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July 23, 2007
Bear is a man....I am not!
Every guy wants to to know or hope that deep down inside of them that they have what it takes to survive out in the wilderness. Hence, I think that's why the show Man vs. Wild is so popular, and others like it.
I also think that's why Christian books such as Wild at Heart are so popular in some Christian circles.
Regardless of what you think, "man" likes to test himself against nature and know that he can survive. And as we move to a society where many places have already been explored, and as most of us live in the city, I think we all want some sort of challenge.
I think that's why I and others are so addicted to this show, "Man vs. Wild", which is hosted by uber macho man Bear Grylls. I'll usually receive a text once a week from my brother that says something like, "Bear just drank his urine." Or, "Are you watching Bear?"
I tried to screen out some videos that weren't going to make you gross out. So here is a hilarious interview with Conan O' Brien.
And for those who have a stronger stomach, here is one where he eats a live snake.
Right now some of the guy leaders in the college ministry are trying to figure out a cool "dudes" trip where we back pack in somewhere with very little. I think it would be great....I just told them I don't want to be in a position where we have to drink our own urine, or spend the night in a deer carcass. One the scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being camping in nice campgrounds and 10 being a Bear trip....we are looking for like a 3. Haaaa.
Check out the show Man vs. Wild and see if you are as entertained, horrified, shocked and educated as I am.
Posted by rhett at 01:57 PM | Comments (1)
July 20, 2007
Friday.....running, a new word, a new blogger to read and a thank you.
Running...
As I edge closer to the weekend I tend to write less about theology and the church and more about my long runs that take place on Fridays. As I'm training for the Long Beach Marathon I have once again chosen Friday as my long run day. It's a great intro into the weekend....and though I'm not writing about theology and the church as much I'm definitely thinking a lot about it during my longer runs of 14 miles plus.
Today I wanted to highlight a very intriguing figure in running, Dean Karnazes. I thought running 26.2 miles was a lot, but I soon discovered in my training that there is a whole group of ultrarunners who consider that just a tune up in the morning.
Last week Dean Karnazes won the ESPY Award for Best Outdoor Athlete. For a good interview with Dean, check out the blog of Scott Dunlap and his interview, Ultramarathon Man.
I won't go on and on about running today....but I credit running with totally changing my life. It's helped bring me life into better balance physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, and the discipline that is required has born much fruit in other areas of my life. Hopefully reading about Dean will motivate you to get out there and run.
New Word...
Wilf: n. An imperfect acronym for "What was I looking for?" Wilfers spend up to a third of their online time drifting from news to shopping to porn site.
Wired Magazine (paper issue); pp. 52; July 2007.
Though this word brings up unfortunate links to other same sounding words, it really is true...how much time do we spend drifting online. I'm sucked into Wikipedia for sure...I can go look for one entry and 30 minutes later I find myself at a different entry 20 times removed. Crazy.
Are you a wilfer?
A New Blogger To Read...
So this guy is not a new blogger, but I have been reading him as of late. Brad Greenberg is a former college student of mine. I have known Brad since he was a freshmen in college and as he began to write more and more for The Daily Bruin.
Brad blogs over at The God Blog. He is an amazing writer who has written quite a bit including articles for Christianity Today.
So go check him out.
Thank You...
This has been a very, very crazy year, so I want to thank all of you who have faithfully been reading my blog...posting comments, sending me emails and encouraging me. Sometimes I just have nothing to say, so I thank you for reading even when I don't have anything to give.
With interesting things happening in my career, and with new fatherhood I hope to have more and better content to offer you.
running, internet surfing, Brad Greenberg
Posted by rhett at 12:50 AM | Comments (1)
July 19, 2007
Musings on Fatherhood: I knew they said it would be hard, but....
So I am in no position to offer advice on fatherhood since my wife and I's first child was born five days ago. That hardly makes me an expert. Haaa. So I will be posting just some thoughts and musings as I stumble my way through it.
But one of the things that I find amazing is just how little we sometimes know about things unless we actually experience it ourselves. For example: When I was engaged my wife and I were often told by married couples that marriage was hard and difficult. They prefaced it by saying,"It is wonderful...and fun...and amazing.....but it's also very hard." For my wife and I we knew that marriage had its ups and downs and would be hard as we learned together what it meant to be husband and wife. And after being married for two years we can look back and say that marriage is hard, but it is also amazing and wonderful. But it took the experience of actually getting married to know the difficulties, the challenges, the wonderful experiences, etc. Nothing that our good intentioned married friends told us impacted us like doing it ourselves.
This is how having a baby feels. Everyone says how wonderful and amazing it is. But they also talk about the lack of sleep, the challenges of being parents, the difficulties focusing on your marriage, etc. And before the baby your typical response is, "yeah, yeah, yeah...I know...it's going to be hard."
But there is nothing like those last moments when the hospital discharges you and you are sent home with the baby for the first time. Now that we are at home I can say that no matter what my friends told me it wouldn't have made sense until we actually experienced it ourselves.
How can one convey what it's like to sleep off and on through the night...a couple of hours here...feed the baby...a couple of hours here...feed the baby...change the baby...bathe the baby....repeat cycle?
They can't! It has to be experienced. And after only five days I can say that all the things I was told were true. "It's wonderful. It will change your life. That there's nothing like looking into the eyes of your child for the first time. " And it's also true that "It's hard....that you don't sleep much...etc., etc."
So after five days it is true....being a parent is hard, but it is great. And it's something that can only be conveyed through experience, because no matter what anyone tells you, it doesn't compare to walking through the process yourself.
Have any of you rookie or experienced mothers or fathers had any experiences such as I describe? Was it easier or harder than you thought in the initial stages?
Thought this was hilarious!
Posted by rhett at 04:57 PM | Comments (2)
College Ministry Leadership: Recruiting Leaders
I was reading the article The Disappearing Middle over at Out of Ur and it's very fascinating, especially in its relation to ministry in church.
Chad Hall states, "In a bell curve context, church leaders could expect most members to be moderately involved in the life of the congregation while the fringes were inhabited by the highly involved at one end and the minimally involved at the other end. But in a well curve context, leaders can expect few people to be moderately involved; instead folks will be either highly involved or barely involved."
I'm entering into my 6th year as the college director at Bel Air Presbyterian Church, which means this is my sixth group of college leaders that I have recruited and who have come in to serve the college ministry. Six years is not a lot of time, but I too have noticed this trend in the last few years. And I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think there are several reasons when it comes to college ministry:
1) We have to take into consideration my leadership skills and that I may not always be doing a great job of recruiting leaders.
2) The college student has changed a lot, even in the last 5 years. More and more students are being involved in more and more activities, so less are wanting to devote as much time to church ministry leadership.
3) I believe that with My Space and Facebook many students involvement is limited to their online "action." If they can stay connected via the internet there is less of a propensity to want to attend certain things and be involved personally.
These are just a few of the ideas that I am playing around with right now. I have noticed that the number of Servant Leadership Team members for our college ministry has gone done (this is the rung of leadership that involves the highest level of commitment from the student). But on the other end we are getting more and more volunteers who are willing to fulfill more niche roles in the ministry. This is a huge blessing to have all these volunteers, but I'm still on the learning curve trying to figure out how to best recruit, organize and lead them.
This next year for our ministry is definitely an experiment in leadership in many ways. I look forward to sharing more of this with you later.
If you are a college pastor, work with post college people or young adults, I would be interested in seeing how you organize your leadership.
Send me some information via my email rhett@belairpres.org or post a comment, and I would love to be posting your thoughts.
college ministry, leadership, well curve
Posted by rhett at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2007
Speaking of fatherhood...this is one the best ever!
This always makes me laugh...
Posted by rhett at 12:55 AM | Comments (0)
I Became a Father on Saturday!!!
Many of you know that my wife and I have been expecting our first baby...a baby girl. We ended going into the hospital and into labor about two weeks early over the weekend. For those of you who are fathers, well, then you know how exhausted you are. I feel like a complete "zombie" right now walking around.
Mother and daughter are doing great. It was the most unbelievable experience...being there with your wife during delivery and then getting to cut the umbilical cord at the end. There are no words.
Obviously blogging has been a zero priority over the last few weeks, but even the last nine months it's been tough to find time to blog as other things have become much more important.
But as I enter this new stage of life I'm interested (and have been working behind the scenes) to make this blog better.
You will continue to obviously see blogging on theology, college ministry and other things. But I've been interested in the issue of fatherhood as it doesn't seem there are many great books on it. I've come across some great articles on what they are calling "Daddy 2.0" or "The New Fatherhood", etc. Meaning basically that the way fathers are involved in their babies lives is often quite different than it was in generations past. More and more men are staying home, or splitting up duties with their wives that used to be reserved only for women.
I know many of you who are fathers have experienced a lot of anxiety in being a new father, so if you have any good advice for a new dad, let me know.
For now, my wife will be out maternity leave for 3 months, and then when that time is over, she and I have rearranged our schedules so that one of us will always be taking care of the baby. We are both excited about this opportunity for each of us to share in the child rearing.
I wonder how many of you who are fathers, what kind of schedule or arrangement do you and your wife have? Do you both work outside the home? Do you share duties? Etc., etc.
See you soon...in the meantime we appreciate all of your prayers as we adjust to this awesome new stage of life.
Posted by rhett at 12:39 AM | Comments (3)
July 11, 2007
Young Life Branching Out Into College Ministry
One of the most amazing college ministries in the country is UMin, which is the college ministry of University Presbyterian Church in Seattle, WA.
They have done a great job networking with other college ministries through their Ascent Network, and the conference related to it which is taking place this next year, May 16-19, 2008 in Seattle, WA.
The college director of UMin is Mike Gaffney who is well known in college ministry circles, especially here on the West Coast. But as you may have heard, Mike has resigned from his position as Senior Director of University Ministries at University Presbyterian Church. He has accepted a full-time position as the Director of Young Life College, starting YL college ministries around the US. Mike will continue as the Director as the Ascent Network and be actively involved in planning Ascent 2008. (taken from the Ascent Network Email Newsletter)
If you are more interested in the work of Young LIfe in college ministry, check out their site or contact Mike as he takes over the new role of Young Life College Coordinator.
I really respect the work of Young Life and I hope they get involved here on the college campuses in Southern California, especially at UCLA and USC. This would be a great asset to our college community on and off campus.
Posted by rhett at 02:31 PM | Comments (0)
Seeing the Subtleties Around Us
"It is a record, first of all, of ecstatic discovery. Ascetism is a classic preparation for pleasure, and the lonely vigil of Muir's earlier life, far from dulling his senses, had trained them to savor every subtle facet of Yosemite's beauty. Most visitors to the valley had been principally transfixed by its grand perspectives and sublime views; Muir took equal pleasure in its microcosms and inconspicuous inhabitants. Beauty, in his eyes, like divinity, was fractal: it was present at every scale of the extraordinary Sierran landscape, from tiny lichens to lordly sequoias."
--Introduction to John Muir's "My First Summer in the Sierra" pp. XXV
This quote really struck me the other day as I was sitting outside reading the introduction to this book. I had been turned on to this book by Eugene Peterson's book Take and Read: Spiritual Reading: An Annotated List where he recommends Muir's account of his first summer in the Sierras as a must read.
I have been thinking about the idea of ascetism as preparing one for pleasure, and rather than dulling one's senses, actually helping one take in the subtleties of life around them. This is what I find in running. Last October I ran my first marathon in Chicago and was instantly addicted. So I ran the Los Angeles, Marathon in March. And now I'm preparing for the Long Beach Marathon this upcoming October.
Nothing has opened my eyes to the daily life around me than running. It's amazing what I see around me when I go out for a run. Running has opened my eyes to the amazing beauty of the city that my wife and I live in, Pasadena, CA.
Something about the ascetic nature of running and the discipline it takes to train has given me new eyes. I have been able to see the beauty of the mountains around me; the wildlife from big to small, from crawling to flying; to the needs of those around me such as people living on the streets.
I wonder if any of you have experiences like this, whether it's from running or some other activity. I know a lot of my friends find this true in their surfing.
So one of the things I have been thinking about is how to turn my running into something active. Meaning, how do I take what I see and use it to benefit others, since I credit running to helping me open my eyes to things around me. Obviously I give God credit for doing this, but I think He has used running in my life as the vehicle to focus me.
Read up on two Stanford grads who are turning their running into Hope Runs.
Read what pastor and blogger Tod Bolsinger's Marathoner's for Malawi is doing for those in Africa.
Read up on John Muir.
Posted by rhett at 12:52 AM | Comments (0)
