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Another Near Miss and Retreat Blues

Another Hurricane has come and gone and once again missed Tampa by about 175 miles, that is not a whole lot of distance with a Hurricane. So we have managed to dodge yet another bullet with barely much of anything worse than what we get in a good thunderstorm. Tampa has not been really hit with a major hurricane since like the 1920's so people around here are not really concerned about them, they kinda have hurricane apathy. On a weird quirky note, the place that I went on my honeymoon The Iberostar Tucan got wiped out by Wilma which is pretty sad. Our room was right on the beach so I know it didn't survive. Also where we went on our first anniversary Sanibel-Captiva Island was destroyed by hurricane Charley last summer. So wherever my wife and I go to celebrate our anniversary we bring destruction with us! Not cool!

Back to ministry stuff. Our high school retreat is this weekend and we are going to these Villas on Venice Beach. You can check them out HERE. So we are taking about 70 people but the retreat could be so much bigger if we had half of our high school kids show up. This is going to be a great weekend but most of them won't experience it. Number one reason they don't come they are just too busy! They can't get away for a weekend. They all have the same story "I really want to go but I've got ......." I have been doing this for 16 years and I have never seen kids not be able to get away for the weekend like I see now! It is crazy, it makes me want to give up on retreats alotogehter or maybe redefine them. So have you run into the same problems? Have you changed the way you do retreats? Have you lowered your expectations? I would love to hear your opinions.

See ya,

mark

Adios Amigo!

Yesterday afternoon I was involved in a car accident that totalled the Amigo. I was hit by an F150 on my passenger side that wiped out the front of the car. I am ok and no Becky wasn't with me so the baby is fine! I am sad to see the Amigo die, we have traveled over 102,000 miles togehter and there are alot of memories attached to that car and Becky and I had alot of our first dates in that car. So it is a sad day and in honor of our years together (7yrs) today is an offical day of morning for the Amigo. Farewell my friend!

shalom,

mark

Starbucks and God

Who would have thunk it except my senior pastor who swears that Starbucks is part of the Holy Trinity along with Krispy Kreme and Chick-Fil-A! It appears Starbucks is putting a quote about God from Rick Warren on their coffee cups. Here is the quote on the cup:

"You are not an accident. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. He wanted you alive and created you for a purpose. Focusing on yourself will never reveal your real purpose. You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense. Only in God do we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance and our destiny."

- The Rev. Rick Warren for Starbucks

I'll have a Double mocha-latte Grande with a shot of Holy Spirit please!

The whole article is HERE!

mark

Return from Pittsburgh

Hey everybody I am back from Pittsburgh and we had an awesome time chillin as a team being refreshed and encouraged by all of the cool stuff we were a part of. Personally my seminars went well. The Narnia seminar was the most fun and it was a new seminar so I was most excited about it. Jayson did a great job and the comments I got from most people was that it freed them up to really teach in a different way so that was cool. Here is a quote from some of the material we used:

    “The preacher exchanges the fairy-tale truth that is too good to be true for a truth that instead of drowning out all the other truths of the world is just in harmony with them. He secularizes and makes rational. He adapts and makes relevant.He demythologizes and makes credible. The preacher is apt to preach the Gospel with the high magic taken out, the deep mystery reduced to a manageable size”  -Fredrick Buechner

The Gandalf seminar always goes well and I get the most feedback from that because it is very practical and because of the videos I use, especially the one we created with the scenes from the Passion of the Christ. I have gotten alot of requests for this video so I will be sending them out later this week or next week.

The Changing Churches seminar was OK, it was a late night option this year and it really didn't belong as a late night option but oh well, I got to pray with some people that were hurting or confused about ministry direction so it was worth it. I think 23 people attended.

As far as my personal favorite top ten from the conference, here they are (They are in no particular order)

1. Doing two of my seminars with two of my best friends Jame Price and Jayson Samuels

2.  Just chillin' with our volunteer leaders that went. They are a great bunch of guys and I loved getting to show them the Burgh!

3.  Scary Jesus (Don't ask but I will have pics soon!)

4.  David Crowder Worship. As always so good!

5.  The guy doing sculpture and painting during worship, very cool

6.  The Skit guys and Taylor Mason. Unbelievably funny! "I'm going to stare at this man!"

7.  Louie Giglio's message on worship. Amazing!

8.  Seeing all of the Pittsburgh youth workers and all those I worked with for years.

9.  Primanti Bros. Sandwich (It had to be on the list)

10. Jars of Clay's incredible acoustic set. Cool Stuff

So that's my trip, it is good to be back in Tampa just in time for a hurricane!

peace out!

mark

Headed Home and Hedonism

I am headed to Pittsburgh on Tuesday for the National Youth Workers Convention. I will be there until Tuesday along with six guys from my youth leadership team and my wife. I will also be doing three seminars @ the convention. The first one is called Heading towards Narnia, and is about teaching truth through myth and fantasy, it should be good and my good buddy Jayson Samuels is my partner for that one. Second I am redoing my Communicating with Gandalf seminar which is teaching using popular culture. Lastly, Jame Price and I are doing Changing Churches which is a look at what to do when you move into a church, around in a church and when you leave a church, I have some great experience there! So it should be fun I always look forward to doing ministry with my friends and going home on top of that is a great bonus.

I will also get to see alot of Pittsburgh friends like Brad Henderson, Nick Hoover, Alex Ruzanic, Jason Pauli, Ben Kendrew and the list goes on an on. These are all people that I have been privileged to do ministry with in my life and they have been a real blessing to me.

I don't know how much opportunity I will have to blog my trip but I will try to do updates and give you all some tidbits I am learning from the trip.

On the reading front I have started to dive into Desiring God by John Piper. One of our high school kids on our Mission Trip to Mexico was reading it...how refreshing is that! So I am giving it a try and I love it! He talks about being a Christian Hedonist if that doesn't make sense to you then you will have to read the book! One of the quotes in the book that I loved was by Blaise Pascal who writes:

"All men seek happiness. This is without exception. What ever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even those who hang themselves."

Piper makes the case that the pursuit of happiness is not wrong it is the object of that pursuit that is often wrong. Which is ultimately the reason that so many Americans are unhappy because the objects our their deepest affections are misplaced.

C.S. Lewis puts it this way:

"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to  go on making mud pies in a slum, because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

Piper adds to that by saying:

"We have accustomed ourselves to such meager, short lived pleasures that our capacity for joy has shriveled. And so our worship has shriveled. Many can scarcely imagine what is meant "by a holiday at sea"-worshiping the living God. For many Christianity has become the grinding out of general doctrinal laws from collections of biblical facts. But childlike wonder and awe have died. The scenery and poetry and music of the majesty of God have dried up like a forgotten peach at the back of the refrigerator."

How true, how true!

As Kip would say "Peace Out!"

mark

Jesus and Hot Dogs

Last night was one of the most memorable of my life and once again a reminder of the blessings in my life and the blessings that God pours out on us when we simply give of ourselves. I was invited by Mary Rude one of my high school volunteers to join her and her family in downtown tampa where they feed the homeless people each Monday night. I was eagerly looking forward to finally joining them downtown and being a part of their incredible ministry. I brought about five pairs of jeans and some shirts to give out and they were snatched up right away. Basically Mary's family brings hot meals and desserts and sack lunches, which they pay for themselves, every Monday night and there are literally about 60 to 80 people who line-up to receive the food each Monday. I became a server of the hot dogs. They were the most popular. It was amazing and heartbreaking all at the same time as I handed out hot dogs to young, old, black, white, oriental, male and female all who were homeless, all who would sleep that night on the hard Earth. Each face represented some sad story, a story of a person who by all regards is now forgotten in our society, except on Monday nights @ 7pm. I got to sit an talk with Curtis who was forty one and had a warm and inviitng personality. He talked about his life and how he had quit so many times but he was tired of quitting, he also talked about how his family had never been there for him and how he could have made something of his life. He talked about God and how he knew that God loved him and he just wanted to do what the Lord wanted him to do, but he just hadn't been able to. I am always amazed buy the honesty of people like Curtis who have no images to uphold, no self-righteousness to protect and can be raw before people and God. Curtis may be considered to be in poverty but I have met so many people who make 150,000 a year in my life who live in poverty of the soul because of their lack of honesty before God. I met Jesus last night, I felt him near, I felt his pleasure and I knew he was close to all of us in that place. I left downtown last night thanking God for my time there, for the people that I met, and for the Kingdom of God I saw lived out through hot dogs and coconut cake. I will be back next week!