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!

Africa

I'm not sure why it took me so long to add the Hope Children's Center blog to my Google Reader, but click here if you want to join me in getting your heart wrecked for the least of these.

Click here if you don't know what Google Reader is, it will change your life by consolidating the time we waste.... errr spend... on the internet.

On a related note, does anyone want to go to Malawi and run with the Leatha Foundation orphanage? It would require a big heart, some entrepreneurial vision, and flexibility with work.

I'm taking applications. 

I made that up. But it's actually not a bad idea. If you're interested let me know.

Marcy!!!!

About 12 years ago, when I led worship at Salt Company, one of the things I enjoyed was auditions. One year we had over 30 girls audition. One unassuming girl walked up to the music stand, and started singing "You Alone." 

It was the most amazing, angelic sound I'd ever heard.

Her name was Marcy. 

Needless to say, she made the music team. Since then she has gone on to become quite the songwriter. She's written everything from worship to a fun song for Leatha to gospel to bluegrass. Marcy has recorded a few Cds, one of them "To God," was recorded at Cornerstone. It's a great album.

I just came across her myspace page. Come to find out, her song "Gravel Road" won song of the year in a songwriting competition. It's so good. Click here for her myspace. Look out Allison Krauss...

I have a secret to tell...shhh...

I'll tell you at the end what the secret is. 

But first, some images of our current (I'm blogging from a hotel in Okla.City) trip to Tyler, Texas. It's kind of a multi-purpose trip- connect with some alumni on way down, hook up with the 65 TSC students volunteering at Pine Cove, and family vacation.

Makai didn't have any problems that a little MickeyD's sundae couldn't solve...

The hotel jungle gym (aka: luggage cart) also helped.

They do get a little easier the older they get. Well at least age 7. I know someday there's always the possibility she'll be texting friends the whole way to Dallas. I love it that Ava LOVES to read. Props to Leatha for teaching her and Cameron how to read. Cam is also an avid reader.

Guess what this is?

 You got it.

The Anthem band led worship at a student ministry conference Friday/Saturday and these girls got all of our autographs. It's hard to keep myself from laughing as I'm signing my name. And these girls had (have) no idea I was getting their pic for my blog. Girls... don't lose those bags of yours, they're going to be a hot item on ebay someday...

One quick autograph story that cracked me up. Bryan, our bass player, had a sort of personal oath (that's strong, but nearly true) that he would never give an autograph in his life. Well, he caved.

He was seen right afterwards outside by the loading dock hanging his head in shame. Bobby was the one who saw him moping around outside in utter shame and disgrace. He said, "Mark, you would've thought Bryan had lost his virginity." Poor Bryan. He caved to some pre-teen girls who desperately wanted an autograph. 

I have no doubt that Bryan, now feeling himself in the same category as the Jonas Brothers, has had countless nightmares since Saturday.

So he signed the rest of his autographs with the fake name, "Bob Seether."

Below is a picture of Kent Julian, an old friend from Christ Com in Omaha, who was one of the speakers at this conference. Kent is brilliant when it comes to meta-trends. As one of the other speakers was up there throwing down the 'ol, "70% of students never come back to church after leaving high school youth group", Kent walks over to me, leans down and whispers, "It's not true. We've debunked that so many times in Group Magazine" (apparently a magazine he contributed to). He said it's more like 40%, which is still sad, but not as bleak as the oft repeated 7o-80% statistic. 

To be honest, the conference was a bit of culture shock for me. Very Bapt... nevermind.

(but it ends with ...ist)

On a serious note, God worked me over with conviction after Friday night. I had just taught on Romans 12:14-ff at TSC the night before, "Each of you should think of yourselves with sober judgment... do not be conceited"

Ouch.

I really left with a burden for this group of people. They love Jesus, but their approach to ________ is irrelevant. Insert whatever word you like... worship, evangelism... (I'm generalizing- not necessarily any one person or youth group, just my overall sense). One of our people went to the evangelism breakout session, which was mostly reinforcing the idea, "Go to the web and check out all of our great tracts. Order them, distribute them, get the name of Jesus out there."

By the way. If I see a tract on a bathroom stall, I usually throw it away.

I'm sure there's someone that got saved from one. But I'm also sure someone got saved because some prophet with a paint can graffitied John 3:16 on a railroad car. 

I always try to leave bathrooms cleaner than when I came in. "God, if I just kept a bunch of janitors from getting saved, please use another means, Lord."

Or another way to look at it is that I kept them from becoming atheists by getting bitter toward Christians for leaving their trash out.

Below: I've never been a huge fan of the mime acts

Below: A look from behind the sound board, as Brittany Lewin(?) is speaking. She was a 17 year old who ran a campaign for a state senator. She was mentioned in the "Do Hard Things" book.

Clint Robinson and I led a session on raising up the next generation of artists. One of my points was, "If you're raising money, for the love, don't use a thermometer. Thermometers are what happens when the teachers design, the leaders follow, and the artists... well... give themselves to secular work where they can actually pursue their potential. Let the artists create, the leaders lead, and the teachers teach."

One thing I love about Cornerstone is the creative control of Mike Despard. His fingerprint is all over Cstone. No committees need to decide what color the walls and carpet are going to be. There's just no reason that needs to fall on the agenda of any elder or church business meeting. 

Here's the positive example I gave. This is the artist's version of the fundraising thermometer. The huge mural is in black and white.

Each week gets a 3 inch section. Each section gets color according to where we're at for budget that week. So color means the mural is coming to life and shows the response of God's people, while black and white is the indication that we're not meeting our goal.

I shared some other stuff in the breakout. It was the usual- some insightful thoughts mixed with other things I regret saying. Par for the course.

Ready for the secret?

Cornerstone may or may not be Bapt...

Nevermind. 

Let's keep it a secret. At least I didn't tell you what kind we are. 

Oh, here's a related quiz question: Which Cornerstone pastor spoke at the Baptist Convention of Iowa and had two points to his message entitled, 'The two problems with Southern Baptists in Iowa"? 

Here's a hint: The two points to his message were, 

1. Southern... b/c we're not in the south

2. Baptist...b/c no one in Iowa wants to be Baptist

Here's the last hint about which pastor gave this rousing speech: His name starts with "T"

and ends with "Roy"

And he's the pastor who ripped his shirt off during one of his messages.

Okay, one more in case you still haven't guessed: It's not Jeff Dodge.

No more hints.

Which leads me to my final picture. Will this blog entry ever end? I was wondering the same thing...

Someone on staff is very proud of the fact that I got my picture in the Baptist Newspaper. This is a picture of me receiving a check from the Association. To be sure, it was a huge blessing. But I thought it was funny getting my picture in the paper. "Cutting edge news!!!!! College pastor receives check for ministry!!!" It's the same feeling as giving an autograph.

I've narrowed the people down who might've cut this out and put it on my name plate (typical of the shenanigans that happen in our office)... Mike Despard or someone from TSC staff. My first guess was Sabino but he said someone beat him to it...

Calvin (but not the theologian)

I can picture Beck doing this...

Dear Selection Committee

We know Creighton has no business being in the Big Dance. But please let them in anyway. Don't let their bubble burst. We know they got beat down by Illinois State in the MVC tourney, but everyone has bad days. 

We beg you, don't make them play in the NIT.

Sincerely,

Anyone who has ever lived in Omaha