One year

I looked at my map and realized that it was indicating that i only had on hitand that hit was from Staten Island. Hey that's me reading my own blog.

I stared this blog just over a year ago because I was part of a comittee that was brought together to discuss blogging amoung other things. I was involved in the comittee more because of the "other things" and less about blogging. but in an effort to relate i began to blog. The topics of "to Blog or not to Blog" and "Why blog?" have really have become more and more common place over the last year. My expermint has lasted a year and i have learned somethingsabout blogging.

1. I realize some use their blogs simply because they have an axe to grind.
2. Others I have found are interested in stimulating healthy diaolgue. (For a great discussion based blog check out "Larry's" blog on the right)
3. Other seem to be trying to get a message across to anyone who will listen.
4. Some people just like attention.
5. Still others have an inflated of themselves.

During my year long freeform blogging experiment i think that this page has fallen into all five of those catagories and perhaps several others. I do believe that i have fallen into a niche for me my blog has become a bit like a journal. The spirtual disipline seems to have returned in the form of blogging (Thanks Major Munn for this insight) but with some new elements. In days of old a person spiritual jornal was intensely private many great christian's journals were not even known about until the had passed. now i write using a medium that could potentially be viewed by the who world. and, while i am conscience of that fact and do not share my deepest secrets or personal information like my social security number. I do sometimes just sit at my keyboard and "let it fly".

Why?

Accountability??? sure. sometimes i will 'thing out loud' sometimes i am way of base other times i am breaking into something new.

Altruism??? could be. IF you can get past my spelling and inconsistant capatilization oh and my rambling as well as my tendency to crack jokes that only i understand there is sometimes a nuget of wisdom that others may find useful.

convience??? definitely a big one for me i am completely disorganized by posting my thoughts on line i can always find them.

Attention??? anyone who knows me knows i love attention but i don't think that is an issue here i have other wider platforms for that.

Well this thought is unfinished i am a year out and i am rather enjoying the blog but i have know idea why i don't just get a composition notebook and write my thoughts down?

Sunburn in October

Yes my arms are completely red and sore to touch. So some one try to tell me there in nos such thing as Global warming!!!.

The Point of this blog is not my sunburn but rather what is was doing when I got it. Our Youth Worker and Outreach minister have been playing football in at the local park around every other Saturday since the beginning of September. Last year I played as well. But over the summer I had rotator cuff on my right shoulder. And this football is rough. We play in the Stapleton right outside the Stapleton houses, which were made famous by the Woo Tang Clan.

Football in the park is NOT a Salvation Army activity. I haven’t researched it but I am sure the kind of football that is played would be frowned on by just about every insurance company. Some guys from the neighborhood that come are known drug dealers and others are teenagers who come to our teen drop in center. We even have a couple of high school football stars who would get in huge trouble with their coach if he found out they were risking injury by playing ‘street’ Football.

Anyway Chris (youth guy) and Josh (Outreach Guy) live in Stapleton for missional reasons. And I try to spend as much time as I can. And we all love football. So for us this is simply a chance for us to be salt and light and an area that really needs some. I convinced my wife I was ready to play again (no small task) she made me get permission from my doctor (no small task) but by Saturday I was on the field putting the smackdown on some local teens and young adults.

I am extremely conscience of the fact that in this setting I am the visitor in their world and we play hard and try to model Christ. While I was playing and learning just how out of shape I am. I was infused with a fresh excitement about the work that we are doing in Stapleton As the game went on and some of the players began to make excuses and the language became ‘rougher’, many of those young people who we have been working with, some who are now professing Christians, stood out and acted different I was proud not just because of the things the didn’t do but because of the attitude they were playing with.

First Love

As a Corps officer it is so easy to get tied down by the bussiness of ministry: Budgets, Statistics, Fundraising, Programing, Writing Sermons, Counseling, going to officers councils. It is easy to get bitter or at least tired and "cranky". We all go through it and i don't just mean Corps officers, other denominational clergy and other full time christian workers. All believer' can from time to time grow weary in doing good.



Recenty i was reading an article by the general (the Salvation Army's international Leader) about stress and in the article he mentioned that Officership is about being not doing. I believe that can be extended to all Christians. "Christianity is about being not doing" When I read those words they gave me pause.

The activities that God used to call me into his service are happening all around me. I had been letting everyone else do the ministry while i focused on trying to fund it and plan for the future in the meantime i was getting tired and cranky.

So this year i took responcibility for our 'mondayschool' program called "Carpenter's Kids" (for which my wife is grateful) we have anywhere between 15 and 30 Kids many of whom are completely new to the church. Yesterday after an opening chorus sing with Corps Sergant Major Josh Jones (he hatse titles so i use it when ever i can) we went down stairs and made Pizza from scratch.

But there were a few problems:

1. The corps doesn't have a measuring cup. (we will now)
2. after miss calculating the water to floor ration we added a floor like substance that we found in the food pantry.

Imagine our face when the pizza began to rise.


I went home my uniform covered in floor thanking God for the best progam i have lead since I was a unit leader at camp.

The Problem is not not that i miss youth work or other kinds of ministry, that's happening all around me. The problem is that we (I) can get so caught up in getting making sure nothing goes wrong that we miss the joy and beauty of what's happening right under our noses. By being what God has called me to be it is so much easier to enjoy what i am required to do.

We ate the Pizzkets and there were no complaints. GOD is Good