Archive for the ‘Youth’ category
June 10, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. June 10, 2014
It’s Vacation Bible School week at the church I pastor, an experience in contained hyperactivity. Somehow I got roped into being the focus of the kids bringing their coins and dollars bills to support the mission cause of the week- buying chickens for farmers for the southeast African country of Burundi. The Evangelical Free Baptist Church of Burundi is coordinating this project to help raise people out of poverty.
It’s a great cause, seeking to give farmers a starting point in establishing an ongoing more dependable income and living.
But…as I said, somehow I got roped into being the focus. There are two glass jars at the front of our sanctuary where we begin the VBS gathering each day. One glass jar has a name plate underneath it that says “Yoda”, and the other jar has a name plate that says “Princess”.
At the end of our VBS week the money will be counted and which ever jar has the most money…that is what I will have to dress up as!
What a contrast! Yoda or a princess…and not just an princess, mind you! As the week has progressed the princess has now become Anna from the movie “Frozen”, which I have not seen, but my three year old granddaughter has the words to all the songs memorized for.
And now I am to sing “Let It Go!”
Being Yoda would be a lot easier. After all, I look a lot more like him and am just slightly taller in height.
The campers have been scurrying to put their coins and one dollar bills in the princess jar. I countered today with a twenty dollar bill for Yoda. It looks like this is going to be an expensive week if I manage to be “Yodaized!”
Excited kids are running up to me with their costume suggestions…for a princess! I’m afraid glitter is in my near future!
There will be several thankful farmers in Burundi who will have no clue what it cost me for them to raise chickens.
And I guess I’m okay with that…although I’m bringing two twenty’s with me tomorrow !
Categories: children, Christianity, Faith, Freedom, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Burundi, chickens, collecting money, dressing up, Frozen, helping, missions, princess, Princess Anna, raising chickens, vacation bible school, VBS, Yoda
Comments: 2 Comments
June 6, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. June 6, 2014
Some of my posts this month will seem a little different than the usual. Okay…maybe more different than different…like a Baptist pastor looking at a multitude of approaching rabbit trails. Each one takes me in a different direction. The reason for this is that I’m doing a month-long writing challenge through the blogging site, WordPress. Each day it gives the writer a theme to write about. Today’s post evolves out of their seed thought of discovering a life-changing letter on a path and wanting to get it back to the writer. the added twist for today is trying to keep it brief
School done!
My seventh grade textbooks were tucked under my arm as I headed home by the usual path. Twenty paces into the woods a piece of paper was pinned to a tree by a cropped off branch. My name was written in emphasized magic marker. I discerned that it was for me. I was the only Jethro that I knew.
The unclipped note in my hand was turned over to reveal the message:
“I really like you. Do you like me?”
Signed,
The One Sitting Beside You in Social Studies
My heart rate sped up. Leslie Palmer! My hands sweat just sitting beside her in class. And now she wanted to know if I liked her.
That was a stupid question.
Yes!!!
She lived just a couple streets over from my house. I slowed my pace and headed in that direction, not wanting to beat her home from school. A few houses from her two-story I saw her walking. I ran ahead and shouted her name.
“Leslie!” She turned and looked at me curiously. I sprinted to the spot.
“I just wanted you to know that I do.”
“You do what?”
“Here’s your letter back. I do like you.”
Her face distorted, and she let loose with a loud “Ewwww!”
It was at that awkward moment that I realized that my secret admirer wasn’t the girl who sat on my right, but rather the one who sat on my left in Social Studies.
It was Lucy, not Leslie…and I immediately let loose with an even louder…
“Ewwww!!!”
Categories: children, Humor, love, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 7th Grade, adolescent, girlfriend, infatuated, Jethro, love letters, middle school, secret admirer
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June 5, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. June 5, 2014
“Lost In Translation (Part 1)”
I will be the first to admit to you that I am clueless on a lot of things, and in a number of ways.
But, in many ways, I’m clued in to the fact that I’m clueless. If someone starts talking techie stuff I’m present in the body but absent in the mind.
My life has been punctuated with clueless moments and conversations. One that stands out to me happened during my junior year of high school. It was Homecoming Week, that one great week in the fall of the school year where the popular students get picked to be on the Homecoming court, and the rest of us find out we’re not nearly as cool. (I’m not bitter!)
I had asked a beautiful young lady who I will fictitiously call Bridget to go to the Homecoming dance with me. She said yes and I was elated! I wasn’t quite sure what sexy meant yet, but she seemed to be leaning in that direction. Of course, most sixteen year old boys get excited just by looking at Betty Crocker. Bridget, however, was a ways on up the gauge meter from Betty.
We danced together and I can remember the scent of apple blossoms resonating from her body. She had long dark hair and the latest style in eyeglass wear. I wore my varsity jacket, which I hoped would give me some resemblance of being important and studly!
The evening went well until I lost the translation. It happened as I walked her to the front door of her home. There was a porch light on and Bridget looked at me and asked me if I would like for her to turn the light off.
My masculinity suddenly took a vacation and before I knew what I was saying I replied, “No, that’s okay!”
Clueless! Idiot!
She had opened the door for a goodnight kiss and I had closed it shut in just a few oblivious seconds.
I called her the next week to ask her out on another date. There seemed to be an air of coldness as I tried to have conversation with her, and then I popped the question.
“Would you like to go out on another date?”
And then the words of rejection!
“No, that’s okay!”
Lost in cluelessness! I’m still haunted by the words!
Categories: children, Humor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: clueless, dates, front porch, Homecoming dance, missing the kiss, translation
Comments: 3 Comments
June 5, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. June 4, 2014
As a pastor I get tired of the “music wars”, the battles over how many hymns, praise songs, and contemporary music selections we sing in worship on Sunday morning. I doubt that David envisioned the polarizing that music would bring into a worshiping community when he sat with the sheep and composed Psalms as he strummed his harp.
The thing about music is that its eternal…if we allow it to be. How foolish it is to use music as a battlefield! We all have preferences. I’m not into rap, but I can still envision the Almighty tapping his toes to a song that has more rhythm than I could ever harness.
As I look back over my life I see songs popping up at different times that have stayed with me, and have melted into my spirit. Here’s three:
“Pass It On!” After my sophomore year of high school I spent a week of my summer vacation at church camp at Judson Hills Baptist Camp in northeastern Ohio. It was a great week that included living in a teepee, having a girlfriend, Clara, who lived across the street from me back in my hometown (A little awkward after we broke up a few days after returning to civilization!), and learning about God. At our evening campfire we would sing “Pass It On!” Forty-plus years later I can still hear the mix of the soprano voices of the young lady campers and the strange voices of the boys who weren’t sure if they were heading to the “bass section” but weren’t committed to being tenors either.
It was a defining summer that headed me towards considering the idea of one day being a pastor.
“Color My World!” My high school prom theme was also the Chicago hit. I can remember strolling through the gym with Mary Cronacher on my arm dancing to the soft music and realizing that young ladies smell good! Underarm deodorant became a friend of mine about that time. A guy couldn’t be a jock and be able to dance closely for very long with a young lady who had a scent of apple blossoms blessing my nostrils. I can still hear the brass of the band as they played that song.
“Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?” Larry Norman’s song that was rocking and rolling as I was graduating from high school. Nothing like that had ever come close to the ivory keys of the church’s piano, and Norman’s long flowing blonde hair made it even more radical for our Baptist young people’s group. That summer after high school I learned that it was okay to not look stoic as you sang in church. Some of the parents of our youth group members were not so sure, and I would lay money on it that our church’s deacons’ meetings included some serious discussion about the road paved to hell by rock and roll!
Three songs that still sing to me and remind me of where I’ve been, the boy I once was and the approaching of manhood that they hummed me towards.
Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Humor, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Chicago, church camp, Color My World, Judson Hills Baptist Camp, Larry Norman, music, Pass It On, praise songs, prom, Psalms, Why Should The Devil have all the Good Music
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May 30, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. May 30, 2014
The trunk of my car is used for transporting various things. At the moment I have a dirty sweatshirt crammed to one side, a bag of weed and feed, and a dozen orange cones for use at basketball practice.
At other times it carries our suitcases on the way to the airport, or my golf clubs for any infrequent trips to the golf course. Once in a while when soda pop has been on sale I’ve even filled the trunk with cases of pop. (Since I haven’t had a can of pop for two weeks now that event may very well be a thing of the past!)
Trunks are useful, but they don’t control the car. They are in the back…except for some Volkswagens. They bring up the rear!
Once when I was growing up we had a group of young people go to the Drive-In Movie Theater. Since admission was paid on the basis of “visible” people in the car a couple of teens hid in the trunk until we got to our parking spot. It was dishonest, but we felt it was kind of a “grey dishonesty.” Wrong, but we justified it by how much the theater charged for popcorn.
Riding in the trunk got our friends in, but they also had no say in where we were going to park, and even when we were going to free them from the tomb they were trapped in. When we did let them out…they didn’t go back in!
I think I’m guilty…and possibly most of you who are reading this are guilty…of putting Jesus in the trunk. He’s back there with the car jack- only to be called on in an emergency.
BUT he’s in the car! He’s with us, just not in control of us.
In Luke 18 we read the story of Jesus being engaged in a conversation by a rich ruler. The dialogue focused on the requirements for inheriting eternal life, and after some back and forth discussion the man walked away, as it says in the scripture, “…sad, because he was a man of great wealth.” (Luke 18:23, NIV)
It’s right after that Jesus talked about the difficulty of a rich person entering the kingdom of God. The point, however, was not so much about rich people. The point was that it’s difficult to surrender our agendas, our control, and our lives to the Lord.
Putting Jesus in the trunk allows us to say that he is with us, that “I’m a Christian.” Unfortunately, that name has become so watered down that it doesn’t mean that much. It may not help that much, but I refer to myself as a follower of Jesus because it indicates that he is out in front, not tailing along behind with the suitcases.
Surrender is hard! Stubbornness is easy! Yielding makes us grind our teeth. Dictating keeps things uncomplicated.
Where is Jesus riding in your life? If he’s in the trunk, let him out from under the “weed and feed” and at least sit in the car!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Faith, Freedom, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: car trunk, dishonesty, drive-in theater, Luke, Popcorn, rich young ruler, surrender, Trunk, wealth
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May 25, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. May 25, 2014
Today is Day 9 of my 7 Day Pop Fast!
Yes, my week without soda pop ended, but I’ve continued to fast from it. It’s more like a routine now. I’m sure I’ll have a can of pop sometime, but what has happened in the past “week plus” is that I’m feeling better. I don’t ache when I get up in the morning nearly as much as I used to. I played basketball yesterday and felt good! I’ve been drinking a lot more water. Perhaps I’ve even lost a couple of pounds…I don’t know…I don’t hover around the scale like its a lottery number that’s about to be revealed.
When I turned sixty on May 5 I felt sixty-five. I just didn’t feel good! I realized that i was whining a lot to myself, like that’s going to help.
I’m not saying that soda abstinence is the answer to all of life’s ills, but I have been thinking more about what I eat and drink. I even let my McDonald’s coupons expire without using them!
I friend of mine wrote me that he had given up soda for Lent this year. He said the first few days were the hardest, but then he didn’t feel the urge nearly as much after that. So…perhaps I’ll keep chugging the bottled water and got for a few more days without an Orange Crush in my hand.
Categories: children, Christianity, Freedom, Humor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: cola, fast, fasting, feeling better, pop, soda, soda pop, soft drinks
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May 20, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. May 20, 2014
It’s the fourth day of my week-long fasting from drinking soda pop. I’m still alive! In fact, my body did not ache when I woke up this morning. I doubt that I can give credit to my unsoda-ed life for that. It may just be the one day this month when my knees and joints did’t feel like The Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz when I woke up. Whatever…I’ll take it!
The past three days I’ve also cut down on the amount of sugar I’ve put in my coffee. Since I drank it without doing Larry from the Three Stooges facial contortions I’m going to keep limiting the sugar packets.
Why am I doing this? I’ve asked myself that question several times during the past few days, especially as I’m passing a Pepsi vending machine. I’m trying to be strong! I did have a dream last night about a Coke being poured into an ice-filled glass, hearing the fizz, and seeing myself floating on one of the ice cubes with sunglasses on.
I thought if I blogged about it once more it would make things easier, but now I’m thinking about an A&W frosty mug in my hand.
Pray that the images of an orange being crushed won’t await me in my sleep tonight.
I need to go by and see my dentist soon to pay off our balance, but I’m afraid I’ll call her Dr. Pepper if I see her this week…so I think I’ll wait!
I’ve learned that eliminating elevated amounts of sugared beverages if a little tough, but today is “hump day.” I assume that I’ll be sliding towards the celebration of a fluid finish line.
But “hump day” could also mean that I’m about to plummet to a sugar-depleted depression!
Optimistically I’m choosing the first option!
Categories: Christianity, Faith, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: A&W, coffee, discipline, fizz, Hump Day, perseverance, soda, soda pop. Coke, sugar, sugar-free, Three Stooges, vending machine
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May 17, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. May 17, 2014
To be honest I’ve already cut back in recent weeks!
But I’m going cold turkey for a week. No soda pop, soda water, Coke, water with sugared fizz…whatever the term is that you use to describe that can in your hand that you just popped the top on.
A week doesn’t seem like much…when you are on Hour #1 of Day #1!
Day #4 in the evening when my wife has just popped some popcorn is a different matter. I was raised with the idea that popcorn could not be eaten without having a cold Pepsi at the same time. It’s the difference between eating a plain hot dog, or a dog with mustard, ketchup, and relish on it.
Hot dogs…there’s another item that I probably need to fast from!
In recent weeks I’ve been thinking more about what I eat and drink. I have a coupon for a free chicken salad at Chick-fil-A to be used this month. I think about that each day at lunch time. It would be a lot healthier for me to have for lunch than some other choices.
What did I proceed to do last week? Used a “buy a Whopper, get one free” coupon one day. Take a year off my lifespan right there! I did get the “Satisfries!” They are “less bad” for you! Notice the terminology we use to justify our bad choices.
The next day I did Panda Express. For some reason Panda seems healthier than Burger King. I’m not sure it is, but I rationalized, and I was hungry when I was rationalizing.
I did penance the next morning and had yogurt with a “cutie”…the orange kind, noy my wife!
Choices! I make them every day. Some days the choice that helps the health of my body is easy. Other days I’m humming the McDonald’s jingle more and more as lunch approaches.
Back to “the pop!” I’m laying off!
I know that it will be a item on sale this coming Memorial Day weekend at the supermarket. I’m even laying off filling my shopping cart with eight cartons each time I go. My daughters remember a Thanksgiving weekend when pop was on sale at K-Mart and I went about ten times during the weekend and got five cartons each time.
I’m going on a “pop-on-sale fast” as well!
I heard one of those statistics on how much sugar we put in our bodies, and the fact that in a few years one out of every three children will end up being diabetic. Perhaps I heard it wrong. It WAS in the midst of the promoting of a new “Wake Up” kind of documentary film. It did, however, catch my ear.
I’ll start with pop. The test for me is whether I can stop putting sugar in my coffee. When I started drinking coffee back in seminary during a semester I was taking Hebrew (An agonizing experience that resulted with my learning how to drink coffee much more than knowing the Hebrew alphabet) I retrieved from my memory bank how a person drinks coffee. My parents drank it each morning with cream and sugar. Thus, that’s how I began drinking it. Perhaps I should go back to drinking Folger’s black. It’s a fairly weak coffee experience anyway!
This week, however, I’m pushing the Sprite to the side. A benefit will be a reduction in the bill when Carol and I go out to eat. I’m so used to getting a Coke or a Sprite that I have barely noticed that most restaurants now secretly take you for two and a half to three dollars. Good Lord! Sheltered Bill still thinks that’s how much a beer is in a restaurant.
For those who are wondering, I dislike beer as much as I love soda pop! I’m not sure if it’s because I’m a Baptist, the son of Baptists, a Baptist minister, or because I simply abhor its taste.
If you see me in the next few days and I’m looking ragged you’ll know why. I’m coming off a “sugared lifestyle.”
But one question! If I’m fasting from soda pop is it okay to drink something different out of my Coca-Cola glasses, A&W mug, or Orange Crush tumbler?
Categories: children, Christianity, Freedom, Humor, Jesus, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Baptists, cartons, cartons of pop, coffee, Coke, diabetic, eating healthy, fast, fasting, Folgers, healthy diet, high sugar, Pepsi, pop, Popcorn, soda pop, soda water, Sprite, sugar, Sugar in the Raw, sugared
Comments: 1 Comment
May 11, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. May 11, 2014
“Mother’s Day Without Mom”
This is the first Mother’s Day I’ve ever experienced without a mom on this side of Glory. Mom passed to the other side last September, the day after Labor Day. So today I’m in a new place just as she is. I’m walking through it with a mixture of grief and gratitude, a strange mixture…kind of like putting ketchup on top of your peanut butter, you’re not sure if it’s good or bad!
The last two Mother’s Day with Mom were grief in process. Her health had declined to the point that she wasn’t able to carry on a conversation. Calling here on the phone was a painful experience with me being in Colorado and her in Ohio. Her health difficulties had reduced her verbal capabilities to a bare minimum…and my mom was always one to be vocal!
I would send her flowers for Mother’s Day. It was the best I could do for her. She loved the floral arrangements and foliage plants that FTD would deliver…once they were able to find the house! That’s another story for another day!
I remember my mom for who she was before her afflictions took her health away. On this Mother’s Day I remember with a grateful heart the stories, the influence, and even “the look!”
“The look” could stop a freight train. It was convicting! I remember that look one afternoon when I was about ten. Mom had told me that I could go to the park in Williamstown, West Virginia where we lived, but that I could not cross the main street in town to go to the little grocery store. Back in those days before aluminum soda cans a kid could find empty pop bottles and return them to the store for three cents a piece. Two pop bottles could net me a Pay Day or Mallo Cup. But on this day my mom had explicitly forbidden me to cross that main street.
“No problem!”, I thought! What she doesn’t know won’t hurt…me! I made the journey and was munching on my Pay Day on the way back across the street when in the distance I saw a car coming that looked like our family car. I sprinted back into the park and hid behind a trash can until I was sure she had passed. Finally I raised up…and there she was…sitting there, and giving me “the look!” I was toast!
Besides the look, however, my mom would care for us. My brother and I always got new underwear for Christmas, just in case we were in an accident and they had to cut away our blue jeans. It was important to have intact pairs of “Towncraft tighty whities” on.
She could cook! And the thing is, she would cook dinner each night after working a full day at J.C. Penney’s. Not packaged meals, mind you! Home-cooked masterpieces…skillet cornbread… green beans that I didn’t appreciate back then, but now miss greatly…fried chicken…squash casserole…need I go on?
My mom had a certain scent. It’s hard to explain that, but it stayed in the nostrils of your memory. Recently I traveled back to Ohio to help my dad get some things taken care of in preparation for his move to a new senior adult independent living complex he’s moving into. Going from his three bedroom house to a one bedroom apartment has made these past few months a time of sorting for him. What will he take? What will he leave behind? What will he give away? My oldest daughter, Kecia, asked me to bring back a few specific items that she remembers about my parents’ house. A couple of the things she requested were some of MaMaw Wolfe’s dish towels and hot pads. Why? Because they have MaMaw’s scent that is special. When we would travel home to see my parents “the scent” would be a comfort, a welcoming, almost like entering a room with bread baking in the oven.
I’m grateful for “the look”, “the caring”, “the smells”, and “the scent.” Although Mom is gone, those things will stay with me…and on this different kind of Mother’s Day they make me happy!
Categories: children, Death, Humor, love, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: grateful, gratitude, grief, grieving, home-cooking, J.C. Penney's, memories, Mom, Mother's Day, mothering, scent, smells, tight whities, Towncraft
Comments: 2 Comments
April 30, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. April 30, 2014
“Saying Goodbye to the Fifties”
In five days I will exit “The Fifties”, and change the first digit in my age to a six. I began the journey of my last week of this part of my life by going to the DMV and getting a new driver’s license. I fear, however that when the license arrives next week I will look like a dork in my new license picture…whatever a dork looks like! I should have worn a leisure suit to compliment my dazed and confused look.
I began the “fifties” with three children semi-living at home. Two of the three were either in college or that period when they are trying to “find themselves.” I exit the “fifties” with an empty nest. We don’t even have a cat anymore. She got tired of the same old food every day and had a stroke.
Two of our children are now married, and two grandkids have joined the family picture and brought new definition to the word “energetic.”
Ten years ago I was training for my first Pike’s Peak Ascent, a 13.2 mile race that Carol fondly referred to as “The Death Run.” It began in downtown Manitou Springs and took the crazed runners to the finish line on the top of Pike’s Peak. Ten years later I exit the “Fifties” with knees that talk to me each day in low moans and groans, and a back that echoes “amens” from behind. A flight of stairs now seems more daunting than a “14er” did ten years ago.
I began the “fifties” frequenting Chinese buffets around town. I exit the “fifties” as a frequenter of low-fat yogurt mixed with fruit. Chinese buffets now seem scary!
I began the “fifties with glasses. I exit with progressives. They make me sound like a liberal in my eyesight.
I began the “fifties” with one prescription for heartburn. Now a shoebox holds all of my prescriptions.
Ten years ago I’d stay up and watch “The Rockford Files” with James Garner after the late night news went off. Now bedtime comes before the late news comes on. It seems like a reward for making it through another day.
I began the “fifties” with both of my parents alive, plus my father-in-law. I exit this time with just my dad still living on this side of Glory.
The “fifties” were good. The “sixties”, I pray, are even better.
Unfortunately I’m stuck either way with my dorky looking driver’s license picture for the next ten years!
Categories: Death, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: age, James Garner, low-fat yogurt, Old age, Pike's Peak Ascent, progressive lens, The Fifties, The Rockford Files, The Sixties. Turning Sixty
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Words from WW Blog 