The Depressing Side of Youth Work...

Interesting Title huh? Well, I was reminded of it again this morning. Yes, there is a depressing side of youth work... And I'm not talking about the fact that Box beat me in ping pong again this week. That wasnt really depressing... It was fun! I had a blast losing to him.

With the formalities out of the way.. let me explain what Im talking about. Articles about youth work/workers put the average time that a youth leader spends at a particular church's youth group is 18 months. Personally, I think its a bit longer...maybe 3-4 years. In a Jr High setting 3 years is 2 full classes and 2 partial. Thats not bad. You get them through 7th and 8th grade...and they go on to the highschool group. While the 8th grade graduation Sunday was always a bit on the sad side.. I dont think this is the most depressing part...

In college, I was a short lived volunteer for Wild Life (The Jr high version of Young Life). But, back then .. college life was too important to me to be able to really build up relationships in the group. So, like I said, it was short lived. However, after I married Caty (The secondary Education teacher to-be). When we moved to Texas in Feb 1994, I talked to her about doing the Jr High group at the new church. She was all for it... So March of 1994, we became volunteer leaders. And the streak begun. Yes, it has been a long time, but thats not the depressing part either.

Having been doing this since 1994, I have a pretty .... unique take on Jr Highers. Simply because I had to, I could tell you all kinds of things about the Power Rangers (A cheap ripoff of the much better VOLTRON!). Hey, it was a big thing 10 years ago! Now, things are different ...and like computers.... everything really does change quite often. But, thats not the depressing part either.

What IS the depressing part? I know thats what you are asking... or at least my one reader (Hi Mom!) is asking by now. (Im sure you are baited now... I think thats some sort of speaking idea. Bait them in on the edge of their seats to make em listen! :) ) Well, I'm going to tell you... But, I have to tell you by what made me think of it this morning.

Needless to say, after almost 13 years of playing with Jr Highers, you tend to form ALOT of relationships. Its wierd to have "Jr Highers" with kids the same age as Marion. But, they do grow up .. go to high school...and college... and yeah..even get married. *Ugh I'm old!* My first youth group we worked with at Westlake Bible Church... when we started in 1994... on a Wednesday Night, we had 5 leaders... and 2 kids. It was in the process of ramping up with a great guy (Who I happen to have grown up with in Arizona) named David Sunukjian. Small World. He was there for 4 or 5 years... and was an awesome speaker like his dad, the Senior Pastor. Then he went off to seminary out in California (after he married one of the youth leaders.... Youth work does have its up-sides too!) Anyway, we grew to about 10 leaders (We were a pretty close group!) and about 80 Jr Highers. For two years, I had one group of guys that eventually became known as the RSS. Roger's Secret Service... it was said that they would take a bullet for me! LOL! I taught them to play Foosball and we played alot of Doom II Deathmatch at midnight. There are some stories there that are probably left for another blog. There were also quite a few gals that liked to hang out with me (I dunno why). One of my closest gals actually married one of my closest guys last December. (Happy One Year!) I've even been through one Jr Higher (that I was actually friends with long before Jr high cause she had older siblings) that died when she was 13.

What can I say.. I ramble. Anyway... so today I was getting on the computer and I pulled up my browser. I pulled down my favorites list... and saw one of my old Jr highers "MySpace" links. I havent talked to her in a couple of months... so I went there to get caught up in what she is doing. Sure enough, shes updated it since I last went there. Its amazing how much of a person's life goes by in two months when shes 18.

So now you know what the depressing part of Youth work is... Its a revolving door of friendships. Thats not as easy as it sounds like. Just imagine... the people you hang out with change completely every 2 years. The closest ones do stick around longer. Which can be good. The last time one of the RSS was in town, we did play a days worth of AOE II and some Doom II .. just for old times sake. But, for every one that keeps up with ya, 10 or more drop off.

I cant wait to get to Heaven and find out what they all went off and did.

Bedrooms vs. Gamerooms

I had a dream Sunday night and actually remembered it today so I figured I'd tell you about it. What a better medium to tell it to you... than in one that you cant interrupt me in. :) I've heard it said that you can only dream about things you have actually seen. So if you think something is made up... its not really.. its just your mind dealing with having to insert something into a "movie" (or "filmstrip" if you are as old as me!) that it can make it into what your brain is trying to say.

As the memory of my dream begins, I'm walking into one of those mega-churches. Im a mega church kid from my youth. You know the type.. Youth groups of 400... Sanctuaries that seat 5000 per service...and the church runs 3 services. You know.. like the North West Mothership. Anyway, I walked in to the sanctuary which really resembled a stadium seating movie theater.

My brain took off out of this setting for a moment and went to my memory of designing my current house. I can remember when I was thinking about the size of each of the rooms... I thought, "Benjamin's bedroom doesnt need to be big, because hes just going to be sleeping there." While he got lucky and got more than a closet, we didnt make an overly large room to hold all of his toys in every way he might want to play with them. We made a descent sized room, that he could keep his stuff in, and them made a large game room that he and his siblings could do the playing in.

When I flipped back to the sermon, I was sitting in the middle and the pastor was describing how the life we live in is like the bedroom of our house. The Gameroom of the house, is the life that God designed for us to live in. When we accept Christ into our lives, God shows us that there is more to life than our beds and a little floorspace to push a car around on. There's a room that big enough for a pool table... or enough room to have friends over and not be cramped.

Bedrooms are safe. People generally knock before entering. Siblings generally stay out of your room. You can do your homework in your own little world. Gamerooms are rowdy and loud. Stuff ends up everywhere.

I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. -- John 10:10b (NASB)
or
I came that they may have life, and live it out in the gameroom. -- John 10:10b (Roger's unauthorized version)

Our lives are comfortable in our own little world of our bedroom. Fairly controlled and peaceful. Christ came so that we can experince life through the door of our room. The gameroom that God designed already has the ping pong table, the foosball table, and the bigscreen televisions each for the inferior gaming systems that we all know about. Its loud and the walls are a bit more solid to be able to handle rougher play. (And, Im sure that there is a pink girls version of the game room too... but I cant think of what would be in it!) Either way, its uncomfortable in some respects. But, thats why Christ is with us... to have fun and shake us up so we can really enjoy what he has to offer.

At that point, I think I woke up. For those of you that know me.. 1) Im not the easiest person to wake up and 2) The air up there is awefully thin in the morning. I walked out into the gameroom and well... mine has all kinds of toys everywhere. My gameroom is filled with the effects of Chaos, Mayhem, and Entropy... I mean... Benjamin, Marion, and Zachary.

If thats the gameroom that *I* created (and my children repeatedly destroy)... the one God has designed for me ... well, I cant imagine! But, daily, I have to get up and let Christ lead me out into a rowdy, loud, and "abundant" life.

The Air of Worship!

As Box said in his blog Monday.... "It's Monday and that means it's time to blog." So, here I am... Doing my "duty" (has this become a youth leader requirement?) . After all, I hear Krista even updated her blog. I certainly dont want to be left behind... so, here it goes.

Today, I want to share with you a thought I had (yes.. I have them!). One of my favorite verses in the Old Testament is 2 Samuel 6:22. But, I have rarely ever read AROUND that verse. While I wont go into a full thought process on the entire thing, I would like to point out a few things that jumped out at me. Read 2 Samuel 6:12-23 sometime...

1) David was doing something God wanted... and he was GLAD to do it. (vs. 12)
2) He was dancing... (vs. 14) or as said.... leaping and dancing (vs. 16)
-- 2a) before the Lord... not others!
-- 2b) with all his might. Not just half way.. or to himself.
3) David involved everyone in his experience (vs. 19)
That was cool. Giving a cake of bread to Everyone! That would be so much fun.
4) He uncovered himself in an undistinguished way. (vs. 20)
5) Michal despised him in her heart for what he was doing (vs. 16)

I find myself on a portion of both sides of the coin on this one. I dont think Ive ever celebrated like David... However, I'm not the King, so Its still not socially acceptable to leap and dance in an "undistinguished way" (love the wording for .. Stark Naked!) But, I do like getting into the music when I am running sound! I'm pretty awesome at the "air bass" or the "air drums". Just cause I dance like a white guy, doesnt mean that I cant do it. The question is... Why do I only do it when Im in the back behind the sound board. Its celebrating and worshipping GOD!

However, that being said, I've also been in the position of Michal. I've seen other people worshiping in their way and thought "How wierd is that". So from that perspective...that hit home too. I find it extremely interesting that vs. 23 was added after that. While I'm still working on the whole Slave-girl section of that whole text... I'm sure vs. 23 was added for some reason. But, in that ... First pass mentality, that has to be a bad thing. So, despising someone because of their style of worship cant possibly go over real well with God.

I always have loved worship. Being in a mass of 3,000 highschool students.. or 20,000 college students is AMAZING. (If you EVER get the oppertunity to do that... DONT Pass it up!) Being in our sunday services is almost as amazing... the sheer number of people just sound different. I've played bass in a worship band. Even led it once. Wierd but, absolutely a fun time leading people in worship. But, I have to admit, My favorite way to worship.. is rarely a time I actually feel like *I* am worshipping. I absolutely adore running sound for a worship band. While I'm not leading people in worship... the way I see it, I am helping. Worshipping with a band is a totally different experience than worshipping with a single guy playing an accoustic guitar in a small group. If there is anything that sounds ....wierd.. in the sound.. peoples minds tend to focus on that. So, I see it as my oppertunity, to attempt to take away the techincal distractions during worship so that everyone else can keep their focus on God.

Believe it or not... I think I get the same...feeling...from running sound as I do when singing as one voice in a group of 20,000.

Fighting off Peer Pressure

Im sitting down to write the blog...and thinking about what is happening in the upper elevations of the atmosphere this morning.... reading a few other blogs of the morning (congrats Jake for getting it done already this week!) ... and it dawns on me that Christmas is upon us. Its amazing how the pressure to blog about my own personal feelings of Christmas is weighing on me. However, always striving to be a "good example" for students (other than that whole ... pie incident over Thanksgiving) I thought I would talk about something other than Christmas. Dont get me wrong.. Christmas is important. And of course, it isnt what it is supposed to be anymore.. Since Sean Covered that... I dont need to go into it. Both the Grinch and Charlie Brown can teach us alot about Christmas. On another front, Jake had a wonderful story about his Post Tankgiving Christmas Kickoff. While congrats are in order on the finding your tree, You might have to start changing the date from the Saturday after Thanksgiving to the Saturday after Halloween, since thats when the credit card companies start pushing Christmas shopping. Ok, so it was only two blogs that have been posted recently... both having to do with Christmas that spawned my peer pressure.. But, the season tends to make it hard as well.

So, since Im not going to talk about Christmas.... What am I going to talk about?

Well, I think it is time... prior to tomorrow... that I give the youth group a little insight into the Box! Hehe. You see, for those of you that do not know... Jake and I get together for lunch on Tuesdays. Lunch goes quick so we can get down to the real work... PING PONG. We've been playing for quite a while, and I have to admit, Im really pretty impressed at how good he has gotten. He's got some really nice serves. Nice spin and even some general tricky-ness to it. And while I will admit, I dont know what Ive got on him, we are pretty evenly matched. We tend to go back and forth on the "Best of 7" games that we play. Somedays one of us just has a bad day... or like only plays with one contact... but overall, we are pretty evenly matched. We can have one game that one of us gets blown away at 21-10 and then the next game goes to 25-23. I hardly ever let him get skunked...cause thats no fun.. so I tend to make sure he gets one of the first seven points... and generally it goes the other way as well.

Another thing I have been eager to write about since Sunday, I must give another kudo to Sean. Well, actually his parents. They invited us over for pie Sunday (which meant I was there early...and stayed late!), however, the pie was not the fun part. We were sitting in the living room talking about all sorts of random topics.... and then I found it. The couch that I was sitting on had two things on it that vibrated. What a cool idea. Thats all Im going to say about that...

Im glad I could do a post today that wasnt Christmas related. So I cant really be called a bah-humbugger in this time of hear... I will say one thing. I dont remember where I heard this.. but, here it is... "Dont take Christ out of XMas!"

Have Fun!

Making a fool of yourself.... and loving it!

So I was getting caught up on people's blogs and comments (since I needed a good topic for mine) and ran across the blog of Jason where he "announces" the video of Jonathan. Now while I understand that the Highschoolers might not realize what a significant event this was... I believe that there were some interesting things to note from this and even a moral or two.

Significant Note #1 : I find it interesting that a highschooler tried to talk about the "hype". The hype had been building since Authentic Faith weekend, which.. he was not at. The presentation did indeed live up to the hype. Weather the hype was high.. or low!

Significant Note #2: I think that this note can come from the inner workings of Two14 Guitar Guy's comment. It assumes that when Jonathan is a Senior someone (even a 7th grader) will think that he is the coolest! THAT, is a humorous comment in itself. But, the idea that we would have to pull out this video to expose his "true dorkness" is simply... Insane. When he is a Senior, he will still be showing his true dorkiness.

Significant Note #3: Jonathan... Thinking something like that would be forgotten? Shame on you. We had to video tape it... That way... When you are a senior and have to do it again, we can meld the two videos in together, and put another one up on the net for all to see.

Significant Note #4: Should we ever let him forget this? No way!

Significant Note #5: don't underestimate the power of the Insane!

Moral of the story #1:
As we all learned from the "Tea Pot" escapade, Jonathan... And people like him (I know, it takes one to know one!)... Will always do things that regular people would think they would NEVER do... Like sign "I'm a little tea pot" in front of a room of people, or wear a court jester outfit to work, church, and a renaissance Festival! There are those (JESSICA) that would say they would NEVER do things... But, you just don't know. There are some people that would do anything for a laugh... Like be "forced" to sing the "Tea Pot" song... And there are others that if they did that, they would be absolutely devastated with embarrassment. Embarrassment is good for you... keeps you humble.. and eventually you get used to it...and you become a youth leader!

Moral of the story #2:
I can only hope that Next retreat, Jonathan is a bit more cautious when he goes and gets in on a bet that the loser of a game has to do something. While I'm sure this kept out most people... When Jonathan showed up... It became the entire talbe of people VS. Jonathan. The writing was on the wall before you made your first die roll Jonathan. You WERE going to end up at the bottom of the winner's list... they just all had to figure out how to make that happen!

Food, Fun, and Murder... What a night!

It would seem that the Murdery Mystery Night was a killer success. As usual, Instead of going with the obvious murderer, I attempted to find the monkey twist in the story. Not being the murderer, while forcing me to tell the truth, also made me be synical of everyone elses stories (Hence... THE POINT!) Well, I thought, "If I were the muderer and had to come up with a good story... What would I come up with." Fortunately, Jennifer Aniston's true story, was my idea on a made up alibi. So, I chose that story as the false one...and of course .. I was wrong. Sure she didnt have a gun...but hey.. It seemed that there were so many guns at the party, certainly she coulda gotten a hold of one!!! If I would have been the murderer.. I was going to find a pair of characters that were talking to each other... and find out what they were talking about. Hopefully I could be quick before I got asked where I was. Then, once you hear that conversation.. you can just tell them then what they just said was exactly what you already knew... because you were in the bathroom next to their conversation. Then, you have both of them confirming your alibi, if they dont think about it very hard. After all, if I could get rid of "Oppertunity", then I couldnt possibly be the murderer.

Other than my thinking that Jake would throw in a twist, I had a lot of fun. I dunno about everyone else... but, the first part was the worst. Having to talk to people about things I dont think you would really talk about at a party, was murder in itself. However, sitting around at dinner with a table full of people was much more enjoyable. I guess food makes anything more fun! Thats ok... I happen to like food. (Thanks to Jessica's Parents for the Lasagna! YUMMMY!)

Over all, quite a night! I loved it. Im just glad that the Box-man didnt do any typecasting! I would have hated to have to figure out how to dress up like Arnold!

Halloween is so much different as the "adult"

This year, I got lots of use out of my Jester outfit. Its been 5 years now, but, when you pay $400 for a custom costume to fit a mutant... you use it as often as you can. Ive always wanted to be a jester, but all the "normal" costumes look so cheezy. The oppertunity arose... so I took it. Once I ogt it.. I started wanting to go the the Texas Ren Fair and see how well I fit in.

Well, This past week has seen alot of fun in the jester suit. starting with a visit to the Jr High Homeschool day at the Texas Ren Fair. We were some of the few that werent running the fair yet were dressed in full gear. Apparently all the kids that were there got a book at the enterance of characters in the ren fair to find. I kept getting asked if I was in the book somewhere. The best story... was that I was in line for the costume contest in the afternoon. Well, the king, honorable as he was, picked me out and told me that I looked a little old for The Jr High aged Costume Contest. I looked at the King and told him that I could give him a kingdom of people that would argue that I was actually in Jr High. So, just like that, I was out of the costume contest. One of the ladies of the renfair walked up to me and quietly asked how many were in my family. I said 5, and she handed me 5 tickets to come back on a weekend in November. So, it wasnt a total loss.

Sunday, we went to church in costume. I dont think any one else was in costume. I truly dont understand that. Wasnt there a time when everyone did it? Im not that old.

Sunday afternoon, we went to Bowie High School (arent they the bull dogs?) What a fun event. My kids enjoyed it..and Caty and I got a CD from The River 102.3 of Third Day. :) I even got my picture taken for the Year book... Cant wait to see if I actually made it in there. Yes.. I may have made it into Jessica's yearbook! ROFL! Wouldnt that be funny!

Monday night was our neighborhood halloween hay ride. 3 trailers full of hay took a lot of neighborhood kids around to various houses for candy. Quite fun.

And of course, Tuesday night was a festival at Lakehills Community. A lot of fun with bouncy things for the kids.

All this... and my three children have collected a few big bowls of candy. And..being the parent... its my job to pick out the candy that the kids can have... and pick out the candy I want. I mean... pick out the candy that isnt good for them.

At least Halloween is the one week where it is sociably acceptable for me to act like Roger! The other 51 weeks of the year... I would be made fun of for wearing my Jester costume. Its nice to have one week where every one just says.. good costume.. not ... are you really an "Adult"??

Wont this be interesting....

Howdy to the one person on the planet that will ever read this! (Thanks Mom!)

Seriously, (Can you be serious on the internet?) Jake told me I needed one of these... and that people would actually read it. So, who knows, I'll try it.

The First question you are asking yourself, even higher than "Who is this guy?" is "Whats up with the title?" "How thin is the air up there?" isnt exactly the meaning of life... Well it is close! When people ask me that (and believe it or not.. they do) I would expect that they really do think that the atmopheric contents of air can change somewhere between 74 and 78 inches off the ground. (Ok you Jr Highers... Thats 6'2" and 6'6") Of course, that being said, I do believe there is something to that as it would explain why people think my brain does not get enough oxygen which makes me slightly on the insane side. "Insane"... what a silly expression to use for me.

Jim, one of my co-workers, believes that I have a "Happy Gene". He actually has a medical reference for it somewhere like WebMD or something (if you want the article... let me know). I dont know if I believe that or not. The whole idea of Genes determining personalities... thats just not right. Im happy because of my past. God has always worked things out for me. Its the whole... "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose." - Romans 8:28. In a nutshell, why worry about things... God's got it all covered. All that to say.. A Happy Gene.. sounds like an 'scientist' trying to take God out of my life. Sorry Bud, My life, My story, My Experience, My testimony.

YES! What a great thing to yell when walking into a room full of people. I dont think Id try it with a group of adults (except maybe on the Men's retreat with Church)... But, it seems like it always seems to work in camp dining halls. At least it has as long as I can remember. Which reminds me... I have to go fill out the questionaire for the HCBCSW student ministries leader profile on the web site.