A Life of Learning

Dan and I have decided that Friday nights that consist of doing absolutely nothing feel so good sometimes. This week was a little crazy with trying to get the good ole car fixed. It’s not quite done yet…still need to tighten the timing belt and put some hoses back on, but we have made a lot of progress this week. And once again, a lot of learning has taken place. Adam asked me if we thought we could change headgaskets on our own and I would have to say no cuz I never realized how many components (if that’s what you want to call them) are in a car. I can see why people go to school for car mechanics :). Adam let me borrow a textbook he had on car mechanics, so I’m excited to gain even more knowledge.

This weekend we are dogsitting for the VanWinkles (friends and they go to our church) and they have cable, Wii, a double-headed shower w/ heated bathroom floors, so it’s fun. And they have a future leader dog and just a “regular” dog, so we are entertained :). We’ve decided that dogsitting is another profession of ours and we love it.

As I said in the previous message, I was going to mention a few things about what we learned at the seminar we went to last weekend. Walt’s big thing was looking at culture as a “soup.” Soup changes, meaning you can change the ingredients and you have to keep stirring it to keep it going. Much like culture: there are changes constantly and it’s important to keep “stirring the soup” to make sure you know what’s going on. One way he suggested on doing that is to “start each day with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in another.” For instance, Paul opened his eyes to the cultures he was in and kept his mouth shut until he knew what was going on. Being in youth ministry, we have to know what is going on in the world so that we can understand what is going on in our kids’ lives, but see everything through the eyes of the Bible first. The Bible is unchanging, where the world IS changing. Walt said often times we start talking about something we’ve never read or seen and state our opinion. I fall into that trap: if you’re going to talk, you need to read. That statement really hit us. We need to be able to walk ALONGSIDE our kids…not behind them in cultural matters.

Another big thing Walt talked about was the “me” culture we live in. We think that we “deserve” things in life and have a sense of entitlement. For instance, he read this card that said “I hope you get what you deserve.” Well, if we all got what we deserved…we would all be condemned. But God has chosen to give us life and therefore, we need to glorify HIM, not ourselves. I am so guilty of that in life…focusing on “me.” I need to think about EVERYTHING I do and do it all for God’s glory. I tend to become dependent on the “worldly” things in life and not walk by faith. And here the song “Walk by Faith” by Jeremy Camp was sung at our wedding. What a challenge that song is!!

I could really write a 10 page paper on what we learned at this seminar, but this is just a glimpse. We are actually heading to Columbus, Ohio this coming Friday through Monday for the National Youth Ministry Conference. We are REALLY excited for it because there is just so much to learn! There are even seminars on being a youth pastor’s wife :). So, after we get back, be prepared to read a 20 page paper (just kidding).