Back to regular postings

Ok, now that life has calmed down a bit, I'm ready to get back into the habit of regular postings. Lots of really cool things have been happening in my life!

God is really working on my life skills right now. I finally finished the tentmaker's training program called the nehemiah institute. It focuses on ministry managment and such. Part of that training involved making plans of action. Setting a goal, and making it happen. Well, I'm going to be integrating that into my own life. I'm going to make plans of action for the following things

Keeping my house clean

Getting/staying healthy

Practicing the spiritual disciplines (bible reading, prayer, etc)

many POA's (plans of action) for my ministry as well

I've stopped rotating where I spend my office hours and will now only have one office. This is something I've wanted for a while, and a recent confrontation from my pastors helped make it happen. I wasn't being reprimanded, but they basically said I need to spend my time more efficiently. One reason this came up is because I've had a book on my to do list for a while. I could've read this book a long time ago, but haven't. So, we're making changes in the way I spend my time and I think it's for the best.

The youth group also has a new website! thesceneministry.com This is thanks in no small part to my new cousin in law (that's a real thing, right?) Jenifer Slaughbaugh. She's married to my cousin, Nick. She helped set up the framework, then trained me on how to upload my own content. I must say, that I really appreciated her help and the website looks great! It fullfills all the needs I had for a website and then some. Check it out!

I've also started a new diet. It's called ediets. Long story short is that they send me all the food I get to eat. If I eat only what they send me, I lose weight. I've already lost 10 pounds on it and I haven't even been holding to it as well as I could. Case in point, I went to this training seminar last week and couldn't follow it at there. I've also not been excercising due to my lingering cold. But I'm healed up now and primed to go for a long time eating healthy and working out. I hope to be much thinner by the summer

Hmm, what else has been going on? I've been pursing some females through eharmony. There is at least one that I will probably be meeting here pretty soon, once I get the nerve up. It's been nice to try eharmony, just cause I don't make the effort to go places where I can meet girls. I don't know though, I'm at the point where I'm enjoying learning how to take care of myself better. How can I take care of someone else if I can't take care of myself? It seems to me that God is grooming me to be a better groom. Ahh? you see what I did there? I made a pun!

I'm still loving my tempurpedic bed, but for some reason, I've been remembering all my dreams lately! It's a weird thing when you remember your dreams. The subconscience is a strange beast. My working threory is that my lingering sickness keeps me from breathing well at night, so I constantly wake up in the middle of the night and thus remember my dreams.

Also, I am totally buying the new ipad when it comes out this friday! Thank you God for sending people into my life to teach me how to manage money! Well, that's all for now. Stay tuned!

Thanksgiving break

Hey everyone, sorry I missed last week. I was in Nashville TN for the national youth workers conference. I was pretty busy during the conference, plus the hotel had junky internet access so I didn't update. I'll talk about NYWC then thanksgiving.

national youth workers convention was an excellent experience. I learned a ton, met up an old friend I hadn't seen in about 5 years, and honed my discernment skills. I also got to hear David Crowder live and I have to say that it was phenomenal! He is such a great performer, yet his music has strong theology behind it. I even heard that he was a calvinist. I have no evidence to prove this, so I'll just leave it with "I heard". There are many seminars that I could have gone to during this conference, but I focused on the intro to youth ministry stuff. I went to seminars like "how to minister to jr high girls" (cause we have a lot of them), "recruiting and empowering your volunteers" and other similar intro classes. I also was able to run into an old friend from my home town: Adam Coleman. He and I were good friends from 5th grade till 8th. We went to the same small christian school until high school. Adam decided to goto a public school, but I stayed in private school. After that, we only saw each other in youth group and didn't hang out much through high school. When we both went off to college, we were pretty distant. So at NYWC, I was talking with my old youth pastor, Pete Eicher, and Adam came up out of no where and completely surprised me. The thought hadn't even occurred to me that he might be at NYWC too. So, we went out to dinner with some other c-bus people. I found out that he too is in in youth ministry and is running the high school youth group for my old church, CCC. It was great to see him as I wanted to contact him once I got back to columbus anyway.

As for the content of NYWC, I had to wade through the sea of postmodernism to find the good teaching techniques. I am very much NOT postmodern, so I had to be discerning. My philosophy is to chew up the meat and spit out the bones. This manifest especially in a lunch conversation I had with the people I was staying with. Somehow, the topic of Joel Osteen came up and someone asked me what I thought. Well, I figured they wanted to know since they asked me, so I said "I think he's a false teacher preaching a false gospel." To which they immediately replies with "harsh". So then I tried to explain myself.

"There are certain beliefs that you MUST hold in order to be a christian. If you don't believe in salvation by grace through Jesus death on the cross, you are not a Christian and will goto hell."
To which they replied
"Well, that's according to your interpretation of the gospel"

I immediately realized I was in for a big argument, but they had already pulled me in. I explained that I was referring to the beliefs concerning Jesus death on the cross and his substituionary atonement, but they kept repeating that that was just my personal interpretation of the gospel. We went back and forth, but I distinctly remember telling them that they were on the slippery slope of relativism and blasphemy. They disagreed, obviously.

I'm gonna get theological on you now. I think (i'm not entirely sure) that these beliefs they held stemmed from their broad definition of the gospel. To them (and many speakers at NYWC), it seemed that their gospel definition included every aspect and belief within Christianity. So, in their mind, Jesus saying "go and preach the gospel" would take a VERY long amount of time, since they would lump all of the christian life in with the gospel. Let me explain. I believe the gospel AFFECTS all of the christian life, but the gospel is not complicated. It is Jesus died on the cross to bear your sins. If you believe that Jesus bore your sins on the cross, you are a Christian (the elect, for my fellow calvinists). Then, that fact changes every area of your life. But to my postmodern friends, the gospel is almost undefinable since they through in basically every belief and good work possible into the gospel. Thus, since no one could possibly agree on all the issues of things like baptism, the charismata, eschatology, and creationism, preaching the gospel is a vague, time consuming process. I felt outnumbered at that lunch conversation, but I said at once point "I will defend to the death the gospel of salvation by grace through Jesus death on the cross." It was intense and I was amazed that this sort of argument was coming from people who's job is to tell others about Jesus. When I said there was only one to the Father, their first response was "well, that's your interpretation". Yikes!


As for Thanksgiving break, it was a good time. Family and friends came over, which is nice. I bought some new clothes, since I've gained a lot of weight lately. I went off roading with some friends on my parents property, and got to shoot a pump action shotgun. I'll tell ya, you feel like a man when you shoot a pump action shotgun. I also found out that I am a pretty good shot.

I'm running out of things to talk about, so I'll sign off here. Hope I wasn't too theological for ya

Some controversial thoughts

So, I was recently thinking about being a pastor. I don't really want to be one right now, but I can see myself becoming one. One of the sermons I think I would want to preach is how to treat homosexuals. Now, I'm not going to try to set out and prove that homosexuality is wrong in this post. I think if you are able to read the Bible and find any other oppinion than "it's wrong" in there, you're reading with a bias. That being said, I have a homosexual friend. there is even a chance he will read this post and become angry. I hope not.

Anyway, I think what needs to be spoken to is how to treat homosexuals. Really, the most important thing to do is put things in perspective. First, a story, then a controversial statement. Let's make up a fictitious character named Bob. Bob is a convicted rapist. Did bob choose to do this thing? Technically, yes, he did. He decided to go out and rape someone. But, did Bob choose to feel this way? Cause something in Bob's head told him "something is not right/missing from your life. The only way to get that ellusive "thing you want" is to forcibly rape someone." Did Bob choose to become a rapist? With the exception of his very last choice to rape someone, he didn't choose it. The events in his life led to the point where he felt rape was the thing he needed/wanted. Is it wrong to rape? Yes. Did he choose to become a rapist? no.

Please note the distinction. No one chooses to fall into sin. I think it's due to the fact that our bodies are tainted by sin, so we naturally want to do what our body tells us. We don't have to choose cause it's the natural thing to do! A murder doesn't one day decide he's going to murder someone, the events in his life lead up to that point where he feels murder is needed/wanted. Does that make it ok to murder someone? NO! But we don't choose to do wrong, we're prewired to do wrong! No choice needs to be made, it just happens. And I assure you, I'm not arguing fatalism.

So, lets look at homosexuality. Lets make another fictitious person named Ted. Ted is gay and he affirms that he never chose to be gay. I agree, he didn't choose. The events in his life all added up to him feeling like being gay was needed/irresistible. Ted didn't choose to be gay any more than I set out to become a video game addict. The events of my life combined together with my sin nature to make the potential addiction a reality. Same with homosexuality. That being said, the fact that Ted did not choose to be gay does not make it ok. It just makes it difficult to fix. Thus, when dealing with a homosexual, I propose that we cast off our unchristian like stigma towards them and really look at the situation. We must treat them the same way we would if someone we knew was convicted of theft. How would you help someone work through their sin in the case of theft? Would you make signs that says "God hates thieves"? Whether or not God does hate thieves, I don't think that would accomplish the ministry of reconciliation. Or would you work with that person and try to help them understand why they feel the need to steal things and how God can help them overcome that problem? Obviously, the latter

So, we should treat homosexuals like we would someone stuck in sexual sin. Granted, the church is terrible at that too, but you catch my drift? I don't have a specific plan laid out as to how you'd go about working through the sin with a homosexual, but I know that we need to quit treating this like the unpardonable sin and actually label it a sin and move from there. Is not it better to help your friend leave their life of sin than condemn them all together? Drop the stigma! People in sexual sin need extra help, cause Paul says that's the only kind of sin that lives inside the body. Can't remember the reference, sorry.

Anyways, that is my stand on homosexuality. Yes, it's wrong, but we should reach out and try to help them, rather than shunning the non-believer. (Reference to candy mountain anyone?) What that looks like? I'm not sure, but it looks an awful lot like dealing with adultery, or dealing with lying, or dealing with murder, or dealing with dishonoring your parents, or....you get the idea. It is a sin, but we're treating like it's the black plague! Food for thought

Busy weekend

I've got a big weekend coming up. Tonight (friday), we're taking the Jr highers to a haunted corn maze. Tomorrow, we're taking an all day trip to kings island for fear fest. sunday, I have a big youth board meeting where I'll propose a massive change to the youth group!

Luckily, I'm getting better at planning events. I'm still terrible at the whole advertising part, but I'm getting a lot more confident working out the logistics, like drivers, times, cost, etc. We were originally going to take the Jr high with the sr high to fear fest, but the more I thought about it, the worse of an idea it sounded like. With sr high, it's fine to let them group up and split up. With jr high, you gotta watch em like a hawk. I mean, an amusement park is really easy to lose people at. there's also the age element. Some of the jr highers are 11 years old. Keeping them out till midnight+really scary stuff=bad news. Granted, I know some of them can handle it, but I also know some cannot. So, about two weeks before fear fest, we decided to take the jr highers to a haunted corn maze instead.

the more I learn about youth group, the more I find it's important to keep jr and sr high separate. That's the big change I'll be proposing at this youth board meeting on sunday. right now, jr and sr high have combines food and worship. It was a good place to start, but we need to spearate them for many reasons I don't feel like typing out now.

actually, I don't want to talk about work anymore. I'm sure you'd rather hear about my life and stuff. Well, I sold all my ferrets about a month or two ago and I really miss them. they were alot of fun, but they were also a hassle. It's that whole responsibility vs reward. to me, the reward of having the ferrets, which I loved, was not greater than the responsibility. I cleaned the carpet in their room, but it still stinks a little bit. I think I might get an ozone generator and just scrub it clean. I've got a bed for that room, but I want to get the couch out of there first. that couch is gonna smell for the rest of its life, so I need to get rid of it.

My new termpurpedic bed is everything I hoped it would be. you all NEED one. nuff said. also, I still don't have my tax return! The IRS sent me a letter about 2 weeks ago and I got excited cause I thought it was my return! It was a letter saying "we're looking at your information. Expect a reply within 30 days". Ok. Then yesterday, I got another letter from the IRS. I got excited cause I thought it was finally here! It was another letter saying "we're reviewing your information. Expect a reply within 30 days." Swear words! They basically just extended their 30 day period by 2 weeks! Oh well. Patience is a virtue, I guess.

I joined a gym and am averaging one day a week of working out. I'm ok with this. It's important not to set unrealistic expectations. so, i'll steadily work out 1 day a week, then creep up to two days a week. right now, I am swimming. I really like it, cause i've never actually swam for excercise before. It was always recreation. It also is a full body workout with no joint impact. Seems like a win/win for me. I go in the mornings when there are only old people there. It's kinda funny. A bunch of retired people and then me. They also have a sauna, which I am goign to use everytime. I know they burn alot of calories and they make you sweat. That will help keep the clorine out of my body, whatever that means.

Life is good and I'm not lonely!

Friday!

Man, this is like a new record for my blog posts. I kinda like updating on fridays. It's so hard to get work done at Minford church for reasons I will say again: slow internet, spotty cell reception, no one here ever, silly printer that doesn't work on my laptop (have to post docs to google docs, then print from its local computer).

Anyway, what should I talk about? How about 1 timothy 2? My biblestudy which still doesn't have a name studied it 2 weeks ago. That's the passage were Paul says "I suffer not a woman to teach, nor usurp authority over a man." This passage GREATLY frustrates me. The bible says God is not a God of confusion, but I beg to differ. Well, I take it back. I know the Bible is infallible and I am not, so TO ME, God seems confusing when He has Paul write this passage.

There seem to be two interpretations available for this passage:
1.) Cultural relevance
2.) Literal

Cultural relevance says that Paul was only referring to women of that time period, therefore, women can teach men today and have authority over them. Only one problem with that: the explanation that Paul uses goes back to creation! He talks about the curse, which doesn't go away until Jesus comes back. Please hurry Lord! So, if his argument comes from creation and the curse, which still exists today, then his application still applies. If his explanation had ANYTHING to do with culture, then maybe this view of the passage would be true. If Paul said something like, "Look, christian women are taking their christian liberties to dress like our local prostitutes. you shouldn't dress like prostitutes", I could totally buy into that. But he didn't. He referenced the everpresent curse on women. Don't be angry women, men have a curse on them too.

But the literal interpretation provides even more problems. If indeed, women are not supposed to teach or have authority over a man, that becomes impossible to carry out. Example: my relationship with my mom. She has authority over me. To a degree, she will always have some authority over me, a man. Is this contrary to what Paul wants?! In my mind, it could be argued yes. She is a woman and she has authority over me, a man. And if women are not allowed to teach, well we already have a shortage of teachers in america! Take out all the women and we have no educational system. We don't even have to talk about women pastors to see the dilemma here.

So, I get frustrated by that passage. The cultural interpretation disregards scripture by using extra biblical arguments while the literal interpretation is untenable. I guess I'll have to rethink my definition of what it means that God is not the author of confusion.


In non-biblical news, I still don't have my tax refund! however, I went ahead and bought that tempurpedic bed. I know what you're saying, "Alex! Don't spend money before you have it!" and I say "You're right. I didn't". I can afford to pay off this bed if my return never comes. Now, I'm hoping it does, but this bed has an 8 months no interest deal with it. So I have 8 months to pay it off. Once that's done, I'll be back to only one debt in my life: my mortgage. I kind of have a budget in mind that I've been secretly wanting to implement as soon as my return comes, but I should probably start using it now. Basically, I need to get my emergency fund back up to par, then i'll start blasting away at my mortgage. Do you guys think it's better to throw all my spare money at the mortgage, or save part of it and pay over a longer time? I'm leaning towards save and pay, but I also know that the sooner I pay off my house, the better. Maybe I'll go 75/25. 25% to save, 75% to house. I dunno. I think I'll just work that budget out now and make it happen. If you're lucky enough to be a family member, I'll show it to you if you like!

Look at me! Posting twice in a month!

hey everyone, I told you last time that I would update this blog every friday. Well, it's friday so here goes. Lemme tell you why I picked this day. I keep office hours every day except sunday and wednesday, 11-4pm. Yea, those are sweet hours, cause I can sleep in till 10am each day if I want. But we picked those so that I would be able to catch the students as they leave from school at 3pm. So, if I need to make any calls to students, I have office time to do that. Anyway, I'm also on a rotational system with my office hours. I goto sciotoville church on monday/saturday, wheelersburg on tuesday/thursday, and minford on friday. I don't ever goto south webster for office hours, since they have a very small church with a very small office...and no wi-fi+spotty cell reception. Just a reminder of the 4 churches I work for


Anyway, on fridays, I come to minford and the internet is slow, cell signal isn't great, and I NEVER see anyone here. So, I devote this time to things that don't need fast internet/cell signal/people, lol. I'm sure you'll all be much happier because of this.

And on the subject of Fridays, they no longer seem like days off. In fact, my Sabbath is now on Wednesday. It can't be on sunday, cause I work the hardest on sunday. I usually put in a 12 hour day every week. All total, I'm averaging a 40 hour work week, with wednesday as my sabbath. i fill out time sheets every week to let my pastors know what I do with my work time and I always refer to wednesday as my sabbath, not my day off. I think it's important to remember the sabbath, well for starters, because God says so in the 10 commandments, but also because our bodies need a day off every week or we get run down. So, wednesday is like my weekend. I kinda like it.

I've also been dealing with several personal problems. The least of which is me gaining weight. I've gained a lot of weight since I moved here. It's due to a combo of poor eating habits and lack of excercise. It's so bad, that only a few of my pants still fit, and none of them are long pants. they are all shorts! so, as things get colder, I either better lose some weight fast or buy new clothes. As much as I hate it, I'm gonna have to buy new clothes. I have joined a local health club, but am having trouble finding a good time I can goto it. The best is obviously in the morning. I could get up at 8, go workout and start my day right: devos and excercise. But despite my slick new tempurpedic bed, it is very tough for me to get up in the morning. I think the bed might be too comfortable, lol. But this health club (named the life center) has a nice pool and I'd like to start swimming for excercise. Low joint impact, multi-area workout, and good cardio. If only I could just wake up when I want...Actually, if you guys could, please pray for me in the area: waking up at 8am. That also involves going to bed earlier, which I've been doing almost great with. I usually get into bed right around midnight, but I play around on my iPad and end up not falling asleep till 1:30! So, I think in addition to praying for help with this, I will dedicate myself to not using the iPad in bed and actually trying to sleep at midnight. that would give me a solid potential 8hours of sleep. If that fails, I'll move my bedtime back to 11pm. but if I am able to wake up early, it would improve my life a lot, I think. I'd be able to read my bible steadily, work out consistently, and both those things will make all areas of my life better!

Now lets talk about ministry. First, the bad things. I HATE how hard it is to make things happen. Like, if I want to take the youthgroup to kings island, it's so bloody hard. First, getting all the logistics sqaured away is tough. Finding ticket prices, getting permission slips, drivers, advertising. Granted, most of it is my fault and my shortcomings, but it's so hard to make stuff happen at all. And if we don't do stuff, the students get bored and stop coming. Now, I don't want to say anything bad about the students cause I really like em all. Even the crazy ones! But they are so busy with their own lives, that youth group has to be awesome for them to come. I can totally relate as a former teenager, but this is obviously frustrating to me as a youth minister. In an ideal world, students would care more about learning about God than being entertained. But like I said, we've got some solid Christians in the youth group, both young and old, they are just uber busy. But then again, everyone tells me to expect it to take 2 years to form a somewhat normal youth ministry. I think we're on the right path.

I've also been thinking about the often heard "it's not about numbers" cliche. My theology greatly agrees with this. It's about their spiritual growth, which isn't measured in attendance. However...I also think that a strong Christian community is one that grows, both in service and faith. Both those areas cause new people to want to join the Christian community. So, in all honesty, I do believe that a "good" ministry aimed at Christians (rather than a food pantry for example) should naturally grow as members grow closer to God and reach out to others in faith and service. So, as controversial as it sounds, I think a good youth ministry is one that grows. It's the same as saying that a good christian should produce good works. It's the whole "real christianity naturally produces works" thing. Real christian growth in my students should

1.) Make them more open to God's truth/working
2.) More concerned about their peers' souls
3.) More likely to serve others

All those things make for a place where people hopefully want to be. I haven't fully developed this idea yet, but what do you all think? I mean, if people don't want to be a part of my youth ministry, doesn't that mean I'm doing something wrong? The 1st century church saw explosive growth, to the point at which some 5000+ people got saved after hearing one message. I'd call that a successful ministry, wouldn't you?

It's been a year...

So, it's been two months since my last entry. I am sorry, truly, but I can't promise I'll get any better at posting on here. I suppose I could make a dedicated day to update this thing. Ok, I think I'll update my blog every friday. That should make yall happy! It will also make me feel less guilty about it, lol

Ok, where to begin? I went to minesota again for some more training. I really enjoyed it. We went to a very remote camp near the great lake. There was no electricity except in the lodge. Our cabins had wood burning stoves, gas heaters, and oil lamps. It was fun. I also learned a whole lot. My first training session in the summer was based around my habits and skills. This training was more about youth pastoring and the specific things we run into. Very useful, practical, and enjoyable. Unfortunately, I didn't get to spend much time with my host family in minesota. Their names are Wayne and July and we became good friends the last time I stayed with them. However, this trip, I only stayed with them one night. So, that made me sad.

I've also officially become an apple fanboy. That means that I think they are pretty much the best computer/mobile company out there. My next computer purchase will be an apple. All I have to decide is if I will get a laptop or a desktop. All of this came from me buying an iphone. It came out right around my birthday and I had been really frustrated with my old phone. The old one could only send 10 texts at a time, and I had to manually select every name. There was no group support for mass texting. Combine that with the fact that I would text 35 students each week with the same message meant alot of work to do a little. Then I saw an iphone ad and got interested. I did research and kept liking what I saw. So, I bought one of the new iphones for my birthday and it's been one of the best investments I've ever made! The sheer quality of the iphone 4 blew me away. I could tell someone had really thought about all the angles to a smart phone. Anyway, it made me a fan, then I decided to buy an ipad. I must confess, I had no reason to buy one other than "i want one". But it has actually become incredibly useful in both my professional and personal life.

Here's where I rave about my ipad. First off, I use it in youth group. I put up a bible trivia question on the board and the first person who answers it gets to play with ipad. And I only let one person use it and jr high have to sit down while using it. They mostly just play the games I have on it, and there are alot of em. Tons of em are free, and the rest are just $1. So, you can fill it up with games for like $20. I also use the ipad as my bible. It's got a great Bible program on it, so I take my ipad to church and read my bible from it! It usually gets people talking just when they see it! And of course, I make sure not to use it for anything else during church. It also syncs up with google calendar. I can add an event on my phone, ipad, or computer and all of them get updated. It's really nice and helps me keep track of events. I can also add contacts to any of the three and the others get updated. For example, if I'm at church and I meet a new high schooler, I can add their name and phone number on my ipad. It then is automatically added to my phone and stored online with gmail. Very slick.

I also bought a tempurpedic bed. This has always been a long time goal of mine and it was well worth it. You might be asking, "alex, how can you afford all this stuff on a youth pastor's salary?" Well, God has truly blessed me financially. Thanks to my parents, I have no college debt, which I think is a huge part. I also have no car loans or anything. The only loan I have is the one on my house. So, combine that, with the ability to save money towards something=ability to buy things you want. I am also continuing to save money, including an emergency fund. I also have my huge tax return coming soon. Hopefully, I finally gave the IRS what they need to verify that I live in my house. Sheesh. Anyway, once that tax return comes, I'll use it to finish my emergency fund, then split my money between saving and paying off my mortgage. Like I said, God has blessed me greatly, especially by teaching me about handling money from people like my dad and uncle brad. Thanks guys!

Ok, if i'm going to update this thing once a week, I better not tell you everything in one post! So, enjoy. Also, i've lived in ohio 1 year!