Nap Time

Amy is off doing her thing this weekend. And the timing isn’t all that great.

I have a new bike that I can’t ride yet. I preach tomorrow and have been in a fine mood this week. Cayden is going through some phase right now that the other two didn’t and it’s freakin’ us all out.

So why I am blogging about it? Because Cayden is napping. The other two are watching a movie. The house is quiet. For now. It won’t be in 15 minutes, which is okay.

Tonight is Apprentice Commissioning for Zack – I’m pretty stinkin’ proud of that kid. And of course, I’ll get some games of Halo in with their new maps…

So all around…a great weekend.

A 1 AM Phone Call

So I vaguely remember my phone ringing at 1 AM last night. Actually, I don’t remember at all but when I went to check voice mail messages…I had one at 1 AM.

From some students…at the Waffle House.

They weren’t drunk…at least as far as I could tell. They wanted to tell me what an awesome dude I was and they were sitting around talking about it and decided to call.

Maybe they were drunk. I don’t care. Wish I’d heard the phone ring. I like those kind of calls.

Amy Finishes!

She ran it in 1:57:56 – that’s 7 minutes better than here Little Rock time.

I have no pictures but she called, she sounded pumped.

I’m now going to start my training for my bike race next year.

A New Dad!

A blog-friend of mine is a dad…

could you do me a favor? Go over to his site and give that man a blessing/prayer for this oh-so-hard but oh-so-worth journey of kids?

Here is the crazy story.

Here are pictures.

Congrats, Rey!

The Music City Marathon

Amy is on her way to the Music City Marathon. The funny thing is that on the web page it’s called “Country Music Marathon, but in registering it said Music City…

There are 11,000 runners in this race. That’s crazy. What is this world coming to? People running that distance for no reason what-so-ever.

Me? I’m buying a mountain bike today…from Chainwheel, a local bike store. What a cool place and the people are awesome. I’m buying a Giant Iguana with a few toys on it to make it fun!

Steve B., Matt S. and Matt M. are going to be my co-horts in crime as we attempt to see how long it takes to get my lazy butt back in shape. Any over/under bets?

Xanga RSS Feed Found!

I use Mozilla Thunderbird as my email program – which I love – other than the just recently really slow load time…but that is another blog.

I love the RSS subscription feature but couldn’t get Xanga users in my subscription list. UNTIL TODAY!!!! Thanks to Radio Free Blogistan you can now subscribe to Xanga with Thunderbird with just a little typing! Check out the link to see how!

Thanks to Robert for getting me thinking and searching.

Playing the Victim

Something hit me this week. I’ve had some major conflict resolution talks this week – both in my home and outside of it. I got a glimpse of something inside my son this week that I’ve decided to tackle now. No more playing the victim.

The kid has a tendency to view consequences as if he is the focus of some mass conspiracy theory. “It’s her fault, I didn’t do anything!” “Why me? What did I do?” With dire consequences staring him in the face, when brokenness and humilty would have gotten him grace – he stood firm in his pride and his claims of a victim. He’s 7. So I’m not going into panic mode…yet.

But I’ve seen how this gets played out 10 years from now. And it looks like this… “I feel like you are attacking me!” “You are picking on me.” “I’m not the only teenager with this issue.” “Get off my back, why are you always riding me?”

Adults do it to. Protecting our kids from consequences, rushing to defend them from their own screw-ups, and playing the blame game with our bosses/spouses when stuff doesn’t work out for us the way we want it. Sometimes we’ll play the victim by giving in – not to sin issues but leadership issues.

Playing the victim…it’s gutless. Beyond that, it’s bondage. Beyond that, it blunts God’s work in us and through us. If we get really good at, we’ll shut God out altogether. At worse, we’ll set ourselves against God. James 4 talks about that.

So what’s the answer? Ownership. Are there times when we truly can be the victim? Of course there are. But normally there is more than enough blame to go around. Normally there is more than enough of a 2 x 4 in my own eye. I think me and God will concentrate on that for awhile.

I hate Xanga

I’ve got a couple of students who have their blogs/journals on Xanga and I hate it. It won’t let you comment unless you are a member – Blogger has done that now. I kinda get that because of the whole spam thing.

But the more annoying thing than that is you can only subscribe a blog through Xanga. That’s just so Mac of them.

Agggggggggghhhhhhhhh!

Distracted and Apathetic

dis·tract·ed adj.

1. Having the attention diverted.
2. Suffering conflicting emotions; distraught.

ap·a·thet·ic adj.

1. Feeling or showing a lack of interest or concern; indifferent.
2. Feeling or showing little or no emotion; unresponsive.

which makes me

pa·thet·ic adj.

1. Arousing or capable of arousing sympathetic sadness and compassion: “The old, rather shabby room struck her as extraordinarily pathetic� (John Galsworthy).
2. Arousing or capable of arousing scornful pity.

Which is not at all how we use that word. Most of the time we use that word to communicate our lack of compassion towards someone.

Like, “that pathetic loser is robbing the planet of precious oxygen.” Why is that?

And I preach this Sunday. Not good. Not good at all. On Peter walking on water…a very un-apathetic story. In fact, his distractedness got him in deep water – literally.

Back to the quiet places……..

He’s One of Us

Got to hang out with a “one of us” guy yesterday in the metroplex of Searcy, Arkansas. I love hanging with other youthworkers who are trying to figure out how to reproduce Kingdom focused teen leaders in a consumer driven-entertaiment saturated-youth focused-sex obsessed culture.

The safe rant is to blame the parents. The truth is we all find ourselves in that culture – parents or not. And truth be told, some of the best youthworkers at reproducing kingdom focused teens are parents of teens. Plus, finding the “fault” is easy and immature. What’s the solution?

So what problems did we solve yesterday? I don’t know. We both agreed that more lock-ins, shaving cream fights, water-balloon tosses, life-saver relays aren’t going to get it done. We’re both pretty sure that we don’t need one more Christian Boy/Girl Band.

We think we’ve figured this out so far…

No more lone ranger youth pastors, we need community.

No more events on the calendar without understanding why we are doing it.

Keep putting students and adults in places to take risks for the Glory of God – which of course, is an open invitation for the wheels coming off the wagon.

Reproduce leaders, not events or groups or experiences.

Other than that – we’re pretty open for suggestions.

emergent church conference

I’m ready for a break. Like a complete shut down of anything productive for about 3 days…that’s coming up May 18-21 at the emergent church convention.

I’m looking forward to it, here are some blogs of those who went to the one in San Diego…which, I think God is telling me that is the one I need to go to next year.

Actually, what I am really looking forward than the actual rest are a couple of things. One, to put faces to blogs that I’ve been reading that are going…namely Andrew Jones aka Tall Skinny Kiwi.

Two, to watch the new Star Wars movie. I know. I’m such a spiritual giant.

Little Rock Didn’t Make Either List

Here is the list of the happiest places to live AND the most depressing places to live.

Little Rock didn’t make either list, yet two cities in Louisana made it. (Wayne is probably dancing about this.) How does Baton Rouge AND Shreveport make the list of “Happiest Cities To Live”?

I think the whole thing is a hoax because Laredo, TX and El Paso, TX were number 1 and number 2. You wanna know why they got ranked that high? I’ll tell you why, ILLEGAL ALIENS participated in the survey.

Don’t misunderstand me – I’m not sure that Little Rock deserves to be on either list – but there is no way on the planet you are going to convince me that living in El Paso or Laredo, TX is HAPPIER than Little Rock.

Heck – I’d rather live in NWA than El Paso. And that’s saying something.

What Conflict Has Taught Me…I Think

I blogged about conflict a couple of days ago and promised/threatened that I would throw down my thoughts.

1. Don’t make something a big deal if it isn’t. This is Harry Anderson’s Rule of Thumb. I remember a parent going nuts because a kid banged on our money-stealing-Coke-machine. Then she (the student, not the parent) took the customer service sticker off and put it on her notebook. “That is disrespectful to property and shows a lack of self-discipline. See right here on the machine it says do not violate this machine or remove its stickers.”

“Violate? It’s possible to violate a machine? We’ve got to stop this madness! Who is standing up for the silent victims of Coke machines across the world who can’t speak for themselves?”

And the rest of that conversation led me to my next conclusion…

2. Humor is risky – use wisely. Sarcasm should be used as often as you would wear someone else’s dirty underwear.…like never. Sarcasm in conflict is like smoking at a gas station. Humor can be effective to diffuse the drama and emotion of a situation if you know who you are dealing with VERY WELL and if that is a normal part of your personality. Otherwise – play it straight.

3. Think 30,000 feet. 90% of the time the “issue” that sent someone postal really isn’t the issue. It’s something else that the current event triggered. It’s probably related. If you can – try to deal with the underlying, heart stuff that is often unspoken, don’t miss that for the immediacy of the issue at hand. Start speaking to the real issue with tenderness if you can.

4. Is this a preferance or a value?

This is a hard question and ought to be answered with the guys/gals you lifewalk with. Steve Boehm speaks at 5.36 every now and then. He’s good but he walks all over the freakin’ place. I mean, he’s like a Mexican jumping bean. The students dig it. Plus – he’s a good communicator. His stuff is deep and thought provoking. He incarnates and communicates our vision and hope for students. So – jump all over the place, Steve.

5. Don’t cave on values. I’ve got very few values…ok, that didn’t come out right, but I think you know what I mean.

Jesus died, rose again, and is coming back for us.
A life-changing relationship with Him is the only access to God forever.
We want to empower leaders to incarnate that message wherever they go.

That last one is key because it holds a couple of key values.

First, we are about releasing teenage leaders. We want them to be culturally relevant. We want them to take monster risks for God.

That can go wrong at times. I’ve decided that it’s worth the risks.

6. Don’t deal with it alone. I’ve got people around me who love me, but aren’t impressed with me. That’s true community. That means that when I am wrong, they are pretty quick to point it out. They lend some perspective and calmness to the situations I find myself in.

My Weekend of Golf

I played golf in high school. I was terrible. I then kept playing in college…I got better. I then joined a course in Colorado one summer and played 27 to 36 holes a day – 5 days a week.

I got to be pretty good.

That was over 13 years ago. Pre-marriage, ministry, kids, Xbox, and house payment.

So we had our church golf outing…our team came in 2nd place. I hit some decent shots but given the level I used to play at – it was pretty pathetic.

And why is it that the guys who play regularly WANT to fix the swings of guys who play annually? It’s not like it’s gonna help us.

Here’s a few hints for all you golfers out there from those of us who play once a year.

1. We have one goal when we play – to find more golf balls than we lose. Why? We aren’t sure because it’s not like we are going to use them anytime soon.

2. In your mind, “keep your head down, keep your upper body still, and keep your left arm straight” are simple commands. To us – you might as well given instructions on how to parallel park a nuclear submarine.

3. Putting – telling us to “read the green first” is pointless. We don’t know how. We don’t really care. We honestly think the putter is a wasted club anyway.

4. Refreshments – keep a lot handy. You don’t want us grumpy.

5. NEVER tell us that there is water on this hole but it really shouldn’t come into play. You’ve just cursed us and we might as well dress the rest of the golf balls in scuba gear.

6. “A white one” is a perfectly legitimate answer to the question “What kind of ball are you hitting?”

7. If you are playing with us – it can’t be a serious, legitimate tournament. So don’t get geeked up about winning. You think we play bad golf when we are relaxed? Wait till we get stressed.

8. Buy us lunch afterwards. We do like to eat!

Is Doug Fields Reading My Mail?

It’s true – I love Doug Field’s website. I know the whole Purpose Driven stuff has its detractors, but I love Doug’s heart and honesty. And after 25 years in student ministry – he’s probably learned a thing or two.

After this week, I “randomly” ran across his article on conflict. Click on the link to get the whole story – and the similarities are eerie – but here are his highlights:

1. Expect it!

2. Don’t avoid angry people.

3. Go face-to-face.

4. Listen until they finish.

5. Think rationally, not personally.

6. End on a positive note.

7. If you’ve messed up, apologize and ask for forgiveness.

8. Turn the mirror on yourself.

Good words. I’m gonna follow this post up with my own list.

Now by creating my own list…I’m not saying that I’ve got this whole thing figured out. Au contraire! I’m just getting a lot of practice lately!

Stay tuned…it’s coming.

Teens and Spirituality

Rambled across this and I am going to go out on a limb that these findings are NOT going to be limited to that side of the pond.

We found the same was true in Brazil as we hung out and conversed with teens in Porto Alegre, Brasil.

For those of us stateside – I think the advice given is golden. Keep listening to teens. Explore their journey with them. A spiritual tour guide? Bad analogy – but I think you get me.

I’m trying hard to not be bitter

It’s been a hard week, now this! I mean look at them!

This is ridiculous. Does Jen know that now her career is OVER. As in over easy, over there, over and out. Ben kills careers for a living – look at what he did to JLo! She hasn’t made a decent album or movie since dating Ben.

He also almost single handedly ruin Matt Damon’s life as well.

Plus – he’s named after a duck that sells insurance!! Oh my. I’m crushed. I’m absolutely crushed. My how love has smitten, thee, Jennifer Garner. Please wake up and rejoin us!

Anyone want to go to London with me?

Star Wars Fans, UNITE!!

This is what I’m talking about! 14 hours of Star Wars, including Episode III!

It’s a shame that I am going to Nashville for the Emergent Church Conference.

Anybody else going to the eC? We can do Star Wars together!

The Mouse Kicks Out a Blogger!

This is quite funny.

A blogger gives unofficial tours at Disneyland telling you all the stuff the official tour doesn’t.

Looks like the Mouse wasn’t amused!

Taking One For The Team

After this, we went to the game and Cooper took a shot for the team.

It’s the top of the last inning, and Coop’s team has 5 run lead. The first two get on base, the next guy rips a shot into center and it rolls right between the kids legs. 3 runs score.

So we now have a 2 run lead, runner at first. Any ball hit out of the infield is going to score both runs. So the kid hits a bullet towards third. Coop STEPS in front of it!!

It drills him in the chest, hits the ground, shortstop picks it up.

Coop stays there for a second then doubles over.

After coaches rub some dirt in it (and it left a good mark!), the next guy strikes out, the guy after that grounds out to Coop.

And to think, we’d miss that on the account of milk in the plate…

Post-Modern Parenting?

Amy and I are in the kitchen, Coop hollers “Camber told Cayden to pour milk in her plate!”

So I waltz in the dining room – Camber is now screaming “No I didn’t!” Cooper is already in trouble for tattling on his sister – whether she did it or not. And now the lie-in starts.

“Cayden, did Camber tell you to put milk in your plate?” Yes!

“Cayden, did Cooper tell you to put milk in your plate?” Yes!

“Cayden, did Mom tell you to put milk in your plate?” Yes!

It’s now official, the 2-year old isn’t going to be much help.

This started around 5 pm.

After time-outs, spankings, no baseball game/no dance class – it’s 6.30 pm. Both are sticking to their stories. We (Amy and I) are no closer to having a clue what really happened. And we are running out of consequences short of adoption and abandonment.

Which by the way – it’s okay to feel that way, just don’t do it or communicate it to your kids.

So we offer a reprieve – tell the truth, you’ll get your baseball/dance back. Still going to get another spanking.

No story changes.

We send them to their rooms, alone, without dinner.

I’m done. I’ve got nothing left. I’m beginning to understand why my parents are now luny. It’s partly my fault. So I figure that now would be a good time to pray. (I know – shocking, isn’t it?)

Eventually, we find a crack in the story. We confront Cooper. He’s not budging. (He gets that from the Seely side of the family. My side of the family – when it turns out that it’s a no win situation, we look for the path of least resistance. Not saying that one is better than the other…depends on the circumstance.)

So now he is in danger of missing tomorrow’s field trip and the rest of the baseball season. (It’s painful trying to find the breaking point of a child.)

At 6.45, Cooper confesses. The game is at 7.30 – which at this point, he isn’t going.

So he’s in trouble for lieing, for dragging out the process, for tattling, for getting Camber spanked unjustly. Lot’s of consequences.

So we ask him to name them for us. No electronics for a week. That’s a start.

So we ask Camber. She says – “I don’t want Cooper to miss his game. I want him to play.”

Huh? “Just ground him longer from the TV, Xbox, and Gameboy.”

She’s 5. So we agreed. Great moment for Cooper as he thanked his sister and now is ‘eternally grateful.’

Well, here’s hoping that eternity lasts longer than 24 hours!

Crying Kids and a Long Day

It’s 8 pm and I feel like it should be midnight. I’ve got three kids in bed – one is trying to page her mom who is at Chili’s – a nice 3 to 4 miles away. She’s got a good shot at being heard.

I’m fighting off some stomach bug that makes me weary of being further than a few seconds away from a bathroom. (I tried to put that as delicate as I could.) Plus I’m tired.

With Mark leaving – my already full plate is getting fuller. Great for job security, not so great for spiritual/mental health.

Gotta go comfort a screaming two-year old.

How To Birth A Life Group

….Without Creating Mass Chaos

Here’s a short list of things NOT to do:

Don’t start off a Life Group Meeting by assigning people to leaders and say “see ya’ in your new group next week.

Don’t drag your feet to the point that you have 30 people in your group, enough small children to open an elementary school, and no one else can show up because the “house you meet in is “too small”.

Don’t act like birthing is never going to happen. Talk about the elephant in the room.

Okay – enough negative thoughts. How about some real life ideas?

After we (as leaders) have asked the hard questions of IF we are ready to birth, let’s figure out a plan. We also are going to have to cast the vision of birthing to our group. We do this by talking about the elephant in the room – early and often. “We need to birth because healthy, growing things birth, dead things don’t.” “We need to take others on this journey with us.”

How do we determine who goes where? Which people go with what group?
You could assign them. That normally isn’t the best option. A better way might be for the leadership team for each of the new groups (LIFE Group Leader & Intern) to invite people to join them and ask for a “commitment” from them.

Now here is the cool thing – if during the past year you and your intern had certain people in your group to look after and lifewalk with – these invitations work those relational lines.

For example – let’s say that for the past year, you had care of couples A, B, and C. In the meantime, your intern was lifewalking with couples E, F, and G. You get to the place where all the Assessment Questions were good.

Now the two new LIFE Groups have an open invitation for anybody – but you’ve “stacked” the deck so that each leader has deep relational ties to start each group. The key is that since you are only going to birth if your group is at high vulnerability – you can talk about all the different options in your life group.

Start off small and easy.
Start off meeting in the same house in different rooms. You could meet in different houses that are close to each other after an opening time with each other. Do this for a month or two.

The next month, meet in separate houses 3 out of the 4 weeks, on the 4th week all meet together. Do that for a month or two.

Have family reunions every 6 months. Celebrate significant events with each other – like a new believer or major life event. Plan some group activities – like family picnic, bowling, sky diving – to start off the LIFE Group with a shared experience.

The options are many and are only limited by your own creativity.

Next Session: Correction, Functional & Spiritual
Back to Life Group Leaders

Ready To Birth A Group?

Why birth in the first place? Let’s get real with each other – why is it even important to birth? If our LIFE Group is consistently having life-changing experiences with Jesus, we have incredibly high vulnerability with each other – why would we even want to jeopardize that by ‘splitting up’ the group?

Great questions that have great answers. I’m only going to unpack two here.

Groups that don’t birth, stagnate. Something happens to a group that has great vulnerability but has no vision or plan for birthing. That group becomes extremely hard for new people to get in. And when that happens, you will have stagnation. The people start to take each other for granted. There is a tendency to get complacent.

All of a sudden that high vulnerability becomes a seedbed for complaints and gossip that is packaged in ‘concerns’ or ‘confessions’ that has nothing to do with the individual’s spiritual formation.

Groups that reach the lost will birth. If our groups are truly Engaging the world – they are going to birth. It’s part of the Great Commission. We reproduce Christ followers. That means releasing them to do the same thing.

So, back to the topic at hand. Are we ready to birth another group? First of all this is a health question. It is NOT a length of existence or number of people question. If we have a LIFE Group that has been meeting for a year and we have tons of people showing up, that doesn’t necessarily mean we are ready to birth. Having said that, if we have a life group that hasn’t birthed in 2 to 3 years, we probably have some health problems in the LIFE Group.

The following questions are here to assess if our LIFE Group is ready to birth. I’ve tried to put the questions in order of importance, but a no at any one of these means “not yet.”

There are 7 key areas of evaluation.

Leaders
We reproduce leaders, not groups. The life of Christ is reproduced in individuals, not groups of individuals. The Great Commission is about personally lifewalking with others, not a group.

This is the single most important question to answer. Do we have enough leaders for both LIFE Groups? Do we have a LIFE Group leader ready for each group? Do we have an intern for each group? Does each group have a host home/couple?

If the answers are yes for those questions, we might be ready to birth. At the very least we now have the bare bones of infrastructure to birth another LIFE Group. With out leaders, we are not going to birth another life group. That is destining our life groups for failure.

Vulnerability
What is the vulnerability level of our group? Low, mid, high? If we have a high level of vulnerability – we might be ready to birth. We don’t want to reproduce anything less than high vulnerability because we know that it is in high vulnerability that transformation takes place.

There is another reason why the vulnerability must be at a high level. It will be next to impossible to talk about the birthing process without hurting somebody in a context that has less than high vulnerability. Without high vulnerability, people are not going to be able to dive into their feelings of insecurity or fear or dread of having to birth a group.

Life Cycle
Where is your life group at in the Life Cycle? If we are only in the Show Up to Shed Skin phase – we are DEFINITELY NOT ready to birth. If we are Sharing life and Shaping hearts, then we might be ready to birth.

We reproduce what we are – not what we would like to be. So we need to birth groups who have experienced the full Life Cycle.

LIFE
Has our group consistently experienced L I F E? That doesn’t mean we do that every week – although that might be true. What we are looking for is a consistent track record of L I F E. If our life group has a consistent track record in each of those areas, we might be ready to birth.

Critical Mass
If we have positive answers for all of the questions above but it’s only 3 other couples, it’s time to open up our life group. It’s okay to have a small life group as long as we are reproducing leaders. When we have an intern ready to lead but no critical mass, each of you go find someone else to build into and reproduce.

God’s Timing
I’m a firm believer that God speaks through community and there is such a thing as timing. Does every leader – formal and informal – around the table agree on the above answers? Do we all see the need to birth? What does our Coach think? Does anybody have a ‘gut check’?

Planned Process
Do we have a (somewhat) clear plan of HOW to birth? If we do have a plan, we are probably ready to implement it. It takes time to birth. If everything is healthy and there are no “hiccups,” it’s probably going to take around 3 months. The fewer green lights from the above list, the longer it is going to take.

If we rush in and try to birth with an unhealthy group, it’s going to take even more time. Why? Because after the rush to birth, we’ll have to do damage control which always takes longer than doing it right the first time.

Just remember that birthing is a process, not an event.

We’re close, but not quite ready
Good news for you! God has just gifted you with where to lead your life group over the next few months. Where we answered no, that is where we begin to lead.

Intern not ready? Get them ready. Get specific with him/her. Is there correction needed? Is it a heart issue or a skill issue?

Vulnerability level low in the group? Life Cycle issues? L I F E malnourishment? Whatever the issue, begin to lead the LIFE Group to health in those areas.

Next Session: How To Birth A Group
Back to Life Group Leaders