TUG (Teen Underground)

Yesterday, Kay and Don were kind enough to let the high school youth have a pool party at their place. Turnout wasn't the best, but we had a blast. I'm pretty sure water volleyball is my new favorite sport. I'm not awesome at it, but it's a lot of fun. I probably need more practice, though... my arms are sore today.

I'm really excited about Teen Underground this year. Jordan made us a kickin design for a tshirt, but more than that, I'm looking forward to having more of a group feel to youth group this year. When I look through the list of high school kids that could realistically be a part of TUG this year, I'm almost overwhelmed. If my memory is right, about 18 kids were invited to the pool party. Perspective: the first year I was here, high school youth group started with about 3 kids.

I wanted to find some really great series or perfect Scriptures to cover with this group and put quite a bit of thought into that this summer. In the end, it was a God thing. I happened to be at Wellspring, browsing their clearance books and one book jumped out at me. It's called Story and it's basically a retelling of the story of the Bible using poetry, themes and Scripture. When I looked at the different chapters and counted up how many Sundays we meet, I wasn't all that surprised that the numbers came close to matching. A return visit to Wellspring found 8 more copies of the book, all in the bargain bin.

I think the Bible is hard to read. I'm 29, I love reading and I've been reading the Bible since about 3rd grade. The challenge I see is how to teach teenagers who maybe don't like reading where to start. I think it's awesome that we have a written record of Jesus' teachings and God's work through humans. I do wish that it was easier to make what seems like an old irrelevant book a little more catchy for youth who don't want to dig into all the cultural and historical context needed to understand Scripture.

I think this book will help. If you want to look at the Amazon page for it, click on the title: Story: recapture the mystery by Steven James

Confession Time

So this morning I woke up at 9:23. The problem? Church starts at 9. I missed church!

I have a history of this sort of thing... but not usually on Sundays. Whoops.

The funny thing is that I showed up at church shortly after that and I didn't know if I'd get yelled at or laughed at and it was laughter. That's awesome. Not permission to skip again, but I think it's cool that Jim and the church is forgiving and understanding.

I do hate mornings. Early mornings at least. And yes, by my standards, 9 is early morning.

TGIF

So the first week is done now. Maybe I am glad for a 3 day first week; 5 days would have felt like forever. It takes awhile to retrain kids after a summer. I bet most teachers will agree with that. I've seen the best and worst behavior this week, but I've also been reminded of why this church has the Underground: kids need a supervised place to hang out.

I have also been reminded that even with that supervision, kids are still kids and they act on impulse. Sometimes that's fine-- nobody gets hurt. Other times, the consequences are not so great. I keep teasing Savana about dropping her baby sister. "They bounce," I tell her, smiling so she knows I'm kidding.

Kids are good at bouncing, in a way. They're crazy resilient and they adapt pretty easily, but I still pray that these kids will find adults they trust and look up to. Even more, I pray that those adults would prove worthy of that trust. Growing up can be so hard, but quality adults make it easier by leading and guiding kids on the way.

Anyway, it's just after 5:30 and I need to head over to Ann and Shane's. Tonight I get to hang out with 4 of the coolest kids on the planet. I think they call this "babysitting," but I haven't been a babysitter since about 1997. Hanging out sounds so much easier (and more fun) than being a dreaded babysitter.

Here's to a stellar weekend.

1st Day Back

So yesterday was the first day of school. They get out an hour early all 3 days this week so I was a little worried about how many kids would show up and what to do to reign in some of their energy. Thankfully, Clayton saved the day by suggesting a silly hat contest.

Savana and Michael judged the contest,



though in this picture they're just being silly.


Each hat maker walked our "runway." I tried to get a picture of each one walking, but some turned out blurry. Here's Richard modeling his hat.


Here is one of the group shots, catching most of the silliness.


Here is Hunter, with his ensemble.


And Cole...


One of the kids asked "Can we take a funny picture?" I guess I would like to see them try to take a serious picture. What a dare that would be.



Meanwhile, back at the ranch... er in the choir room, the worship team was picking out songs for the next month's worship services. I think the look on Connie's face is priceless.




That's it for day one of after school stuff. Only 179 more to go, eh? I doubt I'll do daily updates, but I'll try to keep my camera close so I can capture the mayheim for those of you who like pictures.

HELP FIGHT HUNGER!

Mindy just sent me this email, and I thought I would pass the info along via blog. We've supported Kids Against Hunger before-- once with a VBS offering and another time with the quarter tube. The organization packages meals for hungry people in other countries. More info is available on their website, but if you'd like to help a good cause by giving just a few hours of your time, you could sign up here to volunteer: Meals from the Heartland

If you can scoop and pour and you're older than 5, you can help with this. The event goes September 1-9.

I hate cleaning.

This is true. Cleaning just annoys me. I'm one of those messy, cluttery type people. Sure I can't always find things, but usually I know the general area something is in. I think it takes less time to look than it would take to clean. That said, today some kids showed up to help clean the Underground and it looks terrific. I'm really excited at their eagerness and the result. Of course I forgot to get pictures, so just picture in your head a really messy youth center, then blink and imagine it's clean.

Thanks to Clayton, Michael, Richard, Sage and Kayla for all their hard work.

School starts in TWO DAYS!!! Oh my.

I think I have other update sort of stuff, but my brain kind of hurts and if I don't get out of here ASAP, I'll miss the Joe Purdy concert in Des Moines.

Later, then. :)

comments and such

Laura told me today in church that she couldn't leave a comment. I just fixed that so even if you don't have a google account, you should be able to comment. It'll say your name is anonymous, but you can identify yourself if you choose. Sorry about that... I didn't realize that anonymous comments had been disabled.

:)
(I know this doesn't count as my Monday post... I'll write something tomorrow. If you happen to read this before Monday around 10 and you are able, come help us clean the Underground tomorrow. Good times, good pizza and maybe even some pop.)

Oh, and p.s. to those of you in church this Sunday: thank you for the best birthday celebration ever. The balloons were great, but all the kind words and the cake and the cards... I love Winterset for a lot of reasons: this congregation is the main one.

Sunday School mailing

I mailed out information on the youth programs to all the kids that attended VBS this summer. Looking at it today, a good 2 or more days after I wrote that mailing, I realized I said Joshua when I meant Nehemiah. Nehemiah helped build a wall. Joshua led people walking around a wall to tear down the wall. I guess you pick your Bible hero by knowing if you'd rather tear down a wall or build one up.

Anyway, I'm working on Sunday School today. And I'm not sure the Tower of Babel is going to survive the cut. I'm leaning toward replacing that with Daniel and the lions. Lions are way more exciting than a tower, right? Hmmm...

9 days until school starts!

Today I'm feeling the crunch of time (and questioning my math skills.) School starts in 9 days and there's still several things I meant to get done over the summer. Yikes!

These are the musts on the to do list in the next 3 days:
Clean the Underground (blah! Helpers sought!!)
Get thank yous out for all the excellent VBS help
Youth newsletter put together and mailed
plan, plan, plan and more plan... :)

The creative juices are flowing, so this week should be fairly painless. Good times.

Look for upcoming dates and info on all things Underground coming later this week.

fun with acronyms (or maybe i've taken this too far)

Part way through last school year, I realized I was abbreviating everything Underground as UG. So UG it is, at least in my head. That led to this:

Teen Underground (the high school youth group) is TUG.
I suppose that could turn into a Tugboat thing, or the idea of the Spirit tugging on your heart.

Junior Underground (the 6-8 grade group) is JUG.
I don't know if the kids in that group should be called Juggernauts or Jugheads. I'm leaning towards Jugheads. I'll let them choose, but I think the metaphor there should probably be thirst and Jesus giving us water that will never make us thirst again.

WAC is still WAC-- Wednesday after school club, though I thought briefly that if I moved it to Thursday it could be THUG for Thursday Underground. I'm sure the Bible has some thugs-- that's like Bible code for tax collectors or something.

So what if we had a Prayer group-- specifically praying for the underground? Is PUG too much? I've got a zillion pug pictures courtesy of former roommate Anitra's dumb old dog Daisy. Daisy is a pug.

Bug? Rug? Dug? Mug? Glug? Lug? Hug?

"Stop rhyming, I mean it!"
"Anybody got a peanut?"
--Princess Bride

long overdue

Sorry for the slackage. I might need to offer up something to hold me accountable for better regular blogging. Tell you what, if I don't blog at least weekly through the rest of October and September, I'll buy anyone who reads this a cup of coffee at Espresso Yourself. How's that?

VBS was last week and it was a great time. I've heard from more people that this year's VBS was the best they've seen. I think a unique community was formed for the duration of that week and I know I had more fun than I thought I would. The kids seemed to get more out of the messages and I think even the adults were surprised at the emotion from the week. Beach party, indeed. If you were one of the adult helpers, thank you so much. I think the week was truly an example of the awesomeness that occurs when the right people are in the right place. Mad props to Westminster in Des Moines for the use of their fake beards. I need to take a few photos with them, before they're returned-- the beards that is.... Where does one get a fake beard?

Here are some VBS pictures for your viewing enjoyment:

Let's see if you can find the adult hidden in this picture of VBS kids.



This was one of my favorite pictures that Joyce took. Connie had baby duty during the week. Collin seemed to love it.


If you want to hear a good story, ask Buzz. She knows a million of them.



As always, another Connie did a fantastic job leading Crafts.


The science experiment was way more exciting than this picture lets on.



Dance moves are easier to learn with a video. I think that added so much to music this year. Laura did wonderful.


We learned a Bible verse with actions. The best part was jumping like a frog when we said "Jeremiah." Sure most of the kids didn't get the reference, but that doesn't make Jeremiah any less of a bullfrog.


Shane, Ann and Pat ran with the pre-school crowd. I think they get the award for cutest class.


Clayton played Max and Head Lifeguard Sam sure looked a lot like a certain Presbyterian Pastor named Jim. Funny how that works.


There are gobs more pictures but I haven't taken time to shrink them down and organize them. Joyce took some great shots for us.