The Gathering in One Picture

The 2008 Gathering is over. I hate having to type those words. I think Doug tweeted it best, I wish we were all neighbors. Every year I make new friends and deepen my relationship with those who I am already connected with. My favorite part of these few days together is pictured above, sharing life with some of the sharpest leaders in student ministry. We do not discuss numbers, we don’t flaunt successes, we sharpen each other, we stretch each other, we pray for one another and we have tons of fun! I cannot describe the power of the authenticity that takes place around our tables during our various sessions, but I can say, its good.

Check back…I’ll be posting more about the Gathering and my week in California…right now I’m getting ready to fly home to my family who I greatly miss. California is great, but it stinks without them! California with my family would = Heaven 🙂

The Bowling gods Hate Me

Last night the PDYM State Mentors went to Lucky Strike Lanes for a little dinner and bowling.

My Results:
Game #1 3rd place 114 pts
Game #2 4th place (I didn’t get serious until frame 6) 101 pts

Doug Fields showed all the youth pastors how to do it with the high score of the night at 159 and Jim Clark came in a close second with his strong effort of 139.

I even tried a little meditation…the bowling gods still did not smile on me.

I choked like the Chicago Cubs in the pursuit of a World Series Championship.

Despite facing the anger of the bowling gods, I had more fun than I have had in a long time.

It’s sad I only get to hangout with these youth workers once a year. We’ve had a lot of fun.

Unfortunately it all ends today at 3:00 pm PT.

The after party heads to Hollywood afterwards, so who knows what will happen there!

(This is for Ben Taylor)
Join the Conversation: When’s the last time you had a lot of fun?

California

This is where I am this week…Yes, California!

I am at Saddleback for the Gathering with Doug Fields and his team.

There are so many Youth Ministry geniuses here, I am wondering why I am here.

I may not be blogging a lot over the next couple of days because of this.

But that’s ok, I’m not complaining. 🙂

Blogging: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

Today I had a pastor point out to me the dangers of blogging, especially when there is little to no context given behind certain posts. He brought to my attention a couple of posts I had written several months back and revealed to me a little bit about the attitude it seems I was portraying, or maybe the underlying messages I was giving off hidden beneath my words. I am fortunate this pastor wants to talk about it in a couple of weeks when I get back from California.

To be honest before I even speak with this pastor, I went back and read two of the posts he referenced to me and I have to say, they were pretty bad. I allowed some things that were happening in my life, along with some discontentment to mold my thinking and corrupt my heart towards God’s most precious creation, people. I also allowed those things to produce a critical attitude of views and practices within the church just because I choose to do differently. I am always promoting the church working together and being ONE, putting aside petty differences to see the lost brought to Christ, and while I was shouting from the roof tops that the church should be acting in this manner, I was being hypocritcal. I personally find this humbling, but in a sad way humerous, since my pastor just asked me to preach on October 19th with a theme of loving the hypocrite. I guess I should be asking how people are able to love me, it may just make the perfect message. On top of the areas where I personally strayed, there were some things that had no context or understanding for the reader and so it was easily misunderstood by the reader. Blogs can be very good and healthy, but when things like this happen, it makes them bad and really ugly in many ways.

To those who have read my blog, if you read this post, I apologize if I wrote some things that were misunderstood, but also some things that were completely wrong from my end. I desire to live a transparent life and in doing so, your going to catch me mess up and sin, but I am thankful for people such as this pastor who will step into my life and point me in a healthier and more productive direction for my life. My desire is to shine Jesus to the world, and if there is anything in my life that dulls that light, I want to get rid of it. I deleted the posts that were brought up to save any additional issues in the future after I am able to grow from this experience. I am very aware of one thing; I am 27 years old and though I would like to think I have some things figured out, I know that I am far from it! I am thankful for men, such as this pastor, who do not mind getting their hands dirty and helping a yound man such as I, because God knows I need it.

So today, I am thankful for grace, people who know how to love a hypocrite, and people who want to see me become all that God wants me to be. Its good to have people in my life who are living Christianity out. I look forward to growing from here in the next several weeks.

Humbly,

Nick

Join the Conversation: Have you ever said or did anything where you looked back months later and regreted or changed and thought “How Stupid of Me?”

Sharing Life Through Difficult Times

I was contacted a couple of months ago by Samantha, an editor, writer, and representative for Bluefish TV, about contributing to their new website, The Small Group Exchange. I was really blown away & honored that they would be asking me (a nobody) to write something for such a well known ministry resource company.

My article, Sharing Life Through Difficult Times,  went live today. The article focuses on how huge of an impact our small groups had during the devistation caused by Hurrican Katrina. The other day, after Hurricane Ike, I posted a little bit about my former churches involvement surrounding Hurricane Katrina and posted two videos to show a little bit of what we did and what we saw. You can check those videos and that post out HERE.

Go read my new article on the Small Group Exchange and come back here and let me know what you think.

Join the Conversation: How have small groups impacted your life or your church?