Italy

I went to Italy

Saw Venice 

Learned about Masks for Carnival

Took a ton of photos

Fell in love with the Architecture 

I mean, it's awesome. 

But, I was forced to learn how to drive manual - cross country

Thank goodness, there were some great views

Like truly incredible views

and I got to do it all, with this sweet girl.

30 Before 30

30 Before 30 

(30 things to do before my 30th birthday)

1. Throw a wop party  (Completed 9.1.13)
2. Perform the spiderman kiss
3. DJ a pool/beach party
4. Play Artemis the star trek simulator 
5. Ride roller costars at cedar point
6. Build a fire taller than me
7. Sit in a military tank
8. Attend a monster truck rally
9. Ride a mechanical bull
10. Learn a rap from start to finish and then perform it at Karaoke
11. Learn to cook a fancy dessert 
12. Watch fast & furious series backward
13. Learn to change the oil in a car
14. D&D with girls
15. Get a crazy hair cut
16. Give a hitchhiker a ride (Completed 9.18.13)
17. Light fireworks off at Bethel
18. Build an arcade cabinet 
19. Go to a world-famous party attraction and go hard for 24 hours.
20. Write a brutally honest letter to self to read in 10 years
21. Buy some stock
22. Go skinny dipping
23. Play real fruit Ninja
24. Office Space something
25. Get stunned by a stun gun
26. Learn to play bridge
27. Run a half marathon
28. Build a robot
29. Visit the rodeo
30. Make it to every tiki bar in the Minneapolis area in one day

Purpose

Ephesians 3:17-19
So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

For many of you, school starts tomorrow, already has or will next week. For the rest of us, summer vacation is a distant memory, but fall does still have a sense of a new beginning. On the cusp of this start, I wanted to share a few thoughts meandering in my head.  
 
I've been reading this book, called Love Does. It's really awesome and in it the Author, Bob Goff, unpacks the principals of his life and his understanding of God. It resonated with me more them anything else I've read in a long time. In trying to understand God's plan for our life, the author shares this: 

“I think God's hope and plan of us is pretty simple to figure out. For those who resonate with formulas, here it is: Add your whole life, your loves, your passions, and your interests together with what God said He wants us to be about, and that's your answer. If you want to know the answer to the bigger question – what's God's plan for the whole world? - buckle up: It's us.”

He created us and calls us VERY good. God has made you to enjoy life, and the enjoy it abundantly! This school year, live it up. Follow your passions and your loves! Be about those thing and be about him. This is God's plan for you. Along the way, I hope you have the chance to love God with all your heart, mind and soul and to love your neighbor as yourself. Even when those things are hard as hell.

I also hope that you find a community that is lifts you up. Community that can speak truth into your life. As Sherry Mortenson shared with us at camp this summer: To be known is to be loved, and to be loved is to be known.

The only way the Bible can be regarded as straightforward and simple is if no one bothers to read it. - Jennifer Wright Knust

Prayer for today.

1 John 4:19: We love because he first loved us.

God. You are my God. A God of love. 

You ask for two things. To love you and to love people. Oh how I fall short. Daily, hourly, sometime minutely. So many other things become my idol.

The pursuit of a relationship. Spending money on trivial things for the sake of selfish fun, Even the often noble cause of making sure my life has meaning and purpose can become burdensome. 

These things become empty pursuits, when you are not at the middle. 

My fear of spending moments alone, when processing turns into gossip, and when my eyes wander - I know this is not the life you have for me. Help me seek the abundant life. 

Thank you for loving me… despite my shortcomings. Thank you for reminding me what love is like and giving me chances to help show your love, despite how many times I've messed it up. 

A wise woman told me: To be known is the be loved and to be loved is to be known. 

Lord - help me to know and to love. Help me know you, help me love people. 

Amen

Saw this on the blogosphere:

5 Tools to reach teens today:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/04/23/5-tools-needed-to-reach-todays-teens/

I thought 1-4 were spot on. Now to work on developing those.

Stones into Bread.

Matthew 4:1-4

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit up into the desert, to be tempted by the devil. After a fast of forty days and nights he was very hungry.“If you really are the Son of God,” said the tempter, coming to him, “tell these stones to turn into loaves.”

There is much to be learned about our own journeys in ministry from the way that Jesus molded ministry - especially as he begins his journey.  As Mathew describes - straight after his time of baptism,  Jesus was lead by the spirt to his ordeal into the wilderness. For forty days he fasted, and we find Jesus in this passage of scripture tired, hungry and weak. “If you‟re the Son of God,” Satan whispers, “turn stones into bread!” This taunt is not just trying to trick Jesus into getting rid of a few hunger pains. It's more of of the demonic voice asking: “Did your Baptism mean anything? What do you have to show for it?  What's the point?

Bruner frames this for our ministry as this: The form this satanic voice assumes in addressing disciples is something like"How can you claim to be the child of God when you are struggling with big problems instated of victories over them. Get rid of your problems [turn your stones into bread], and then we can believe you are in a strong relation with God." …. The issues is sharp and clear: either we believe the Voice of baptism -- "You are the son [or daughter] of God or we believe the other voice -You are the son [or daughter] of God  when you can prove it by signs" 

In Christian circles, we want to prove that we are worthy of the call of our vocation of ministry. Often times, outsiders are asking "how is Youth Form doing?" People like good news and I like being the guy who is doing good work. But, I often feel like if they only knew the real me, my struggles, my insecurities, my failures I would never be trusted with this organization or really more accurately be trusted in any way as being a representative of God. 

The simple truth is because of what Christ did on the cross, we are adopted and grafted into the family of God and we need not buy into the lie that we need to be anything less than who we are today for God to accept us. No shortcoming can pluck us from a relationship with him. We are nothing less then daughters and sons of the king on high. God loves us and calls us to follow him - even when we don't have our shit together.

How is God calling you today to follow him? 

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

― Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Wanderings

1. I joined a snap fitness and now I work out a lot. It's been great for my insomnia and stress management.

2. Durring Christmas Alex and I started refinishing an arcade cabinet. We've got a ways to go, but it's been a pretty sweet project. 

4. Witty and I are co-captains for our Trivia Team "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah" We placed 1st for the first time in about two years ago. We cashed in last week and had a fun party at Fridays.

5. With some christmas money I bought a new LED backdrop hopefully it will be making an appearance at the Dan Ochs wedding. The picture doesn't do it justice. Just know it's pretty cool.

6. Youth Forum stuff is going well. The ministry is busy - we are spending a lot of time promoting the events and rental side of the ministry. I've been running a ton of gameshows recently and love it! Here is a shot of a bunch of our volunteers and staff hanging out in my living room. They are so awesome and when I spend time with them, it reminds me why we do, what we do. 

Onwards and Upwards

-T. 

Homebrew Arcade Machine Part #1

Three summers ago, I thought it would be fun to refurbish an arcade cabinet  On a whim, I bought a almost gutted case of an old bowling arcade machine off of craigslist. That cabinet sat in three different warehouse spaces and quickly became a constant topic of razzing by coworkers.

Typically over Christmas break I like to take time to work on a project that I might be too busy to tackle durring other parts of the year. This Christmas season, at Alex's urging we deiced to finally redo that arcade cabinet. So Dad, Alex and I have started on the sweet project. Alex and Dad are working on the refinishing, construction and general design aspect. I'm in charge of the guts, wires, and making the video game pieces come together.

The first step was gutting all the junk out of it and then lowering the shelf 3 inches to fit the TV we bought.




More updates coming soon.

Remembering Darby

Two weekas ago, one of my hero's passed away. Phil "Darby" McDonald

I first met Darby at a picnic bench in the quad of the campus of UW:Stout at Summer Festival my 9th grade year. I had been going to camp for a few summers, and had met the lord at my first Summer Festival as a 7th grader. Carolyn Bossen, one of my youth leaders introduced us and after our quick introduction I hustled off to whatever fun event the program team had cooked up for the day. As I took off Carolyn told me if I have ever had the chance, that I should spend time with Darby - I could sure learn a lot from him

Prophetic words.

For the last 8 years I had the privilege of spending most monday morning praying with Darby. Most of my peers would dread Monday mornings, because it meant going back to the grindstone. Not me, I know it would be a time of sharing tales of the weekend, grumbling of how disappointing Minnesota sports teams are, talking about what we'd want to accomplish at Youth Forum that week, that summer, that year and it'd be a chance for Darby to share one of his Devotions. Darby had such unique insight and such away of making stories you've heard a 1,000 times become fresh and relevant. After prayer we'd often go to get chow mien or a burger at snuffies and we'd continue the conversation, the dreaming and the strategizing. 

I'm going to miss his wisdom and counsel, his jokes and his disarming sense of humor.

Last winter, Darby invited myself, Seth, Kelley and Kelly down to come spend a few days with him in their condo and Florida. We jumped at the opportunity and while we were down there - we joined with Joan, Reid and Carrol carpenter for one of the most powerful times of prayer that I've ever been a part of it. In that moment - everything was right with the world. We were reminded of God's promises of his faithfulness. 

Darby was a visionary - he knew that teens needed a safe place, where they could be themselves, where they could laugh and have fun, where they could build trusted relationships with adults, but most importantly where they could come to have an understanding of who Jesus was. That passion that the lord put in him was how castaway got built, how Youth Forum thrived and how many teens, including many of in this room got to know Jesus. 

I want to leave you with a line from the last devotion he gave at Summer Festival

If God is for us, who can be against us. If Jesus christ is on my side, who is on the other side! WHO CARES! - If you pardon my english, it don't matter. It just doesn't matter because Jesus is on my side. 

Darby - I can't wait to see you again some day. Thank you for your time here. The way your trusted Christ in all things was inspiring and something I wish I could have an ounce of. 

What's a Hollister?

My friend Phil started working recently at the Hollister clothing store in the Mall of America as a manager. In his short time there, he has shared some remarkable things from his experience. 

#1. On Friday, Hollister at the MOA location sold over 16,000 individual items. That's about an item every 2.5 seconds that the store is open. It's simply mind blowing to me that a store could sell that many articles of clothing. 

#2. Besides print ads, the major way that Hollister advertises is by decking their employees in their brand of clothing. Technically they are only required to wear clothing that "looks" Hollister and can at least correspond to something similar that is available at Hollister. However there a huge discount price being given to the employees in exchange for representing the brand. You must imagine, that if you are getting such a good deal on clothes, that you'll wear those clothes out in public a ton and basically be a walking billboard. It's really smart marketing: hire young, attractive people and deck them  out in something "cool" and then have them just live life, while helping you sell jeans. Hollister has decided that the best way to market clothes, is through it's employees - just living life, but in all moments wearing Hollister. 

In church today, Steve Weins shared that he strongly believes something that has a similar ring to Hollister marketing style. He said:  The best program our church has is Christ in you. 

What a strong and powerful claim. Christ is working in us - to further his mission of ushering in the Kingdom now and forever and it's better then any program or scheme of the church. The challenge is being open to how God might be at work inside and outside of "regular church time." It's about walking a faith in both Karios and Chronos moments. As Hollister wants it's employees to be a channel for the Hollister brand at all times - to follow Christ is to be open to what Christ has for us at all times.

Scripture to chew on: Colossians 4:2-6

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Read this interesting article about Hosea and Gomer:

http://bible.org/seriespage/undying-love%E2%80%94i-story-hosea-and-gomeri

Found it very interesting how God used someones personal journey to parallel his story with his people.

What I'm wrestling with is how would God let someone fall in love with someone who would keep breaking his heart?

A quick life update

A. Wanted to share a few wanderings and ramblings from live.

B. I saw the avengers at 12:01 last night. It was EPIC. I can't say it's for everyone, but it was pretty freaking sweet for a comic book story, if you've seen most of the titles in the series (Iron Man I & II, Captain America, Thor, Hulk) you will really enjoy this movie. I am only running on four hours of sleep, but it was worth it. Plus as you know for a few years this lack of sleep has be my mode of operation, so it's not strange territory.

C. Went to Disney and to visit Darby on vacation a few weeks ago. It was really great. Lot's of great prayer time and 48 attractions in 2 days. Can't wait to go back.

D. This spring, I've developed some really close, but unexpected friends. Kelly, who works with me, and Reba her best friend, who recently moved up here. We have ended up spending a lot of time together. It's been awesome. Besides YF activities, playing trivia, grabbing diner and other general hangouts, one of the major activities they really like to do is to go see theater performances, which I do too. Back in high school I was pretty big into the theater, but in college this pastime waned. But, since they are both working as actors in the twin cities, they love to go see shows. So, this spring I've seen:

Narnia: The musical
The Lark
Fiddler on The roof
Kingdom Undone
Three Sisters
Deal: The musical
Spring Awakening

E. Blue Like Jazz the movie came out. See it sometime. Maybe on DVD. It's the most real look at being a young christian that the christian media market has produced. It wasn't perfect, but it was better then a lot of junk that comes out of that genre. Also, my name is in the credits. No joke.

F. Reading a book called Radical. It had kind of messed me up a bit. The thesis of the book asks the question, has the american dream highjacked the radical Christianity that Jesus taught. It's good. Don't agree with all of it, (have I ever?) but it raises some hair raising good points.


G. I've been very convicted to write about sexuality and my own experiences as I feel like God has had it be a major topic in my life this year. I'm writing a long blog post about it, but will likely end up only posting a small section of it. But, it's be very self revealing on how I'm wired and who I am becoming. 

Youth Ministry Friends!

Youth Ministry friends! Get on this...

http://www.only144.com/

It's a 144 hour sale of several thousand dollars of resources for less then $100. Pretty stoked about it.

Day off!

So today - I've got a day off! It was a planned day off, but then I decided to make it a work day because Kelly my co-worker has been sick all week and she was planning on coming in. She then decided that she should probably rest for our big program retreat this weekend. Once again, the day is free. Which is really good. I'm not the best at taking days off.

I'm feeling rather unfocussed today.... So here are some pearls and nuggets I've picked up recently.

- Short stay vacations - You can rent random peoples homes for a weekend. Fully decked out with everything you need and very affordable. Here is  a link one I'm renting out for the program retreat:

- Joan of Arc - I went to see Theater in the Round's production of The Lark. The play told the wild story of Joan of Arc. She felt God was telling her to lead a revolution in France. Her English captors did not feel that God could tell her that. It was very convicting and has me wrestling the issues of what if God tells different pepole different things and what is the value of your word.

- Sky Deck, run by game works, is a pretty awesome arcade/restaurant. A cool place to go on dates, because you can have some fun playing arcade games before you chow down on generic bar and grill food.

- For camp this summer we are going to use a Tripple Head-To-Go to do three separate video screens for camp. It's going to be epic!

Lint and Lent are one vowel off.

I read this cool article that got me jazzed up about lent. Article

I went to a very different Ash Wednesday service then I'm use to tonight. It had liturgical dancers and the sermon was a presented as a monologue from Herod Antipas. It was very interesting, some parts were cool to me, others were overwhelming.  The service was just a few blocks from my house. 

For lent, I thought that I would like to try to and focus on being more covertly intentional with the humanity around me and how God is at work with and in them.

1.I'll be trying to eat one meal a day with another person and durring that meal turn off my cell phone in order to be present with them. I'll also try to eat at the pace of the person I'm breaking bread with. 

2. I'm going to try to go to church in the community that I live in. Normally I drive to a big mega church in Maple Grove, but I'm going to try and think more about my community, vrs what church best serves my needs. I'm going to try and only go to church that is walking distance from my house. I'll keep you posted on how it goes. 

Neverland games

I love games. Playing them, making them up. Playing them with a camp or just a few friends, it doesn't matter. I'm not super-competitive, I just enjoy being in a different world with rules that you have to follow. Some of the games I love most are complex board games. Even though I'm not the best at them. I enjoy the experience of the adventure. On of my favorites from childhood, was Buck Rodgers battle for the 25the century. The game is a lot like risk, but in space. 

Over Christmas, some of my high school friends got together and tried to play the game. It didn't go well. The game was slow, clunky and not super inviting. But dang, the board looked cool. The game has so much potential to be rock-solid, but it failed. 

Things that I liked:

- Cool movement system

- Space narrative that affects game play

- Epic combat

- Childhood nostalgia 

Things I didn't like:

-No currency system

-Turns took forever 

-Killer Satellite Units too powerful 

One thing that was awesome was the game ended in a 2 on 3 invasion of mars as the two power players took on the refugees of the solar system. That's what I like. If only it didn't take 3+ hrs to get there.

When designing games make sure the story draws you in, people want to play them and they are engaging enough to keep you wanting to play them the whole time it takes to play the game.

New book

In a few weeks, I'll have to opportunity to speak at a small winter retreat Youth Forum is putting on for one of our partner ministries.  In order to prepare, I'll be reading more. As many of you know, I'm an infamous book starter. I usually make it 2 chapters in before I'm on to what's next. Working on at least getting halfway through before I quit.

Someone who had a big impact on how I speak is Bobo Burns. Bobo loved Max Lucado. I think that is what drew me to this book:

Max Lucado: A Love Worth Giving.

This quote really struck me from the first chapter:

Some of you are so thirsty for this type of love.  A love that never fails.  Those who should have loved you didn’t.  Those who could have loved you didn’t.  You were left at the hospital.  Left at the altar.  Left with an empty bed.  Left with a broken heart.  Left with your question “Does anybody love me?”

Please listen to heaven’s answer.  God loves you.  Personally.  Powerfully.  Passionately.  Others have promised and failed.  But God has promised and succeeded.  He loves you with an unfailing love.  And his love—if you will let it—can fill you and leave you with a love worth giving.

So come.  Come thirsty and drink deeply.

Doesn't get much better then that. 

Quick Idea.

Saw this idea over at the Young Life Leader Blog

Pray by name through the entire high school yearbook.

What a great idea. Youth ministry friends do you do this? If anyone has an extra yearbook from you school, I'd gladly pray through it with you.