Executive Committee Celabration

Tonight, I had the chance to have a very fancy dinner with a group of people who've I've grown  rather fond of spending time with, the Youth Forum executive committee. This a group of people who've thrown their arms around me and want to see our ministry succeed. They are very smart and have invested a lot of time, energy, love, prayers and patience with me. If you are in ministry - find people like this. It's so life giving to be invited to be a part of a community of Jesus people who are so faithful and so in tune to what God would have for us. They are the shoulders of giants which this camp generation stands on.

They insisted that I read Dance, Children, Dance: The story of Jim Rayburn founder of Young Life

The book sounds pretty foundational to understanding the movement that Youth Forum spawned out of.  I've been quite burnt out on reading, but need to follow through with this one. I will post some thoughts on it in a future post.

God is faithful. For such a time is this. Can't wait for what will soon prove to be a crazy year of following God.

Welcome back Koter

3 months to the day since my last post. Life happens, well more accurately camp happens.

Camp is no longer the dominating force in my life for a few months. I hope to start blogging again. I have some crazy stories to tell, some thoughts to try and flush out, some programing to share and a heck of a lot of rambling to do.

My buddy Dan just got hired at Tout, a new social media company - kinda of like video twitter. It's pretty dang cool. www.tout.com

my tout is http://www.tout.com/u/tonyducklow/

dan's is http://www.tout.com/u/danweinand

Draft of the Summer Bucket List

Last summer, I started the tradition of creating a bucket list of things to do before Summer kicks the buckets. Between memorial day and labor day, I will try and accomplish as many things on this list that I can.

2011 Summer Bucket List - Draft 1

1. Hold a newborn baby

2. Watch a horse race 

3. Ride a roller coaste

4. See a movie on a roof top

5. See a theater production in the outdoor

6. Go to a baseball game in the rain

7. Call a friend you haven't talked to in 3 months

8. Watch the Sun-Rise

9. Go on a picnic

10. Try at least 3 new non-chain restaurants 

11.  Pay for the person behind you in the drive through

12. Get an autograph of a celebrity

13. Get 50 Postcards from 50 states

14. Learn a new parlor game

15. Order off the menu at a restaurant

16. Wine Tasting

17. Drive in Movie Theater

18. Watch Wizard of the OZ With Dark Side of the Moon

19. Play Chess in a park

20. Drink a Pina Colada and get caught in the rain

21. Get on TV

22. Slow Dance in the moonlight

23. Respectfully attend the funeral of stranger

24. Volunteer for a day at a food shelf

25. Milk a cow

26. Cut someone else's hair

27. Tip a canoe

28. Watch a season of a show your parents liked

29. Ask your grandparent to tell you a story

30. Make a Sculpture

31. Make a treasure map to find something you buried

32. Visit someone else's church 

33. Tell some jokes at an open mic night 

34. Rent a bike from NiceRide

35. Design a T-Shirt 

36. Do someone else's laundry 

37. Start a squirt gun fight

38. Go to a pot-luck

39. Find a new hobby

40. Throw an unplanned party

Right now I have 40 things on this list. My total list will have 50. Any suggestions for the final 10? Also anyone want to join me!

Discipline Adoption

One Saturday a month, I meet with a small group of guys to talk about issues of purity, discipleship and being in relationship with Christ. We're reading through the book:  Disciplines of a Godly Man. The study group is awesome and chalk full of pressing conversation. The content of the book is valuable discusion foder. Hughes makes a few good points, but sometimes the practices that he preaches are too conservative for my tastes. In my humble opinion, his perspective of  discipline can get in the way of experiencing the fullness of Christ. One particular passage, on relationship with women outside of a spouse is particularly troubling for me. I'll blog about that passage at a later date. That being said, I think reading books you don't agree with for discusion groups is valuable practice.

Out of our groups discusion from this Saturday, I felt convicted to spend more time memorizing scripture. The truth of scripture is something that I want to become core to my identity and to be something that I can cling to in all moments of life. I'm going to start memorizing one verse of scripture every month. Many people who start this goal go for one a week. I think doing it in a bit longer time frame for me will do two things:

1. Make the goal attainable. One week sounds like a burn-out rate.
2. Let me really chew on one piece of scripture for a month.

At my friend Mike's suggestion, I'm going to change my default page in my web browser to the piece of scripture I choose as a subtle reminder to read that passage, as well as making it easily accessible to read

My first verese will be:

But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.  Romans 5:8 NLT

Thoughts on other verses for the year?

Are you M-Ready?

A great look at what generation M is doing to marketing…. really good stuff

http://www.fastcompany.com/1742592/are-you-m-ready

Strength Finder

According to the Strength Finder assessment my five top strengths are:

Futuristic - one who has a keen sense of using an eye towards the future to drive today's success

Belief - one who strives to find some ultimate meaning behind everything they do

Activator - one who acts to start things in motion

Empathy - one who is especially in tune with the emotions of others

Developer - one who sees the untapped potential in others

I can see most of these playing out in my current postion at Youth Forum. The one that was most surprising to me to see pop-up was activator. After reflection, I can see this one being  my top strength. The description in Strengths Finder 2.0 of an activator being someone who wants to take act immediately as soon as  a decision is made and that fits me to a T. I'm most productive and inspired in the immediate moments after camp program meetings, coffee gatherings with youth ministers, and executive committee sessions. I believe that this is part of the reason why I enjoy meetings more then most. After a session is done, I feel the urge to take action on what was concluded immediately after. Often the longer I wait, the less enthusiasm or gusto I feel towards a project.


Having futuristic pop-up as a strength was great, because I'm sure that if Walt Disney had to take the assessment,  he would also have had that strength. It's nice to have something in common with one of the giants of industry you aspire after. Also, it's something that I see play out day in and day out in providing leadership to Youth Forum. 

Belief I think is very connected to vision. Having both makes a lot of sense to me, as belief is what shapes vision and gives it reason, purpose and meaning. The strength of belief helps answer the question: Why is it important that you want something to look or be a certain way?  Anyone who has heard me ramble on camp philosophy or theology of an environment for even a short time knows that in my opinion the vision of the way things should be done need to be stemmed from an ideal. Really,  I believe is that the future is just a chance to better live out ideals. As far as empathy and developer, these are strengths I can see in myself for sure, but not as strong as the other three. Also, if I were taking a personal inventory, I would of picked a few others higher then them. However, maybe I'm more altruistic then I think I am. Which would be a bit poetic. 


I was very surprised that adaptability did not show up higher, as I feel one of my greatest gifts is solving problems quickly in crisis. When a leader is needed, and decisions need to be made, I step up and can handle the pressure. This was not well reflected in the assessment. 


Colleges and friends do you see these strengths in me? What are your strengths? 

How to take over to world

I'm going to try doing this once a day.

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/20-minute-plan/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+chrisbrogandotcom+%28%5Bchrisbrogan.com%5D%29