Slump

I've been in a blogging slump recently.

I think there are a few factors:

1. It's hard to blog while watching basketball.

2. The last week has been one of my busiest all year. 

3. Lack of motivation.

Well, here's the week in review...

Anytime an un-potty trained kid finds a quiet place under a table, you can pretty much guess what they're doing...

We enjoyed some time with cousins (here: Beck and Ryan Stumbo put their swords together to show they are powerful knights). I made up a game- basically tag mixed with hide and go seek- where we had hobbits, elves, knights, dwarves and humans.

Monday we had a birthday party at Eric and Holly Bodin's. Here Makai is chillin' with Sophie.

Wednesday the Anthem band led at our junior/senior high ministries. I snapped this picture of our junior high pastor, Joel Vint, speaking to 180. This picture reminds me that if you want to become a youth pastor, don't go off to a Bible college and get a degree in youth ministry. No offense if that's your degree. Joel came to Christ through TSC, has been equipped and trained here, and now is rockin' his job. Cody is the same story with our high school. This probably warrants its own separate post...

On Friday night I spoke at Escape's (our high school min.) girl's formal dinner. It was an amazing program full of hilarious dramas, special music and speakers (Todd Wallace and me). 

We made a trip to Iowa City to visit some friends (the Pluegers and Millers) who were in the hospital. The kids were a little restless, but overall they did great waiting around in the lobby for an hour and a half.

Here's a picture in the waiting area of Alicia, a girl who weighed LESS THAN ONE POUND at birth. To the left you can see what she looked like at birth. I got teared up seeing that picture of her playing wiffle ball a few years later...

We got back to Ames Saturday night and had our annual TSC parent's banquet. It's an opportunity to let parent's know what TSC is all about, and to calm the fears of those parents who think their kids have gotten into a cult.

Sunday morning our family went down to Cornerstone's most recent church plant- Westwind in West Des Moines. Here we're just getting set up. It reminded me of the early days of Cornerstone when we met at Scheman...just 14 years ago. I had a great time leading them in worship.

After enjoying a wonderful Chinese meal (thanks Laugerman's!), we headed back to Ames where I did Q/A with our freshmen group. This is one of the amazing things about the ministry of TSC (No thanks to me). I could feel the community in this group of over 100 students, who gather every Sunday night on campus. It was a blast answering questions like...

- "How do you expect us to stay pure when you talk about sex all the time?"

- "How do I know God's voice?"

- "What do you think about birth control?"

- "God feels distant and he hasn't answered my prayers. What should I do?"

- "Practically, how do I pick my major?"

- "I just became a Christian, and my parents have forbid me from going overseas. What should I do?"

Today I taught, "Theology of the Gospel" and we played a little game of "family feud." Using my windmill metaphor (click here for an explanation), they had to guess what blades the groups thought were the most critical. It livened up the class quite a bit. It's funny that "love" didn't make the top 6. Granted, it's not really a classic "discipline", but it's certainly the purpose of it all. The guys won by a point thanks to "lightning round."

Tomorrow is finally a day off- praise God for Shabbat!