God Is No Fool

(Inspired by Lois Cheney's great little book God Is No Fool)

Psalm 19:14 (New Living Translation)
May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing to you,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

If it was just my words that I need to worry about, I wouldn't have much of a problem. But it's not- and I do. There have been times when I thought my words could fool God. But they can't. God knows what is hidden is our hearts, and what consumes our souls. He sees our sin and the false idols that pop up in our lives. We cannot fool God- because God is no fool... He knew we needed a Savior. Thank you, God, for your grace and mercy.

Because of Jesus,

Carl's Musicology 101

This past Father's Day my son (and my wife...mostly my wife!) gave me a new iPod Nano to replace my worn out, secondhand original iPod. My old device held about 230 songs on a good day. The new one currently has around 1200 songs on it, and it is still only about 2/3 full. I can finally put all of my music on at once, plus I had some iTunes gift cards and have been loading up old CDs as well. So it should be painfully obvious that I am getting to listen to a lot of music that I haven't heard in a long time. This process is teaching me a lot about my own musical history and my personal music tastes. Such wisdom needs to be shared, even if you don't really want to hear it. With that in mind, I present Carl's Musicology 101. I am not responsible for any iTunes spending sprees this may lead to...

* I don't know why science fiction writers and movies are so obsessed with time travel- it already exists! I just plug into the music and I can travel back to the dawn of time...or at least the late 1960's! Bands like the Turtles, Herman's Hermits, Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Four Seasons, The Temptations and The Monkees can transport me. I can listen to Hey Jude, or any song by Bread, or Hurricane Smith singing Oh Babe, What Would You Say and the years just disappear. One of my recent purchases was the album Calumet by an artist named Lobo. The last time I owned this collection of songs was around 1974, and it was on 8 track tape. Steve Semmler remembers it I know, because we played it to death. Listening took me back to the heartache of 8th grade, when every romance was life or death and being friends with a girl was the kiss of death. The crazy part was I could still sing every word of songs like Stoney, How Can I tell Her? and Don't Expect Me to Be Your Friend. Talk about doing the time warp (which is also on my iPod...). 

* There are several hundred artists (515 albums) represented on my collection, many having only one song make the cut. But there are a few notable exceptions. Here are my top 10 artists by number of songs on my playlist:

1. Beach Boys- 74 songs
2. Jimmy Buffett- 48 songs
3. Dan Fogelberg- 34 songs
4. John Denver- 33 songs
5. Billy Joel- 29 songs
6. Elton John- 28 songs
7. The Beatles- 24 songs
8. dc Talk- 20 songs
9. The Eagles- 20 songs
10. Jars of Clay- 19 songs

But it's not just about numbers. I only have two songs by the Florida based band Sister Hazel, but those two songs get more play than most anything else. Even the one-hit wonders matter! Remember Come On Eileen, Brandy, War and Hold Your Head Up?

* I have rediscovered a love of not only the great songs of the 60s and 70s, but also of the 80s. I bought a Duran Duran song the other day. I was reminded of what an incredible pop song Freedom by George Michael is (that's right, I said something nice about George Michael!) and how much I loved REO Speedwagon. No Culture Club, Thompson Twins or hair metal yet, but I still have lots of room. I draw the line at Culture Club. There will be no Culture Club.

* To give you an idea of the variety I enjoy, I give you the following list. There are 16 artists who have one complete album stored on my device. They are Three Dog Night, Jimmy Buffett, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, dc Talk, John Denver, Steve Martin, Green Day, Lobo, George Carlin, Jars of Clay, Mumford & Sons, U2, Poco, Jim Croce and Elton John. Everything else is a partial album or single song. Feel free to place your bets on which albums this list covers! I'll give you one- the Elton John album is Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I have owned the CDs (it's a double set) for many years, but I had not listened to the album from start to finish since high school. It is absolutely amazing! The big hits- and there are several- may be my least favorite songs on the project. It will get another listen very soon.

* Is Mike Cross famous anywhere besides NC, because the man is an incredible talent. His stuff is all over my new Folk/Grass playlist- as is music from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Poco and Mumford. On a related note, I am remembering how much I love bluegrass music. In fact, if I could find a church that played Gospel bluegrass on Sunday mornings (think "I Saw the Light" or "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder") I would so be there. I still listen to a lot of the classic 1990's contemporary Christian music, but much of what has been written in the last 10 years all sounds the same to me. They all want to be Chris Tomlin.

* Some of you are wondering why I would have 74 Beach Boys songs. Others of you are surprised to learn that there are 74 Beach Boys songs. As a public service to my readers, here are 10 GREAT songs by the Boys that you may have never heard- unless your name is Ashley or Steve. :)

1. Long Promised Road
2. Goin' On
3. I Can Hear Music
4. Honkin' Down the Highway
5. That Same Song
6. Funky Pretty
7. Add Some Music to Your Day
8. Good Timin'
9. Please Let Me Wonder
10. This Whole World

* I have also fallen back in love with many of the great singer/songwriters of the 1970's. Artists like America, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Paul Simon, Carole King, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Seals and Crofts, Loggins & Messina, Harry Nilsson and Joni Mitchell (in addition to some of the others mentioned previously) are dominating my listening these days. Throw is some other 70's mainstays like Chicago, Queen, ELO and Styx and it is easy to tell the decade of my formative years.

* But I also am enjoying lots of music of a more recent vintage as well. I have some 90's classics like Matchbox 20 and Hootie & the Blowfish right up through brand new stuff from Phillip Phillips and Adam Levine. My son Will got me into groups like 30 Seconds to Mars, My Chemical Romance and The Killers. I LOVE The Killers! So I am not just a geezer. Mostly...but not only.  :)

In the end, for me music is all about emotion. And with my newfound musical freedom my emotions have been all over the map. Lots of laughs (I have the Lumberjack Song and lots of Tom Lehrer), lots of smiles, lots of memories and even a few tears. Does anything...ANYTHING...capture the feelings of loss or heartbreak better than a well-written song? So that's my lesson for today. Like most teachers, I got a little long-winded. And also, there is homework. Leave me a comment with a suggestion for a song, old or new, that you think I might not have yet. I still have room to grow. Have a great weekend!

30/30: Casting Call

The prompt for today's 30/30 Vision Blog Challenge poses an interesting question. If they were to make a movie about my life, who would I want them to cast as the main character? Who should portray me? As I began to ponder this query yesterday I was really clueless as to what direction to go, so I decided to reach out to friends on Twitter and my wife's Facebook and ask for nominations. My friends came through with a number of suggestions- some of which were a little tough on my ego. But I took them all into account as I held my own personal casting call.

Old friends on Facebook quickly suggested fine actors like Jack Black, John Goodman and Edward Herrmann. While Goodman and Herrmann are fine actors, they are much older than me...and I don't want to age that much just yet. My friend Teresa suggested Jeff Goldblum, because of his great timing and because we are both weird. Or quirky. I can't remember which word she used, but in either case I couldn't really argue too much. Then one of my oldest friends, one of the people who knows me best in the world, suggested Fred Gwynne, another brilliant actor, in part because she said that he had a great voice and so do I. Again, I had mixed emotions. First of all, Fred is dead- which Tammy pointed out. He is also most famous for playing Herman Munster in the classic TV show. Picturing myself being played by a dead Frankenstein look-alike just didn't work for me, no mater how sweet she made it sound. Another old friend suggested both Brad Pitt and Eddie Murphy, but both are far too obvious. And finally after I went to bed last night my dear friend Brook suggested Michael Keaton, since he knows me and has a feel for who I am (see The Night I Met Batman). All of these suggestions of older men sent me down a similar path, and I began to consider people like Dan Aykroyd ("It's the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man") or Harrison Ford (he's already played one of the Jones boys!). But no one felt quite right.

Then I turned my attention to Twitter, where my friends Robert and Sarah quickly nominated Tom Hanks for the role. I was thrilled. Being portrayed by a 2 time Oscar winner was something I could live with. He does drama and comedy. He was a Bosom Buddy, he fell in love with a mermaid and he was freakin' Forrest Gump. When this nomination got several votes of support from other friends, I assumed we had a winner. The part of Carl would be played by Captain Phillips.

And then I woke up this morning and had an epiphany. Jason Segel. It was so obvious. Jason doesn't really look much like me, but that's a good thing! He could play me through more stages of my my life because he is younger. He has shown the ability to be funny, romantic, emotional and a great friend- all things I think are true of me. He likes to make up his own songs and sing them, and like me is both a freak and a geek in his own way. He loves Muppets. He knows almost as much about How I Met Your Mother as I do. :) And in case we get a crazy director or the movie takes an odd and unexpected turn, he is fine with nudity. Have you seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall? So despite my reverence for Tom Hanks and Harrison Ford, I'm going younger. I cast Jason Segel in the role of me. It's gonna' be a blockbuster. Maybe he can get Kermit to do a cameo...

Editor's Note: No one suggested anyone to play me as a young adult in the flashback scenes that are bound to be a part of the movie. I assume that is because it is such an obvious choice. Zac Efron is my doppelganger.  Have a great day!

Throwback Thursday: Come As You Are

With a chance to see many old friends from my years at Springfield Friends Meeting (1986-1994) coming up in just over a month, I have been remembering fondly some of the amazing things we were able to do together during that time. Today's Throwback Thursday post (originally appearing here in 2011) was inspired by an artifact discovered while digging through a box in my garage. For those of you who may not recognize the item, it is something called a "Cassette Tape." It was a form of home recording technology that preceded digital recording by a couple of decades. While useful, using a tape recorder was quite tedious, especially if your were endeavouring to be creative with the recording process. Yet discovering this particular tape brought a smile to my face immediately, and reminded me of a few important things. Trust me when I tell you that this in indeed a RARE artifact...

By the Spring of 1989 the student ministry at SFM had truly taken off. Springfield was not a large church; the worship attendance rarely broke 200. We were not located "on the beaten path"- you had to be looking for us to find us. And yet between our Sunday evening youth fellowship and our Monday night TNT we were seeing 75-100 middle and high school students every week. It was amazing to watch God work through that ministry. As I began to plan for the summer of '89, I knew that we needed to do everything we could to keep the dozens of youth who did not attend our church on Sunday mornings involved. In fact, I was just crazy enough to believe that with prayer and hard work we could actually GROW during the summer. So that is exactly what we set out to do.

I began to put together a "Summer Packet" to mail to every student who had ever had any contact with our church or our youth ministry.  I created a brochure (at right, complete with our cover boy Zed) with details of every thing that would go on that summer- and I did it without a computer. I put together a calendar they could put on the wall of their room or on the family refrigerator. All of this required a ton of work, because we had to do it all in house. Our TOTAL budget for YM in 1989 was $800. Just mailing the packets would stretch us. But I had one more idea, and it was a doozy. I ordered a bunch of cheap blank tapes, and began to bring in some our student leaders to record skits and messages for the tape. It was all to advertise our biggest outreach event of the summer, YOUTH WEEK. It included silly interviews, actual ads for events, and tons of youth-friendly music. We also made it as interactive as we could in those pre-computer days, so they could listen to certain skits and then call our HOTLINE to win prizes. It took me untold hours to record it and edit it, and then many more hours to make 150 copies to mail out. But mail them we did. They were a huge hit, and we had the first of a series of amazing summers.

So what's the lesson of this artifact? It's simple really- summers can be amazing times for student ministry, but you have to be willing to put in the work. Events must be special and creative, even knowing the crowds might be small. Programs must fit the needs of the students and depend on who can be there, not who won't be. Summers should say to the kids that you love them so much that you are going to help them fill those long, boring days that we all know happen in summer. You have to find creative ways to advertise what you are doing- and then you have to find more creative ways. You have to convince the youth of your community that they are missing wild, crazy, fantastic things (including spending time getting to know Jesus!) if they are missing your events and programs. All of that publicity is hard work- but so worth it. In fact, summers were my favorite times to be a youth pastor, because it was when we had time to build real relationships. Our theme for YOUTH WEEK in 1989 (and the first song on the tape) was Peter Wolf's Come As You Are. The chorus goes as follows:  "Come as you are, now come on!  Come as you are and we'll have a ball!  Ain't gonna' be no masquerade (HOO-HOO),  Come as you are or don't come at all!"   We tried to live that message. And come they did...

Because of Jesus,

Lost Stars

Back in January I chose Comeback as my #OneWord365 for 2014. This was to be a year of comebacks in my life, and in many ways it has been. But I have also been reminded that the old cliche that says we take "one step forward and two steps back" got to be an old cliche because it is far too often the truth. So true, in fact, that I have begun to view the concept of a comeback as simply being able to reverse that process and take two steps forward to recover from each step in the wrong direction. We all struggle with forward motion...

On July 4th my wife Marilyn and I went to the movie theater to see the film Begin Again. You may not have heard much about this movie, and that is a real shame, because we found it to be brilliant. The cast, featuring Mark Ruffalo, Keira Knightly, Hailee Steinfeld and Adam Levine is superb. The film revolves around songwriters and music, and the original songs in the film captured my ear and my heart. So please, go see it. In a world full of Transformers, movies like Begin Again deserve our support.

But the real message of the film is one of comebacks. The characters have all faced disillusionment and disappointment in their personal and professional lives, and the movie chronicles their attempts to rebound from the same sorts of messes in which we all find ourselves. It is both encouraging and real. Not all comebacks are a success. The music video embedded below is from the movie- in fact it has three different versions in the film. This is the final one. I must confess I cannot stop listening to it, both this version and with Keira Knightly singing it. It asks a question that I find to be crucial to the idea of making a comeback from the things that drag us down. "Are we all lost stars trying to light up the dark?" Life, love, relationships and dreams will all send us two steps back from time to time. How do we respond? And where do we find the courage to to forward again? I hope you will enjoy the song as much as I do. But more importantly I pray you will realize that even when things feel the darkest, it is within you to be a light in our world. The light doesn't burn out. It's just that sometimes we are all Lost Stars...

The Right Stuff

We all have been given gifts by our loving God. The talents and abilities we have received are many and varied. Some make good use of these gifts; others allow them to sit around, wasted and forgotten. Many of us- and I do mean US- like to complain that we are not gifted in the ways that we wish we were. We pray that our gifts would be more spectacular. I often wish that this blog would be read by millions so that I could make a difference for Jesus on a much larger scale. I wish I had a large congregation clamoring to hear me preach every Sunday. I pray that God will use me to start a movement that will change the world. I want to make a significant contribution to the family of God in some spectacular way. But those are not my gifts. There are days it seems that God didn't give me the right stuff...

And then I sit and meditate on my past 7 days. Opportunity arose for me to offer words of encouragement to a depressed friend. Another former (now adult) youth needed someone to listen as they faced a difficult discussion with their parents. A dear friend needed some phone conversation to keep her company on a long ride. My wife needed to vent about being overwhelmed at work. I received several prayer requests that I was happy to add to my prayer list. I was able to reach out to a few friends who were hurting and just remind them that they are loved. As I recalled all of these moments of the last week, I could feel the Holy Spirit gently kicking me in the butt. I have been given the gifts of listening and encouragement. I know this to be true. And though at times I pray for something greater, something more flamboyant, it is on days like today that I realize that God has given me the exact gifts I need to serve Jesus in the way God wants me to. Simply be lending an ear and REALLY listening to those who are hurting or just need company, I serve God. Just by offering words of encouragement and reminding friends that they are special to me and that Jesus loves them no matter what, I serve God. My gifts may not change the world today. But they may help change the world for one person. The same can be said of your gifts as well. Whatever they may be, USE THEM! Like me, I think you will discover that once you get past your own pride and ego that you will see God has gifted you to do things that need to be done. We are called to faithful, not successful. We just need to believe that God, in His infinite wisdom, has given us the right stuff to be in ministry in our world, no matter who we are or where we are. Be blessed, my friends. And do what you were made to do...

Because of Jesus,

My Game Hall of Fame

Cocktail at Myrtle Beach in 2004

This past Saturday I got a call from my friend Joanne Gastler with an unusual request. Her daughter Jennifer (Wesley Memorial UMC) was trying to remember all of the rules to the epic card game, Cocktail, a staple of many trips in my later years of ministry. I have to admit I surprised myself by being able to recall the complicated procedures. In truth, there were so many classic youth group games that it is hard to remember them all! Over the years my students played hundreds of different games as a youth group, from the sophisticated to the stupid. I always assumed most student ministries were like that; I could be wrong. I think our games always had a lot of variety and creativity, and I know that some of them are quite memorable to the kids who played them. If you happen to be a former youth of mine who is reading, I'd love to hear which ones you remember. I bet someone from every group I was ever a part of remembers the Egyptian Mummy Race. Let's take a stroll through my Game Hall of Fame:

• The grand poobah of all my games was Sardines. I learned it as a kid from my youth leader, DB3, and then passed it along to every group I ever worked with until Waycross, where we had no decent place to play without disturbing people. This was hide and seek in pairs, and it was a riot. The kids at Springfield were really good at it.  
• Does anyone remember the whole New Games craze of the 1970s? I was an officially trained and licensed New Games trainer and referee. Smaug's Jewels or British Bulldog, anyone? "Play hard, play fair....nobody hurt!"
• At TNT we often played versions of TV game shows. We played Remote Control, a game of TV trivia based on the MTV show. We did our own versions of the Dating Game and the Newlywed Game. The Newlywed Game was especially fun because we would partner students who barely knew each other and make them guess at the answers to the questions. It was often hilarious. We also used board games such as Taboo, Win, Lose or Draw and Outburst to create games we could play with a large group.
• We had a great game we played on the pool tables at Springfield and Kissimmee called PIG. It involved rolling a pool ball and sprinting around the table, and it was awesome. We played a similar game on a ping-pong table called Round Robin. Other active indoor games for the groups included classics like Fruit Basket Upset, Shuffle Your Buns, Broom Hockey, The Technicolor Stomp and Do You Love Your Neighbor? All of these required lots of movement and lots of noise, so they were very popular!  And I haven't even mentioned the cults of Four Square players that sprung up at Springfield, in Kissimmee and in Tampa...
• I can't think of a ski trip and not think about Pass the Pigs. Great time killer!
• Our visit with Amy Simmons Stanley and her family in Orlando recently reminded me of her favorite game at Springfield Friends Meeting, Musical Guys! This was an aggressive version of musical chairs, using guys on all fours as seats instead of the traditional chairs. It often involved a bit of wrestling before losers were declared. And Amy retired undefeated...
• There were two different winking games we played. One was Killer, a nice passive card game that involved catching a winking murderer.  The other was Wink 'Em, one of the most violent games ever created. Ask if you want details!  :)
• We played Brain Games, too. These were always fun, but there was always someone who just never figured them out, so they often took a VERY long time to play.  "It can be Snoopy, but it can't be a dog..." And who could ever forget Who Has the Hat?
• We played dozens of different Name Games designed to help students learn each other's names. These games, at every stop along the way, were pretty much universally despised...
• We had some outdoor games that were favorites as well. Go Tag was a classic that used tons of energy and created mass confusion. It also allowed lots of opportunities for creative cheating, one of my favorite things about youth group games! Wild Softball was another favorite, featuring a softball bat, a kickball and running the bases backwards or playing without a third base. We also tried Wet'N'Wild Softball, where you were hosed down between third base and home plate. We occasionally played football and basketball like normal people...but not soccer. Never soccer. I do have standards.  :)

• Over the last few years of my ministry, at Wesley Memorial UMC in Tampa and in Waycross, we had a lot of fun with a device called The 4-Way Grinder. It was basically a tug of war between 4 individuals with inner-tubes wrapped around their waists, all pulling in different directions (see picture at right). Only minor injuries were recorded...

Why so many (and such weird) games? For fun. For exercise. To build group unity and give the students a shared history to talk about. All of those reasons and more add up to the main reason- being strange and unpredictable helps put butts in the seats so we can talk about Jesus. It's pretty simple, really. And it helps convey the message that following Jesus is NOT dull, boring or predictable. It's a wild ride... and one with a GREAT finish!

Because of Jesus,