Mood Rings

This post is probably going to get me in trouble.  In addition to having been married for the past 25 years, many of my closest friends are female.  Many of my favorite youth from throughout my years as a youth pastor are female.  Many of my favorite Twitter followers and blog readers are female.  Many....most...of these ladies will read what follows, listen to the song below, and laugh.  Others will throw things at the screen.  I guess it will all depend on what mood they are in...


A couple of weeks ago Hall of Fame inductee Nina Mock (one of my former youth from Wesley Memorial UMC-Tampa) joined us at our regular Taco Tuesdaze dinner at Tijuana Flats.  Nina is a beautiful, intelligent, sweet and funny 26 year old who has never been afraid to tell me what she thinks- about most everything.  At one point on this particular evening the conversation turned to dating and relationships issues, and Nina weighed in quickly.  "I don't understand," she said, "why guys put up with girls.  Girls are crazy. If I was guy I'd just give up!"  She then suggested that if indeed she was a guy, she was not certain what her sexual preference might be...


In those few words Nina captured the feelings of so many of the males I worked with in student ministries over the years.  I cannot tell you the number of hours I spent consoling confused young men who, for reasons they could not begin to understand, had just been dumped.  In fairness, I talked to a lot of hurting females too. My response to Nina's comment about girls being crazy was to point out that guys are often idiots.  But the teenage guys were always so clueless as to what they had done wrong. It seemed that they very things that had made their girlfriends happy yesterday were the the very reasons were cut loose today.  I would try to explain that guys and girls think differently sometimes.  We are often motivated by different things.  As my old senior pastor Max Rees used to say when confused by the response of his wife or his 5 daughters, "Carl- women are not our kind of people!"  I have often said that trying to understand females is like predicting the weather.  You will be right on occasion, but face it- that's more luck than knowledge!  And when the males and females in question are teenagers and young adults, the odds of getting it right go way down.


In 2003 the great band Relient K proposed a solution to this issue from the male point of view.  What if we could just convince every female to wear a Mood Ring?  Perhaps then guys might have a chance of not succumbing to our basic instincts and saying something stupid at the wrong time.  When you are a teenager, nothing in life seems more important than dating and relationships.  It can be so overwhelming.  This song captures that struggle from the male perspective better than anything I have seen or heard before or since.  Please understand, this is not about women and moodiness.  It is about guys and their often complete and utter failure to understand what is going on in the hearts and minds of the fairer gender.  And even though I am 52, I have to admit there are days when it still holds very true.  So guys- I am with you!  And ladies- please know that most guys are trying really hard.  It is just that we can't quite " understand the complex infrastructure known as the female mind..."  Enjoy!

Because of Jesus,

Hall of Fame: Married Couples

Josh Fry's Idea of Heaven...

Melanie Schultz, Sarah Crudele and Stephanie Potter

attack Josh on Ski Trip 2000!

Over the years I spent in student ministry there were many problems and issues I had to deal with, but inter-group dating was seldom one of them.  I have friends in youth work who spent many sleepless nights, lost all their hair and frequented hotel bars trying to cope with the issue, but it was never that big a deal for me.  We had plenty of times when students brought a "date" to events, but seldom did I have actual "couples" to deal with every Sunday and Wednesday.  I wish I could take credit for this, but really it was just the luck of the draw.  At New Garden Friends Meeting, the girls in our group were simply out of the league of most of the guys (the truth hurts, boys).  Even with the one serious couple we had there, Danny Newby and Kathy Fountain, that was still true!  How Dann landed her is still a mystery (just kidding).  And how Kathy got away with sending him bogus love letters while he was at college (and I helped!) is also still unsolved.  But they stayed together and got married.  At Springfield Friends Meeting, no one dated inside the group because there was an 85% chance that the person you were considering was your cousin.  It was no issue in Hinsdale, although I don't know why.  In Tampa at Wesley Memorial UMC the guys seemed interested in dating ONLY girls in the group, so I did experience some of the stress of the issue- but we survived because the girls had good sense.  And in Waycross the age mix was weird- older guys and younger girls.  So just crushes, and no real problems.  I used to thank God every day for this "luck" that He sent my way...

You may notice I left out the First United Methodist Church of Kissimmee.  We had some dating couples who were part of the group, but really only two became serious and stayed active in our youth ministry there.  Matt Lupfer and Kristen Landry (pictured) met at Uth and dated for several years, eventually getting married.  Matt was a natural leader, who along with Jay Lynes developed the first website any of my ministries ever had.  Kristen was one of my favorite people, who once wrote a history of my life for a school project.  I still have my copy.  I loved them both as individuals, but as a couple in the early years of their relationship we all wanted to choke them both!  They eventually got it together and were a joy to be around, and I was honored to sing in their wedding.  The other twosome were Josh Fry and Sarah Crudele.  I don't remember at exactly what point they started dating, for in my mind they have ALWAYS been together.   Both grew into leadership roles in the student ministry, and were part of the core of that group at the time I left.  Josh played drums in our Praise Band; Sarah brought in her friends and the group became very much a family to her.  She took all kinds of abuse for her name, as I kept calling her Susan Crudley.  She would later be my Summer Intern at WMUMC.  I was honored to be at their wedding as well.

One not-so-funny story:  In 1999, as we were preparing to go to NYC, I suddenly had a space open up for a female that was already paid for.  Knowing how badly Sarah had wanted to go but couldn't afford it, I offered her the spot.  This was a nice thing to do.  I realized later that Kristen, who was in the same situation but had been part of the group even longer, really should have received the offer first.  That was not so nice.  Kristen was upset and I felt horrible about it, but Sarah had a great time and Matt and Kristen later lived in NYC, so that faux pas was forgiven; I am not sure that is true of other mistakes I have made since...

Danny and Kathy (now Dann and Kathy Newfont), Matt and Kristen, and Josh and Sarah are, to my memory, the only three marriages to occur from couples who met at one of my youth groups.  I am so proud of all of them.  It seems to me that with only three such unions in 28 years, all of them are deserving of a spot in my Youth Group Hall of Fame.  Welcome aboard!  Now I can just sit back and wait on the birth of my first youth group grandchild...

Because of Jesus,