I am a meteorologist and a former youth leader at church…I have a lot to say on both subjects…and then some
I wanted to write about this sooner, but since I am working evenings this week, it has been hard to sit a write a post when your day is filled with snowblowing and your nights predicting the next round of snowblowing. I got a short little break between the balloon and writing our regional weather summary tonight.
You may have noticed recently that I have started to categorize my posts. That’s so that those who want to read about youth ministry (ym) can read those posts and the Meterology posts (met) and so on. Well today’s is listed as M&J for Mary and Jeff. A nice multipurpose subject that can be on relationships which can be used for youth ministry if the subject fits. Today’s however, has to do with the play that Mary was in at her church.
I say was, becuase the play was over the weekend. I got to see it on the opening night. They did a “musical” verision of Scrooge. The only difference was that they ended it the way Dickens did, with Ebeneezer accepting Jesus. Quite a concept, actually following what the writer intended. Okay, I’ll stop being sarcastic. Anyway, the play was quite good. While they were all amateur actors, they did a pretty good job and since they have a non-traditional church (i.e. no pews) it was easy to transform the snactuary into a playhouse. I enjoyed it quite a bit, though I am a bit biased since I knew several of the cast members, besides Mary.
Mary was one of the business women that were soliciting donations from Scrooge. She made a remark about how her costume reminded her of “little Bo Peep,” although I thought it looked pretty good and they did a good job with getting clothes that fit into the time period. You can read Mary’s take on the play here. Like I said, I really liked it.
Winter time in western PA can have the same hazards that we find here in northern MI. Lake effect snow, when Arctic air moves over the relatively warm water of the Great Lakes, it causes, discreet bands of snow showers that can cause whiteout conditions. Back in the mid90s they had a large pile up of cars near Grayling, MI just south of the here. Now, in the area of where my parents are from comes this story that just happened a couple of days ago. The great thing is that when things get really bad, there are some that are willing to go the extra mile in helping those in need.
Since getting one of my birthday presents, an irock!, I have been finding “podcasts” to listen to. That may not be totally accurate, I learned about podcasting from an article in the Christian Science Monitor about the same time that I got my irock. The irock is a small FM transmitter that you plug into the headphone jack of your mp3 or CD player or iPod. It transmits whatever you have recorded to your radio, in stereo, for your listening pleasure.
Podcasting is downloading mp3s of content and listening to them at your leisure on your mp3 player. iPod are really good at doing this I guess. Since I don’t have an iPod, I use my Dell Axim x5 PDA. It plays mp3s so I use software that I got from ipodder.org to subscribe to content and download it for me. Then I transfer it into a compact flash card and voila! I can listen to it on my trucks radio while traveling or on my stereo at home (from my desktop).
Now that I think about it, I think my bro-in-law Brendon actually posted about it a couple of months ago on his blog as people were starting to do audio blogs. However, it has begun to explode into people doing their own radio shows and posting them to a blog interface for people to download. It has been fun so far experimenting with what is out there. I’ll probably post something on a few of them as I get some time and find some regular ones that I like. So far, The Miller Report is pretty good. He plays some local bands and has running commentary on his local (Grand Forks, ND) and world politics. I have also found ICM Raw (Independent Christian Music and News) which is pretty good as well and plays independent Christian bands from around the US.
So if you have ever had a hankering for having your own radio show, now’s your chance through podcasting to try your hand.
Sometimes we all feel like this, but youth pastors can especially get hit with this. This is kind of related to what I was saying that Pastor Steve, at Mary’s church, was preaching on. Although, this has more to do with God dropping you little notes that you are heading in the right direction. I remember a few times, when after teaching the 7&8th grade class in Sunday school, or when I just didn’t feel that connected to the Senior High Youth group, asking myself if I was cut out for working in youth ministry. Then a kid or one of the parents would say something, like the note that this youth pastor got from one of his kids, and I would realize that I was on the right track. The momentary frustrations are worth it.
Okay, so some might not agree with my rather simplistic approach to supporting US involvement in Iraq, but I view it the same way as involvement in Kosovo and others. The simplistic analogy I make is what would you do if you had a neighbor that was obviously beating their spouse? Do you report them to the police and risk getting involved? The beaten spouse might, usually from fear or a twisted sense of love, not press charges and return and the beating spouse comes after you for causing trouble. Or do you do nothing until one goes out in a body bag and the other in handcuffs?
I guess whether there were WMD’s or not is not the question. Saddam was biding his time for the sanctions to be lifted and put his plants back in production. However, to me that is irrelevant. He, his family, and henchmen were routinely beating torturing and killing people in their country. So the question is how long do you wait until you are sure that there is no other option? What level of involvement do you give to oust a dictator that doesn’t care about anything, but his own personal pleasure and is willing to gas his own people. Some claimed that the Shi’as or the Kurds should have rebelled, but both tried at one time or another. Right after the Persian Gulf war, of which I am a veteran, the shi’as were encouraged to rebel, only to not get any support from US and they got cut down. The Kurds would think about it and they got gassed. So the spouse would try to stand firm over being beaten only to be cowed in fear from the stronger spouse.
While I wasn’t a real supporter of Clinton, I was a supporter of his involvement in Kosovo. One of the few things that I thought he showed some fortitude to do what was right instead of what was politically expedient. Any of the Republicans who think that was a misadventure and supports Iraq are just as hypocritical as Democrats that supported Kosovo and didn’t or don’t support Iraq, at least in my view.
Now, with all of that said, I think that the Bush administration underestimated and did not prepare the country for what could happen. So we have ended up being the policeman who is dealing with the abusing spouse’s drinking buddies after the fact.
Now I said that the analogy was rather simplistic, but it all comes down to, at least in my mind, loving your neighbor as yourself. If you are being beaten down with little way to control what is happening to you, wouldn’t you want someone to get involved? There are some Iraqis that actually do appreciate us being there. So those are my thoughts.
My first Sunday at Mary’s church(GCC) worked out pretty much as planned. I got to her place about 845 am and we (Mary, Karlie Mary’s youngest, and myself) drove up to her church for their first service at 900 am. We started out with some praise and worship for about 15 or 20 minutes and then celebrated communion and the offering. By the time Pastor Scheer began to preach, it was almost time to go so that I could make it to get with the choir for our 1030 am service. I felt bad that we had to leave early. He was preaching on recreation and taking the time to rest in God. This is important to me, because I do have a tendency to overschedule. Mary has stressed to me that we don’t have to try to spend all of our free time together if I’m going to get stressed out because I overscheduled (Have I said that I love this woman?).
We then went to FUMC and things went well there. Rev. Naile has been preaching on preparing for Christ, since we are in Advent season. A good sermon. I have the notes I took on my Dell PDA.
Later in the day, Mary had a short run through for a scene in GCC’s play that they are doing (the original version of Scrooge). While we were there, we saw Pastor Steve. I wanted to apologize for leaving early and explain to him what the two of us are doing. The thing that came was that he said that this Sunday he would be announcing a new schedule for the first service. Very cool, because if it is moved back even a half hour that would make the whole issue of leaving early a moot point. So we are waiting to see what the new schedule will be. Of course the two of us mentioned to each other how this is a God thing and how we took this as confirmation that we are on the right track with our vetting each other.
Currently, I am sitting in the NWS office that I work at doing a ham radio special event. We have this special event recognizing our ham radio severe weather spotters during the first weekend of December. It is a great way to have fun while going into sleep depravation. Although, I’m kind of immune from the sleep depravation this week as I just finished my round of midnights.
I brought my radio in that I can only use a bit as I’m only licensed for the VHF bands. I’m hoping that in the near future I can learn the code and upgrade to General and get on the HF Bands. I can only operate on HF when we do these special events, because there is a control operator who is a General or above in class.
We are making contacts with radio amatuers and many of the other NWS offices nationwide. It’s fun way to spend 24 hours.
I read a news blog from time to time called Religion News Blog. They scour the news sites from around the world and post articles on other world religions and cults. Well, this article was interesting. If you aren’t familiar with Kabbalah, in a nutshell it is Jewish mysticism that is all the vogue with the spiritually inclined Hollywood types who aren’t into Buddha or Scientology. Anyway, the material girl is a little miffed at the press for not understanding her.
“Yes, it irritates me when the press criticize my beliefs. Because what I would really like is for people to do their research and try to understand what it is I’m trying to study and understand,” she said.”If they did that, then they’d have a completely different view. I wonder if they’d be less irritated if I was studying existentialism. Maybe they would.”
Sound a little familiar? At least the press likes to pick on other religions other than Christianity. I’m sure that the problem is that the press look at what your life is like and whether it measures up to what you believe. So for Madonna, it looks like it is hokey until she really starts to show some sort of concrete witness in her life. We all go through that. That’s just life.
The previous post was actually worked on over the course of a few days, then I wrote this one.
When I started my blog, I knew that I would share some of my personal thoughts and struggles and how they pertain to youth ministry or meteorology, my two greatest passions. However, I didn’t expect to be writing about a budding relationship a month and a half into blogging. I told Paul Block, about 6 months ago, that I felt in my spirit there was going to be a change in my relationship status. I just kept trusting God that it would come to past in his timing. Well, here it is with Mary! and I am now writing about relationship items.
Mary’s recent post about her coming to church with me is pretty good, but only the first half of a discussion that we have been having about our future together. What we discussed is that as we date we need to know and see how each reacts in there own element and with us that is our respective churches. She goes to Gaylord Community Church and I go to First United Methodist Church of Gaylord. Hers is charismatic and mine is old guard mainline. While I haven’t delved into my more charismatic beliefs on this blog yet, eventhough I’m a member of a mainline denomination, I don’t have a problem with going to her church. We are, after all, one body in Christ. So the discussion hinged on the fact that we want to get to know each other, and that if this relationship progresses to the point of marriage, we will need to make decisions in the future of where we are to attend church.
I made the remark that it was my feeling that we both needed to stay active in our own churches since we are not married and we each have obligations that we need to attend to at our home churches. So we decided that we would go to both churches for a while and see where God leads us. This decision was made rather easily, because of a couple of “God things” that we have noticed.
Very interesting. So today the plan was for her to go to her church and meet me at mine, since I am working midnight to 9 am this week. However, her car wouldn’t start so we ended up just going to mine.
This will work out most Sundays with my schedule. I am still going to be a back up for Sunday school, sing in the choir, and help with the youth groups. She is still going to continue to help with the youth at her church as well.
Our feeling is that God will show what we are to do as we go through this familiarization process called dating without rushing through things. Everytime we have to make a decision, we will try to remain open to God for guidance so that we may do his will for our lives.
First, I refer you all to my main squeeze’s blog about things that we have in common and those “God things” that others would call coincidences. Not to mention the quote on her post about reading our blogs will give a testimony to “Jeff and Mary’s love story.” I prayerfully want people to be able to read our blogs and realize that our love is not based on the superficial things that seem to pervade our society. We especially recognize the fact that since we both work with the youth groups at our respective churches that we can set an example as a couple on how a godly relationship occurs and matures through the dating/courting (for you Josh Harris fans) process, not to mention the struggles that every couple go through whether you’re a teenager or around 40 (or even older).
That brings me to today’s topic which is the fact that the younger generations don’t seem to catch onto the fact that older generation has gone through the same problems that they are struggling with currently. Whether it is relationships, peer pressure, materialism etc. This doesn’t come as a complete shock as it took me until my late 20s or early 30s to realize that we often don’t go to those who have the experience when it comes to personal problems. Each generation goes through this when they are teenagers. For whatever reason, we think we and our peers have the answers and that the older generation is out of touch with what we are going through. Really, the only thing that the older generation may be out of touch with is the generational culture, but as far as personal/relationship problems, the same problems keep repeating themsleves in every generation. It isn’t until the teenager becomes a mature young adult, and usually with kids of their own, that they grasp this fact. Then they try to communicate these facts to their own kids.
For me this illumination, occurred as I began to work in youth ministry (since I don’t have my own kids). Although I did go to my parents for some advice, I had never considered the fact that as a teenager, Mom and Dad may have experienced what I was going through. I was no different and today’s teens aren’t either.
I was discussing with one of our graduated youth group members about a doing a bible study during the summer and if they may want to help lead it with me. They came back that they didn’t think that they could lead it because they didn’t think that they were “good enough,” and apologized if that disturbed me. I proceeded to tell them that I wasn’t good enough either, going through some of my past and that in some ways I was in the same boat about 20 years ago when I was in college. I then reminded them that when they were in youth group that I would tell them that they needed to keep in mind that Bethany (the youth pastor at the time) nor myself popped out as mature Christians. We went through our own struggles with faith and life and still do. This reminded me of the time as a kid it was hard to fathom that Mom and Dad were kids themselves because since I had always known them, they were always grown ups. I think that it is that matter of perspective that is lost on younger generations, that their parents and adult friends were never kids, because they have always known them as adults.
So what to we do to combat this perspective? The biggest thing I think, as adults, is to mentor kids and teens, and be able to share your struggles. Not just the past ones, but the current ones as well(within reason). This will help them to understand that we all go through things, and that the key is how you handle it. As I have dealt with teenagers and 20 somethings over the past 5 years in youth ministry, it is the pesonal relationships that we forge and maintain that determines spiritual health of this generation and in the long term, the spiritual health of the church.
This is probably the one place that the church, in general, fails. The attitude that I run into at times when trying to recruit more volunteers to come to the youth group is a “been there done that so I don’t need to do it anymore,” attitude. However, God doesn’t call us to stop once your kids are out of school. We all have responsibility to teach the future generations whether they are your own biological kids or not.
