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...

Hello Blog, long time no see..

I'm tired. My wife is gone, school is about to begin for the boys, and I do not have an "after school" schedule set up for them. We had a council supper/meeting tonight. I'm getting ready for fall programming trying to get my calendar lined up. I have 2 football drafts coming up. Earlier today I spoke with Aaron from Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp to plan out dates for next years trip (we JUST got back from New Orleans and I'm already planning next year..seems wrong, somehow) and tonight I have spent a good chunk of the evening thinking about the things I left undone last year.

I tend to be the kind of person to dwell on the stuff that I neglected to do or didn't do as well as I had hoped.

For example, I am going through the people I didn't contact as much (or at all) this past year and should have. Students that I have not seen but did not call. Youth group sessions that I should have done differently. Bible studies I meant to plan but never got around to. Telling my kids I would play play station with them but didn't (I was told by Luke I owe him $10 if I don't play before school starts on Thurs.). How I played my guitar for a funeral and at the end of the song hit a wire so in the silence after a wonderful rendition of Jesus Loves Me by my younger bro, there was a loud crack at the end. How on our trip to the ELCAYG I really didn't talk to and foster as many relationships with the students I brought down as I would have liked. How, as much as I tend to be gone from my family both with work and other things I am in a position to talk to families how they should be.

I am struggeling with what to do with my SH students this year. I need a name for youth group. "Youth Group" just seems blah. I need to figure out what the heck I am going to do this year. I used up all of the Nooma videos the past 2 years, which I used as an intro and really loved it, now I have to move on and I don't know what direction I am going to go. In addition to YG (or whatever it needs to be called) I need..yes, need, to set up a Bible study to go deeper with those students who want/desire to do so.

I lead our contemporary worship twice /month. When I say lead, I mean plan the worship, get the band together to rehearse, set up the music stuff (all with help, but its still my thing) etc. I have been trying to figure out the best way to do the service so the people who this reaches..well...it reaches. This also means continuing to argue for the existance of said service and explain to people why it is needed.

I need to get my bum in gear and get more of a 7th and 8th grade program going. This means stuff beyond just confirmation.

We have an entire group of 20 something adults who are not coming to church with whom we need to do something..anything for on a frequent basis.

Did I mention my office needs some..umm..work? by some, I mean..a lot. (anyone?)

And finally, I really need to figure out a way to better utilize our youth and family committee this coming year. I am totally a "do it myself" kind of guy and..well..if I really want things to go well this year, I think I probably need to lean on them a bit more than I have been.

So, I have a few things going for me..

1) The Twins stink this year. When I mean stink, I mean they are terrible. So, I don't have to be distracted by a pennant race this year.

2) There are a bunch of great people at my church to work with. I have an extraordinarily supportive (yet a bit undeserved) pastor, parents and adults who truly care about the faith formation of students, youth and families at FLC.

3) It may seem cliche', but I also believe it a God who takes us as we are, and even though I may screw up, He still walks with me. Watching a family who i care about deeply go through a terrible tragedy helped remind me of this. After saying that line 50 times during the youth gathering trip, it really came to light while visiting the family. I don't believe in a God who promises me everything will be hunky dory. Instead I believe in a God who says He will walk beside me no matter what. And really, that means a lot more to me than anything else.

At the Youth Gathering, Switchfoot played. I like em. A lot. This is a great song. For me, it also tells me to get off my butt and get something done...

There is a lot of crap to get done. I suppose it might help if I get to sleep and get started tomorrow...

Friends, Followers, and the weird world of Pintrest

I don't get it. I recently got invited (after some begging) to Pintrest. It is cluttered, confusing, and I have no idea how to find anything. There are just a bunch of pictures of things ranging from board games to pictures of star wars. It wouldn't be so bad, but I have no idea how it is organized or what I am supposed to do. As a person who lives his life in confusion, this seems to go beyond anything I can handle. How people spend hours upon hours doing it, I will never understand.
When I first logged in, it asked who I wanted to follow. Before I knew it, not only was I following people who are my facebook friends, but I found myself following people I didn't know because I like baseball. I un-followed them immediately because...well...it just seemed weird. And they had some really weird things "pinned". I keep getting notices that "so and so is now following you on Pintrest". I assume some notice was sent to my fb friends telling them I was on there.

It was probably un-necessary for me to join Pintrest. Between my blog, facebook, and twitter, I probably have enough ways to share what I am thinking, doing, etc. While it would seem there are plenty of ways to do such a thing, there are plenty still left out there. I'm not on foursquare, linkden, or google + (ok, I did get an account, but I really don't get it).

All of this does bring up an interesting question. What does it mean to be a follower? During a week when we are talking about following Jesus to the cross and the tomb, how do we differentiate our understanding of what it means to be a follower today vs. 2012 years ago. I can follow somebody sitting at Magpie. I can be a friend to somebody that I haven't talked for several years and probably won't have a face to face conversation with for another 10 years. So if I am sitting in a congregation and a pastor talks about following Jesus, what is s/he talking about? When we "churchy" folk talk about following Jesus, we mean living a life of service. We mean caring for our neighbor. We mean telling people about how Jesus death and resurrection changes the way we care for and treat other people. Anywhere else in the world, it means clicking a button and receiving an invitation to help somebody with their virtual garden.

Anyway, for a long time I tried to figure out how I can be with the "in" group and get on Pintrest. Now that I am there, I don't get it. It hasn't changed my life. It hasn't given me meaning. It hasn't made all of my dreams come true.

Anyway, as I continue on my journey with Pintrest, please keep me in your prayers.

 

A few other quick tidbits..

• The Easter breakfast I usually do has been hijacked by a few parents. I will admit I feel a bit slackerish, but also very relieved.
• Opening day is Good Friday. Hmm...do I stay home and listen to the Twins game or attend worship? This may very well be the lone game this season when they are in first place.
• I loved our contemporary service on Palm Sunday. Between the music, message, etc., it all flowed extremely well and it was awesome. 
• My mom tore her hamstring. The "how" isn't important. What I should do, however, is record how "nurturing" my dad is with her and show it to my wife so she better understands why I am how I am. (For example, him trying to explain to her that she should sit up and move around a little bit and how that would help her feel better).

Reminding Me (Us)

As the point person for our New Song worship, I have found myself on youtube and other media place listening to music and trying to figure out which songs to use for our worship. I came across this ditty while planning our last worship service. I really like this song.

I saw a stat the other day that said my denomination was down in membership about 5.9%. Yes, much of this has to do with the "split" in the church from 2009. At the same time, mainline protestant churches have been on the decline for quite a while. At a recent youth worker retreat, we tackeled the question about where our youth ministry was, where it is, and where it is going. Without getting into too much detail, I think it is fair to say that most of the conversation revolved around relavance. How is what we are doing relavent in peoples lives. How are we showing people that God is relavent in people's lives. I heard a sermon recently that essentially said to the congregation "you know the good news, go and share it". I don't believe this is true. As I looked around the room, I wondered, "how many people here really understand who God is and what this really means?" When I see stats like 7-8 % of people find their faith relavent in their daily life, did the people sitting in the pews get it? How are we talking to people about faith? Should we go and assume that people do understand when there has been a steep decline in not only church membership but the importance of people's faith in their lives? Does this change the way we are explaing the gospel to people?

I recently visited Wartbug College to continue preparation for the ELCA National Youth Gathering. A lot has changed on campus since I was there. For starters, there is a library. There is also a coffee shop in the library. It seems as though colleges are constantly changing. Why? Well, the demographics have changed, the way students learn has changed as well as what makes students choose one college over the other. Back in my day, there was not a widespread use of projectors, video, laptops, etc. In Luther College's new buildings, almost everyroom has its own projection system.

What has this taught me? It is not only the content we are teaching people, but also how we are passing along information. When students go to google with questions before their parents, it would appear the "how" is getting to be as important as the "what". We need to let go of "what used to be" and focus on the "what is the reality".

Why? There are students that don't really know who they are. There are students (and parents, people in their 20's, etc) who feel overwhelmed, confused, lost. There are students (and parents, people in their 20's etc) who do not understand there is a God who loves, cares for, and wants them to remeber who they are. That is our job. It means to do whatever it takes to help people remember who they are. It means meeting people where they are, not where we think they should be. It means the church need to change. (the reality is the church is constantly changing whether we like it or not, we just don't like to always acknowledge it).

Given that, the question for me is, how quickly do we push for change. Whether it be projectors in the sanctuary or the use of video in worship, it seems as though we are already behind. The new software program I am using for worship allows for "signals" to be sent to peoples iphones and ipads with things such as scripture readings. I really do struggle sitting still for any period of time beyond about 10 minutes. During worship I find myself looking around and crumpling up my bulletin. If I try to give a "talk" to my students at youth group and it goes beyond 5 - 10 minutes, I've lost them. (yes, part of it is me) but also that is NOT how students live out their lives. Heck, I had a student last night in-between drying dishes texting her bf. Even when I show a video at our senior high group, kids faces are lighting up from their cell phones. They are always connected. If we don't figure out a way to tap into that soon, we are going to fall even further behind and the 8% will drop even further.

So, how quickly do we push for change? We don't want to alienate people, but if we don't start to do something soon, I will begin to question how we "insiders" really view our faith and the impact it should have on peoples lives.

• Still bitter, but this does make me feel better
• There is hope...
• Our church is creating putting a new website. I am really excited about it!
• My favorite part of this weather is going outside and playing catch with my boys. Love it. Probably the highlight of being a dad...