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10 Years Ago

This post comes from the blog of my friend and former intern Ben Kendrew. Ben helped begin the first youth ministry that I ever led. I was blessed to be surrounded by some great people in my earliest days of ministry and it has helped shape me into the person I am now. I often look back at this stage of my ministry career and with much conviction I can say that I was part of a MIRACLE. So many things happened at this church that there was no other explanation than God's divine blessing and intervention. Those years will always be very special to me and very unique.

This past weekend I was back home for Nick Hoover's wedding, one of my former students and currently the middle school director at HZUMC (the church I am talking about above). It was so amazing to be back with all of the people that hold such a special place in my heart and to see students now all grown up! I was overwhelmed by the memories and reminded of just how good those years where. We all took a picture together at the end of the night and as we were getting ready to take it, I just said to them "I love you all!" as tears welled up in my eyes. It was a special night.

Here is Ben's post about another night we had, a night not so special but definately memorable!

"Ten years ago this month, I was a freshman at Geneva College and serving as an intern youth leader at Harmony Zelienople United Methodist Church with Mark Helsel and Jame Price. The youth leader team traveled to Atlanta Georgia in February of 1996 to attend a Youth Worker's For Renewal conference at the Georgia Dome. It was an incredible time and God shaped our team and personal spiritual growth certainly took place within each one of us. It was a simpler time in my life. On the way home we were in a potentially life threatening van wreck. We hit a patch of black ice in Morristown, TN. In the van most everyone was asleep, I was wide awake and remember everything like it was yesterday. I hear, "WE"RE WRECKING" from Ben McGrew the driver. We crossed the ice and went into a spin about three times around and crashed into the side of the road. Moments later a tractor trailer jacked knifed and did the same thing...it just missed us praise God! Needless to say, we all were fine. I cherished my times working alongside of Mark Helsel and Jame Price back in the day. These guys gave me my first opportunity to learn relational youth ministry and helped me understand what it means to renew my mind. Many a nights were spent on the deck hanging out and talking. I miss those quality moments of life. This past Saturday, I had lunch with Mark Helsel and took a wonderful walk down memory lane to much simpler times ten years ago. He is now a speaker with YouthSpecialties and serves as the youth pastor at a church in Florida. He is married and has a son. The times they are a changing. Thanks for your investment into my life Mark during those crucial times. Thanks Jame for your investment into my life as well. I owe you both a lot. Here are some pictures from ten years ago. Many of these guys if not all are still serving the Lord some way or another."

The wrecked van February 1996 - Morristown, TN
Ben went through the window with Ryan Shane. The van was on top of my (Helsel's) foot.
Ben McGrew, Jason Rae, Ben Kendrew, Jame Price, Ryan Shane,Ken McFarland, Mark Helsel the morning after!

Thanks Ben and all who made these years so incredible!

mark

Accepting All Baby Model Gigs!

C'mon who could resist a kid this cute! All companies looking for a cute baby I got the one (for a small fee). There are new pics of the Parker up go see them (especially if you work for pampers)!

bye,

mark

I am a Podcaster!

If you want to listen to the inagural edition of the flipside podcast called THE FLIPCAST here is how you do it.

Open ITUNES

Click on ADVANCED Then SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST

In the URL Box enter this: feed://theflipsideblog.typepad.com/the_flipside/rss.xml
Hit enter and it should download.

Tell me what you think, we have a few technical things to work out but overall it is good and a new episode will be up next week!

mark

got gall?

I just got a book off of Amazon called gall written by Pete Gall. How should I describe the book? Think Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller with profanity and a little sex thrown in. This is not a book for everybody and defiantly not your typical Christian book. It is not polite, it doesn't sugar coat things, it's not vague and it is just brutally honest. It chronicles one man's life during the five years after high school, and I would recommend it to anyone in that age bracket or to youth workers or college ministers. If you are easily offended you should probably pass.You know it is going to be interesting when on the back of the book it says:

"Look if this whole deal with God is at all real, it has to do better than drone on in the hypothetical ans scholastic debates, it has to apply to premarital nudity, dreams of personal glory, colossal lapses in judgment, family dysfunctions, battles with addiction, and frustration with fools."

This book was self-published and probably passed over by many Christian publishers because of that very thing I mentioned earlier HONESTY. Honesty and Honestly dealing with anything REAL seems to be what the church is very good at avoiding. Most churches for whatever reason are unwilling to get down in the muck and mire of people's lives. Maybe they believe we shouldn't talk about that in church. How many churches do you think in America last Sunday talked about sexual issues, addictions, abuse, politics, loneliness, Internet stuff, debt, the state of parenting, desperate housewives, divorce, justice issues, busyness, the fallacy of the American Dream and a slew of other things that are not nice to talk about. When I say "TALK" I mean really got specific and challenging. I think I would have died in my pew if I would have heard one sermon on any of these topics in 21 years in my home church. How wrong is that? We have handed these and many more issues over to people like Oprah. Have we given people a faith that works great at the church picnic but lacks any punch at the bar, work, college, or at the supper table. Praise God for people like Bono, Donald Miller, Rob Bell, my wife and my friends Jame, Brock, Jayson, Matt, Tommy, Dave and many others who will dive into this stuff with me and aren't easily offended!

So is there a place for this book? I would say yes. Put it on the shelf at the nearest Lifeway Christian Bookstore right next to Purpose Driven Life. Like that will happen! What about the foul language? Sometimes I wonder about the party that Matthew throws at his house to get Jesus to meet his Tax Collector buddies. I bet the language there was a bit saucy!Yet there is no record of Jesus being offended. I say leave it. You might not agree that's ok we don't have to.

If you want to go further up this path check out the author's website HERE!

Gotta go read some more!

mark

A New BACK TO THE FUTURE MOVIE?

  If you want a good laugh click HERE  for the upcoming Back To The Future sequel. I can't wait to see it!

It will be the summer blockbuster you can't miss!

Bring all your guy friends

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised!

I just got back on Sunday from our High School Ministry Retreat in Gainesville, Florida. The theme was SOUL REVOLUTION and we had a great weekend of teaching, worship and of course random zany humor. For the last two years of my leadership for this weekend I have had my good friends Jame Price and Jayson Samuels come and be the speaker or the morning bible study/seminar leader. It is always such a blessing to do do ministry with friends, good friends. That is one of the reasons I miss Pittsburgh. It is the comraderie that is there between youth ministries through the Pittsburgh Youth Network. They do so much TOGETHER and I find that so refreshing. It seems that here in Tampa the churches are about their own little thing they have going and nobody does anything with each other, I don't get it! One of the coolest moments of the weekend for me was during the fireside gathering at the end I started thinking about how long I have done ministry with Jayson and Jame and it is now nearly 14 years of serving side by side. What a blessing that has been for me. Next weekend I am going home for the weekend for the wedding of one of my former students who now serves as the Junior High youth pastor in my former church with Jame Price. Furthermore the minister that is doing the ceremony was my youth pastor and mentor! Go figure! It is such a cool story. So I was reminded once again this weekend that the best things in life are the things you do with your friends and family. Oh! by the way we do a podcast for our high school ministry that is pretty cool. I will have the link up soon!

peace!

mark

Football's New Fairy Tale!

It really doesn't get any better than this!

Goodbye Jerome, we love you! What a way to Go!

mark

Where are you from?

Many people have been coming up to me lately saying, "Hey I read your blog!" so I am curious who all is reading this thing called THE JESTER'S PUB. So I would appreciate it if you would leave a comment with your name and where you are from if you read this. Hope to hear from you.

Let me be a Spidey geek for a moment!

If you know me, you know that I am a huge Spider-man fan, have been one since I was five and I still buy Spiderman comics every week. What you see to your left is the NEW spider-man costume to go along with Spidey's new powers. Am I excited? No! Why can't they just leave him alone, everybody loves the good old blue and red suit! He also has new powers that are questionable like he can see in the dark, he has organic web (like the movies) not web-shooters, he can stick stuff to his back like with his hands and feet, he "feels" vibrations like a spider when it has stuff in it's web, and he has STINGERS that come out of his wrist, what?????????????? I know this is probably only very temporary but still just stop it! So I am highly disappointed. If you would like to send Marvel Comics some protest feedback in my behalf you can do so HERE!

On a more positive note. Here are some great tidbits about the upcoming Spider-man 3 movie.

1. Gwen Stacy- Peter's first love plays a major part in the new movie. She is being played by Bryce Dallas Howard seen HERE.

2. The bad guys are cool. The Sandman and Venom. Venom being the cooler of the two. If your not familiar with them check them out HERE and HERE.

3. Harry Osborn most likely wears the green goblin uniform, but he might not be a bad-guy!

So i had to GEEK OUT a little!

Remember "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility"

mark

The Real Team I Cheer For

Now before any of you think that I have switched sides don't fear, that would never happen. I just appreciate the perspective on this game given by Mike Holmgren,coach of the Seahawks,  whose wife will be on a missions trip during the Super Bowl because they as a family know that is what is really important. Here is a LINK to that story and here is a LINK to a testimony that Mike wrote for his church men's ministry. They are very cool! My hats off to you Mike for keeping the main thing the main thing!

Proud to be on the same team,

mark

P.S. A shout out to all the Christian players on both teams (Hasselback, Roethlisberger, Hartings, Maddox and many others) May you play for His glory!