special guest number 1500

Yep, I have now had 1500 visitors to my blog, since I put up the StatCounter! And who was this special guest, you ask? none other than Kathy!

fall week 5

On Sunday, i raked up two HUGE piles of leaves and as you can see the kids had fun in them! And they were mad at me when I took them and put them into the recycle bin and paper bags for the garbage men. But there will be more leaves. Only two trees had lost their leaves. That is the pile on the side of the house! Most of the leaves gather there. This is the normal front view and as you can see almost three trees have lost their leaves. And that leaves (no pun intended) four trees to go! Here you can see how beautiful the maple tree looks with the red leaves. This is one of the coolest views..... looking up and seeing the different colors. So who is coming by to help rake?

today sucks.....

I read someone's journal space today and I must say that I know how they are feeling. Today sucks.... I am coming upon the realization that it will soon be 8 months since I left my last position as the part-time Pastor to Students at a church and it has been about eleven and a half years since I graduated from Elim Bible Institute and I still have yet to step into full-time ministry. I do not think that I was supposed to leave my last church when I did, but I did not really have a choice in the matter, because I was told to leave when I did. Even though I had asked to stay until I found something else. In retrospect, I should have never told them I was sending out resumes until I had to. I mis the students there and I miss hanging out with my youth staff. Ministry is so much fun! Oh yeah, it can have it's headaches but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I miss working in student ministry. Some Sunday's it takes a lot for me to get up and go to church, because after some of the crap and hurt that I have dealt with at the hands of people in the church, I just don't want to bother going to church again. Or even get back into the ministry, but I know that is not what I am supposed to do, so I won't. Things are very tight for us financially right now and I know that it is my and Kimmy's fault for not being wise with our finances, but it stil stinks to think how tight it is. But when I hear about a friend of mine who was recently let go at his church after being there for only 3 months and they are buying his house, giving him 6 months pay & benefits and moving expenses back to where they want to move to, I think what the heck? I was at my church for five and a half years and they couldn't even give me a month's of severance. But what can you do? I guess I will just keep plodding on and following Him, the best I can. It is so hard when your life is sprialing out of control and there seems to be no end in site with a job in the ministry, selling our house and the bills piling up. But I know that God is in control and that is sometimes what makes it so hard. Because I want that control, but the problem is that when I have that control I mess things up. I guess today I just think of some of the friendships that I seem to have lost from the people that I got to know over the past five and a half years at my previous church, especially the ones from people who said to me that they would stay in contact and despite my many calls and emails, they seem to not want to bother with me any more. It hurts and as much as I try to ignore it and hope it just goes away, it just never seems to. Don't get me wrong, I am so grateful for the friends I made of youth pastors from around the country, but it doesn't really amke the hurt go away. It just lessens the pain. I really don't know where to go from here and so end up back where I started when I began this journey about a year ago..... following Him. And that is a great place to be, even though life can suck and you still have hurt. Thank you, God for being the one constant in my life.

blue is better than pink!

What is with that ugly color of carpeting you ask? Nope, it is not the newest color of carpeting that Kimmy has chosen for our house. It is the color of the carpeting in the locker room at the university of Iowa. What would possess a college football team to make the color of a locker room pink? It all started many years ago when Hayden Fry was coach of the University of Iowa and to bother (or some say to calm) the opposing team, he had the locker room painted pink. Bo Schembechler would complain that he had it painted fresh every time Michigan came to play, so that not only would they have to dress in a pink locker room, but also smell the paint fumes. One year when Michigan was ranked #2 and Iowa was #1, Bo had one of his assistants go out and buy brown butcher paper to hang up on the walls (back then it was only the walls painted pink). They lost that game so the next time they played Iowa at Kinnick Stadium, the same assistant asked Bo if he wanted him to buy the butcher paper again and Bo said, "no", because it didn't help them the last time and Michigan won that game. This past year Iowa did some renovations to Kinnick Stadium so they had the entire visitor's locker room painted and decorated in pink. The lockers are pink, the toilets are pink, the urinals are pink, the carpeting is pink, etc. You get the picture! The idea behind this whole thing is to get under the other teams skin and bother them, but also to possible add a calming effect to the team, so they don't come out of the locker room pumped up. There is debate about whether or not it works. But I don't really care. I think it does add a psychological effect to the opposing team and give the home team an edge. A lot of teams have little things like this that it does. Notre Dame's locker room leads into the same hallway that the opposing teams does and they stand there as the other team goes onto the field. Michigan’s team does goes into the field second, but the entrance onto the field is on the visitor's sideline, so they get to run through the opposing team on the sideline. That team down south (the OSU Suckeyes) has a stadium shaped like a horseshoe, but that is because they suck so bad and need every bit of luck they can get. But for everyone else it is all about getting the edge before the game starts. Well, some idiotic professor decided that he would raise a stink over this because, "the use of pink demeans women, perpetuates offensive stereotypes about women and homosexuality". And in another article I read someone else says, "With a pink locker room, you're saying that, 'You are a girlie man. You are weak, like a girl.' That implies that girls are nondominant, therefore, lesser. And that is offensive." GIVE ME A BREAK!!!! Why the heck does everything have to be turned into something racial, sexist or homophobic? Because otherwise they wouldn't have a case so they have to create something, but I am not getting into that now. There are just some things that are done just because you know that you can gain that added edge over the other team. Hayden Fry did not start that tradition because he was thinking to himself, "Oh, I have a great way that I can take a stab at homosexuals and women." on the contrary, he said, "Oh, I know a great way that I can gain an edge on my opponents and mess with their heads." And thus the pink locker room. So why is it that I say blue is better than pink? Well, because Michigan beat Iowa and their stupid pink locker room. 23-20! GO BLUE!!!!!!!

fall week 4

here is this weeks edition of the fall color tour at my house..... i did a close up of the house (see pic below) so you can see some more of the color on the maple (it's red) and also see the leaves that have fallen so far. and then i took another pic from the backyard of the trees in front, so you can their color. so who is coming by for that raking party?

Indescribable

I was able to go to Chris Tomlin’s “Indescribable” concert with Matt Redman and Louie Giglio. And I have to give a BIG thank you to my friend, Adam, for giving me and my wife free tickets to go! Thanks, bud, you rock! We had a great time talking with him and his wife Kristen about a whole variety of topics. But talking with him; hearing that absolutely amazing talk that Louie gave, which is based on his book ”I Am Not But I Know I AM” (which I plan on getting it and reading it soon); and just being in the presence of my indescribable God, got me thinking about many things. So follow the bouncing ball….. Louie was talking about how we need to invert our picture, because we see God as little and us as big when the reality is quite the opposite. When you look at the vastness of the universe and think about the fact that God says He holds the expanse of space in His hand, and He not only put every star in it’s place, but named them! And yet we somehow think we are bigger than God. So if God is really that big, then why do we have such a hard time trusting Him? For my daily Bible reading I use the ”Daily Walk Bible” and one day recently my reading was in the gospel of Mark. At the beginning of each daily Bible reading they have a little devotional type thing and this particular day was talking about the story of the disciples panicking in the boat as they were crossing the Sea of Galilea while Jesus was sleeping in the back. The author of this devotional pointed out that the disciples had no need to panic, because before they got in the boat Jesus said that they were going to cross to the other side, not go to the middle and drown. We need to trust Jesus at His word, but instead when the storms and problems rise up we freak out and forget what He told us. And how often do we do that? As we were praising God and singing songs like “Forever”, “Indescribable”, “Mighty is the Power of the Cross”, “How Great is Our God”, etc. I started thinking about how passionate I was for God. Which led me to begin to think about how I am a passionate person. For those of you who really know me, I am sure you are nodding in agreement. One of the other things that I am passionate about is student ministry. There is nothing I love more than touching the life of a teenager. It is something that gets my heart pumping and I get all jazzed up about. When I see a teenager hurting, I hurt; when I see one happy, I am happy; when I see them “get God”; I go nuts! But one thing that ticks me off more than anything, and Adam I were talking a little bit about this last night, is youth pastor’s who are not in it to be youth pastor’s. For some reason they see the position as a stepping stone or proving ground to move into a different area of ministry, or even worse, see it as just a job. I am so thankful for the youth pastor that I had because he showed me the importance of caring for student’s and how important it is to impact their lives with the life-changing power of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And how did Dan show this to me? He showed it to me by caring for the unlovable’s in his student ministry, like ME!!! When he came to our church, I wanted nothing to do with him, but Dan loved me anyway and for that I am grateful. He showed me what God’s love was like for me. I know a young man, who can be an unlovable, that is going through a big trial in his life. This young man is failing in school, hanging out with the wrong crowd, getting himself into trouble, and struggling with the loss of his father over a year ago. And the sad part is that the youth pastor at his church is doing hardly anything to reach out to him. He told his mom that he was “mentoring” him and in the past 6 or 7 months has met with him only twice. Today, he had to go see his probation officer and his youth pastor didn’t even offer to go with him and hasn’t called him. Last week, his mom went into the hospital and the youth pastor not once called to check up on him to see how he was doing, but yet he his is “mentor”. BUT (and there always seems to be one, however, this is a good one!) there is a youth pastor who is planning on reaching out to him. This youth pastor only knows of this young man, because he has a friend that goes to his youth group and the youth pastor has seen him up at the high school. He recently told me that he is challenging his Tuesday morning student Bible study group to reach out to this young man. And all I can say is, “Thank God for causing this youth pastor to have a heart for students that a youth pastor should have and not just any students, but this young man in particular”. You know who you are and I say, “Thank you!” Knowing that there are youth pastor’s out there like this encourages me, but I am saddened by all the youth pastor’s out there that treat the ministry without the proper care it deserves. But to bring it all back full circle, I am so glad that we serve such a massive and HUGE God that cares about little ol’ us! God truly is an awesome God and mere words can not describe how awesome He is!

what's your summer ride?

i am not to surprised by mine! Your Summer Ride is a Jeep For you, summer is all about having no responsibilities. You prefer to hang with old friends - and make some new ones. What's Your Summer Ride?

fall week 3

this is the view of the front of the house. and this is a view from the back yard, looking at the trees in the front yard. this way you can see the trees that in the front yard but in the back of the group. we are starting to see some nice color, but let me tell you that the best is yet to come! as fall progresses we have some great color on our trees. so keep checking back every week! oh yeah, and if you are up for an adventure and want to bring over group of people and have fun raking leaves, i know of a great place to do it at! and then we can party down! and i'll provide the drinks!

church vs. business (part 2)

a friend of mine blogged about some thoughts he had regarding my post "church vs. business." in his post titled "church is about people" adam disagreed with my analogy that church should be more like a business. and he goes on to say, "Sure, we do a lot of things for people... But our focus is often times on the program and not people. How can we reverse that? How can we make our primary "thing" people again? How far do we have to go? What do we need to get rid of?" Read more here.

what pre-1985 video game character are you?

I like to jump around, and would lead a fairly serene and aimless existence if it weren't for my friends always getting into trouble. I love to help out, even when it puts me at risk. I seem to make friends with people who just can't stay out of trouble. What Video Game Character Are You?

church vs. business

allow me to rant for a moment..... if churches were businesses they would be out of business a LONG time ago! and before anyone jumps on me and says that they aren't business but ministries, just hear me out! READ MORE HERE.

my cyborg name

the little brown jug

this weekend is the annual battle between michigan and minnesota for "the little brown jug", which is the oldest trophy in division 1a college athletics. the picture here to the left is the actually jug that was originally played for. but poor minnesota has not really seen the trophy other than it sitting over on michigan's sideline since 1986. and michigan is 68-23-3 against them since the trophy was introduced. which a very interesting story and i will post it here for you.... from mgoblue.com Michigan-Minnesota: The Little Brown Jug Series According to the 2004 NCAA records book, there are 57 trophy games involving Division I-A teams. They all owe their creation to the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, some misgivings about water and a 30-cent, putty-colored jug. Michigan had won 28 straight games as it headed to Minneapolis for a battle with Minnesota in 1903. The Golden Gophers came into the game 10-0 on the season, with a crowd of 20,000 to root the home team on. Having doubts that Minnesota would provide pure water to the Michigan bench, head coach Fielding Yost ordered a manager, Tommy Roberts, to purchase a receptacle for drinking water which would be free from suspicion. Roberts purchased a five-gallon jug from a variety store in Minneapolis, and Michigan and Minnesota prepared to duel. The Wolverines took a 6-0 lead in the first half, but the Gophers rallied to tie the game on a touchdown with two minutes remaining. When Minnesota blasted over the goal line, the fans, some sitting in trees and atop telephone poles, rushed the field in excitement. The pandemonium that ensued led to the game being called with time still left on the clock. In their haste to leave and catch the train back to Chicago, the Michigan players dressed quickly and departed the stadium, leaving the jug behind. Minnesota equipment manager Oscar Munson found the jug the following morning and brought it to Director of Athletics L.J. Cooke. In remembrance of the exceptional tie, they decided to hold on to the jug and adorned it by painting, "Michigan Jug - Captured by Oscar, October 31, 1903," and the score "Minnesota 6, Michigan 6" on the side of the jug. When Yost sent a letter requesting the return of the jug, Cooke wrote back, "If you want it, you'll have to come up and win it." Due to the brutality of the 1903 game, the two teams did not meet again until 1909, when Michigan did win the jug, 15-6. again.... GO BLUE!!!!!!!!

fall week 2

last week i did not post a pic of our house, because there really was no change in the leaf color. but if you look at the birch tree on the right you can see that it is starting to turn yellow. the ash tree which is right behind it has some yellow leaves up at the top, but you can't see it in the pic. and you can see that our mums are in full bloom! i mowed the grass/leaves right before i took this pic and i was surprised at the amount of leaves that was on the ground. but the trees still look like they are full of leaves! as i was mowing the grass, i was thinking of all the times i had some of the students help me rake my leaves! i miss them. maybe i should call some of them up and have them give me hand.... hmmmmm! :D and if you look at my garage you can see my beautiful red jeep. and right below that is my michigan flag flying in all it's glory after that great defeat of the team up north! hopefully, next week we will have some more color on our trees!

oops! i forgot.....

about a resume that i had sent to a church in nevada! the senior pastor had callled us over a month ago and asked kimmy (who answered the phone, cause i was gone) if i was still interested in the job and she said, "yes." well, they called today for an informal interview. it seemed to go pretty good and they said that would be in touch again. so who knows! just keep praying!

9 more to go....

9 more people view this site and i will be at 1000 views since i got my stat counter. if you notice that you are number 1000 post it in the comments section and you will get a special prize! on the job front.... well, since i got the "no" from the church in indiana, i am back to ground zero. during the time with the church in texas and indiana there was hardly any new job postings. but since then there has been more jobs listed. so i have sent out 6 resume's and adding that to the one in florida, that makes 7 new active resume's out there..... 2 in florida, 1 in arizona, 1 in texas, 1 in indiana, 1 in north carolina and 1 in michigan. of course, kimmy is praying for the one in michigan! and i know where some of you are praying that we end up! bu all in all i just wnat to be where God wants us, no matter where that is. i have been asking Him to close doors where we are not supposed to be and so far we have seen Him do that. but i am also praying for Him to open the door to the place that we are supposed to be and we are still waiting for that one. though waiting sucks rocks, i must say that there is no other place that i would rahter be then right where He wants me to be. if i was anywhere else then we would be miserable, because we would not be in the right place. so we still just continue following Him. and maybe one day i will post about what that means to me..... stay tuned!

hail to the victors!!!

The Victors! Now for a cheer they are here, triumphant! Here they come with banners flying, In stalwart step they're nighing, With shouts of vict'ry crying, We hurrah, hurrah, we greet you now, Hail! Far we their praises sing For the glory and fame they've bro't us Loud let the bells them ring For here they come with banners flying Far we their praises tell For the glory and fame they've bro't us Loud let the bells them ring For here they come with banners flying Here they come, Hurrah! Hail! to the victors valiant Hail! to the conqu'ring heroes Hail! Hail! to Michigan the leaders and best Hail! to the victors valiant Hail! to the conqu'ring heroes Hail! Hail! to Michigan, the champions of the West! We cheer them again We cheer and cheer again For Michigan, we cheer for Michigan We cheer with might and main We cheer, cheer, cheer With might and main we cheer! Hail! to the victors valiant Hail! to the conqu'ring heroes Hail! Hail! to Michigan, the champions of the West! 34-31!!!!! make sure you check amy weaver's blog, cause she should have the greatest fight song in the world posted there! WOO HOO!!!!!!! after i posted the post below about my "prediction" i looked at my quote of the day.... “Faith expects from God what is beyond all expectation.” guess i should have read that before i gave my expectation of the game! LOL

prediction for the backyard brawl

real short post, but i do not think michigan will win this game. i believe that they can, but not that they will. my prediction is that state will beat michigan by 2 or 3 touchdowns. and just in case you did not know this.... this is the first time state has been favored since 1968. despite my prediction, i still say.... GO BLUE!!!!!!!