Tebow, the Great and Powerful

OK - I will admit it, I like Tebow. Part of it is probably he does the whole "Jesus" thing, but the other part is all he does (did) was win games. He has that "it" factor, that when it comes to winning, he just does it. At Florida he was a beast. Without a doubt, Tebow was one of the top 10 college football players of all time. He dominated. When he started at Denver, he took over a team that was 0-4, made the playoffs and beat the Steelers. It wasn't prety. In fact, throughout many of his pro games, for the first 3 quarters, he looked terrible. For whatever reason, once the forth quarter hit, he would take over. It wasn't just his play that mattered, but it was his leadership.

The reason I bring up Tebow is so you have some background as I continue my discussion on my sabbatical. If you had read previous blogs, I spent 2 weeks in the cities, staying with a former intern of mine named Coz. I think when I first asked him about crashing at his place for two weeks, he was a bit aprehensive. However, once I brought up the idea of stealing my kids xbox for 2 weeks, he was much more amiable to the idea. Coz lives in St. Paul, near major roads, so honestly it was an ideal location for me. Plus, he had two bedrooms, meaning I could have my own space without infringing too much in his space.

So for two weeks, I slept on a mattress on the floor of his spare room. I did pack a grocery bag of food prior to coming, as I didn't want to have him thinking that I was going to mooch off of his food. What I found out when I arrived was that this wasn't going to be an issue, as other than some mustard and pickles, there really wasn't much in the fridge. he was kind enough to make space for my cocoa puffs, hot dogs, strawberrys, half and half, and chips. (I was living the high life!)

In addition to having coz along on my worship trips on the weekends, it was honestly great to have somebody to throw feedback at after my ministry visits and as he is in the 20-30 demo, it was interesting to have his take after each worship service. More importantly was our late evening bonding time. Depending on the day, I would sometimes have evening commitments, as would he. No matter what our days had entailed, we would typically end with some type of xbox game. I did go ahead to purchase a couple of used games, including a soccer game, which I was terrible at. In fact, our first few games were not even close. I know nothing about soccer, I think it is a lame sport, and Coz is a certified ref. No playoffs? No thanks.

What did this call for? Tebow Time. it was at this point that Tebow (Florida version) was called upon to save my dignity. Tebow single handidly dominated Coz. I probably could have put him in at defense, but that would have just been mean.

I am still unsure of the highlight of my time with Coz. I have narrowed it down to three things. 1) Tebow. 2) His reaction when I beat him in Soccer (we stayed up later than normal as he refused to end the night with a loss to me in soccer) 3) brunch.

Also - In addition to providing an xbox and hot dogs (all beef!) I did provide free maintainence. I fixed something. Yea. I was that awesome.

The point of this blog? Other than Tebow is a quality qb (I would prefer him over Freeman/Ponder/Cassel), there is none. Coz has been begging me to blog about my time with him for quite sometime, so this fulfills my commitment to him. 

I will leave you with this....

It's Me!

I am going to really try the next few weeks to blog about different experiences I had on my sabbatical. A quick recap - my goal was to spend time with my family, spend time learning about what congregations are doing in regards to worship, young adult, and small group ministry, and do some time of personal renewal.

So, about me not opening up. Part of the issue with this is that to be honest, I don't always realize what types of things I am struggling with. A big part of my job is being around people, so I never actually just spend time alone. I mean, no TV, no ipod, no phone, no computer, just me. With a little encouragement, I decided to spend 1 day alone. There is a place in Minneapolis called the Urban retreat center. I didn't know what to expect, and was in fact fairly nervous about going, but I signed up anyway.

This place is just north of the cities, above this families garage. They day I showed up, I was surprised by the amount of trees surrounding this neighborhood. Anyway - I found my way around to this, what ended up being a really nice space with an open living room, a coffee maker, a nice little kitchen, and a smaller room with a couch and very comfy napping chair.

My host met me and showed me around. Outside there was a walking labyrinth, there were walking trails close by, she had lunch for me in the refrigerator, then asked if I wanted to code to get on-line. I told her no, knowing that if I had the code, I would probably get on. She then handed me a tentative schedule. The first thing that impressed me was the time blocked out for a nap. She had me going for a walk, reading, journaling, eating, and just sitting, hanging out. Before she left, she asked if I had brought anything to read. I said no. She went over and grabbed a book and told me that she thought this book would be really good for me. it was a book dealing with the story of the Prodigal Son. Whatever.

So after i got over the 20 minutes of being by myself without a phone, music, or anything, I went for a walk. Ok, so I took a wrong turn and the walk took me a few extra minutes. Anyway, it was fine. Kind of weird..but fine. I came back to start some reading. I began, then about 15 minutes later woke up. After making some coffee, I began reading in the comfy chair again. I will admit, I really got into it. After reading for a while, i decided to jump ahead a little bit and see what the author had to say about the "other" brother. You know, the one that tries to do the right thing but his parents throw the party for the brother that went off to some big city? Did I mention I'm a middle child?

Anyway, after a really stinking good lunch, I went ahead and read some more. It was crazy how this book that had been handed to me, how much it was speaking to me, where I was, right then. It wasn't a crazy epiphany moment, but it's like this had been written just for me.

Finally, I felt the need to walk around, so i went through the labyrinth. I found my mind wandering a fair amount about a wide range of topics. Finally, near this spot was a large lounger chair and I went to sit by. After a few minutes, I actually said out loud "OK - seriously - what am I doing out here right now? Is there something I need to know?" Yes, I actually said it out loud. I will be completely honest, I don't have a lot of "God is speaking to me" moments. Suddenly, as I am sitting there, I realized how alone I had felt the last few months. The months leading up to my sabbatical had been a bit on the stressful side. I also don't cry a lot. Seriously. Do I get upset? Yes. Full out cry? No. But there it was...all out tears coming down. Suddenly, I am sitting there wondering whether or not I have anyone in my life that will hold me up. Suddenly, the story of the four guys lowering their friend through the rough jumps in my head, wondering to myself, who will do this for me? Finally, four faces jumped up at me. It was like a load that I hadn't even realized I had been carrying around was lifted off. I know what this sounds like.

Here's the other thing about me. I'm really good at the more on the surface relationship. I'm not good at the "let me share how I am feeling, struggling with, and what I screwed up" part of my life. I don't like to share with people. Period. I like people to see me as the guy who cares about them, is a happy kind of guy, and who seems to have things figured out. The other thing that spoke to me that day was that I needed to be able to share with people what I am struggling with so that I am not doing it alone.

It's a weird thing, trust. Being able to trust somebody enough to let them in and see the messy aspects of our lives. It also greatly impacts our faith. If I can't let others in, how am I supposed to let God in? And to be honest, most of my good friends realize when I am struggling, they are good enough friends to just be there with me and remind me I'm not alone in my struggle. 

Next...

A couple things about me...

1) I hate making decisions.
2) I hate it even more when somebody tells me what to do.

I am wrapping up stage 2 of my sabbatical.

Stage one was me going to Disney and spending time with my family. This entailed 24 hours driving from Decorah to Orlando, spending all day running around parks, eating too much, and trying not to lose my cool and begin screaming at people while waiting in line for the log ride. Seriously, I almost lost it. Luckily I was able to vent on my phone to my brother as opposed to actually yelling at people. Seriously, I don't think I have come that close to screaming at somebody in a really long time. Trying to stay calm in front of my son was not an easy task.

Stage 2 involved me leaving my family for 2 weeks and going to the Twin Cities for a time of visiting pastors, youth directs, and worship leaders about what they are doing to reach young adults and students in today's culture.

I was tasked by Tiger to do 3 things. 1) write down 3-5 bullet points so when somebody asks me about my sabbatical time, I can tell them things I learned, what it meant, etc. 2) Do a longer write up about both the practical and theoretical things I learned and how it has shaped me. 3) Send him a check paying him for his time.

While there are some things that are going to be easy to explain to people (i.e. how a lovely young woman spent time with me walking me through how to use vine, twitter, etc) and a few things that, well, will be much more difficult (day of renewal at the Urban Retreat). Even as I sit here, I have a bunch of different emotions going through me that I can't even explain.

So as I struggle to write this down, here is what I do know.

1) There are a wide range of people in the cities, from different denominations and theological backgrounds that are doing the best they can to live out their faith and reach out and share the gospel.

2) The churches, whether or not I agreed with their methodology or theology, I most admired were those who knew who they were and what they were called to do, let that drive everything they did in their church and community without apology.

3) Sometimes I need to sit back and give God a chance to talk.

I hope to use this blog in the next couple weeks to help me process some of what I experienced. Some will be ho hum, some will be interesting, and hopefully some will make you think I am a complete mess. At any rate, I need to do this to help me figure out the What? So What? and Now What of these past weeks...

Here is a video I will leave you with. Gungar is doing some amazing music that I really dig. Not sure why I typed dig. I always think of the line "Can you Dig it?". Good movie. Anyway, enjoy!

Ramblings

My son Luke and I have been watching the Bible the past several weeks. During this time, I have also been reading different articles and blogs about the show. Here are a few things I find interesting.

1) The "Biblical Literalists" seem to be loving it, although it isn't necessarily word for word by the book.
2) Progressive Christians seem to be having issues with it because it is not necessarily Biblically literal.
3) People are complaining about the English accents all the characters seem to have. I assume they did this after seeing the success Les Miserables had at the box office, having people in France speaking with English accents.

As far as my take, it has been fun to watch it with Luke. Every once in a while we will pause it and talk about what is going on, or why certain things are happening. I will also pause it to make sure he is ok (he kind of freaked out with the whole "Isaac and Abraham thing". I don't think he will want to go backpacking to the mountains anytime soon). He is not going to remember word for word what they said, but it has been giving him an idea of some of the stories and what happened and creating good discussion.

Other things...

• I took Luke to opening day at Target Field. I used it as my high at youth group last night and it was explained to me that anyone who has Twitter and FB already knew this and how I shouldn't be using hashtags in my FB posts and should save them for Twitter only. I tried explaining that my tweets are sent to FB, but they didn't care. Our Associate Pastor tried to back me up, but they didn't really care.
• The same week I saw opening day and it was AWESOME, I went to the dentist. Ugh. I hate it. I'm sure dentists are fine people, but I really, really, really, really dislike going there. Up until Friday morning, I had been having a good week.
• The past few years, I have had hopes the Twins were going to be better than they actually were. This year, I had no hope they would be any good. I might be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. They've played good ball and might not be as terrible as the Cubs.
• I am declaring right now that we officially have the nerdiest staff in the ELCA. With the addition of our tea-loving Associate Pastor, we are all geeked out.
• Speaking of our new pastor, I lost to her in week 1 of my fantasy baseball league. I'm a bit bitter about this. Why? She had Kevin Youkilis starting at 3rd. Seriously. Terrible. I always get upset in my fantasy leagues when I see people give up at the beginning of the season. I might be that person this year.
• At our 9th-12th grade youth group last night we got to play frisbee outside. It was sooo nice to be able to spend some time outside running around. Ok - I didn't so much "run" as "slowly jog". You get the idea.
• My sabbatical starts in two months. I'm starting to get a little nervous/excited about it.
• During set up and clean up of our Easter breakfast, students would bring me different things (fake trees, play doe, etc) and ask me where to move them. I told them to shove them in our SS superintendents office. I'm not sure she whether or not she is still talking to me.
• Speaking of Easter, if anyone wants to help me resurrect my office, that would be fine. I'm pretty sure at this point, my office getting re-organized would be similar to Jesus raising on Easter. 

Video of the week
I love his beard...I wish I could grow one.

Seriously...

As this is my blog, and not yours, I'm going to ramble a little bit. Feel free not to read.

Although my senior high students might not realize, I have tried spending more time prepping for youth group this year than in years past. This is not easy for me. For the first 11 years or so of my "professional" ministry career, I was much more of a "wing it because I'm awesome" kind of guy. While this was cute and adorable at first, and on a few occasions made for really great youth groups and confo, for the most part it meant my lessons and group time were a bit scattered, and while the kids may have had a good time, it wasn't nearly as good as it could have been.

This was really clear to me more so for confirmation than anything else. In order to engage the 8th and 9th grade students, I had to really put significant time into thinking what stories about myself I wanted to share, how they would fit in to the overall purpose of the night, and how I was going to connect it to their real life. This may sound easy, but I think it is really more difficult than one may think. Sometimes we try and lump all middle school kids together, but in reality, they are as different as any other group. You have the jocks, artsy students, students who are starting to realize their faith is an important part of who they are as well as students who really, really, really, really, really, don't want to be there.

At any rate, I started to really figure out, if we wanted the students to take their faith seriously, we had to put serious effort into what we were doing to help the kids along in their faith journeys.

So, last night we had a session on dealing with grief and loss. The numbers were not great. I was hoping to have a lot more students arrive. It was a bit dissapointing, but then Pr. Matt Larson began to speak. Matt and a few pages of typed out notes ready to go. We showed Matthew, a Nooma video to begin the night. Matt was great. He really did a fantastic job connecting the video, his life experience, and why this matters to the kids. When Matt was done speaking, we broke the kids up into small groups where I had come up with a sheet for each small group leader.

Anyway, I think it was a really great night. I'm sure if you asked each kid, not everyone would agree. However, I think we prepared well and was really pleased with how it went.

The point of the entire story is that if we take this whole "faith formation" thing seriously, we need to put serious effort into it. Had Matt just showed up and talked, it would have been ok. Or if we would have just had the kids and leaders sit down afterwards and talk, it might have been adequate, but adequate is not good enough.

During this holy week, we are talking about a God who came down, died and the cross and rose again. I think that is something we need to take seriously and something we need to put real effort into passing along.

Other random thoughts...

• "Hope Springs Eternal". The Twins are still tied for first place. So what if they don't have any pitching, they still have Mauer.
• I am going on a sabbatical in June. I plan on blogging more about that later, but I'm fairly excited about it. Plus, I get to spend some time with an intern I had (the only one) a few years back. Yea, after him, I never got another one....hmmm...
• I just finished the 2nd season of Game of Thrones. Yea, I'm a fan.

Ok - in love with this song right now...

Being Fashion Forward

I remember seeing guys in college that wore the t-shirt with a long sleeve-t underneath. While I wasn't opposed to it, I just didn't get overly excited about it nor did I really think it looked like me. It wasn't anything I was interested in. 13 years later, I have come around and find it being a staple of my wardrobe. I rarely wear sweatshirts, and a majority of each week during the fall/winter, find myself doing the layered look with either a t-shirt or a polo. Yesterday I met with a Pastor, so I went with the polo look, just to dress up a little bit for him.

Anyway, 13 years after I first noticed it, I came around. Most of my clothes are purchased by my wife after she gets frustrated enough with me that she just buys me something so i don't look like a complete slob. Every once in a while a package from Old Navy will come with a pair of jeans or two. or she will have gone to JC Penny's or the depot to pick up a shirt for me. What's kind of funny is that when she does pick me out something, I end up being really picky. Yes. Me. The guy that doesn't like to dress up is picky about the clothes he wears. Anyway, nobody would ever accuse me of being fashion forward. It ends up causing some tension in our marriage. After a pair of khakis has been sitting in my closet still in the package for a few months, my wife will ask me why I didnt' even try them on. Or if a shirt still has the tags after a year or so sitting in my closet she will just take it to my father-in-law. Or she will just get mad that I will not go shopping for myself, yet when she picks out something, I will leave it to sit in the closet for a while before even trying it on.

For the record, I do blame my mom. As a kid I was forced to sit at market. What is market? Market is room after room of women's clothing and accessories that stores go into to pick out clothes in some city. As a kid, having to sit for days watching her pick out pants, earrings, dresses, etc. will really screw up a kid. Such began my despising shopping.

Back to the fashion thing. I'm not opposed to having nice clothes or dressing up. I am, however opposed to doing something b/c somebody told me to or to be on the cutting edge of something.

If you are still reading this, congrats, you win a cookie.

Ok - so here's the point. This past week I spent time in Anaheim at the ELCA Youth Ministry Network Extravaganza. While the name "Extravaganza" doesn't bother me, when i say the name to others, it sounds weird. it makes it sound as if there are dancing elephants or something. Anyway, much of what was talked about was pushing the envelope and really taking a hard look at the "cutting edge" of where ministry is heading. For the most part, I don't like being told what to do. I will even admit when I am told by my senior pastor a certain song he wants to have sung or something he wants me to do and I don't agree, I really don't like it. (I haven't told him that, so please don't let him know). I will even reluctantly admit in previous years hearing speakers, rolling my eyes and thinking they are absolutely wrong. After all, I am Adrian Walter and know pretty much everything there is to know about ministry.

In fact, the speaker at each of the main sessions spoke all about the lack of use of social media and technology in ministry. I wrote something about it a while ago. He seemed to go beyond just having a nice website, but rather using it to really form faith. I will be honest, I was entranced. In fact, unlike some years I was never even tempted to skip a main session. I wanted to hear more. I wasn't doing anything he was talking about, and in fact had somebody just sent me a proposal about less class time and more web time, I would of thought it idiotic. Instead, I find myself trying to figure out how I can start to incorporate what he was talking about to what we do at FLC.

Now, living in a small town in NEIA, it takes a while for fashion to get here. Everything starts on the coasts, then slowly makes it's way here. It's kind of like ministry. however, because of the web, everything seems to be getting here much more quickly that it used to. We have the opportunity to be fashion forward when it comes to faith formation and passing on the faith, and that makes me excited.

A few quick notes...

• I've been tempted to blog about our new pastor we having coming, but I am afraid she will force me to drink tea if I do, so I will refrain from mentioning her.
• Speaking of our new pastor, she drinks a lot of tea. I'm not sure how I feel about that. If you believe what she writes, she essentially carries a tea pot around with her at all times. I always thought it would be cool to drink Earl Grey (sp?) but then I found it tastes really bad.
• Twins are going to be terrible. I will not be taking any bets that they will be in the running for their division.
• I'm way excited about the new Star Trek movie coming out.

 I still love this song...