Let wonder replace worry

Nicole's Garden

About 2 months ago Nicole came across 4 tomato plants and for our first time, we decided to try our hand at gardening.

Here is Jaxson and the plants the day she brought them home:

Now, just about 8 weeks later, here is where we are in the tomato growing process:

Although no tomatoes yet, we are pretty proud of ourselves.

This gardening thing is pretty fun.

Church Shootings

Shooting suspect hated liberals - USATODAY.com

Sunday morning, a guy walked into a unitarian church with a shotgun in Knoxville and killed a couple of people.

His reason? He believes they are too liberal.

Absolutely crazy.

While I'm not unitatian, this is something I feel like I am reading about way too often- in all kinds of chruches.(Remember YWAM?)

Makes me wonder how many of our churches have a plan, or have even talked about what they would do in a situation like this.

I don't guess it is really something you can plan for, but I think it may be smart for every church to at least have a conversation about what would happen if they were ever faced with a crazed gunman interrupting worship.

Summer Ministry

Two weeks from today, I'll be home from my very last trip of the summer. It has been a busy summer and great ministry has taken place.

It has also been much harder this year than in the past. I thought it was hard to leave Nicole in the summer, but leaving her and Jaxson is much harder. Next summer, they are coming with me.

I'm taking a group of guys on a summer mission project Sunday morning that will last all week. I'm really excited to spend the week with all of those guys. I'll be prepping for that this week.

I've got several posts rolling around in my head, so things will be picking up around here.

Free Slurpee Day

Every year on July 11, 7-11 gives away free slurpees to celebrate the date in which their name coincides.

Over the years, my weird love for slurpees has been transferred to the youth group. Every youth group event seems to involve at least one stop at 7-11. Its become one of those weird traditions.

Last week a group of college students who all spent their time in high school in my group were hanging out. One called to ask me a quick question. I asked what the were up to. The reply- we are going to get slurpees.

I smiled for the rest of the night.

MediaShout on a Mac???

I have Windows XP installed via Boot Camp on a 15GB partition of my 200GB hard drive. This has worked well for playing PC games (which I rarely have time for) and running programs that are not compatible with Mac. Mainly Microsoft Street and Trips with GPS for road trips and MediaShout for presentations.

In April, I purchased the MacUpdate Promo bundle that included a copy of Parallels. I decided against installing it and keeping my partitioned drive and all of my windows files as they were.

The problem is that the few times I am logged into Windows, the only way for me to access any files in OS X is to reboot my machine. This usually only causes a problem when I am working with MediaShout.

I met a couple of MediaShout developers a couple of years ago and they were explaining to me that the hold up in a Mac version was getting Quicktime to play nice. I guess they have never resolved that problem because it is still a Windows only product.

I noticed a mention on a tech blog a couple of days ago about Parallels running your Boot Camp partition directly from your Hard Drive. I had no idea this was possible. I downloaded the copy I purchased in the promo bundle, followed the directions, and it ran perfectly.

Now, I can access MediaShout directly from OS X which gives me access to all of my files. Also, I feel safer running Windows through Parallels instead of booting directly into XP. I always felt like I was playing with fire if I ever needed to go online for anything- since I'm not going to pay for virus protection for something I use maybe a couple of times a week.

MediaShout runs great on a Mac running Windows through Parallels. A great solution if your church uses it and you use a Mac.

Is Your Favorite Starbucks Closing?

Starbucks will be shutting down 600 stores and as many as 12,000 workers will lose their jobs when the closings begin this summer.

Many in Seattle are saying it serves Howard Schultz right for selling the Supersonics to an Oklahoma City investment group whose motive was clearly to get the team playing in Oklahoma as quick as possible.

It is said that there have been massive boycotts of Starbucks in Seattle since the move was officially announced last week.

I'm not boycotting though. I find it surprising that everyone is just now upset about this. I knew this was happening the day he sold the team to a group of people who have never lived in Washington State and had no intention of ever moving here.

Anyway, the Seattle Times is compiling a list of the known stores that will be getting the axe this summer.

Is your favorite coffee hangout closing?

Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry: From a Strategy of Influence to a Theology of Incarnation

I am excited to dive into this book over the next few days. I was able to meet Andrew Root when I was at Princeton in the spring of 2007 and hear him share his heart on relational youth ministry. The book was released sometime late last year.

My summer intern and I are going to be reading it together between now and the end of the month. (Not because it takes us that long to read, but our travel schedules- especially mine- get really crazy in the middle of the month.)

"Relationships" is a word that is thrown around a lot in youth ministry. More times than many of us would like to admit, that relationship comes with an agenda. Even if the agenda is as noble as wanting to see a student accept Christ. On the other hand, I think there are many times we (youth pastors) get bogged down in running programs and overseeing volunteers that relationships with teenagers becomes something we no longer have time for.

I am so ready to revisit relational youth ministry in this book. As my intern and I think and wrestle through this book, I plan to write here about what I am learning- and what I am unlearning.

Anyone interested in picking up a copy of the book and reading it along with me this month? Maybe we could chat on-line along the way. Send me an email if you are interested. justin@whidbeypres.org

Sunday, not Monday

I did not have youth group tonight since it is 4th of July weekend.

So all night I've been thinking its Monday and I've gotta work tomorrow.

It is always so nice to realize I have an extra day to get things done.

AT&T Is Certainly Not Apple

Boy, AT&T sure does have a way of taking every bit of the coolness out of the iPhone experience.

Fourth of July and Mariners Baseball

This morning we loaded up 2 chartered buses and headed down to watch the Mariners play the Tigers. Even though the Mariners are having a tough year (to put it lightly) it was still fun to go with the group. Seattle even pulled out a win. This was Jaxson's first baseball game- he had a great time.

Here are some pics from the day. Click for full size.