Being a Bigger Loser part 3

Just found out and wanted to report to you all that I am in 29th place for the "Being a Bigger Loser Than Marko" contest. I'm pretty pumped since there were over 175'something that have been participating.

I've not lost as much as I would of hoped at this point, but I'm down 20+ and still keeping it off. I've made a big adjustment to diet this week so hopefully we'll see more results next week.

Anyways, I'm pumped that at least in the running for doing fairly well out of 175 participants. Thanks for the support!

Being a Bigger Loser part 2

On February 1st I embarked upon a contest with Youth Specialties to "Be a Bigger Loser Than Marko". In other words, who could lose the most weight?

Here are some things you might be interested in knowing since it started:

1. Those who are in the contest have lost over 1,370.9 pounds!
2. Marko is in 2nd place!
3. Dj isn't in the top 10.
4. But Dj has lost 20 pounds!

So continue to pray for me, it is greatly appreciated. I'm continuing to eat good food and exercise everyday. I've even found that I can effectively cheat and still maintain my diet. It was unfortunate that we ordered Girl Scout cookies a couple weeks before I knew about the contest and they have since arrived. Since I have to eat about 6 times a day I've limited myself to 2 a day and I've found that I don't even take advantage of them every day. Look at it this way, I can have 2 cookies for 160 calories, or I can have a large apple for 120 calories. I usually choose what is going to fill me more (and its better for me!).

So it's going well. My first goal is 200 pounds, so another 20 pounds and Ill be there. There are times when I get frustrated because it's not coming off as fast as I'd like but I feel rewarded when I finally see that progress is still happening. Thanks again for your prayers and support!

UPDATE: In case anyone is interested in exactly what I'm doing. I limit myself to 1800 calories a day and exercise at least 30 minutes, usually on a stationary bike. If all goes well throughout the day, I net about 1200 calories which is just what the body needs. I've typically seen 2 to 3 pounds a week of loss which is considered a very healthy amount of loss.

Which Movement Are You Part 2

When I took that quiz it was early in the afternoon and I've since returned home and had time to think about it.

I'm such a hodgepodge of faith backgrounds that I don't think any particular "movement" would accept me. I've "grown up" in the Restoration Movement and even went to one of their colleges. I've since moved on from a lot of their traditional doctrines and would probably be ousted from the movement if they knew where I stood on some of the issues (although I still stand on their basic premise that we should restore church and should not consider ourselves the 'only Christians').

Anyways, I have no idea how I've come to my current standing on doctrinal issues. I read a lot, both of those I agree with and disagree with. I'm not a HUGE fan of Brian McLaren, but I do like a lot of what he has to say. I guess I could put it this way: I could spend the day with McLaren and the next with John MacArthur and be perfectly fine.


I'm weird.

Which Movement Are You?

What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this. Emergent/Postmodern 68% Reformed Evangelical 68% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 64% Neo orthodox 57% Charismatic/Pentecostal 50% Classical Liberal 46% Fundamentalist 43% Roman Catholic 32% Modern Liberal 29%

MUST Reads

It's been a great week in 'blog land' with several great posts from many different areas. I wanted to share with you some of the great ones from this week. Hopefully this is something I can continue to do each week.

"Once a Youth Pastor..." is a blog that recently got hit with a ton of traffic due to Marko talking about it in his post. It's about one youth pastor's exit from youth ministry because he felt God leading him somewhere else. His posts are great! It's all about why modern youth ministry isn't working and he raises great questions. Make sure you read this first! But make sure you make it over to The Piano Teacher part 1 and part 2.

Church Marketing Sucks is a great website for those that are looking for the more "commercial" side of our faith. It aims to equip leaders to be more effective in their outreach and media. Pretty good stuff! But this post on why Christian Living Sucks floored me! It's a must read! Here is a small snippet:

"Forget polishing up that web site, planning your next series or training your greeters. Because if we can't effectively live the gospel, how can we hope to communicate it?"

What is the Kingdom features a video on the horrors of Lord Waldemart!

One of the hardest things to do in our lives as disciples is to surrender. RETHINKING YOUTH MINISTRY has posted about this very subject with a great prayer written by Charles de Foucauld. Simply beautiful prayer that I aim to keep with me.

Oh, and don't forget to Take the Test!

Enjoy the reading! I sure did!

"All ye..."

I had a friend come across this video off the now booming GodTube and it was certainly an encouragement to me. So, I wanted to share it with you and hope that it encourages your day as well.

Can you name all 50 states?

In 5m 2s

Click here to Play

Thanks goes out to Marko for finding this.

Homosexuality and the church

Jeremy Zach is having a great conversation on the topic of homosexuality and the church and what is to be our response to homosexuals in the church. I point you in that direction to take part in the conversation.

Purpose Statements

Many will remember back in the 90's when the big "Purpose Driven Church" movements came into existence. At the time I was a clueless 15 year old who just kind of went along with it all, but I did remember that we were challenged by our youth pastor to memorize our "Mission Statement". In fact, we were expected to know it at a moments notice and could even win $1 if we asked a leader to recite it and they didn't know it.

I never did memorize it...it was like a paragraph long. But I DO remember the key words: Reach, Connect, Grow and Discover! I never read Purpose Driven Church or Purpose Driven Youth Ministry. I guess I just dislike program oriented churches.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet with some individuals that I know and trust and laid out all the challenges that we are facing in our student ministry. I drove home with the conclusion that we just flat out lack a vision.

Vision is different than a purpose statement.

Vision is a matter of the heart.
Purpose is a product of the mind.

You can have the greatest purpose statement in the world that is short, quick, easy to memorize and even say a lot about your organization, but if it lacks vision it's just a lot of words on paper. Vision is what drives people, not purpose. Let me give an example from a mission statement I found (and actually happen to like):

" Youth Ministry is a church wide ministry which strives to provide a variety of opportunities and experiences to draw teens into active, responsible participation in the life, mission and work of the faith community and the greater church."

I like this because it has vision! You can sense that the person(s) who wrote this, had a wide view of what a church ministry should look like. Two years ago, I had a vision. Today it's been twisted and misguided into every day pressures and influences. I would like to make a stop to that and regain the vision I once had.

So now I need a vision.

Quote of the Week 3

"Your personality may open some doors for you, but it is your character that will keep them open." - Unknown

Good Clean Comedy

Now, for those that know me know that I hate that we have a Christian subculture: Christian Rock Music, Christian Contemporary Music, Christian Death Metal, Christian Bookstore, etc...It drives me nuts! So as often as I can, I like to present artists and speakers that don't promote themselves as a "Christian anything" but rather someone who is a believer and happens to be in a rock band, or a comedian, or...you get the picture.

So I want to make a recommendation for something I came across this week that I think is noteworthy for youth pastors, parents, families and anyone else that just likes to laugh. His name is Tim Hawkins and he is a stand up comedian/music parodist (wow, that actually seems to be a real word). The man is hilarious! If you're a fan of Brian Regan, or Weird Al Yankovic, you'll love this guy. His songs are great and his comedy is top notch.

For anyone that lives close by, I have his DVD and you're more than welcome to borrow it.

Simplicity

I had one of those moments yesterday while teaching Sunday school that I come into a new realization about something.

We got onto the topic of predestination...or with our class...*I* got on the subject of predestination and salvation. We talked about how some people make our salvation a difficult thing. You have to agree to a certain amount of doctrine, you have to give so much money to the church or attend a denominational conference, etc...People make up these lists of how you are seen right in God's eyes.

But it's so much easier than that.

"This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life." - John 3:16 from The Message Remix

It's that simple.

Faith in Jesus.

We have all this "You have to live a holy life..." or "You have to have good works..." those things are products of our sanctification. As we come to know Jesus, he trims away the excess of who we were and puts in place himself. The process takes more than a lifetime.

There isn't a list or creed we have to memorize or recite or a list of things to do. It just comes down to knowing Jesus. Simple.

Adventures In Youth Ministry 3

If you've never heard of Mike Yaconelli, drop what you're doing and go see as many of his videos and read as many of his books as you can. The man was amazing and ever since I was introduced to him years ago, he has been a great encouragement to me. Mike has gone on to be with Jesus now, but his passion still remains.

This video was a shot in the arm for me this morning. Take 10 minutes and watch it, you'll be glad you did!

Youth Ministry is Broken

Let's face it. Youth ministry as we have known it is broken. It no longer "works". I've studied enough and been with enough youth ministers to know that the youth ministry that worked back in the 70's and 80's no longer works today.

Here is what we have done for the past 30+ years:

Church hires youth pastor.
Youth pastor creates fun and engaging programs.
Youth pastor encourages kids to show up and 'bring friends'
Friends become part of youth group.
The world is saved.

Heres the problem: We're still doing that today and it clearly is not working. I've had the opportunity to get to talk to a lot of different pastors here in the past 2 years. Some are my friends that I went to school with and some have been in it a LOT longer than me. They're having the same troubles that our church is having in relation to their youth. Namely not showing up and not getting involved. That makes me feel a little better as I've struggled for months believing that maybe, possibly it was all my fault. Of course there is still that nagging possibility that I am the problem.

Post-modern youth ministry HAS to change in order to survive. How? Wow! I wish I knew the answer to that so I could write a book and make millions. My gut feeling is that parents have to take more of an initiative to get involved in the ministry process. Church youth ministry should ALWAYS be the complement to what is going on at home. The discipleship process should always start at home. When that influence isn't there at home, such as in the case of unbelieving parents, thats when the church becomes more instrumental in the discipleship process.

Something needs to change.

What I would love to do is completely cut off all church activity for a year. No Wednesday Nights. No Sunday nights. No events. Just worship on Sunday mornings. Getting OUT of the cycle of monotony and living the believers life in simplicity of every day life for just a year. Of course, I would be fired for such a suggestion as it is my job to keep everything busy. There...I said it, and I'm not taking it back either!

I always hear about big words like "missional" and "attractional" and why it is bad to be the latter and how we need to be the former. I would agree with that, but how do you share that mindset to other people? That is a complete paradigm shift and people will only believe it when they learn it for themselves. We're fighting 50+ years of church tradition, and that in itself is a near impossible task.

It is my prediction, that within the next 50 years, the churches that are refusing to make these radical changes will either cease to exists, or on the brink of death. I'm not saying that's a bad thing...maybe thats what we need. Being in a section of the country that you can throw a rock and hit 4 or 5 churches in a single throw, less churches may be a good thing.

We need a change. A drastic change. What kind of change, I haven't a clue and I'm always open to suggestions. Let us continue to seek the face of God in all of this as we struggle on making his Kingdom more of a reality here on earth.

GOP full of "Fake Christians"

Can't say I disagree with him, Charles Barkley, former pro-basketball player made a bold statement on CNN the other night. See what you think here.

Over a week into the diet...

Things are getting easier. I'm losing my cravings for some of my favorite foods...although I'd LOVE to have some Taco Bell today. One of my favorite meals consists of turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread with lettuce, tomato, red onions and a very thin layer of reduced fat Miracle Whip. I'm going to have one in an hour and I'm already craving it..And It's healthy!!

To be completely honest, I'm actually having a problem of eating enough food! Let me put it this way, I don't do calorie counting...that's no way to live. But I do have a rough estimate of what calories I have been taking in and shooting for about 1800 a day. Unfortunately, I'm only getting about 1200 a day...which you would think is good since you're supposed to take in less calories. But I'm just not eating enough to sustain my workouts.

I cycle for at least an hour everyday at a moderate level. According to my research, I should burn at least 500 calories from each cycling workout. So while the weight is coming off, I'm probably not doing my body any favors with the energy deficit.

This weekend will be a challenge. I"m taking my wife up to Indy for Valentines day and we're eating at one of our favorite places to eat: Cheeseburger In Paradise. I'm going to have to be extremely careful as to how I eat that day so I can afford the 1000+ calorie food I'll be consuming that night. I've looked all over the internet and can't find how many calories are in their food, so it's going to have to be a straight guess.

We might even get some Japanese Hibachi, which isn't all that healthy either (white sauce anyone? LOVE IT!!) so, it will be a tricky weekend not having my exercise readily available but I think I'll be alright.

The Evil Eye

Friends,

In my journeys throughout the internet, I have never encountered such a video that made me laugh as hard as the "Evil Eye Baby". What you're about to see is the most amazing video...ever. In other news, I hope to get a new post up and going here soon. Stay tuned.

Being a 'Bigger Loser'

A couple of weeks ago, one of the men that I look up to a lot in youth ministry posted on his blog about his personal need to lose weight. Mark Oestricher of Youth Specialties talked about how they had toyed around the idea of having a contest to see who could be a 'bigger loser than Marko'. Me, and apparently a lot of others jumped on the bandwagon and thought that would be a great idea.

Thus the contest had begun!

Today I officially joined the community to start this "Biggest Loser" contest. The prizes are pretty neat, I have to admit, however the motivation to finally do what I've been trying to do is an even better reward. My goal weight is 190 lbs. I'm flucuate between 230 and 240 and to be under 200 would just be amazing. So here's what I'm going to do about it.

A couple of weeks ago, someone slipped $150 worth of Chamber of Commerce gift cards underneath my office door as a Christmas present. I vowed then and there to use that money to get in better shape with either the purchase of a treadmill or exercise bike. I still don't know who gave that money, but it was a blessing and I plan to use it to better my health. Obesity runs in my family, and thankfully heart disease does not, but just the though of being able to run and play a game of football and not be all out of breath is just an amazing thought to me.

So, I ask for your prayers and your support. This is going to be difficult for me and I'll need lots of help. My diet isn't horrible per se, but I didn't get to 240 by eating broccoli. So with a combination of better diet and exercise I hope to drop under 200 lbs by the middle of April. We'll see what happens!

Lost: Season 4

Needless to say I'm pumped about the upcoming season of Lost. I've been slightly dismayed at the delay of 24 season 7, but there is little I can do about that. So until the release of 24 I have Lost.

When we last left off, the passengers from Oceanic 815 were getting ready to be 'rescued' by the boat just off the island's shore. Some will be saved...some won't.

If you've never season an episode of Lost, that's okay. You can watch some of them on ABC's website. And if you don't have time to watch 3 seasons of Lost, you can go to the Lost website and watch all 3 seasons summarized in 8 minutes and 15 seconds. By the way, I don't think it's a coincidence that the video is that long. You can find the video here.

Quote of the Week 2

"Don't waste time: In just two days tomorrow will be yesterday."