took the senior controller from harper collins to dinner thursday night at a nice fish joint a few miles away, and wayne gretzgy sat at the next table. we made eye contact. i think there was magic.

the ‘youth specialties leads to hell’ picketers are back again. i encouraged everyone to bring them starbucks from the stage yesterday.

kenda creasy dean knocked it outa the park in the opening general session. i’ve wanted to have kenda at our conventions for years, and she was everything i was hoping and more. i wish the mainline church grew more experienced wonderful female communicators. lots of great female youth workers, but most haven’t had the opportunity to hone a speaking skill in front of larger audiences.

family force 5 played the evening session. i think they just may be my favorite live band these days — certainly my favorite at our conventions (save my crowder buddies).

my wife’s here now. she was on the soulshaper retreat for these last three days. yeah. she presents her first-ever seminar today, and she’s really nervous about it; but i just know she’s going to be fantastic. she’s certainly more prepared than i ever have been in my life.

i’m wearing a name badge that says “pancreas boy”. it makes me smile. it’s my new super-hero identity.

met the drummer from lenny kravitz’s touring band tonite. lenny has been one of my all-time favorite musicians - so this was fun. he came up to my suite and we had a great chat (the drummer that is, not lenny kravitz).

i had dinner with my dear friend kara powell last night. kara’s a professor at fuller, and we used to work together on the staff of lake avenue church in pasadena. so good to get caught up.

hung out with some great youth workers yesterday– a group from elkart, IN; and a guy from warsaw, IN; and a buddy from north county san diego. nothin’ like being in the company of real peeps giving their lives every day to connect teenagers with the love of jesus.

i used to give out really strange and gross canned food to visitors in our junior high ministry, and i mentioned that in a seminar at a convention a few years ago. today a group brought me a can of ‘canned silkworm cacoons’, with a sticky label from their junior high ministry.

did the cbs evening news interview yesterday morning. i think it went well. the reporter attends bel air pres, and clearly has a sense of what youth ministry is, so her questions weren’t idiotic, which was nice. she actually set me up really nicely with a couple soft, slow lobs that i was able to swat at fairly easily. have no idea when it will air — i’ll post when i know.

here we go: day 2!

really? hmm. very interesting, if i do say so myself.

[can you hear the immature snickering from behind you while you follow that link and read the headline?]

apparently, my friend nate rice, junior high guy at forest home, has a blog that exists to mock blogging and bloggers. maybe this came out of our time at the junior high pastors summit this past year, when several attendees were encouraged to start blogs. well, here’s nate’s blog. it IS funny. but now he’s outed.

this is classic…

Police: 15-Year-Old Steals Bus, Drives Route Collecting Fares

Fifteen-year-old teenager Ritchie Calvin Davis stole a bus and drove it along its route, picking up passengers and collecting fares:

“I drove that bus better than most of the LYNX drivers could,” the teen told a deputy after his arrest. “There isn’t a scratch on it. I know how to start it, drive it, lower it, raise it.”

Passengers and deputies noted Davis drove the bus at normal speeds and made all the appropriate stops on the route. One passenger, suspicious of the youthful looks of the driver, called 911.

(ht to bobbie)

today’s news about ted haggard (president of the NAE, senior pastor of new life church in colorado springs) has me very meloncholy. i’ve not been a massive fan of the NAE agenda these days — seems they’ve become more about defining who’s in and who’s out than much else — but i’m sad on so many levels.

i’m sad because this is just another easy way for people (especially the media) to paint all christians with a broad brush. the accusations become accusations against all of us. i don’t like getting lumped into those categories, but i also want to represent the name of christ.

i’m sad because i can’t imagine the pain and panic and emptiness in the haggard home at this moment. i hope the accusations are proved false. but whether they are accurate or false, the pain will be immeasurable.

i’m sad because of the pain new life church is, and will be, experiencing. new life church probably wouldn’t be my cup o’ tea; but they’re still my brothers and sisters in christ. my uncle is an elder there (he’s been pictured in some of the news i’ve been reading online this morning). i know what this pain is like first-hand. i’d been at a large church for 6 months when it came out that the senior pastor had been having an affair with one of the other pastor’s wives. what a mess. and it’s shocking how quickly that kind of pain can cause division.

i’m sad that a world of people will read the news this morning, and have one more reason to distrust, dislike, and distance themselves from, christians.

bob carlton has posted a stunning tribute to mike yaconelli today. thanks, bob — perfect ‘first day of convention’ reading for me.

here’s the ever-changing list of bloggers who say they will be active (blogging, that is) during the national youth workers convention in aneheim this weekend. i’ll update the list a handful of times, i’m sure.

andrew seely
ryan nielsen
josh johnson
kerry
ty hogue
friar tuck
joshua michael
d’caffeinated pickle
knotter
mike rose
josh cook
lars rood
mike king


lilly lewin
tony jones
and, me, of course.

[some of these links, from people who SAID they’d be blogging, are still bone dry. c’mon!]

made by “community christian church”

christian v. christ-follower…

(ht to tony myles)

ok, this can’t be a good thing…

wow — even time magazine is jumping on the bandwagon. not a bad article, really — one of the better i’ve seen. no article like this seems able to please on every point — but this one sure is better than the ny times piece!

here’s a taste:

Youth ministers have been on a long and frustrating quest of their own over the past two decades or so. Believing that a message wrapped in pop-culture packaging was the way to attract teens to their flocks, pastors watered down the religious content and boosted the entertainment. But in recent years churches have begun offering their young people a style of religious instruction grounded in Bible study and teachings about the doctrines of their denomination. Their conversion has been sparked by the recognition that sugarcoated Christianity, popular in the 1980s and early ’90s, has caused growing numbers of kids to turn away not just from attending youth-fellowship activities but also from practicing their faith at all.