Death Of A Salesman

Today, I was out to lunch with one of my adult leaders. As we were leaving the restaurant I saw a salesman trying to sell the restaurant an ad space in the local phone book. I commented to my adult leader that it would suck to be a salesman trying to convince someone that they needed what you were selling. I didn't think much of it until I got back to my office and started brainstorming on how I can convinvce teens to come to youth camp this summer. All of a sudden I realized that in some ways I was just like that salesman I witnessed. Now mind you, what I am trying to sell is of much more importance than just any earthly thing. Teens are very picky about how they spend their time and when there is so much competing for their attentions, sometimes I lose to the competetion.

The hard part of it is that it makes me weary just thinking about it. The last thing I want to do is sell something no matter how great it is. I wish that we didn't have to convince teens how much they needed God; I wish that they just knew. I know that there is a balance between just lettling it all happen, allowing teens to miss out on things and hearing about it later, and doing everything in your power to get them out to something that will change their lives. The hard thing for me is always knowing where that line is and when to leave it up to God. If I had it my way, the salesman would just die.

Crazy Cross Guy

Last night, Ang and I took about a dozen teens to a Kutless concert. It was awesome! Probably one of the best concerts that I have been to in a long time. The cool thing was watching several hundred teens worshiping God as Kutless led us in a worship set. I love it when a band will use a concert to worship God.

Even though that was the highlight of the night, something else happend that took a close second. Ang and I were sitting up in the balcony enjoying the concert when we notcie this 50+ old guy that looked like Santa in a leather coat, with the word redeeemed written across it. He was at the front with all the moshers holding up a cross. No big deal! But 10 minutes later, I saw him on the other side of the stage, now throwing his cross in the air. I thought to myself, man, this guy gets around. I continued to enjoy the concert by looking at the projection screens to get a different view. At this time it was a panned out view of the stage so you could see the heads of the crowd as they sang to the music. All of a sudden, I saw the cross. Crazy Cross Guy was now in the center of the crowd holding up his cross again. It was like playing Where's Waldo, only instead of Waldo it was Crazy Cross Guy.



(This a Youth Pastor scketch of what the Crazy Cross Guy looked like.)


This is where it gets really good. The concert was coming to an end and Kutless was coming out to do their last two songs. I was looking for CCG (the abrev is a call out for all the WOTWs) and couldn't find him anywhere. Just as Kutless began their last song, Crazy Cross Guy ran out onto the stage. I couldn't believe my eyes. Just before he made it to the center of the stage, he was grab by the back of his coat and brought down. It was amazing. Crazy Cross Guy was everywhere. What a night!

Change-a-holic

Do you ever go through times in your life where you just need change? I'm sitting here in my office realy wanting to change the layout. but I just don't know how to make it work (space issues). At home, I want to move the computer upstairs so that I can hook my 360 up to xbox live, which would entail major change to the spare bedroom. In youth minitsry I am constantly thinking about how to change the way we do things. I have found that if you don't change things from time to time, people get bored, but sometimes too much change is not good either. I think that I might be a change junkie. I thrive on change and while others tend to fear it, I long for it. Even now, as I look at my blog I feel like doing a major overhaul just to change it.