I Like Cheese" story. I just don't get it. But kids who have heard the story ask me to tell it the next time they see me, it's crazy. Anyways, it's one of our best selling shirts. The top selling shirt you ask? Well, that's "El Pepe" of course.

**Disclaimer. I know Tony Morgan said not to sell anything on your blog, but here goes. If you would like to support Project311, we have a wonderful line of T-Shirts for sell. Just a hint, wink!

Camp Velocity...Post # 2, Day...3

HighLights from Day 2 & 3...

• 3 of the youth pastors who organize this camp, pulled me aside last night to pray for me and lay hands on me. You would be surprised how many camps I go to where no one prays. So, that was awesome. Plus, I really love these guys and it was great.
• Middle School kids are so cool. I love the fact that they ask me to sign stuff. It's so funny to me. I told a story about how I loved the. 79 cents fountain drinks from Speedway, so a bunch of them had their youth pastor take them to Speedway and then they brought me the cup to sign, how funny.
  
• Tonight went really well. Students Laughed, actually we all laughed hard. And that opened up ears to Listen and I believe we had some Learning moments.
  
• Here are some pictures.
  

The High Pants

From time to time I enjoy a good "High Pants" moment from the stage. I know what your thinking..."How could you scare those the Middle School Students Like that"? Well, at least I have fun with it.

My Bekah

Some days I would love to know what Rebekah will be like in 10 years, or 15. As we pray for her, I am so excited to think about what God will do through her.

Mess up...Oops

Little slip of the words tonight. I was telling a story about my Aunt and Uncle from PA and how they go deer hunting at night with bright lights, but what I said to a group middle school students was...

My Aunt and Uncle from PA go Beer hunting with bright lights, oops. It wasn't as bad as the whole "My boyfriend pulled my pants down", but students laughed at my mess up.

Geeks & God

Here you go, this is my "Must Read Blog" for any ministry leader. These two guys do an awesome walking you through tech issues and how they can make or break your ministry. They have a lot of basics, which is awesome for a guy like me, and then have so much stuff that is way over my head. They are two of the smartest guys I know and they have helped me in so many situations.

They will definately make my "If I picked the Breakouts & Speakers at NYWC" post coming in a few days. Please check it out and subscribe to their podcast.

Geeks & God

The Theme for Camp

The theme for Camp Velocity this year is "Too Much". Basically, we have Too Much of everything and not enough of Christ. I love it. Simple, yet challenging.

Holy Cow

Just found out the other speaker,

Noel Heikkinen

got in a car accident on the way here and totaled his car. He's alright, thank goodness. He's hoping to be in here in time.

I am looking forward to hanging out with Noel. I have heard a lot about him from my friends Jason and Dave and had a lunch and a couple of conversations with him. He's a pastor in Lansing, MI and he's unbelivable. He teaches at conferences around the world and he a great teacher, so I can't wait to get to know him a little better.

For this camp, middle and high school do worship together and then they split apart for the talks. I teach middle school, Noel teaches High school. But, we decided to do something different this year, we are going to team teach the first night and the last night. Should be a blast.

Camp Velocity...Day # 1

We are here at Camp Velocity on the beautiful campus of Kenyon College in Gambier, Oh. There is a group of about 10 churches that have done their own summer camp for a longt ime. They basically rent out a portion of a college campus and have camp. This is our third straight year and it's a blast. We drove pretty much all day yesterday because we had to head down to Dayton, Oh to pick up the trailer with all the sound/light gear and then we headed over to Gambier from there. So, 8 hours in the car, not too shabby. Quick highlights so far:

• All the adult youth pastors for this camp get here a night early and hang out, that's always fun. Plus, they helped us unload the trailer and it only took 15 minutes. Awesome!
• We found somebody last minute to haul the trailer from Dayton to Gambier. A guy from Calvary Baptist drove all day for us, what a blessing!
  
• We ate dinner at Ryan's Family Steakhouse, need I say more?
• The camp put my family up in an Super 8 motel in town, need I say more? They got us a suite, much more space than a normal hotel room. The guys are staying somewhere on campus. It even has a whirl pool tub, yeah, I know.
  
• We have had virtually no problems with set up or tear down. The last couple of years it took us forever to set up, but this year it has gone awesome. It's been great to have Chad because he's a work horse. Jimmy has also taken care of all the lighting w/Zack's help, so that's sweet.

Funny moment so far?

• About 10 minutes ago, my youngest son (Zachary the tornado) pulled a fire alarm in the auditorium we are in, funny? Maybe not funny, but quicker than I thought he would.
  
• My middle son than proceeded to blame it on his Uncle Jimmy, that was the funny part.

Many pictures to come.

Been Thinking About My Calling...

Lot's of thoughts swirling around my head, but wanted to lay out an intitial piece about my calling. I was reading my buddy's blog (AdamMclane.com) the other day and he has some interesting thoughts on youth pastor discouragement/calling and then back a little while ago, Andy Jack emailed a bunch of folks about "calling". So, I have been thinking about it a lot lately. Don't have any mind shattering thoughts but here is what I think so far, and it's the very beginning stages...

Early on in Ministry (1-6yr) I felt/knew I was "called" to be a youth pastor. A church hired me at 19 and our youth groups did very well. I was extremely passionate and never wanted anything else. I also didn't let anything get in the way of ministry, ie...family, college, health, nothing short of being the world's greatest youth pastor.

Middle years in Ministry (7-9) Things slowly started to change, what was once important, was not. I started to get my prioities right and set healthy boundaries. See, the first 6 years I was all about numbers. We did outreach events that attracted thousands of kids and I found my identity in that. I stopped taking myself so seriously and started to realize I put my "calling" above my family.

Last few years in Ministry (10-11) I don't know if I can say I am "called" to be a youth pastor. I have been a youth pastor for the last 11 years and it is for sure the main way I use the gifts that God has given me. But I know for sure I am called to be a child of God, a husband and a father. My calling, I belive is my family. For years, I messed up and was so consumed with my "calling" to youth ministry that I neglected my family. So now, being is a youth pastor is definately a huge part of my life, but I feel like the bigger part is my calling to my family.

Maybe I am not as committed as I used to be, maybe? I don't know. I love youth ministry, the local church and students, I just love my family a whole lot more. I know all youth pastors do as well, and I know these thoughts are pretty elementary, I just needed to write it out. Again, simple thoughts, but just a few that are swirling.

Night before a trip

Well, here we are again, the night before a trip and we are still up getting things ready. Someday, we will go to bed at 9pm the night before a trip. It's amazing to me though how good Tracie is at packing up what we need for a week away. Wherever we have stayed in the past 7 years of doing this, she always makes it feel like home. Doesn't matter where we are, within minutes she has everything set up and ready to go.

This week we are in Gambier, OH at Kenyon College for Camp Velocity. This is our third straight year and I am so blessed to be apart of this camp. I picked up the guys from the airport yesterday and I heard all about their week in Mexico. Sounds interesting to say the least. This week in Mexico was going to be my last Adventures in Mission (www.adventures.org) trip for awhile, so I guess they did a great job. I have done maybe 10 Adventure in Mission trips over the 4 or 5 years and each one has been unique, so I bummed I missed it. But, I am excited to head down to Oh. The guys are meeting us at our house in the morning and we will head over to Chad's, then to Calvary Baptist and then to Jason Shinn's mother-n-laws (that's a long story) and then to Kenyon College.

I am still in need of a truck to haul our trailer back from Gambier, late Friday night or early Saturday morning, please be praying, or at least I will be praying.

Camp Velocity gets over Friday night and then once we head home, things ramp up for us pretty quick. Including...Family in from PA, then heading out the Willow the first week of August, I teach JHI that first weekend, then we have Elevate's Summer Camp at SpringHill (Ind.) and then we get home, pack up and I do one last summer camp, then we head out to Chicago to live temporarly in a basement, and then the move. Wow, it's going quick.

Great trip with my Dad

Well, that was a quick trip to the NorthWest side of ChiTown. It would of been a blast to see the cub's play, but I don't think we would of got it in. I have been so busy and there has been so much going on, that it really hasn't sunk in that we are moving and starting a new position. Well, it's sinking in. The toughest part of the move is being 5 hours away from family. My parents are my best friends and I love living close to them. So, it's tough thinking about not golfing with my dad every Sunday and having dinner over there whenever we want. But, it's great to know they love us and support us.

My dad loved the neighborhood we are moving into and my prayer is I can get them move out there. My mom is almost is done with her Masters degree and my dad's work has some offices in IL, so we'll see.

Seldom known fact about my dad is that he builds furniture. Great furniture. He built Bekah's cradle, her bed, a blanket chest for Tracie, a hutch and the list goes on and on. He's one of the guys who has incredible hands and can do anything with them (fix, build, craft, etc). My dream and prayer is that my dad could quit his job and build furniture full time.

Huh?

This is Chad & Janice, who I went to the movies with the other night. I have known Chad for about 7 years and I have known Janice for just about 1 year. I first met Chad because I brought his band, Son of Adam, in for one of our youth group events. Son of Adam was great and they even got a song played on the hit WB show, Smallville. Anyways, I love these people. Janice grew up in East Africa and I love hearing her heart and stories about Africa. Well, we are at lunch the other day and she says to me "I can't listen to my pastor speak after hearing you" (ok, kind of toolish of me to repeat that) but it was a great compliment. Then, Chad says, "If you start a church someday, I will lead worhip for you". HUH? Start a church. Interesting thought. Wouldn't I have to be old in order to start a church? Just Kidding.

Anyways, this guy has been a great friend over the years. He's the kind of friend who believes in the "brotherhood". I will explain. In Feb., our pipes froze at our house and for 5 days we were without water. We couldn't afford a plumber and I didn't know what to do, I tried to fix it, but it didn't really work so well. So, Chad calls me and he says, man you sound down, what's going on? Well, I told him and then that night at 9:00pm, he shows up at my house, crawls under my house, and spends 2 hours fixing my pipes so my family can have water. Never complains, never asks for anything, nothing. It was unbelievable. This is the same guy who helped me refinish my floors, and he helped me tear out my shower and tile it because we found black mold. He is a great example of a friend and of Christ's servant heart. Man, I am going to miss him.

You, Me and Dupree

A couple of nights ago I saw...You, Me and Dupree. Well, I laughed and laughed and laughed some more. Maybe it was because I was having a You, Me and Dupree moment. I went with my friends Chad & Janice and it was the first time, maybe ever I went to the movies with a married couple. Tracie is camping with the kids and my buddy Jason was going to come, but it was too late for him to make the drive, so I went Chad & Janice.

It was stinkin blast! The movie was funny, not very vulgar, really not very vulgar at all and it was funny. Some of it was stretching "funny", I don't actually know what that means, but it sort of sounded smrt. Well, I really enjoyed it.

I'm so excited

First, I haven't spent this much time with my dad in a while and its been a blast. No cubs game though. We ended up scouting out Bekahs new school and checked out our neighborhood.
Second, I got my official 'welcome to willow' gift today and it's cool. A book, mug, gift cards and so much more.
Third, my Tigers beat the chisox again. What a time to move...the boys are finally winning.