The past couple of days have been a true gift. 

Friday was my Sabbath and it was filled with a little work while Eden was in preschool, then we went to chuck “e” cheese and we suppressed Eden with a playmate there with one of her best friends, then we played outside where we got this pic.  Eden put herself down for a nap and I took a great 7.5 mile run that ended with the assistance of a headlamp.  Dinner was amazing too. 

Saturday was more of the same with a family hike, some Toy Story mania on Wii.  Katie was trying to work and then she was playing 2 players at the same time (see pic). 

The Dog even has loved this little bit of spring before real winter has come. 

The other night Eden wanted to put herself to bed. She read some stories with the kindle fire and then snuggled down. I had to come in for a final back rub and Katie had to pray with her, but it was a great start. Way to go Eden!!

This is my kind of spark notes, and to think about all the time in seminary where I was studying all of the “extra” words.  you might have seen this before but I thought that it was fun as I was looking for some children’s ministry stuff for the coming weeks.

God made
Adam bit
Noah arked
Abraham split
Jacob fooled
Joseph ruled
Bush talked
Pharaoh plagued
Sea divided
Tablets guided
Promise landed
Judges led
Saul freaked
David peeked
Kingdom divided
Prophets warned
People exiled
Hope rose
Jesus born
God walked
Anger crucified
Love rose
Spirit flamed
Word spread
God remained.

I am working on cranking out our up to date children’s ministry catalog.  I was going with the same look and feel as the youth one to keep continuity between the ministries.  I like the way the cover came out.  Now for the not so fun part of adding the content :-/ oh well.  I think I am going to try and add some fun elements and coloring pages in this one. 

What could we put in the catalog (besides stickers, that will be for next time) that would be fun for kids?

Coloring pages and maybe a word search?

One of the most dangerous things that I have ever encountered is my mother with an idea or a vision for what something could be.  It is awesome to watch her work though. 

Her latest idea is the transformation of our old High School youth room (now going to be a middle school room).  The room is in a part of the building that isn’t much used and has a couple of couches (hence a youth room).  In the picture she is getting ready to paint a wall a “bright yellow.”  She has also gotten a very large white board, wanted to use some white board paint on the top of a table, “found” a snack cart and has some other improvements in mind.  One of the dreams that she has is wireless internet access. 

She is a great dreamer and do-er.  I love her energy and excitement in renovating for ministry with young people.  I will try and keep you posted on the progress.

Tonight I threw together a cover for our latest youth ministry catalog.  When searching for the right font I came across the old favorite helvetica!!!  I haven’t used it in some time, but I think it really fit the bill with the cover.

I also know that it makes me a total dork for getting this excited about a font.  Oh well at least I am open about my obsessions. 

This past week I was at summer camp with 65 AWESOME young people.  Camp is always one of my favorite times of the year and I am always blown away by the connections that are made, the friends that emerge and the fun that is had by all.  Camp this year was different in that we went into it knowing that we were going to experiment with a number of different things.  There was a ton of things that went well, some things that we will not do again and a number of things that I think we can tweak for next time.

All in all I know the kids had a great time and I am going to post some things that are some of my personal leanings and reflection from camp.  So stay tuned.

There is a not so subtle transition that had happened in our home.  With the end of school comes the time to prep and do some serious work for summer camp.  Our house bears witness to the work that is going on.  Our guest room has been turned into the “staging room” for camp games, skits and activities.  I am excited for the camp.  After hanging out with the manidokan staff for a couple of days, getting my kids registered and talking camp up with a lot of others I am ready for the fun to begin.

What do you look forward to about the summer beginning?

Twitter is a little but goofy for me.  I understand the concept, but I have had a hard time buying into the implications of what it could be used for.  I totally understand its usefullness for marketing and even embrace it for some of the things we do at my church.  But as a real conversation and community I have paused and asked questions like do we really need to know what song you are listening to right now, the coroor of your underwear or the way that your feet smell after being in ski boots all day? 

I think that some of my negitivity comes in because I was a rather early adopter of Twitter and early on had it set to post students thoughts while away on mission trips to our ministry blog so parents could read, post to update facebook, get the word out about changes in meeting times and things like that. these things were cool, but still a little lack luster when you think about adding another social network monster to your life.  That was all before the hashtag “#” got up in running in a way that could be a conversation starter or igniter and before news outlets began tweeting stories. 

A couple of weeks ago at Annual Conference I was determined to use twitter as more than a poll, or status update and try and allow it be an avenue of conversation.  Those of us tweeting at the event used the tag #bwcumc2011 and began a conversation.  Because of the real time feedback and connection, twitter became for me more than what it had in the past.  It was more than advertising or a subastute for txt messaging.  It was neat to hear the opinions, responses and profound statments of others tweeting about the goings on of conference.  It made some interesting connections and improved my view on the socail tool. 

I did however think on more than one occation that we should have also had a hashtag for snarky and scarcastic comments to go to just to lighten the mood at times.  My bias here is that I feel scarcasim is one of my primary spiritual gifts maybe next year the fun ones can go to #RUKiddingBWC. 

Now my gears are once again turning about ways to use this in a ministry context that adds value to the conversation and faith development without just being something “neat” we can to with technology. 

This was the first time that I have used twitter as a conversation. 

It is annual conference time again and I am getting my gear set up.  I am thinking about what to take.  Last year’s smart choice for me was my kindle.  I read about 3 books or so thought the duration of the conference.  I also did some work on upcoming sermon series graphics.

This year I am excited because there is going to be voting for deligates to general and jurisdictional conferences.  BUT, we are doing it with electronic voting devices (think voting for america’s funniest home video).  I am more than a bit worries that the technology might get in the way and we will have to revote a number of times.  I am packing to be productive during the downtime. 

I want to know what are some of the essentials that you always bring to Annual Conference.