I am addicted to connection.
The more I wrestle with this whole issue of being fully present vs. always available the more I am beginning to discover the root of the issue. And I honestly don’t think that naming it an “addiction” is going to far. Dictionary.com defines an “addiction” as “the state of being enslaved [...]
Archive for January, 2009
I Have a Confession to Make…
Posted in Faith, Life, Reflections, tagged addiction, always available, cell phones, connection, crackberries, dictionary.com, e-mail, facebook, fully present, god, instant gratification, instant messaging, relationships, solitude on January 31, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A Part-Time Job in a Full-Time Vocation
Posted in Life, Reflections, youth ministry, tagged calling, Camp Mowana, Chuck E. Cheese, Dictionary, Fremont, Full-Time, Grace Lutheran Church, Job, Mayfield Heights, ministry, Parma, Parma Lutheran Church, Part-Time, Shuttler's Uniforms, vocation, youth ministry on January 25, 2009 | 2 Comments »
So, it’s surprising me a little bit that the transition from full-time youth ministry at Grace Lutheran Church in Fremont, OH to my current part-time position at Parma Lutheran Church has actually gotten harder instead of easier. Back when I started in Parma, I was loving the fact that I had dropped from working 40+ [...]
Fully Present vs. Always Available
Posted in Life, Reflections, youth ministry, tagged always available, authenticity, availability, Camp Mowana, cell phones, community, culture, facebook, fully present, internet, interruption, relationships, society, spoke folk, texting, Twitter, youth ministry on January 23, 2009 | 2 Comments »
I’ve been really challenged and convicted the past few weeks to examine the differences between being fully present and always available. Are the two mutually exclusive or is it possible to balance the two? This is a tough call for me, because I am a strong believer both in being fully present to God and [...]
Link Love
Posted in Link Love, tagged Craig Groeschel, encouragement, failure, Josh Griffin, links, News, passion, Stuart Delony, texting, Tim Schmoyer, youth ministry on January 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately, and there’s been lots of really quality stuff floating around in the blogosphere. Here’s a bit of a peek at what I’ve been consuming lately:
Josh over at morethandodgeball.com posted some really great thoughts on Youth Ministry Fumbles. After making a fairly big blunder on Friday it was [...]
Shifting Priorities in Youth Ministry
Posted in youth ministry, tagged Grace Lutheran Church, Greatest Commandment, ministry, Parma Lutheran Church, priorities, schedule, youth ministry, youth ministry 3.0 on January 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve been trying to shift my priorities in youth ministry for a while now with little to no success. I’ve had the tendency for the year and a half that I’ve been in ministry to spend more of my “work hours” sitting behind a desk than actually spending time with youth (yikes!). This week, however, [...]
101 Things Update
Posted in 101 Things, tagged movies, books, 101 Things, The Shack, Wm. Paul Young, The Synoptic Problem, Mark Goodacre, Sex and the City, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants II, future, blogging, knitting, FreeRice.com, hunger on January 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’m going to try and make a (fairly) regular habit of updating progress on my 101 Things in 1001 Days venture: partly for accountability, and partly simply to document progress. So, since beginnin on January 1st, here’s what’s been accomplished:
#52: Read and Finish 101 Books
I finished reading both The Shack by: Wm. Paul Young and [...]
Review: The Shack
Posted in Reviews, tagged books, Reviews, The Shack, William Paul Young on January 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve been looking forward to reading Wm. Paul Young’s The Shack for quite some time now, so when I received the book for Christmas this year I couldn’t wait to get into it. There’s been quite a bit of controversy surrounding this book, and since it had been recommended to me by at least [...]
Oprah’s Best Life: Spirituality 101
Posted in Faith, Reflections, tagged discussion, elizabeth lesser, michael bernard beckwith, oprah, oprah's best life, rev. ed bacon, spirituality on January 7, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Today on Oprah Winfrey’s “Best Life Series”, she’s moderating a discussion on “Spirituality 101″. I’m interested to see what’s feeding our nation in regards to beliefs about God, Jesus and spirituality.
Define Spirituality:
“It is the process of being healed, forgiven, empowered to go into the world, to be totally alive. Having an experience of being unconditionally [...]
Folks Who Change Folks
Posted in Faith, youth ministry, tagged Abraham Lincoln, affirmation, Anna, Billy Graham, calling, college, Dwight L Moody, Edward Kimble, Ernie, high school, Jesus, Luke 2, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, preaching, sermon, Simeon, Sunday School, truth, world changers, youth ministry on January 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
For those of you who weren’t able to be there, here’s the manuscript from the sermon I preached on Sunday, December 28th:
For almost a year now the desktop wallpaper on my computer has read: “I want to change the world” in nice big, bold letters. That’s a bold statement: “I want to change the world.” [...]
New Year’s Resolutions
Posted in Life, tagged 101 Things, Goal Setting, Goals, new years resolutions on January 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Let me start off by saying that most of the time, I think New Year’s Resolutions are silly. It seems like for most people it’s a way of setting lofty goals that give us false hope on January 1st that usually lasts until about February 1st (if that long). I think often times what happens [...]
