5TH GRADE PROMOTION

Today was the promotion from 5th grade for our oldest son, TJ. I hate graduation ceremonies and even skipped my own college grad ceremony, but I will say this one was nice. The things that were said were genuine and not drawn out. The teachers and our principal seem to genuinely love these kids and their jobs. It was cool to see our son finish this season of his life well.

During the promotion, TJ was given 3 things that were unique to our son:

1. He received the student of the year award that he received from the Mason's about a month ago, but this time in front of his peers. That was sweet.



2. He received a gold award from the state for getting an A- or better GPA in 4th and 5th grade and scoring at least in the 85th percentile on a state test in either math or reading comprehension. So proud of him. I didn't know this was coming.
   



3. He was given a chance to share with the parents and students that he had made good on his campaign promise to help his school turn their trash into cash as a school treasurer. This year, every day TJ went first to the janitor's closet to take out the recycling cans and put them in the lunch area before going to class. Then every day, before going home he'd return them to the janitor's closet. Then every Friday Shannon brought home the recycling from a week of school with TJ. It then went to the bed of my truck and then to the recycling center with he and I and occasionally the rest of the fam too. In all, TJ recycled $200 out of the trash. He gave the school a new microphone and all 600 kids got a "ice cream push up" for dessert on campus one day. So proud of him.

Afterwards, we were all going to lunch to celebrate and TJ wanted seafood. We eventually decided on Joe's Crab Shack in Pacific Beach. He and I shared a big ol steam pot of shrimp and crab and such.

We then capped the day off by doing the last bit of recycling= another $27 for the school and $108 we had collected through our church for Uganda this summer.

Here's a pic I snapped of our boys at lunch. If you look close you can see that jake's hand is on TJ's shoulder. I love these 3 boys. I love it even more when the "brothers" look out for each other. I hope and pray they grow up to be the good friends they are now.



Here's a collage of TJ's day. (Bottom far right is TJ with the principal, Mrs. Kehoe. Next one in is TJ with his 5th grade teacher, Ms. Yamaguchi) Oh.. and I'm the balding dad- my hair is leaving me rapidly these days. I'm gonna shave it all off soon.

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SPORTS CONFESSION AND KOBE FEVER

When I was in college, Michael Jordan was like Jesus with a basketball. Dude could fly, walk on water, and do no wrong it seemed. Kobe seems to me to be the Jordan of today.

I say this out of a lot of sports ignorance- something that has increased greatly since leaving college. Today, I follow pretty much no sports and have virtually lost all interest in being a sports fan cuz I suck so bad at following them. I know hardly anyone's name and very little about stats. I have a hard enough time memorizing the names and life stats of the students in my ministry, much less those of famous athletes I'll never meet. My brain is just too stupid to keep it all sorted out and I feel guilty trying.

That being confessed, I still love to watch and attend and play most sports. I coach and play soccer. I love football season- especially monday nights. I was super bummed that Big Brown didn't win the triple crown, something I would love to witness a horse do someday. I can't wait for the summer olympics. I enjoy a good baseball game- even if only for an excuse to buy a stupidly expensive hotdog and sit in the stands with friends. I want to go to a nascar race someday. I'd really like to do one of those see how fast you can drive and spin a car around race car driving classes. I think that would be a huge rush.... I could go on.

But the inspiration of this post is Kobe- the crown jewel of the LA Lakers from what I can tell in my brief stint of following loosely the NBA finals.

Well a friend of mine has a college ministry blog and he posted this video of Kobe off of his website. Oh it's crazy and I've watched it like 20 times. I still can't figure out if it's real. I'm officially duped.

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TILLMAN IS MY HERO

My dad sent me a link to a video about a dog. I did some research on this bulldog named Tillman. Dude has his own website.

Here's why:




My dog is officially lame. Tillman is King.

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TESTING RANT

Ok.... so while I'm waiting for my seminary final, here's the pre-test conversation while our prof was out of the room.

This is way too much to memorize.

Yeah, it never actually sticks for me.

I used to be able to memorize stuff when I was young, but not so much anymore.

Well, it ain't working for me. (from a young guy)

I just flip through the test first looking for the questions I just barely know and right down all those answers first. Then the information can fly away and I'm ok.

Yeah me too.

Truth be told, if I took this same test I just took next week without cramming again for an hour, I'd fail it. When is someone going to figure out this system is broken. Regurgitating 4 points that so and so made in a book is stupid. That's why he wrote the book. What do I need it memorized for and isn't there a better way to test for understanding than jeopardy style quizzing?

I really didn't want my seminary degree to represent plug and chug making it through a system so I could say I did it. I hate that I'm giving up one night a week to listen to my profs read their notes or power point to me so that several weeks later, I can rewrite their power point from memory- only to forget it days or weeks from the time I took the test.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I do get more out of seminary than this rant expresses, but I'm tired and hate the testing methods of learnings so tightly tied to my job, my soul, and the God I'm trying to love and serve with my life.

Good thing I don't have to take another class until September.

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SOAK CITY GRADUATION

I have been ridiculously slammed these last few weeks. So I haven't had the time to post several things I've wanted to. Like 8 days ago I took the day and spent it with TJ and all the 5th grade students from his school at soak city.

I love this picture. Pure fun.


I was super glad I went. I drove there in my own car so we could leave whenever we wanted. I tried to find us a starbucks on the way home and got totally lost. I told TJ it was kinda fun. He thought I was nuts. Eventually we got home. Fun day with my oldest. My kids grow up too fast dang it.

Here's a collage I made of our day.

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WRITING ALL NIGHTER

Pulled my first all nighter in a long time last night. Got to church at 8am and didn't leave till 5 am the next day.

I had told Shannon that I would be a bad Dad and a lousy husband for 2 days because I had to fully immerse myself in being a seminary student for 2 days. This wasn't a bad week to say that since we're going away for our anniversary for thursday, friday, and saturday and since I'm taking most- if not all of Wednesday- off to hang do graduation stuff with TJ as he leaves the 5th grade and heads to middle school.

Anyway, I had to stay up all night to finish the first seminary project in 3 years that actually has direct application to my youth ministry. My Evangelism/Discipleship seminary professor is a church planter of a local church in our area and as a result, pastors think different than professors. I'm convinced of that much. So my class project was allowed to be tailored to the audience I work with and allowed to be directly ready to use, not a research project I'd have to assimilate later. WOW... NOVEL THOUGHT!!!

I better stop or I'll go off on a rant here. I have serious opinions about the greco-roman-european-postmodern-learning system I find my self stuck in... but that's another post with a lot of swear words...

So, despite the fact that I'm turning my project in late, it's done. Here's what it is:

A 6 week bible study and work book for students in our ministry. We are launching it in the fall of this next year in our small groups an in a parallel weekend series I'm writing called, "Everybody Matters". Here's how the 6 weeks break down:

• EVANGELISM 101- understanding God's heart for those far from God.
• BECOMING THE REAL DEAL- living an authentic life of a follower of Jesus before a watching world
• IDENTIFYING AND UTILIZING YOUR UNIQUENESS FOR GOD- examining different personality and spiritual gifts in light of the goal of evangelism.
• EMBRACING THE PROCESS- being faithful to the long haul of evangelism
• THE ART OF SHARING YOUR OWN STORY- harnessing the evangelical power of a changed life.
• UNDERSTANDING THE GOSPEL MESSAGE- clearly communicating God's story to those far from God.
  

So, I think I'm going to try and kill 3 birds with this one stone.

1. I'm going to give it to my prof for class credit.
   
2. I'm going to use it for my own ministry in the fall.
   
3. I'm going to see if Simply wants to use it as a small group curriculum.

I really hope all 3 work sweet!!!

Speaking of Simply, I also finished another bible study last week, which is why this seminary project is so late. That fact and graduations and about a million other things. Anyway, last week I tweaked a bible study I wrote for new believers back in my early days of youth ministry. (I think I was like 23) It took me a long time to tweak it, because I lost one of the chapters on my computer and because I've changed. So some of the stuff I wrote before I no longer believe. Ha!!!

Anyway, it was fun to do- minus the time crunch. It's really more of a survey of the Bible on 5 critical components for a follower of Jesus. I'm going to use it in our ministry as a class we're offering for new believers/students who want to reestablish the basics 2x a year over a 2 Sunday afternoon period. I used to call it "Foundations", but I retitled this series, "The Essence".

Here's how it breaks down.

• What is a Christian and why should I be one?
• What is the Bible and why should I read it?
• What is prayer and why should I practice it?
• What is the church and why should I get involved in it?
• What is evangelism and why should I do it?

I'll post here when the series goes live at Simply. But I'm guessing that won't happen for several months.

OK... I now have to go cram for my greco-roman-european-postmodern-learning system regurgitation of memorized trivia for my seminary final in 5 hours.

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