Goodbye Friend

I think the hardest thing in being a follower of Christ is watching people you care about and love begin to turn away from the Lord. To watch that fire begin to burn down. To watch good decisions be replaced with poor choices. As a youth minister, I feel pain as I run the list of students I’ve ministered to over in my head. Ones that I tried my best to show the love of Christ to but then watched them reject it. Students that came for a time, accepted Christ, and then disappeared never to be seen again. Even with students that I have now, I wonder deep inside if they are really trusting in Jesus for everything, or is he simply a part of the cultural heritage.

I think it hurts so much because I really do believe in heaven and hell. Last night at youth service I mentioned how the Lord will “wipe every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 21:4). Often we hear that there will be no tears in heaven, yet for at least a time there will be tears before they are forever wiped away. I have a feeling that a lot of the tears will be shed for those that we loved that chose not to make it; those that chose to walk away. To be in such a perfect place and to have the realization of what many people we cared about are experiencing. Heaven would be eternal weeping if Christ didn’t step and wipe the tears away.

Where does that leave us now? For me, I’ll keep loving and ministering through the good and the bad. Hopefully, some that I minister to will really grab hold of Christ and not let go. For others that I’ve ministered to down through the years, I have to trust that I’ve planted spiritual seeds that I hope will bear fruit later. And sadly, I have to realize that some will choose to live out Christ’s words in Matthew 7:13-14.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

In The Bubble

Read the book “Not The Religious Type” by Dave Schmelzer recently. Had some really good thoughts that really sparked my mind. I like a book that does that. Most of my thoughts have been revolving around the way we view Christianity. Is it a bubble or a journey. It really seems that many people view it as a bubble. Once you accept Christ you are in that bubble. As long as you stay in the bubble you are good. The problem that I see is that the bubble ends up being the destination. Instead of pursuing a deeper relationship with Christ, we find ourselves satisfied that we are in the bubble. As I look at people I’ve seen accept Christ and then drift away, I wonder if this was the case. Accepting Christ was the end of the road instead of being what it really is, the start of a relationship with the living Lord. The start of an incredible adventure. More later.

It's Going to Happen

The weather forecast for tomorrow is looking promising. It looks like we might have youth again. Just for the record, the last time we had an actual youth service was December 9, 2008.

iPhoto '09

I use iPhoto on my Mac to manage all my photos. With family, church, and especially youth, the number of photos I have is constantly climbing. Having the ability to sort, tag, and lightly edit has been great. The new features in iPhoto ’09 are making it better. I still think there should be an upgrade price, but I’ll be forking over the money anyway.

The main feature that has me waiting is face recognition. Currently, I go through all my photos that I take and tag the name of each person in the photo. It’s time consuming, but worth it when I need a shot of a certain person. With face recognition, the software isolates the faces in each photo. Once this is done, you tag one of those areas with a name. Then, it searches all the photos to find that person and automatically tags their name. That alone is worth the price of admission to me.

I know other apps out there can do this and I’m hoping Apple’s implementation of it works extremely well. I guess we’ll see in about a month when it actually hits the market.

Winter Frustration 3

Wednesday.

Permission granted for youth to meet together during service instead of their normal classes.

January 14, 2009 - Special Youth Service Canceled (weather)

Winter Frustration 2

January 13, 2009 - Youth Canceled (weather)

Winter Frustration

Winter always throws a monkey wrench into church services. We want to have services, but sometimes the weather makes travel unsafe. My youth group has been hit extremely hard as of late. Check out my review of the last month.

December 16, 2008 - Youth Canceled (weather)
December 23, 2008 - Youth Canceled (weather)
December 30, 2008 - Overnighter (bad driving home)
January 6, 2009 - Youth Canceled (weather)

Now I turn my gaze to tomorrow. The forecast as of now is calling for up to three inches during the day and potentially three that evening. One thing I read yesterday mentioned winds up to thirty mph causing blowing and drifting snow. Now I know the weather can change and it might not happen at all, but it gets really frustrating when you want to have youth and it doesn’t happen.

To all my youth that read this I want you to know that I miss being with you. I’m sick of the snow, ice, and freezing rain coming every Tuesday too.

Well, I will hopefully be able to update this tomorrow with the news that we had youth.

Snow

We got pounded with snow overnight. There’s been a lot of snow this winter, but it’s always come and gone quickly. That, and it never came on days that we were able to get out and have some fun. Being a Saturday, we were able to bundle up and head out. It was a blast. Havilah was making snow angels and running around having the time of her life. Silas stood looking at it and eventually sat down. I’m not sure what he thought about it. I’m hoping there will be many times like this in the future. To wrap up, some quick conclusion about the day.

It takes forever to get everyone dressed and ready to go outside. Longer I think than we were outside.

Wrapping my son’s shoes with plastic bags and packing tape made for some interesting snow boots.

Making a cubed snowman was artistic and creative, but I think I stole the idea from a book I read as a kid.

My First Climbing Wall

My wife and I have realized that we have been blessed with a son that loves to climb. He climbs the couch, the chairs, the end table, and the coffee table to name a few. He’s only 13 months old, but he knows to move chairs to climb up on the kitchen table.

I have come up with a conclusion. Most of the gifts that we got him for Christmas were pointless. Cars? Meaningless. Little Tykes basketball set? Worthless. What we needed to buy him was some sort of “My First Climbing Wall.” Instead of risking injury on unstable furniture, why not have a safely designed rock wall? We already had some sort of bouncy swing that clamped to a door post so surely it should be easier to design a safety harness and clamps that allow climbing but without that long drop to the floor.

Just an idea.