Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day, Dad. I love you. I am glad that we were able to come over for the reunion and see you and the family.

Nava: 1st Pitch = Grand Slam

From Boston (AP) via Yahoo Sports

Red Sox outfielder Daniel Nava has hit the first pitch he faced in the big leagues for a grand slam.

Nava became only the fourth player to connect for a slam in his first major league at-bat—and second on the first pitch. Cleveland’s Kevin Kouzmanoff(notes) did it on Sept. 2, 2006, against Texas, according to STATS LLC.

Nava accomplished the feat in the second inning of Boston’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday when he sent Joe Blanton’s(notes) fastball into the Red Sox’s bullpen in right field.

The lefty hitting Nava was called up from Triple-A Pawtucket before the game. Outfielder Josh Reddick(notes) was optioned back to Pawtucket.

Nava is the 10th player in Red Sox history to homer in his first at-bat, and just the second to hit a slam. Rip Repulski hit a slam on May 10, 1960.

I think he should retire ....

Manassas, Virginia

Here we come.

One of our best family friend (Crystal)and myself are going to be taking 9 children and youth (10-12 year olds) to Manassas tomorrow. We will be there from Sunday - Friday.

We are looking forward to serving and our service may look a little something like this:

- therapuetic recreation camp
- summer camp
- helping at an assistant living center
- VBS outreach
- neighborhood clean-up projects

It should be great and I am looking forward to watching them serve and shifting my mind (hopefully) off the move for 6 days.

21 Days ......

21 days till we move in Indianapolis, including a mission trip to Virginia and a day reunion in West Virginia.

My mom came over for 24 hours and helped get us started. There is a lot that is left to do in the packing/cleaning stage and time is of an essence with everything else on the table. In the end, I am sure that everything will get done.

Last night, Stacey and myself agreed that we are so looking forward to being done with the move and beginning to start this new chapter in our life. Don't get me wrong, we are going to miss Wooster and we are going to miss some of our wonderful friends greatly. Thankfully, we will only be about 4 1/2 hours apart.

But, we want to be out of the chaos of the move and we want to be in our new home and we want to be working for/with the great team that is in place over at CTS.

The next three weeks will be insane. Let the rollercoaster begin and we look forward to landing in Indy in 3 weeks from today.

Lady Gaga on Church

Lady Gaga is on the top of the music world right now. She is a very controversial musician and as an individual that works with teenagers, she is talked about quite frequently. She reminds me of the Madonna when I was a teenager.

She is "racy" and she tackles some themes that are very edgy and many would consider very disturbing. However, this post is not about that. I just want to share a PG picture of her (in case you do not know who she is) and some of her words recently about church that she shared when she was on Larry King.

"I struggle with my feelings about the Church in particular....in terms of religion, I'm very religious. I was raised Catholic. I believe in Jesus. I believe in God. I'm very spiritual. I pray very much. But at the same time, there is no one religion that doesn't hate or speak against or be prejudiced against another racial group or religious group, or sexual group. For that, I think religion is also bogus. So I suppose you could say I'm a quite religious woman that is very confused about religion. And I dream and envision a future where we have a more peaceful religion or a more peaceful world, a more peaceful state of mind for the younger generation. And that's what I dream for."

I put a bold on the word that is very telling for me. I think that there are many individuals are CONFUSED about religion, church and spiritual issues. They are on a journey and they struggle to grasp what is happening in their life and this crazed world that we live in.

Just some words to think about. For me, it is just a reminder of how important conversation is and to listen and hear people's stories.

Compassion

Words of Wisdom today are brought to you by: Arthur H. Stainback “The value of compassion cannot be over-emphasized. Anyone can criticize. It takes a true believer to be compassionate. No greater burden can be borne by an individual than to know no one cares or understands.”

Today, make sure that each person that you come in contact with knows that they are cared about or that that there is understanding.

This is tough, but if we can begin to truly have each person understood and cared for, wow.

Pics of the New Home

Here are some pics of the home. Someone else is currently living in the home. We will be redecorating and when we get it redecorated and moved in; we will put pictures up.

We are super-excited about the home.

Ministry Transition

For those of you that have not heard, we are making a ministry change. The decision to uproot our family and move was not an easy one. It was a decision that we struggled and wrestled with. However, as I talked to ministry colleagues, friends and had many talks with God; it seemed that the door to transition and to "end" one chapter of our life and begin a "new" chapter in our life was abundantly clear.

I am extremely excited to be heading over to Fishers, Indiana (Greater Indianapolis) and begin working/partnering with Christ The Savior Lutheran Church.

The vision / mission / ministry of CTS is extremely exciting and something that resonates with my heart. Here it is:

Our Vision
It is the vision of Christ the Savior Lutheran Church to be AWAKENed, united and growing in Christ

Awaken to Serve Christ
I will seek to serve Christ personally in the following ways:

A lways serve
W orship Christ
A bundantly give
K now scripture
E ncourage other and
N ever cease praying

Our Mission
Reaching people to know, love and serve Christ.

Our Ministry
We gather peoplel to magnify our Lord.
We welcome people to membership in God's family.
We disciple people to maturity in Christ.
We equip people for ministry in the Church.
We empower people for mission in the world.

Later on in the week, I am going to "break-down" what these three mean to me and why they resonate with me so much and what I believe that they will mean for me as I am working with the Youth and Families of the church.

I will also be putting up some pics of our new home and then as it is painted and Stacey puts her decorative touches to it; those will definitely be shared.

The Move

My last Sunday will be June 27th. I will then pick up a 26-ft van on Monday morning (28th) and we will toss the bulky stuff into it and I will drive it over / unload it / drive the van back - 4.5 hours each way. Then on Tuesday, we will pack everything else into the van and crash at our friends (family) home. We will then get up on the 30th and drive over and unpack the van. I will then be in the office the next day.

That week is going to be long, but the 5 weeks leading up to it with packing, prepping for the move, making sure transitions are in place, mission trip to Virginia, family reunion in West Virginia, and two trips to Indy for prep work on that side, will make it a very long month.

But we are looking forward to it. To my Woo friends, you have meant the world to me over the last 3 years. I look forward to continuing our friendship through social media and jaunts - both ways - with us only being 4 hours away; you rock.

Acceptance ???

Mother Theresa said,“The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for and deserted by everybody”

This morning, I read the quote above from Mother Theresa and it definitely got me thinking. I made it as my status on facebook with the following addition:

So, my fb friends, I challenge you today, to make sure that those who come across your path do not have this tragic disease.

Then, I was thinking of it later this morning about the ramifications of the statement in the context of the local church and the local youth ministry setting and I sighed.

For you see, relationships: feeling wanted, feeling loved and feeling accepted; are crucial for individuals and too often, we are too busy with things that don't really matter and the folks who are coming through the door looking for love, acceptance and a sense of belonging leave ....

They leave and when they leave, the feel unwanted, uncared for and deserted and they grab a hold of this feeling and insert it at the end of the sentence; like this:

The church makes me feel unwanted, uncared for and deserted.

They then leave.

We, as a church, need to change this. We, as individuals, also need to have our eyes, ears and hearts open to reach out and love those individuals. In our world today, we should not have folks feeling this way.

Now for me to chew on what ramigications this could have on "ministry".

missions over money

"focus on mission not money: as assets rise over time, risk taking declines. managers of the church find themselves making decisions weighted toward protecting their resources rather than investing them in mission. mission is sacrificed on the alter of wealth, under the banner of "good stewardship"

read this yesterday and this really hit home

I think that too many times, the institutional church makes decisions and the decisions are made through the funnel of $$$. They then "spin" the fact that we can not spend money on missions/ministry/people ------ because we need to be good stewards.