Busiest month of my life

So like the title says, I just came away from the busiest 4 weeks in my life. It all started with Ichthus, which I already wrote about. Ichthus was fun, loud, and hot. I got to spend some great time with the youth. the only problem is that we weren't able to have youth group for several weeks after ichthus. So, any clout I gained from Ichthus was lost. In fact, we didn't have youth group again until july 11th, and we had 3 high schoolers show up :-( I'm amazed how missing a few weeks makes everything just fall apart. I've seen it happen at every holiday. We don't meet for a week or two and several youth stop attending. But then again, I've heard multiple people say that we never used to have youth group in the summer, so I think I just need to hold on till school starts again. Either way, the youth are hearing strong teaching from me and the games we play arn't half bad.

So after ichthus, I worked at a music day camp at a large church down the road. The church isn't in our co-op, but it's the same denomination and we have lots of ties to them. The camp was fun and I taught a bunch of 4th-6th graders how to play amazing grace on the guitar. It was a challenge, since I'd never done group teaching, just one on one teaching. I think it went ok. That lasted till through the week and then we left for bible camp. It was a camp where multiple united methoidst churches joined us. We had a blast and I made some new friends in those churches. During that same week, I had to drive back home each day and help do vbs for my sciotoville church. It was a rough week, cause it's an hour long drive through some really hilly roads. So, my typical day looked like this during that week.

7:00am: Wake up and start doing camp! (This was a highschool/jr high camp by the way)
4:00pm: Drive back home
5:00p: take care of ferrets
6:00: teach vbs to rowdy elementary kids
8:30: Drive back
1:00am goto bed

So, lots of sleep deprivation, high energy activities, and loud mouth kids (some elemntary aged, some in high school! :-) I wrote up my time logs for that week and discovered that I worked 75 hours! Needless to say, I got sick after camp ended.

Then, the next week, I helped teach vbs at the new church in our co-op: Minford. They officially have joined us and this was an opportunity to get involved with their adults and youth. I taught the 6th grade class and met a bunch of em from that church. I also had to resume my normal duties that week. So planning youth group, events, etc.

Then, that brings us up to this week. I'm exuasted, not sleeping well, and eating horribly. I've been so busy in the last 4 weeks, I've gotten into the rut of eating fast food. This is not a good thing and I need to break the cycle. I've been remembering my dreams alot, which means that I am not completing my rem cycles properly. Oh yea, I also helped out in the kitchen for a girls Chrysalis flight. For those of you who don't know what that is, please google it. I'm too lazy to explain it. I had to wake up at 5:40am on saturday and monday to do this. Yuck. But, something really good came out of it. I made two new friends who are my age! I'd been praying for some for a while now, and I assume that others might have been asking God for this too. These two GUYS are in their mid 20s and both seem to be solid Christians. One is a msucian like me who volunteers in his church's youth group while the other is a techie. Go figure that my two new friends would have two huge areas in common with me. So, this is good! Also, one of em is a fan of the TV show "House", so he's gonna come over and watch with me when the season starts back up.

Oh yea, I also got HD cable. I bought a tivo and upgraded. Sorry dad, I abandoned mythtv. (http://www.mythtv.org/detail/mythtv if you have no idea what mythtv is) I also bought one of those new iphones. It's the coolest thing I've ever seen and is really useful to me. I can communicate WAY better with my youthgroup. I've not even had it a week and can't remember not having it. Wow

Also, I still have all my ferrets. I'm trying to get rid of all but two of them and might have someone who can take them. However, I'm working through an intermediary at one of my churches, so it's moving slowly. I'm still trying to figure out which ones to keep. I know I definitely want to keep george. He has the best personality, doesn't bite, doesn't do anything annoying, and ALWAYS poops in the litter box. The others aren't so easy to decide.

Garret: hits the litter box most times, but not always. He has an obbsession with pockets. He bites them and pulls stuff out of em. It's cute, but annoying. He's bitten holes in the bottoms of my pockets.

Gracie: Worst pooper of them all. I think she's either ornry or actually really stupid. She pretty much NEVER hits the litter box. She has a neat personality. Pretty mellow and she's a climber.

Sir Gregory: Best pooper of them all. I've never seen him miss. However, he is agressive. Sometimes, he starts licking me. He will usually scratch me while he licks (which I guess is a sign of affection?) and then proceeds to bite me. I've gotten to the point where I know it's coming and don't let it happen, but that's his major flaw. He also is a big fat chicken. He's scared of everything. If I move too fast, he winces. This is strange, since I am very nice to him and bought him from the pet store. I dunno

Lucy: pretty bad at pooping in the litter box, but she is still young. I like her personality alot. She lets me hold her, which none of the other ferrets do. She is cute and energetic. She often starts the whole group doing the weasel wardance (google it!) and is fun.

I definitely will keep george. But who will be the second one? I'm leaning towards lucy, but wonder if she will ever be fully potty trained. I could keep sir gregory instead, but he has that nasty lick/scratch/bite combo. I dunno.



Other than all that, I hung out with some unbeliever guys my age yesterday. They swore a good amount and talked about some pretty raunchy things. As I left, I smiled cause I could tell that God has worked powerfully in my life. I am VERY different than those guys in a good way. That was meaningful to me because I don't have one of those "bottoming out in sin" testimonies. I've just steadily grown closer to God my whole life. To see the marked difference between myself and them boosted my faith, I suppose. Anyway, I've written a whole bunch now. Enjoy!

survived Ichthus

So, i've slipped into posting every month. sorry it's not more frequent. alot of stuff has happened since I last wrote.

The youth group went to Ichthus. It's a large christian music festival. We camped out in a farmers field with about 15,000 other people. There were dozens of concerts, some by big name bands like toby mac, newsboys, and skillet. The concerts were like all other rock concerts: loud, too much bass, and indistinguishable lyrics. It was also extremely hot. One day was about 100 degrees with no clouds. But I knew going into it that I wasn't going for the music, I went for the fellowship and it was good. I got to hobknob with other youth pastors and got some good resources that I will use for later.

I also decided I am goign to reduce my number of ferrets. see, I now have 5 of em, and the short story is that they stink. the long story is that I don't smell them, but all my guests do and I'm going to try cutting down to two of em, and possibly none of them if the smell isn't removable. I really love them and they keep me company. I hate to see em go.

We also have a fourth church joining our co-op! It's cool, because we didn't push for them to join, it just came together. Their youth haven't joined our youth group, but it should be happening within a week or two. Their pastor has done youth ministry before and I can tell he has a lot of good ideas.

I also bought a new laptop. My old one was failing. I think it's sad, really. It's only 5 years old, but it keeps getting worse and worse. I tried to install linux on this lappy, but there was some hardware incompatibility. So I begrudgingly returned to windows 7. It's pretty slick though, it's got a fingerprint scanner. But the coolest part is that the screen is humongous. It's 18.7 inches wide. It's a monster.

well, I'm watching a tv show at the moment and the season finale/climax is about to happen. So, I'll update you guys later

Changes

So I've been back from training 1 week now and have a lot of changes I want to make. I learned a whole lot at this seminar and found everything very useful/practical. One of the best things I took away from it was the book How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. It doesn't claim to be a christian book, but the conversational and communication methods taught in the book seem exactly like what Jesus talked about: considering others better than you, using affirmative words (being nice), actually listening, etc. I think every human being should read this book. If we all read it and tried to implement its methods, the world would be a much nicer place.

The training basically taught me lost of the stuff I didn't learn in college because I majored in Bible. See, I could have majored in Christian education and learned all kinds of teaching techniques and leadership skills. Instead, I choose to learn the complex, theological material. I studied the Bible instead of teaching. So, this training is greatly filling in the gaps. Some other changes I've recently made to my job are office hours. These are already helping me get more stuff done. In fact, I've made an entire database (using openoffice base) from scratch. I'm going to use this to keep track of information I need to remember about the students, like which sports they play, their attendance, and the topic of our previous conversation (another thing I learned at training). I'm also forming two leadership teams: one made up of students, the other of adults. These teams will help me run youth group, make decisions, and give me feedback. They will basically be like my cabinet, if I was president of the youth group.

However, my home life skills are still lacking. I still can't cook well at all, laundry piles up, and my house is almost always messy. Oh, and don't get me started on my ugly yard. I just bought a weedwacker and weed killer today. However, my ferrets are keeping me great company!

Other things of note include a large tax rebate coming in the mail soon. Since I bought a house, I'm getting a very large check, in fact, it's more money that I made in all of 2009! (I only worked 2 months in 2009). God continues to bless me with more money than I need, so I'm saving alot of it.

Anyway, things are on the up and up at work. Now if only I could do the same at home! Then maybe, I'd consider looking for a wife :-)

Training

So, I'm at an airport right now, getting ready to fly off to glorious Minnesota! I'm going to a week long training session about ministry. I'm not sure if it's a youth ministry seminar, or just ministry in general. I'll be stay with a host family, which is always fun. Sometimes, host families are awesome and fun to hang out with, other times, they have big dog childs whom they fight over. (I'm referring to a band tour trip we took once. Dmoore, you should remember this.) As I sit here near the gate, I'm trying to figure out who here might be going to the same minstry training. I see some definites, but also questions. For example, there is an older guy with a goatee (a dead give away for youth minstry!) who is wearing chucks and sipping a starbucks, looking bored like a teenager. He's leaning his head on his hand, which is on the arm rest. I think he's a youth pastor, or at least in minstry of some kind.

Then there's a hippie guy who is covered in tatoos. I didn't see the tatoos, but he could be one of those hip youth pastors. Or, he could just be a rebelious dude who happens to be going to Minnesota. I'd probably rebel if I lived in Minnesota. Anyway, the pastors have recently changed my job, and I feel for the better. They're going to have me fill out some daily time logs and break down how I spend my time. There are 6 categories of minstry they want me to work in, and after I've done the logs for a few weeks, we'll see where I'm falling short and change accordingly. Also, we're establishing office hours, which I'm all for. That means I'll have time each day where I can dedicate to working on youth ministry stuff, rather than "just get it done before sunday".

Also, I've been trying to loose weight. I'm right at the point of becoming fat and need to do something. I tried p90x and it worked well, I just always had something that forced me to stop for a week (like this trip I'm going on). Once you stop a workout, it's tough to start back up. Then I tried the p90x diet. It was rediculously hard for me to cook and prepare. Currently, I'm trying nutrisystem. The food is pretty OK. It's not good, it's just ok. Also, there is apparently alot of protein in the diet and... well, just look up what happens to people when they have too much protein in their diet.

Also, there is stereo crying going on right now. A kid to the left and right just crying like someone killed their mom.

Also, I miss my ferrets already.

Bad blogger!

Hi everyone, sorry it's taken so long to update. I could have sworn that I did another post mid febuary, but it looks like it didn't take. So, what new in the world of Alex?

I now have 4 ferrets! Garrett, Gracie, Sir Gregory, and George. They are a lot of fun and not very hard to take care of. I bought sir Gregory in Indiana and drove him back here. It was an interesting trip, since he escaped in the car! I was driving down the interstate and he was scratching at the flimsy paper box the pet store game me. Pretty soon, I saw him pop out. we looked at each other, then he ran away onto the floor. (There's not a lot of space in my car to begin with). So, I pulled overand tried to repair the box. No luck. I ended up dumping all my clothes out of my laundry basket and putting him in it. Only problem was that he could climb out of it! It was a funny situation, but we made it back and he started getting along with the other two very quickly. The 4rth one, George, was little a funny little fuzball that I bought here.

I've also been playing lead guitar/singing in the praise band. I'm not that good of a singer, but I know I have potential. I think about singing the same way I do of learning a new instrument. What stinks though is that I am painfully aware of when I mess up and sound bad, since I know alot about music. But it's going well and I've got a some great band members with me. Particularly, the other singer really knows his stuff, so I don't have to help him at all, he just picks it up and can do harmony easily. We also bought a macbook and projector for the youth group. Right now we're using them for song lyrics, but we'll expand into other uses, like movie nights and youth messages.

the other big news is that I'm engaged! Her name is ...I'm just kidding! I'm still single and loving it. You'd be amazed at the number of people of who want to introduce me to some single lady they know. Grandmas especially! And actually, I kind of don't want a girlfriend right now. I've got some stuff I want to sort out in my life first before I dive into that stuff.

Oh, and I gave my first sermon last week! The logistics of the whole thing were harder to figure out than the actual content of the message. The topic was on overcoming fear and what greater spiritual fear is there in the church than witnessing? So, my sermon was very heavy on how to evangelize and especially, how to overcome the fear of evangelism. My 3 main points came down to

1.) Remain heavenly minded
2.) Seek out the promises of God in the Scriptures
3.) Remember the promises of God

I had a lot of people come up to me and say they enjoyed the sermon. I felt like I got into a zone, I guess you could say I was led by the Spirit. But the people heard the gospel, they heard a powerful argument for why we should evangelize, and they heard about the weapons that God has given us in the battle for the lost. I wish I could have recorded it, but there were too many other things to worry about.

Ok, that's a little bit for yall to think about. I've got more to say, but I gotta go.

Clever Title

Wow guys, it's almost been a month since my last entry. Sorry about that! I'm sitting here watching my favorite show: America's Funniest Home Videos. I've learned so much from this show. Multiple times, I've said to my dad, "Dad, we shouldn't do this! AFV!" And dad knows exactly what I mean. I'm so glad he and I have that common bond. Speaking of Dad, he should be going in for surgery in a few hours. He has prostate cancer. This is the third time he's had cancer. He's obviously beaten cancer twice before, but this is the third time. So, here's a little medical history.

My Grandpa died of cancer
My grandma died of cancer
My dad has had cancer thrice

You don't need to be a medical doctor to know that I have a very high chance of getting cancer in my lifetime. I also haven't told anyone that my dad has cancer again. I think it's a combination of several feelings.
1.) Asking for prayer insinuates he might not be ok in the end
2.) I don't want people's pity
3.) I don't want to think about it
4.) I trust God

My theological ideas are at war with this issue. I know that God doesn't owe anyone anything, but I also trust that God will take care of me (and everyone around me). But I also know that Jesus and God want us to pray, yet I also know that God knows everything we need before we even ask it. In short, I know all things work together for those that God and are called according to His will. Even if my dad dies, I don't think I would be too upset. That sounds harsh, but it's because I know my dad is a Christian. With all the other deaths in my family, as far as I've known, they haven't been christians. If my dad were to die, and it's weird to say that, he would be the first christian I've been close to. Of course, I'd miss him, but it would be a totally different experience.

But all this talk is depressing, since the last time I saw him, he looked fine. He also said he felt fine. furthermore, this type of cancer is the safest kind to get and it was caught way early. So, I got you all worried, then relived you.


Now totally changing the subject, I've been playing lead guitar and singing lead for a few weeks now. I am well aware that I am not that great of a singer, but I do consider myself a good musician. Well, I'm ok when I play guitar without singing, but I am discovering the difficulty of strumming and singing at the same time. I know I'll get better, but it's frustrating at the moment. I know what sounds good musically and on some of these song I'm singing, I struggle. Whether it's the range of the song or the rhythm, it's like I'm learning a new instrument all over again. But for those of you that know, I tend to pick up new instruments pretty quickly. I do have alot to talk about, but it's late. Sorry for the long delay. I'm gonna post some new videos.

Christmas time... a little late

Christmas was a pretty busy time, complete with more than 12 hours of driving, a few bruises, and a visit from a college friend. I went home to indiana for Christmas and that was great. I saw only my mom's side of the family, as most of my dad's was out of town for the holiday. The only thing I asked for for Christmas was skiing clothes. I got them, just in time for the ski trip right after christmas with the youth group. This was the first Christmas in the parents new house and it was all right. It felt different, but not bad. I also received quite a bit of money from my grandparents and dad. That money was used to buy a nice new guitar (which I keep having to use for youth group) and a new dishswasher and garbage disposal! I'm really excited about the garbabge disposal because there is great conflict when you don't have one. You know, if you have a bowl of cereal you're done with, you don't wanna pour it straight into the trash, cause it might leak. But you also can't put it down the drain cause it will clog it, then you have to fish out the cereal flakes with your hand and throw those away. Also, my dishwasher is pretty old and decrepit, so it will be nice to get a new one. It doesn't clean very well either.

So, after an 8 hour drive roundtrip, I returned to ohio and got ready for the ski trip. Sean West came over and went on the trip with us, which was fun. He's a good skiier and I'm just ok. I also got stuck teaching the first timers how to ski, but that was fine. I knew the basics enough to teach them and one of em made it all the way to a blue square difficulty in only two days! Not bad, but it was probably more his part than mine. I introduced the ski trip participants to two games I probably shouldn't have: the pushup game and the blow dart game. Both are played all the time and have publicly humiliating consequences. If you lose the pushup game, you have to immediatley do 10 push ups, no matter where you are. Then, if you lose the blow dart game, you have to collaspe wherever you are, like you've been hit with a poison blow dart, and wait for someone to touch you to revive you. We played it everywhere, including the slopes. I didn't do any pushups, but I got darted alot and the youth loved it darting me. Now I have to stay on my guard, since the gamse never end.

So right now, I'm waiting for the guy from lowes to come and inspect my house to see what he needs for installing my dishwash/disposal. After he gets here, I'm going back to bed.