Thursday, August 24, 2006

Why do We Do This to Each Other?

"The single great cause of atheism in the world today is Christians..." I'm not sure who said this, but I heard it on a DC Talk cd when I was in college. Why is it that Christians do the worst things to each other and to the world? Then I get lumped in with those who call themselves that. Today, I read this...

Pastor, Family Accused of Molesting Young Female Congregants.


I was so shocked that I had to read the story twice to make sure it was really saying what it did. Apparently, a pastor and his family told little girls that by having sex with him he was "preparing their bodies for service to the Lord." Things like this really seem to get to me, because I spend so much time trying to get my students to focus on living their lives for God so that they can shine their light before all men. These little girls have had their lights blown out by men claiming to be pastors.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

An Interesting Decision

This is going to turn out to be very insteresting, I belive. Last week, I went to the school campus for what I thought was going to an easy trip to meet the principal of the school in the town I had just started serving before heading to lunch in the cafeteria with the students in my ministry. Turns out, the school has a closed door policy to all groups so that no one can question who gets let in and who doesn't. Not my favorite idea, but I respect the decision. At least the superintendant is fair about it.

So yesterday, I get a call from the same school asking if Mel or I would like to come after school once a week and teach taekwondo for the after school program. Since I have the more flexible schedule and can be away from the do-jahng better than her, it seems like a natural fit for me to do it. Maybe this will give me the door into the school that I couldn't get as a youth pastor. Looks like ministry and martial arts can combine.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Black Belt


Guess I should have posted about this a few weeks ago, but I am now a first degree black belt in the American Taekwondo Association!.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Back to Blogging

Wow. It's hard to get online to blog when you're a newlywed. Not that I'm complaining. I mean I love my wife and I love being married, so the writing can just wait a bit :)

I have been on the job at the new church for two months now. I do miss the kids from the last group, but I love these new guys. We're going to spend some of the first weeks of the school year going over Dave Burchett's book "When Bad Christians Happen to Good People." Tomorrow, I'm going to sit down and try to see how I'm going to adapt this into youth lessons. I can't wait to see how it works out.

Today, I had my first bad experience though. For seven years, I've never had a problem being allowed on the school campus. Today, I found out that my new school system is a closed campus. They allow nobody on campus so that they don't have to worry about people from "undesirable" groups filing a lawsuit. I certainly understand their decision, but that doesn't make it any easier. There may be a way around it, but I'm not sure I want to do something that could cause a problem between me and the school board. They do a great job with the kids, and I want to be a support to them, not a harm.

In July, I tested for and received my first degree black belt! I tested at the school in front of Master Sustaire from Dallas who was there to judge Mel in her final midterm toward her fourth degree. We now own the entire school and so I've been doing a lot of the business side of the school to let her be on the floor with the students. With the back to school sign ups right now, we have 74 students with hopefully a bunch more coming. The record has been 80, so we'll see if we can pass that up by the end of the month.

Well, work is calling my name back to what needs to get done. So, it's time to have fun with Elijah on Mt. Carmel. Hope the stuffed buffalo doesn't mind pretending to be a sacrificial cow again...