Currently listening to The Hives – Hate to Say I Told You So. It’s got a good punk rock feel to it.
Bush to undergo colonoscopy….otherwise known as TOO MUCH INFORMATION. There is no reason why we needed to hear about his colonoscopy. He could have told us he is having some tests run. Nope, we had to hear every morbid detail of this proceedure.

Let all things be done decently and in order.
I Corinthians 14:40

Today’s VBS was bordering on mass chaos during the closing assembly. Kids shouted (not sung) words to the songs which many of them probably didn’t know what the words to the songs meant. We’re told by elders not to clap after baptisms, yet it is perfectly ok to clap throughout VBS songs. This sends mixed signals to kids. Somebody please take a stand on it.
If Mt. Juliet’s summer camp is going to be anything like VBS, then I want no part of it.

My life can’t be that interesting that you HAVE to read this EVERYDAY. Move along. Nothing to see here.
Sometimes I feel like I’m being pulled into 10 different directions. It’s been quite taxing at church tonight. We had 3 different things using 3 different forms of media (computer, overhead, and VCR) on the big screen tonight. By some act of God we were able to pull it off without a hitch tonight. Somehow I’ve become known as the computer guy at church. Everyone runs to me when they want to put stuff on the screen. They had some special presentations tonight since tonight was “open house” for VBS. They showed a video of a puppet show. It would have been better if you could understand what the puppets were saying. But there we sat, looking at the VBS equivalent of the emperor’s new clothes. No one bothering to say that you couldn’t understand a word that sheep was saying.
Ever notice how all rules seem to be bent or broken at VBS? Case in point – clapping during worship. During all other times clapping is sorta forbidden. But during VBS it is encouraged. “I’m in the Lord’s Army….” “Wise Man Built His House…..” These songs are all sung during VBS and have clapping that go along with them. Seems like a double standard. Either clapping is wrong all the time or it is right at any time.

Well I figured I’d better post something positive because the previous posts have been nothing but negative. I don’t want to come across as a negative person.
Looks like I’m going to be a 4th grade teacher on Wednesday nights at church. One of the other teachers is getting married soon and will be going to a different church. So they needed a co-teacher. I volunteered mostly because I don’t have a class to go to on Wednesday nights. So what better way to contribute than to teach the little kids. I’ve sat in on the class a couple of times. Seems like a good age. They actually won’t be rude to you and seem interested in learning. We’ll see how I like it after a few weeks.
It is really good to have friends. Some friends I’ve only known for one week at camp. Yet I keep in touch with them throughout the year.

Lately this weblog has turned into raw thoughts and feelings. It has grown since its early days of September 2001 where I’d post maybe one sentence every few days. Now it seems like I’m writing paragraphs everyday, sometimes twice a day.
You might have to excuse that last post. I was very frustrated when I wrote it. I guess I need to send out some kind of notice to all the deacons at church. Something to the effect of “Do not wait until the last minute to spring something huge on the audio visual staff.” I don’t think I would be as upset if it didn’t happen too often. The thing is that it happens all the time. Whenever there’s a special missions or other visual presentation, the audio visual workers are never notified of any type of special presentation which might require reworking on our computer.
Also out of those 150 of so pictures, only about 50 were worthy of showing on the screen. The others were less than spectacular….ie the back of people’s heads, blurry pictures, similiar pictures already shown, etc…. Sounds like someone needs to learn how to take pictures.
Remember that Barren County Camp I went to in the Summer of 2000? Well, they’re having their camp again this year. Needless to say I won’t be visiting it for one night like I did last summer. I don’t feel a need to ruin my summer again with bad memories. When I was there for a whole week during the summer of 2000, I was treated like a 2nd class citizen. Never really considered a full staff member. Some of those people are stuck in their own little world….not oblivious to the attitudes expressed with their actions and facial expressions. I see how they treat visitors and I don’t like it. True, there were a handful of people there who I cared about. But mostly it was just a bunch of stuck up people in their own little pathetic world where the center of the universe is Glasgow, Kentucky. Good riddance.
Our youth minister Phil has come up with a theme for Mt. Juliet’s summer camp. It’s Camp Stratiotes. I don’t even know how to pronouce it. Comes from some type of Greek translations of soldier. Methinks it will take the entire week to learn how to pronouce it properly.
This got me thinking today. Baptism is very much a personal decision. If it were upto me, I’d have everyone at camp down at the creek first thing Sunday afternoon and have a mass baptism just to get things taken care of. We’d even baptize those who were already Christians just to be sure. But it doesn’t really work like that. It’s all personal. I have to wait for people to come to me about it. Some people never will. It’s just that I have to accept.

Several things happened tonight at church that got me extremely frustrated. I help out with the audio visual system at church. At church we seem to have people that think we can do something “on the fly” without previous testing of the system. This is what happened tonight. They wanted to show about 150 different pictures on the screen. The only problem was that the program we were using had not been tested previously on the computer system. We did not know they wanted to show these pictures until 15 minutes before services started. We were not able to view them correctly. So everyone probably thought I was stupid because I was not able to get the pictures up on the screen in time for the service. PEOPLE, PLEASE PLAN AHEAD!!!! Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part.
I also got asked if I was going to be helping out at VBS this week. Some people don’t seem to understand that I do have to earn money. Church is not my entire life. I don’t like being asked to do things at the last minute….ie the Sunday night before VBS starts.

I can’t sleep.
Earlier I made a statement about wanting to quit my job and becoming a youth minister. I’ve received some feedback about it and wanted to clarify my position. In an ideal situation youth ministry would be an ideal job. However in today’s society I don’t feel as though it is practical….ie the pay just isn’t there. I usually come back from camp in some type of dreamland wanting to save the world. Now I know that it just can’t be done. What can I do? Keep doing what I have been doing. Counselor at camps. Devotional speaker at retreats. Most of all it just means being a friend to young people. That’s all camp is. It means building friendships over a week’s time. The more friendship one has at a church, the less likely the person will be to leave it later on in life.
There is a big plywood mountain in front of my church. It was built to promote this week’s Vacation Bible School….”Climb Faith Mountain.” Obviously it is doing its job because I’ve already had 2 people who don’t go to church with me comment on the mountain. We’ve already had a few other churches ask to borrow the sign to promote their VBS.
Ah yes. VBS. That break in the summer when you’d go to church in the morning on a weekday. The first couple of days it seemed strange to be at church during such a weird time. Each day you were urged “Boost our Bible School” by bringing a friend. Eventually you’d start inviting some of your friends by the 2nd or 3rd day….and get one of those “I brought one” tags to wear proudly. Cookies and strong punch was served in the middle of Bible class. I never really got over that kick of the Hawaiian Punch they seemed to serve each year.
VBS isn’t as simple as what it once was. Gone are elementary aged classes. Now my church is doing a bunch of centers which they visit each day on a different schedule. They don’t just sit around in Bible classes all day. VBS has become bigger every year. Seems like all the churches are competing for attention, but aren’t we all?
The post office guy didn’t tell me the whole truth. He said the current rate for postcards is 23 cents. This isn’t true. It’s 21 cents. Next week it will be 23 cents. I visited the post office to mail a few things yesterday. I was also hoping to get extra postage so these 21 cent stamps wouldn’t be so useless to me. Now I figure I’ll have to either mail some postcards this week or make yet another trip to the neighborhood post office for twelve 2 cent stamps.

Last time I checked, Nortel’s stock was down to $1.17. It’s getting to where I just don’t even want to hear bad news anymore. I don’t know if we’ll ever recover. Anyways it’s not something I can control, so why worry about it.
VBS Junkies – there’s always people in the community who use Vacation Bible School as a free babysitting service. Each week they go to a different church in the community, drop their kids off at 9AM and then pick them up again at noon. This happens also at Short Mountain Bible Camp. Parents drop off their kid at bible camp on Sunday, leave them for the entire week, then pick them back up again on Friday. The kid goes home, washes clothes on Saturday, then back at bible camp for another week. The only problem is that while this kid is going to multiple bible camps throughout the summer, other kids who decided at the last minute they would like to attend a bible camp, are not able to go to even once because the camps fill up so fast.
From making these camp tapes, I’ve watched that camp video tape multiple times. I get an eerie feeling about it when the kid whom we had to send home makes statements on the video like “You don’t know what real pain is until a girl breaks up with you.” It was this “real pain” that caused him loose control and start throwing tables and making threats toward everyone. I should have seen it coming. He was pretty much obsessed with this girl. Do I think he’s a dangerous person? No. Do I think it was appropriate to send him home at that time? I’m still struggling with that decision. I feel like it might have been able to be controlled if he had been moved to a different cabin. However, everyone knows I could not have physically restrained him if he had lashed out at another person in the cabin. So in hindsight, it was probably safe to send him home. In any case, he definitely needed to be at camp last week. I’m disappointed he was unable to make it through an entire week.

“In my heart of hearts I know there’s more to life than this.”
It’s times like these where I want to quit my job and become a youth minister. However I don’t have the speaking ability nor the Biblical knowledge to be a youth minister. So it’s something that never can be. Sunday school teacher maybe, but never a youth minister.
I took a personality test last week. It showed that I was a type C personality. It basically says that I’m organized and concerned with details. By coincidence I’m a data analyst which is a perfect job for a C personality. My hobbies are photography, which is another characteristic of a C personality.
I’ll probably need to get my digital camera and video camera cleaned after summer is all overwith. There was a big flour war at camp. They put flour inside of cut up hosiery. Then they beat other people with it. Flour was pretty much everywhere.

Our youth minister, Phil Waggoner is the man of steel….or crazy as a loon. He’s currently on a mission trip to Honduras. My sources tell me he’ll be getting back this weekend. Then he will immediately leave to go on a door knocking campaign in Arkansas. Crazy? Yes. But I’ve heard worse. John Thomas did a youth camp right before leaving for a mission trip to Panama.
I’d like to nominate Guns ‘n Roses’ “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” as best cover song. They turned what was a 2 minute Dylan song into an epic anthem. I found a live version which is phenomenal. Axel gets the audience to sing along.
There’s an Ebay auction which just ended. It’s a 2 liter Crystal Pepsi bottle. Never opened. It sold for $13. I remember Crystal Pepsi. In fact I have an old empty glass bottle. The stuff itself was syrupy. I remember the big ad campaign for it. SNL made fun of it with a Crystal Gravy parody commercial.

This year we have a project going at church where each day a certain member is assigned to pray privately for all the members of the congregation. Each member is mentioned by name in the prayer. On any given Sunday there are around 600 people attending church. So you’d think out of that 600 people, you could find 365 people willing to participate in this praying project. Not so. I’ve already been assigned to participate in April and now in June I’m already assigned again. This just goes to show that out of any church group there are probably only about 1/5th of the congregation that actually does anything. The rest will try to get by in just attending church on Sunday morning and choosing not to participate in any extra activities. They still feel good about themselves since technically they are “church goers,” yet they do nothing to give to the congregation. Mostly they are looking to be served rather than serving others.
In other news….
Lindsey Smith took down her webpage. She said it was too difficult to keep updated with fresh information. No big deal, but it seems like at some point everyone wants a webpage. Then later on, when they find it actually takes some effort to keep up, rather than have it turn into a static webpage, they abandon it or take it down completely. I did save her webpage to my hard drive in November, so I do have a copy of it, even slightly outdated.