Archive - May, 2010

My Church: Great things happened on Pentecost

May 30, 2010 in Highland Park Presbyterian Church, PCUSA, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

Sometimes your church has a moment where it is pretty clear that the Holy Spirit is doing something amazing.  This happened to us last Sunday on the day of Pentecost.  Our Senior Pastor Ron Scates spoke a message called "The State of Highland Park Presbyterian Church" and it was the first time that all 3 11am worship services had the same message via a simulcast from the main sanctuary.  This was a significant moment in the life of our church.  Ron talked about who we are and what we are here to do and I don't think anyone missed the point that we are here to "make disciples" and that we are strategically set up to do that. 

Of course one of my favorite parts of the sermon was when Ron said that Youth Ministry is one of the things he cares about the most.  I say "Preach it brother"

After the message Ron was honored for his 10 years of service to Highland Park Pres and it was a surprise to him.  I'm going to include the videos below of the sermon as well as the All Church Picnic that happened right afterwards.  Watch if you want. 


Pentecost Sunday Sermon | 5-23-2010 | 11 a.m. from HPPC Comm on Vimeo.


2010 – All Church Picnic from HPPC Comm on Vimeo.

University Park new slide and my son.

May 28, 2010 in Who I am... with 3 Comments

So my Son won a contest here in the Park Cities.  He had to write in and say why he wanted to be the first person to go down the new slide and off the high dive at our community pool. 

 I'll be honest and say that they only had two entries but he still won.  :)


Lifechurch.tv Trying to figure out what to say

May 26, 2010 in Social Media, Who I am... with 0 Comments

Hey all-  I went to Oklahoma City on Friday and took an extended tour of Lifechurch.tv  We toured their main campus where everything happens and then went to two other campuses and distribution centers.  

Pretty powerful day.  I'm still trying to reconcile all  my feelings about it.   They are great people and doing ministry in a very unique way but completely different from any paradigm I've ever been a part of.  

So that's why I'm still wrestling with my thoughts.   It's not that I have anything controversial to say it's just that I want to do the tour and the conversations justice and I'm working to figure out what that will mean. 

The one thing I will say here though is that I was tired after my experience.  Again remember I didn't meet with everyone but when we were walking around the main headquarters our guide would walk us by a section or an office and tell us what those people did and without a doubt for every single job I thought to myself "yea me too."  

Does it mean my role isn't specialized enough or perhaps that I do too much.  

Wrestling. 

Andy Root and Lars Rood talk about Plural Identities and Youth Ministry | Youth Specialties

May 20, 2010 in Books, Social Media, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

In this Andrew Root liveBlog youth worker Lars Rood and I discuss the mobility of kids leaving our ministries and how that connects to the ways they take on plural identities.  This pushes us to wonder what churches can do and how this calls our ministries to move beyond the four walls of the church.  

Listen below.  Check out The Promise of Despair. And find Lars in San Diego and Nashville at theNational Youth Workers Convention.

Listen to the post Here.  

Connecting: A Neat Facebook Trick for Ichat

May 15, 2010 in Social Media, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

  Chat
 Sometimes I think that my geekness is pretty useless but today I stumbled upon a trick that is pretty helpful.  

I have a Mac.  I'm an Apple Fanboy and I really don't care much for Pc's so this trick is useless to you if you use windows although I'm sure there is a duplicate workaround for Pc's I'm just not going to make it happen  for you. 

I figured out how to have Ichat display my facebook friends and allow me to talk with them without ever opening up the facebook application.  

There are a couple of reasons to do this but the number one for me is to not have to be on facebook being distracted by everything there.  This way people that want to talk to me can message me but I'm not going to spend hours getting sucked into the rest of facebook updates.   

In my job I like it when I can instant messages students in the youth group and this is a helpful way for me to send a quick message whenever they log on. 

Here's the steps. 

1. Open Ichat

2. Click Ichat in the menu bar and open preferences

3. Click on Accounts in the box that opens and in the bottom left hit the "+" sign

4. Under "account type" switch it to "jabber"

5. Description Type "Facebook"

6. Jabber ID: This is the only confusing part.  It's not your login id which is your e-mail it's actually your name.  So for me I typed in "larsrood@chat.facebook.com"

7. Password: It's your facebook password

8. Under Server settings do this:   Server: Chat.facebook.com   Port: 5222 Make sure SSL is not checked. 

Now all you have to do is go into the Ichat Windows tab in them menu bar and click on facebook and it should all show up.  

Let me know if you need any help. 

Domain Names and Youth Ministry.

May 12, 2010 in Blogs, Books, Who I am..., Youth Ministry with 5 Comments

I love youth ministry.  Today I got to hang out with a group of  5-8 grade students and play dodgeball.  This will sound lame but I actually like to get hit right at the beginning of the game so I can sit on the floor and watch everyone play.  Today I got hit at the same time as a 6th grader named Eric.  We sat across the line from each other and just laughed and tried to figure out silly games to play.  At the same time a couple other students and I started a silly game where we rolled balls to each other.   None of this really makes any sense except that at the same time I was doing this I was thinking about how much I love being around those kids and how sad I am to know the statistics that say most of them won't be believers by the age of 25.  

So that's wehre the Domain names come in.  I have some great friends who have been encouraging me to do some writing.  I've had a few articles published recently and I'm thinking about writing a couple of books.There are a few ideas I have  that I think are really good (I want I believe this) and I'm working on getting them put together in formats that will make sense to publishers. 

So today I bought 2 domain names.  I'm not ready to reveal what they are here on the blog but I think that one of them is helpful for Youth Ministry and one of them is more of an overall challenge to Western Christianity.  

That's all I got.  I could use some prayer.  

A week in review: yes I know it’s only Wednesday.

May 6, 2010 in Who I am... with 1 Comment

I started out this week with another Monday of Hospital Chaplaincy where I basically have my brain and emotions poked and prodded by an amazing CPE team and supervisors.  Then on Tuesday I had a good cry at the hospital as I was feeling really overwhelmed but then realized that I was putting too much pressure on myself and actually I was comparing myself against a false reality of what I thought other chaplains were doing.  

The last two days I've had a consultant here named Mark Riddle who is meeting with my full-time team and helping us figure out ourselves and then how we can best work together.  

I'm also working on all my PCUSA candidate paperwork.  

All of this is hard and my brain hurts.   

It's been a long time since I felt overwhelmed by this much stuff.   Last time I was in a cabin in east Texas trying to get my dissertation into a submittable  form and ultimately realizing I needed to take an extra semester to work on it.   

I'm going to make it though. I have some good copping mechanisms.  (that means I'm going to sleep a lot and just try to make it thorough every day)  

I have 45 days left as a chaplain and doing two jobs.  I love what I'm learning but I'm looking forward to this chapter in life being closed. 

How's your day?  :)

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