Stuff to ponder

Interesting, isn't it, how often people criticize what they know the least about. Interesting as well how frequently people form their opinions based on their own experiences, or fond memories, or frustrated longings, rather than on what the Bible says. I wonder what the relationship between those two statements is?

Youth ministry

In the book Perspectives On Family Ministry, 3 Views, editor Timothy Paul Jones says this:  "That's when I began to ask some painful questions about student ministry that my training in youth ministry and Christian education had not equipped me to answer. What if, I wondered, this separation between students and adults--something that I was trained to see as a solution--has actually been part of the problem? What if God never intended youth ministry staff members to become the primary sustainers of students' spiritual lives? What if something is profoundly wrong with the entire way the church has structured ministries to youth and children? What if the reason so many ministers are bordering on burnout is because our ministry models are fundamentally flawed?"  (pg. 10).

Ten Blessings of Fall, last two

I)  Deer season!

J)  Football season!

Fall is definitely my favorite season.

Blessings of Fall part 3

G)  Thanksgiving.  Yes, I'm talking about the holiday. I know that the practice of giving thanks is always important. God deserves our thanks. Plus, it is good for us to thank him. It helps us to recognize where all good things come from. It helps us stay humble and dependent of the Lord. But the holiday is great too.

I love celebrating Thanksgiving. Anything that involves, faith, family, football, plus turkey & dressing, and pecan pie has to be a terrific thing!

H)  The colors of changing leaves. Granted, we don't get too much other than brown down here. However, there area few maples that people have planted that turn pretty colors, and the ginkos look pretty good. We also have a few sumacs that turn a very pretty red. Definitely love to see leaves changing into fall colors.


more later...

Fall Blessings Continued

Back to the list of ten things about fall for which I am very thankful.

D)  Butterflies. Admit it, butterflies are cool and beautiful animals. We always have butterflies to look at around here. But, this time of year we will get an extra dose as they migrate through. Its really cool to see them floating through the air. I've seen hundreds of monarchs at a time on trees by the lake. Butterflies are fun.

E)  Pecans. I love pecans. I have many memories of my dad cracking pecans while he watched football games. My sister and I would always try to sneak one out of the bowl. Man they were good. And my mother would then use them to make things like fudge, cookies, pumpkin bread, banana muffins, etc. Yep, pecans are a good deal. I don't know how the crop will be this year due to the drought, but I'm ready to drive around and find some trees on public property that are starting to drop the first nuts of the season.

F)  Mowing, or actually lack of it. As the days cool off a little and the photo period gets shorter, the grass really slows down its growth rate. This means less and less mowing as the weeks go by. Hallelujah!

Ten Blessings of Fall

As I mentioned in the previous post, summer dies really hard around here. However, it is a lot of fun to watch it fade. This is a great time of year. Here's a list of ten things that I am especially thankful for related to fall. It is not in any specific order; I'm pretty happy about all ten.

A)  The nights start to get cooler. This is nice for several reasons. For one thing, it's just plain refreshing. Also, it results in the electric bill going down a bit. Plus, it makes it possible to work in the yard or tinker in the garage early in the morning without getting all sweaty.

B)  Dove season. Yes, I think hunting is fun. That doesn't necessarily mean the killing something is fun. There is a lot more to hunting. It's a great activity. Plus, you end up with meat. How cool is that.

C)  New TV season starts. I only watch one or two shows a week at the most. But it is nice to have new episodes of the shows I like.

More later...

End of Summer

There are some states in this once great land of ours, where summer gives way to fall like a newborn fawn in a pasture full of fire ants. Not around here. This is Texas. Here, fall has about as much success moving summer over as soccer has of taking the place of football in Texas hearts. It ain't happening.

However, it is a lot of fun to watch summer mellow. The days start to get shorter. The nights start to cool off a little. It really is refreshing. We had our first little cool snap this weekend. We got rain on Friday. Then we had several nights where the temperature got down into the sixties. So nice!

Thank God for small blessings.

JT 4th Grade Track Meet Video 4

My plan was to come back to the track meet in time to see the tug of war tournament and get some still pictures. Unfortunately, they were running ahead of schedule. When I got there they were just starting their last pull of the day. For a minute, I thought they had it but then things went downhill.

JT 4th Grade Track Meet Video 2

Some classes had more children than others, so to make a race Jeremiah got to run another 50. Apparently he had heard the news story several times about the high school kid who got DQed for pointing towards heaven at the finish line and he thought it would be a cool thing to do. We had a little talk about that and about not looking in other lanes but focusing on the finish line.

JT 4th Grade Track Meet Video 1

Every student gets to run a heat of the 50 yard dash. Here is JT. He was so upset that he did not finish closer to first, but I thought he ran well.

JT 4th Grade Track Video 3

Jeremiah was very excited about this relay race. He had three really fast guys in his class that he got to run with. He kept wanting to practice all the time the week before the race. Their strategy worked out really well. The lead off gave them a lead. Leg two held it. Jeremiah lost it, but kept it very close so that the anchor was able to win it. I was proud of JT, he ran a really strong race and was able to keep up a fast pace the whole 100.

Things get a little too complex for this simple mind

I really can't keep up with all this technology. I have a blogger account, three e-mail accounts, an amazon account, LifeWay account, etc. Never know which e-mail and password to use when I sign in to one of these. Trying to sign in to one a few minutes ago, I accidentally created a new one. Good grief.

The smart thing to do would be to just get rid of all of them, but I'm apparently not smart. I just can't bring myself to do that. Someone will say, "Just write it all down."  Two problems with that. One, I would forget where I wrote it. Two, what's the point of having a secret password if it is written down. Then it is no longer a secret?

We had a pretty good weekend. I spent eleven and a half hours on Saturday doing job related stuff. However, I got to have cake and ice cream twice this weekend so that kind of balanced everything out. Yay.

That's my life in a nutshell for the past 12 months. Now it's about time for another elementary school track meet video.

Ride for Relief

The April ministry project for the Brazos Meadows youth group is to participate in the Ride for Relief 2013. Ride for Relief is a fundraiser for World Hunger Relief, Inc. It happens April 6th. We want to invite all BMBC families to join us as we ride. Also, if anyone is interested in donating you can go to https://whr.ejoinme.org/MyEvents/HOME/SIGNUPFundraising/tabid/438029/Default.aspx?joinme=23851 .

Thanks everyone! TTYL.

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I don't know where these ads are coming from but it is extremely annoying!