Beyond family, there is the staff....

For the last week we have welcomed a new staff member to our church staff. It has been great having this newest member of our staff come aboard. Marc has been tasked to serve in a supervisory administrative role with our Children's and Student ministries at Westbrook. The really funny thing is the one person in our office who is really best able to help this guy settle into this position has been called to jury duty and not able to be around to help smooth and guide his transition. The strangest part for me has been that I did most of the interviewing of this position! The ultimate decision to bring him onto our ministry team was not mine to make alone, which was and is a good thing...

Marc made a remark this week that helped me to see that what I have felt and thought of our ministry staff for a very long, long time is true...

Our church staff is different... In a good way.

It's hard to explain but it's a group of people who truly like each other and are always in each others corners. We compliment one another's temperaments and personalities...

We can hold one another accountable and not for one minute question one another's motives or heart. We are fiercely loyal to each other and to the ministry of our church.

It's nice to know that even the newest member of our staff has been able to see that this is true even after being here for just a couple of weeks!

Pretty cool.

Walking down memory lane....

Once upon a time, i lived in Canada...

There were so many things i loved about where i lived... in the foothills of the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Kind of hard to believe that a kid born in mid-town Manhattan, raised in Queens and the south suburbs of Chicago could end up in in one of if not the most gorgeous part of North America!

i learned all about curling and hockey (which is by far the biggest sport in all of Canada far and away!). i learned to love the world's largest outdoor rodeo...The Calgary Stampede! The chuckwagon races were the best as far as i was concerned. Stampede week was always a great week in town because everywhere all over town you could get a free all you can eat pancake breakfast with all the fixin's! And let me tell ya' the Chinese food in Calgary blows away the Chinese food we eat here in the States.... i also learned the hard way that although we speak english here in the US that the english of your average Canadian is a tad different... for example at one of my very first public events (a dinner to say "Welcome to the staff!"), i referred to a serviette as a napkin a rather funny but serious faux paux. Amidst all the giggling, snickering and laughing i learned that in Canada, no one in their right state of mind would use a napkin at the dinner table. When i wondered aloud "Why not?". i was informed that in Canada only women use napkins. If ever a black man could turn red from embarrassment, i am sure i did that night!

One of the things i treasured about my time in Canada was all of the people that came into our lives! It is kind of amazing that these people took a chance and let me have an influence on the lives of their kids as Pastor of Student ministries. It was great experiment and i will always be grateful to my first Sr. Pastor... who decided to think "outside of the box" and bring a black guy onto his all white staff! The thing about it is, our time in Canada probably changed us more than it did all the students and parents we came to know and love.

These days i am finding out about many of the students that we left all those years ago back in Alberta... many of them no more than eight or nine years old when we left have turned into incredible young parents, beautiful young ladies (inside and outside), handsome young men, and dedicated Christ-followers. At least one of them has been blessed to become one of the biggest country music stars in all of Canada!

Others have had to deal with bad health, tough and difficult marriages that didn't turn out so well, friendships that faltered over time, some of them have for various reasons have "wandered away from the faith..."

The bottom line is that at some level they will always be "our kids"... no matter what! i keep track of them even if from a distance. They are an incredible group of young people who are making an impact on the world and i love to hear about what they are doing. i can't help but feel a bit responsible for the difference they are making right where they are!

High School Days... best days of Your Life?

Question: did you enjoy your high school experience?

i did.

That said, i don't think i would do again... it was sort of a once in a lifetime experience.

This week, my wife through casual conversation with someone she works with realized that this same person had attended the same High school she did and graduated one year after her. This caused my wife to begin looking through her old yearbooks and reflecting back on what for many of us is a critical time in our lives. She remembers High school being "okay" for the most part. She also recognizes that had she remained in the town that she went to high school in her life would have more than likely have been very different and probably not for the better.

i think for me as i think back, i made the most of the experience. NO, i was not one of those guys who partied and/or behaved poorly but if there were activities to be part of, athletics to excel in, i would do it! There were the typically type of things that most guys in high school worry about, girls, looks, popularity... did i mention girls? However, in the midst of my high school experience the thing that made a real difference for me, something that helped me keep it all in perspective was my involvement with my church youth group.

It's really weird and sort of hard to explain but being part of a youth group and knowing that kids from my youth group were around me at school during the day was a significant deal. i knew people were watching out for me and they were also keeping me accountable. If i acted like a jerk on the football team or on the track team or in the high school choir, they wouldn't let me get away with it. That was in many ways what kept me in line. It is also what helped me enjoy the experience of High school but also keep it all in proper perspective.

Don't misunderstand as i look back there more than few times when others properly identified me as smart mouthed jerk, in spite of my youth group connections. But all in all, my high school days were truly enjoyable. There was also a part of me that realized that it was a special time and i needed to enjoy it but there would be many more very special days to come... even when my days in high school came to an end.

What about you.......