FEB MIND DUMP

It’s been a while so how about some mind dump.

• I am getting excited for the CE National Leadership Summit (CELS) for Youth workers. Dustin and I are taking some of our team this year and we have never done that before. For us this is the perfect distance, price, and intensity. Plus the driving time to brainstorm is priceless.
• I am also getting excited about Kalahari. We are over 1,000 people this year. I really didn’t see that coming at all, but it is neat to see how God continues to say “keep doing this thing” every year when I am ready to pull the plug.
• We are shaking up the behind the scenes inter-workings of Kalahari this year. It all started when I read a post on the blog of Dave Ferguson (author of THE BIG IDEA). His church has like 13 sites and they all combine for a retreat at the Wisconsin Kalahari with about 800 people. I realized they were the only ones in the country doing something similar to us so I called and we learned from them.
• My church is taking 175 people. We have never taken a group that big any where. A 5-bus caravan is new stressful territory for us.
• Josh Atkins and I are working on the Kalahari intro video. That is all I will say for now but it makes me giddy just thinking about it.
• I got to lead worship last week and we pulled out rise and sing by FEE. I am sure FEE would have vomited but it was fun and received well by our church. We are doing it again this week.
• I shaved today. I had like a 20-day beard going and didn’t know why.
• Kary Oberbrunner is giving away an ipad and ramping up for the next book.
• Had some great conversations with Jim Heffner and Rachel Weng today.
• Tim Wright has a new blog. I am dieing to know what he ate for breakfast.
• We canceled HSM this week and it was restful but an incomplete week to say the least.
• I was trying to think how I could combine the lesson I was going to teach with next weeks and realized I can’t and shouldn’t. Less is more.
• I am really excited to close out our Red Letters series talking about giving and the greatest commandment and the Widow’s mite.
• Malachi had a little 2^nd birthday party this week. All his 2-year old friends were there. It’s funny to think he already has a clique.
• I am so excited for Ben Arment’s new book. I don’t know that there is a cooler thinker and leader around. We have met, but I respect him so much from afar.
• I will close with this. On the weeks that I am not teaching or doing anything at HSM we sometimes play a game where people can write any words they want on a dry erase board and I try to freestyle them.  We did it last week. It is funny how much our students love it. I was pretty weak last time but those suburban kids had no clue!