Hit the Back Button to Move Fwd

emo gavin

when you hang around youth long enough there are going to be times where your hairstyle will change. i've managed to keep the curly hair for 13 years now. i've had various braiding or pony/pig tail styles done by excited teens. this was a first. a crew of two or three straighted my hair. given the shirt i had on and the late night we call this "emo" gavin. so as not to shock the family or fiancee at home i washed the hair the next day to bring back some of the curl, but i think some of my hair is still straight which helps me realize now more than ever... i need a haircut.

more on the "days of our lives"

before going to bed last night i caught some of the local news and the breaking story out of bellevue community church was big news. apparently the elders of the church had voted foster out as pastor and his wife out as youth minister and removed them from everything church, they were not allowed onto church properties and even their emails were discontinued. this kind of church politic happens, especially as churches are bound by business models, they make business decisions. however, churchs have people with emotions tied into all aspects of church life, and just about any decisions hurt much more. these types of decisions hurt even more because with an evangelical body such as this, the identity of the church is tied in with whomever the pastor is. honestly, just ask a baptist, community church, or other ecclesial body that "hires" their pastor a question along the sort of "tell me about your church?" and you get a response of "_______ is our pastor." which to me seems so funny cause who the heck knows of every pastor in the area to know that this one is better than another. they are the base identity of the church, now this church hurts because their identity is gone.

a lot is being said over this. brittany (like many others similar to her) is seconding this as why she doesn't want a part of church. she points out to dirk who has started a whole new blog just for this topic. the tennessean is carrying a lengthy article which they highlight the factual pieces of this story.

from reading these stories & from my experiences working in church it would be best if the congregants just submit to the discernment of the elders (which is essentially what i assume they do in by-laws or doctrine of bcc) and move on. you can't bring back dr. foster without more hurt and awkwardness. yes, the future will be hard. yes, you will experience decline in membership. no, it won't ever be the same again. but no, that is all not a bad thing. with a congregation of 2700 people on a weekend i'm sure there are creative and visionary people who are willing to help lead the church to a new place that could be even better and bigger than dr. foster & his wife. they are just two people with a certain vision, maybe that vision needs changing. maybe the church was already in decline because that vision wasn't changing. maybe the congregation needed more but they were not able to give because they were not able to clear past their own contexts. i don't know, i'm not there to listen for those decisions.

i have other thoughts as a critque of the church that might have led to this, but they are not helpful at this time, so let's move to prayer for the church.

Lord, i pray for this church, i pray for these people, i pray for this pastor and his family that your will be done in building the Kingdom of Heaven. give them all listening hearts to discern you will. give the leadership on both sides weakness and hospitality to be present to you and those in hurt. grant peace to those who are angry, so that they do not rest on their own understandings but your movements -amen

good job eric

way to go eric for pulling off centerfest. it got picked up by the tennessean which is really cool and it sounds like the concert went over well, with only the rain as a slight hitch. i was trying to figure out a way to participate with our youth, but after four weeks of mission trips and weekend retreats all were just too tired, especially me.

hmmmm

a little church mystery at the moment. bellevue community church, one if not the largest churches in nashville, is apparently going through a quick pastor change. reports lead to believe that some criminal behavior might have led to the change. i'm hoping that this isn't the end of bcc. community churches go through identity crisis when the face of the church leaves which can lead to the decline of the church community.

move that bus

a few weeks ago i asked for some help with a petition to get a family affected by the spring tornados in our area to have their home rebuilt by extreme home makeover. happy to say that this weekend extreme home makeover descended upon our town to start building a new home for the family.

this is amazing news for the community, but with this news came news of the untimely death of one of the youth community. nathan was friends with some of our hfumc youth, his death has had a deep impact on them and another tragic death in the life of our community is more painful than ever.

sunday photoblog: public restroom

mission trip video v0.7

some folks have asked for a copy of our mission trip video. this is prerelease version 0.7. i'll be adding stuff to it for our stock holders dinner. but for now here's a copy (16 minutes / 46 mg).

i also have a high res version @ 104mg.

hitting on the haters

this is a funny video of a reporting making the phelps clan. as you know these folks make me angry often, but this was sweet revenge of a sort. tip to pams house blend. this video is pretty funny too

yoder on conflict

"To be human is to be in conflict, to offend and to be offended. To be human in light of the gospel is to face conflict in redemptive dialogue." -Dr. John Howard Yoder

it's happening again

last year i pee'd on the highway and this is what i got. then someone stole my favorite pastry. now it's happening again on my fav killer reptile

tip: jamey

is church too feminine?

natalie has some thoughts off a umc.org article on the subject

i call it bogus article time could have been better spent covering a methodist president meeting a critical leader in some of our churches social justice endeavors but instead we get an article on this guy's thoughts..

"He must watch his language, mind his manners and be extra polite," Murrow writes in his popular 2005 book, Why Men Hate Going to Church. That's because the altar flowers and felt banners, mostly female Sunday school teachers and blue-haired ladies playing the organ, all make church feel like a "woman's thing." And unless a man enjoys serving on a committee or passing out bulletins, he may feel there's not much for him to do, so he steers clear.

plotting our takeover

through this week we've had some great times as a ccym planning out goals and visions for this coming year and years to come. one thing we've tossed around is revamping one of our yearly retreats. quite a bit of excitement has been generated from those conversations. excitement continues as we get involved in sej leadership positions. for those that don't know, south carolina is a strong conference when it comes to youth and adult leadership. they have held more positions within the jurisdiction than one conference should. i missed the opening session, but apparently it was "i'm so-and-so from south carolina" even a few who are now tennessee folks would state that they used to be from south carolina (ciona, calling you out!). well, this led to jokes about us taking over leadership positions in a coupe of sej convocation leadership. it honestly was a joke, but apparently the stage was set for our adult and young adult leadership to be elected to various leadership chair positions. i didn't even try and apparently neither did my counterparts. someone asked if we'd accept a nomination, in my case i said sure. there was another adult leader in my group who agreed to also run after some egging on. i shared a bit of my credentials, i graduated high school and college (honestly i said those) never mentioned blogging or things like that and low and behold i'm not sej communications table chair. my cohorts from the tennessee conference have similar stories.

the big huff-puff after all this is that now there are three white males and one white female elected to positions from the tennessee conference, plus one of our youth sits on the leadership council and apparently one of our youth ministers who has a history with lake j. is wanting to run for another leadership position. so people who are used to a certain set up and concern for various reasons. we'll see how it all pans out in the end who gets what and where they are from and what they look like. honestly speaking, we did nothing wrong, i had no intention of holding any office coming here, we were just present expressed our views and people then sought to elect us.

with our sarcastic selves though, it has made the joke of plotting our takeover even more laughable

morning prayers

switched up my morning prayer time to take advantage of one of my fav parts of lake j. i got brett, one of the young adults and local pastor to our conference to go with me for a morning walk and spent time with the labyrinth on the lawn of the chapel. for me it one of those physical prayer exercises that i take advantage of occassionally. for the most part i receive some revelation of where i am with God in my life, this week was not a huge revelation but an encouragement to keep God with my walk.

i have a long day ahead, for a leadership retreat there is way too much programming happening. leaders need rest more than anything, but there is a model of doing things here at the lake and they roll through it as usual. currently i'm listening to jim winkler who i am interested to hear what he has to say, seeing that he says quite a bit on behalf of our church. he's speaking on Christian leadership, so i doubt there will be anything controversial, but not everything has to be that way to be worth hearing.

hanging at the lake

this week i'm hanging at lake junaluska, the jurisdictional retreat center for the south east umc's. i'm hanging out with our youth ccym and some young adult friends who i'm getting a good laugh with as we become unruly children. i won't go into the details of stuff as the jokes are far ranging. we're here as part of 'convo' but it's called something else now. it's a youth and young adult leadership retreat. however, the youth numbers seem low and the young adult numbers are almost non-existent. however, we're going to elect some people and make some decisions regarding the sej. hope you all don't mind.

we had an adult youth workers meeting today where we talked about needs of an adult youth worker. the same stuff surfaces, need of good resources, churches just grabbing warm bodies. i got on a soap box about how we needed a culture change and embrace the church as a counter cultural body that doesn't imploy business models and marketing strategies for marks of success. the way of 'program' is for the ymca, 'ministry' is where the church should be and we need to retrain churches on what youth ministry and ministry in general should be like.

problem with my soap box... i'm not sure how to go about doing that whole culture change except in my church and i don't know if this group is going to be able to do something to help that culture change either.

having fun with the youth in our ccym. i've had to break away to do some quick work and i guess, procrastinate to throw down some thoughts. catch up with later. shalom, -g

sun/monday photoblog: first baptist long beach mississippi

long beach mission: day 6 & 7

we are back now, we got up at 5:30am and shuffled the youth into vans and set off for home a little after 6am. i'm glad to be back home, however, erin hasn't done her wedding errands yet, so i am waiting at the church for a little bit longer till i get to take that nap that i think many of the youth ministers and youth are already basking in.

yesterday we ended our week with some real high notes. the roofing project i was working on was finished a little after lunch time. the other groups made great progress on houses that still have a long way to finish, but the people they were working with were so appreciative of what they did. that appreciation seemed to be the going sentiment along the whole coast. we had people wanting to do things for us all the time, from cooking lunches to giving plants. anything to show how much they appreciated the help. since my group was close to finishing, i actually went around to the sites took some pictures and gave out ice cream or popsicles. it was fun to see all that everyone was doing. we've found the ice cream popscicle break is big idea for those hot work days.

after our pizza dinner we walked to the beach for our final worship and sharing. it was symbolic of our last time to really take notice of the community around us. i also asked the youth to grab a piece of debris along the way. that became our little altar on the beach. sharing was cool, the place was just right and it felt good to just be in the presence. hunter and others gave out nail cross gifts as rememberance items for the time spent. i've received countless nail crosses in my days of youth ministry, however, i think this one will take on meaning that i won't soon forget.

once darkness fell we headed back to the church and had some great time of fellowship, laughter and telling the stories of the week over again. the seniors and college guys did a great job in giving out awards this year. i was laughing so hard most of the time, many times before the award was even given. best award goes to bob strobel. for your hendersonville folks, you should inquire as to the story behind that. we closed with a video that johnathan and i made. the same stories, but in video, it was a little rough, but everyone enjoyed it. after that it was cleaning up and bed time for me. i hear that a number of folks stayed up later to play 4square. the 4square games were quite intense this week, last night was no exception.

up early and we are back home again. in the on going saga that is my july. i'll leave sometime sunday for lake junaluska for a youth leadership event with our conference council on youth ministries which three of our youth are on. i'm hoping to have a good catch up with paul and talk bloggers convention/conference stuff along with a miriad of other great things. will be back wednesday night and then off to our mystery trip on friday (which i am really looking forward too).

long beach mission: day 5

it's late, my computer is moving incredibly slow, maybe it's the 500plus pictures i downloaded from don, probably... anyways, i leave you for now with my first experience of this day. andy and ryan dressed with i think rachel and ashlea's clothing doing a mission trip song to the tune of "don't cry for me argentina." more updates & pictures later. don and mike both took some great pics that i'd love to share.

i am uploading pics onto kodakgallery, it's under my church email if you wish to look for them.

happy b'day bro!! belated of course

needed to give a shout out to my bro for having his 31st b'day on sunday... yes, i called myself to remind myself to give you a buzz, but with this whole mission trip stuff i forgot. i'm proud to have him as my little, yet bigger, bro. don't know how life would be without him around... i really can't imagine

here's a recent, and very typical, pic of him with the nephews.

happy b'day bro! love -smelly

long beach mission: day 4

day 4 of our mission to long beach was a much easier. i'm feeling a lot less tired. i wonder if it was because we took a half-day of work to chill out, check out the local culture, hang on the beach or just do nothing. either way, i'm feeling way good right now, but still it's late and i need to get to bed soon.

the bobs showed up at my teams worksite yesterday after lunch to help with some interior repairs of a room while the rest of their team pitched in on the roof. they finished that by lunch today, i believe a group from florida who is part of another mission's group is going to now finish the room by hanging the sheet rock. other work teams are finishing projects each day. some are rather light as far as the techincal side goes, some yardwork, some painting. however, we are finding that the littlest things are needed to allow people to get back into their homes and live life as close to how they used to be. the only casualty so far has been logan, who decided to try his power drill on his finger. i bandaged him up with what we aptly named "man-daid." spirits are up for two more days of work, 7 more for one of the bob's who is staying through next week with our adult team who is arriving on saturday.

we had a great worship last night at the catholic church. it's right on the coast and suffered heavy damage. what is left is the roof of the sanctuary, no walls or interior. the rest of the building is in parts of reconstruction like many buildings. tonights worship was equally cool, we had it in the church sanctuary which is really cozy and majestic. the youth did a great devotional, i was taken by it. we had a visitor from the community share with us in worship tonight. teresa, who we met at the historic society meeting here on monday, came to give us some articles and pictures. she also shared how big an impact all the groups have been and every little bit helps. one thing she shared in conversation was that it took around 10 years to recover from camille, the general guess is that this will take over 20 years to begin to regain some normality.

i am incredibly proud of this group of folks. the youth are great, no major issues, they work hard, they take worship seriously and they are embracing a role of listening and being a part of this community. it was important to make sure that we were not coming down here to 'fix it' there is way too much devastation for that. but we can help out a bit here and there and show that we support and remember these communities, long after the news cameras have left.

on a side note: i took our half-day to head over to gulfside assembly grounds, a united methodist retreat center for the southeast jurisdiction. the history of gulfside is that it was the only retreat center that welcomed the black community, ciona and jay have some great stories about the grounds. i was moved to visit and took with me mike, one of our youth ministers. sad to say, there isn't much to see. check my flickr for some of the pics, i'll add more later. it was eerie quiet all around the beach in waveland and that goes for gulfside. there is an office trailor for umcor and mississippi conference relief efforts, some housing units and fema trailors, but the rest is scorched earth, foundation slabs and sights that one can almost see how it used to be beautiful.

for those from hfumc checking out the pics. i'm trying to get more pics from all the worksites to post of more than just the dozen at my site.

long beach mission: day 3

our third day, we worked.. we worked hard. going to bed now.

long beach mission trip: day 1 & 2

we have now been in long beach just over two days. we arrived without incident and got settled in without any problems on saturday. as you get closer to the coast you can start to see signs of the hurricane still. once we turned right onto hwy 90 (the coastal highway) we saw a lot of the devistation we could have imagined.. however, i don't think we could have imagined it going on and on as it did. the featured picture is of the bank.. you can see what is left is the vault. there are two banks like this within a block or two of us. i think the fast food sign is taco bell, but i could be wrong. if you want an account of a pastor that did a helicopter fly over, this is a must read to understand some of what we are seeing.

sunday we woke and stored our things away and participated in the early morning worship service & sunday school after that. i had a little moment to speak to the congregation. i think i did okay, my intent was to share some stories of my connection to the church and introducing our team to them with some added humor, i think at my expense, but i can't recall every thing i said. the afternoon was our scheduled field trip to new orleans. we went into downtown, french quarter area, to be more like tourists than anything. one can get the idea of some of the scope of the vast size of the affected areas. as you drive into town on i10 you pass apartment building after apartment building, subdivision after subdivision, and shopping area after shopping area that is just empty completely and totally empty. there might have been a scattered fema trailer here or there, but by and large not enough to notice as life coming back into the area.

we got back to church a bit late for dinner with the church's youth group, who just returned from a mission trip to mountain top. some of the church members had cooked up a great spread of hotdogs and hamburgers. we chilled out with some of the church members and listened to some of their stories, not all had to do with the storm, but many did. many of the stories had to do with the recovery momemts, ala. "it was a big deal when sonic opened" or "i just sat at the traffic light." one story i enjoyed hearing was about the recovery of the dupont plant down here. living so close to one i had a particular interest and could imagine the size of the project. however, it seemed so much more in size and technical detail that i ever could have imagined. we had a late worship and some changing of our work detail later on which made for a caotic evening. but all ended well.

first day of work for my team was interesting. we went to a wonderful ladies house. the wife of a methodist pastor. her house was torn up by one of the tornados from the hurricane. because the water came in from the tornado she was able to get insurance money (albeit two months later) and she speaks highly of fema (something you hear more of than not). all we did for mrs. jo was move some of her big funiture back into her home as it's done interior construction now. this was going to enable her to start to bring in her memorabilia (which she had some cool stuff). she was so very grateful for our half a day of work that she bought us some ice cream sticks and then brought a spaghetti dinner to the church to show her appreciation. because we knew we were having a half-day we went back to the church to change and have lunch. a couple of other groups stopped by for lunch where we heard some good things, especially from "gator house" more on that later i'm sure. we headed to our second project where we got up and sweaty with a roofing project with our brazil team. the kids worked crazy hard, today in our groups. when we returned we heard much of the same. one group had to end early as they ran out of materials. most everyone had a full day,  which was a bit of a question yesterday evening. tomorrow is another big day so i'm heading to bed, more photos and updates to come.

on the road again

in a few hours i'll be on the road again for mission trip #2. this time it's our senior high mission trip. we have traditionally gone to asp for summers, but this year we've detoured for the sunny beaches of long beach mississippi.

we have in tow 50 plus youth and adults in what i hope will be a time blessed with new friendships that we can continue to develop over the years. we will be working with fumc in long beach, which has just been a blessing. they have enabled themselves to be a housing and central unit for rebuilding in their area. for individuals and community alike. more on this to come as they have wi-fi there.

i ask for prayers, for safety, the challenging of spirits, and opening of hearts. i am feeling that this is going to be just a wonderful blessing for us at hfumc, i hope it is to the people of long beach.

pg rating 4 promoting God

so apparently "facing the giants" a movie coming out this fall got a pg rating. nothing new, but apparently the reasoning for that rating came because it had "religious themes."

have the pc police gone so far now as to say that religious themes are grouped in with sex themes, profain language, graphic violence, etc. as a means for labeling movie (and i'll assume for future, tv/video games/music) entertainment.

tip: jamey

welcome josie

big welcome to josephine, first daughter to jan & ike.

We are delighted to welcome Josephine "Josie" Kaye Blanton, born at 1:27 P.M. today! Josie is 7 lbs 6 ozs and 19.5" long. After quite an eventful morning, both mother and daughter are doing perfectly. Thank you all for your continued support and prayers.

ike & jan have been great friends, and friends in ministry, since '93. i'm priviledged to have been with you two since the beginning and look forward to future years!! rock on new mom & dad!!

ps: get some rest, if you can, you both look tired

my new favorite show!

since summer started i've struggled with watching television. my law & order csi diet has been bland with reruns and reruns of the runs. i tried turning off the tv, that worked a bit, but some days you just want to veg at the end of the day. excited now to have found a great veg show that is quickly become my favorite. the world series of pop culture, perfect time of 9pm central on vh1 and it's low level trivia.

the only problem, i'm not sure if i feel stupid for knowing or not knowing the answers.

what you do on a blogbatical

my buddy jonathon declared a blogbatical.. since then he doesn't return phone calls and is absent for morning coffee meet ups. so i wondered what in the world a blogbatical actually meant. thanks to scott for pointing out the actions of mr. norman.

Bodybuilder and wannabe actor Jonathan Norman is arrested for trespassing on Steven Spielberg's estate in Malibu, California. Believing that the film director "wanted to be raped," Norman had brought along a kit containing handcuffs, duct tape, nipple clamps, chloroform, and a stun gun.

if that is a blogbatical then i'm just going to keep writing junk.

a day on the net

today, typepad was down for much of the day. which stunk, as i think i had something to say. it gave me time to cruise around and find this series on contextless links

• rob bell is doing tour of rock show stages. the best quote of the nytimes article "for the bartenders, it was the start of a slow night."
• jurgen moltmann won the world cup of theologians. way to go jurgen, not headbutts from hans in this competition
• a compelling video & photo collection of the homeless of nashville
• an article on the extinction of mass culture that i was asked an opinion on
• the church report top 50 churches listing is out, the usual suspects are at the top as usual
• tony jones and brian mclaren on the emergent church @ relevant mag
• thought this funny
• then again, this is even funnier
• leave the world with the last word

for my star wars friends

calling all photos

erin sent me this through one of her business networking groups. i figure some of you nashville folks would like to contribute.

The Nashville Chamber Orchestra is looking for images of the people and places of home - and everyone is invited to participate!

Photos – both old and new – created by professional and amateur photographers of all ages will be considered for inclusion in an exciting new program of “Photochoreography” to be performed at the new Schermerhorn Symphony Center on October 14, 2006.

Selected photographs will be a part of a giant, multi-screen, multi-image photography show choreographed with Don Hart’s Concertino for two mandolins and guitar and “True to Me” — a work written by local songwriter Jason Blume and Maxine Jones 7th grade class (2003-2004) at East Literature Magnet School.

Photo submissions are due by July 28, 2006.

Contact one of the following for the required submission forms and
specifications:
Jennifer Neal
Nashville Chamber Orchestra
jneal(at)nco.org
256-6546 ext 3
OR
Kacky Fell, Committee Chair
Hatcher & Fell Photography
kacky(at)hatcherandfell.com
255-4420

home alone

i'm home alone today (well i do have my dogs). had a really bad night as i've been fighting a cough since saturday. the cough won last night, but i'll win the battle.. or just sleep through it.

bummed i missed out on our first day of vbs. vbs is a huge thing with our church and this year is bigger than ever. i spent all yesterday fixing up my room (3rd & 4th grade storytelling) to be ready for today... lame i couldn't pull through. maybe tomorrow

photo diary of an accident

honestly, the most exciting thing that happened today was sitting in bumper to bumper traffic after running into an accident on i-40 during our drive back to nashville from our mission trip. here's a little reflection.
at first you come up to something like this. a ton of people just hanging out on the interstate. not sure what is up with that, but i enjoy a good party

after awhile of sitting, this is what teenagers in a van will start to look like.. can't say that i blame them

you gotta feel for those people who are trying to get into the party. lines like this have to stink

then there is that pay off when you get to the party.. but after that it's over and everyone tries to leave as quickly as they can

sos day 5

today (yesterday) we had our last day on the work sites. i had hoped that we would finish our projects around our house early and we could help out the other team. however, somewhere around noon time myself & i think some of the youth hit that wall of exhaustion. the girls (who got the afternoon shade) finished off the back of the house while us "men" continued to plug away with the underpinning. we wrapped up with just some small projects to finish for a later group and said our goodbyes to mrs. juanita.

over to the first team, we found the group hanging out on the front porch. apparently as the work got more technical on a few of the team could work on the flooring, so the others caught up on their "my sweet 16" & "next." we took in a sonic break before getting back to camp. spent the evening in reflection of how our lives have changed from this week & then helped put together a piece of a scrapbook that the homeowners will receive in a banquet at the end of the summer.

sos day 4

today was a day of rain. being that we had an outside project we were unsure what our team would get into. turns out we just joined in with our other team who was looking at a large task ahead of them. turns out the home they were given to work on (the first day they were just finishing a prior project) was to repair the floor of a home that had broken across the floor joists. never have i seen so many floor joists break at the same spot. could be termite damage, but i'd have to get the family experts involved to figure that on out. we finished removing the hardwood flooring, made easier since it was installed without a sub-floor. still no small task.

another piece to the home was the hallway. turns out after looking underneath the house it had no floor joists. eventually we cleared the room, the rain moved out and we returned to our home working on underpinning and painting. the highlight of our day was using our new "man tool."

returned back to pick up the other group to find out that much progress has been made with the flooring. i jumped in to help with the last board only to tear it up trying to bang it into place. hunter tried to help me feel better by saying hamilton sabotaged me not clearing out all the old nails & then he tried again saying he measured the board too long.. either way, we pulled that one back out and went home for the day.

at camp the evening highlight was alex spitting a cricket. i tried to give her coaching on how to properly spit a cricket.. she did well, placed third behind some boy and one of the adults. way to go!

sos day 3

today (yesterday) was a half-day. the camp gives you a half-day work day during the week as part of the schedule. ours was moved to tuesday due to the fourth. we got to our worksites. team one got a new worksite where they were starting a project putting in new flooring. they pulled out the carpets, pulled up old hardwood floors that were just sitting on the floor joists that were all rotting in one similar spot that they broke on. my team continued to finish our soffit work and started underpinning.

for our rest of the day activities, we took in the zoo then went to downtown for dinner (mainly because the eatery we were looking for some reason or another had moved and another we stopped at was closing due to the fourth). had a great dinner where adam claims to have "discovered ribs" he also wonders about the validity of his 13 years having just now discovered ribs.

 

the internal alternative worship

dan has great post (a little long, as dan's posts are generally long) reflecting on the cancelling of axis, the alternative service at willowcreek. he has some thoughts that need to be looked at before any existing congregation is to embark on creating an alternative service. one distinction that i like

"Intergenerational" church does not happen by sitting in the same worship gathering

When I hear someone say they want an "Intergenerational" church - it usually means they want everyone to sit in the same room for the 60-90 minute worship gathering each week. It seems odd that this is seen as being "intergenerational" as all you are doing is sitting in a chair looking at the backs of heads of others and watching someone speak on a stage and singing together. I don't see intergenerational relationships occurring that way, especially in larger churches where everyone then floods out as there is another worship gathering happening in 30 minutes.That isn't any different than attending a movie together. You do have the same emotional and learning experience, but then you leave without relationships being built. Relationships occur outside the time you sit in a chair and watch what happens on the stage and sing.

be still

be still & aware of God's presence within and all around

in my morning prayer times during these mission trips i'm used to getting up early and going outside to see the mountains, hear the birds, the wind, etc. well.. no mountains, if i tried hard i could hear some birds.. and the wind i suppose was more a creation of the man made environment.

the sights and you can figure out the sounds to an urban prayer time.

sos: day 1 & 2

arrived to sos perfectly fine. a little late because of some unscheduled bathroom stops (maggie in the words of predators fans "it's all your fault"), but nothing major. there are a lot of youth here, we're among 180 folks which makes for some raucous noise at times.

our first day on the worksite was either spent waiting on materials or finishing up a house that has been worked on since the beginning of summer. grayson our fearless got us going with a prayer then divided up work tasks. sarah and adam spent time in the back of the house priming and painting a room remodel. michael spent time in the front of the house finishing some trim paintwork and power washing parts of the house. myself and brianna worked to clean up the guestroom which has spent the past weeks housing all the building materials and tools. afterwards we got into painting the exterior of the house and finishing some soffit work. once we finished our work day we gathered for dinner and chapel and then got a late night to go check out the riverfront fireworks show. funny thing about that was that other groups followed us home because apparently we knew the way home.. i'm glad we got lucky not missing any turns. props to the shotgun driver hunter for his excellent night eyes in navigating.

more pictures to follow

beginning to be gone

sometime today i'll be hitting the road with some of our jr. highers for hfumc's first jr. high mission trip. we are working with s.o.s. which seems to be a pretty cool group. quite flexible for the ever changes of our situation. being the first trip our jr. highers have been in and out so many times i can't count.

the hope is that this will generate some excitement for our jr. highers to get involved in missions local & short term for years to come. unfortunately there hasn't been stuff for jr. highers in the past, they just had to wait in anticipation to get old enough to go on the mission trip. now known as the sr. high mission trip.

this also begins a long trip away from home. i'll be gone this week, home for a week, but that is vbs week need i say more. then we leave the next saturday for our sr. high mission trip to fumc long beach ms. when i get back i think i'm going to be heading to lake junaluska for sej youth convocation. after that is our youth mystery trip.. i'd share what that is about, but the youth read this blog occassionally, so the mystery remains... when august hits i think i'm home again. blogging may be light, or totally centered around the experiences with the youth.

sunday photoblog: joseph