One of the things I knew I wanted to do in the summer of 1994 was to put together some sort of mission opportunity for the middle school youth of the First United Methodist Church of Kissimmee. Having arrived there in April, I was too late in the season to plan any major trip, so I focused on what we might could do in Orlando. I discovered the Second Harvest Food Bank, and found that they had lots of work for a group of teenagers, sorting food and packing boxes for delivery to shelters and soup kitchens. We decided to keep it short to keep the cost low and encourage more students to participate, and so June 26-29 we were off to O-town!
Our small group stayed at a Days Inn on International Drive, down near Wet'N'Wild in southwest Orlando. We were in the middle of a huge tourist area, especially popular with foreign tourists at the time. This was made even more interesting by the fact that teh Cirtus Bowl, located just downthe road from us, was hosting the oepning rounds of the 1994 World Cup soccer tournament. Every where we looked we saw fans of Ireland and Mexico. We spent the mornings working at Second Harvest. I remember the big deal about driving from the motel to food bank was going to down the Orange Blossom Trail. I learned why the OBT (where I had stayed with youth groups on two previous Disney trips) had such a shady reputation with the locals. It seemed like we passed a strip club about every 100 yards or so. And every time we passed one, Nate Hill was there to point it out to us, like a tour guide on a bus! It became a tradition. We arrived to work at 8 AM each morning. We didn't work all that many hours at Second Harvest, nor was the work all that hard. But it was hot. Brutally hot. Just imagine being in a warehouse with no AC, in late June in Florida. When we left at noon, we were drained.
We spent the afternoons goofing off an getting to know one another. I learned a great deal about the youth who were along for the journey. We ate lunch one of the days at an all-you-can-eat Pizza Hut buffet, and the late James (Chico) Fry ate all any of us could eat- I stayed at the restaurant with him for 15 minutes after everyone had walked back to the motel. There were girls fighting over a guy- and two of them (Hello Erin and Jen!) were cousins. We spent one afternoon and evening at Wet'N'Wild and had a great time, including several of the students riding what ever that thing is that Erin Augenblick is riding in the picture at the top. In short, we worked hard, we played hard, and we built community. In my mind it was a very successful little trip, that paved the way for future mid-high adventures. What I don't remember is who else was on that trip, although I am fairly certain Kay Hill was the other adult. If you have knowledge of other people or stories from those 3 days, I would love to hear from you. Comment here or e-mail me at Youthguy07@aol.com.
We ended that first summer with FUMC-K's first ever Youth Week. Come back tomorrow and enjoy the memories!
Because of Jesus,
Only one more album between today and #1 on my countdown of the 50+ Contemporary Christian Music projects that had the most impact on my life and ministry through 2006. To see #3 and get links all the way back to #50, click here! Join me again next Thursday for #2!
2.5) GOOD MONSTERS- Jars of Clay- 2006
I never thought that JOC would be able to top their self-titled debut album (#4 on this list) but they did with this project, their 3rd on my countdown. Upon first hearing the CD I jumped it to number 1 on my list; a few years of reflection land it here at 2.5. Every song is a masterpiece of a gut-wrenching, soul searching faith journey. There are no easy answers given here, save for one- life spent walking with Jesus is far better than any alternative. But that path is not an easy one either. Dan Haseltine has never sounded better on vocals, and the production values rival any CD of any genre I have ever heard. A great, great album.
FEATURED SONGS
The CD opens with Work, an incredible song (video below) about how difficult life can be ("It's the breathing that's taking all this work") and how important it is to not live life alone, without Jesus. Dead Man (Carry Me) finds the Jars crying out to God raise them from the dead feelings they have inside- it is simply a tour de force of music. All My Tears and Even Angels Cry continue this theme of pain and passion. We are then lifted up by There Is A River, with its' incredible chorus: "There is a river that washes you clean, there is a tree than marks the places you've been. Blood that was spilled, although not your own, for all of those tears love will atone." Good Monsters follows with question "Do you know what you are?" Even the best of us are simply good monsters. Oh My God is prayer of such passion that it always stirs my soul. Mirrors & Smoke is an upbeat surprise featuring a vocal from Leigh Nash of Sixpence None the Richer. The closing songs, Light Gives Heat and Water Under the Bridge are songs of redemption, reminding us that both our hearts and our relationships can be saved. There is not one song on this album that I do not absolutely love!
OTHER RECOMMENDED ALBUMS FROM JARS OF CLAY
Jars of Clay- 1995*
Much Afraid- 1997
If I Left the Zoo- 1999
The Eleventh Hour- 2002
Who We Are Instead- 2003
Redemption Songs- 2005*
*indicates album also included in this countdown
The Mountain Top trip was not the only interesting part of the Summer of '94 at the First United Methodist Church of Kissimmee. Our theme for the summer was Don't Look Back, as we tried to shift the focus of the ministry from what it had been (a great success followed by two years of turmoil) to what it could be. There were lots of new events, but one of the keys to the summer was a new program we called Wednesday Night Live! (The group from the first WNL is pictured at top). The history at FUMC-K dictated that there would be a Bible study on Wednesday nights during the school year. My personal ministry history was to have a fun and games times on Wednesdays during the summer. I decided to combine the two and give it a catchy name. We would have an hour of Bible study followed by an hour of weird, wild, wacky stuff. No one was sure if people would show up or not. But the Youth Ministry Team decided to give it a go.
We decided the Youth Counselors would teach each week, and that our subject for the summer would be the 10 Commandments. Each week we would tackle a different challenge from God with a different teacher. Karen Hall (now Gould), Carlene Heck (now Skiles), Cathy Thacker, Jerry Hanbery, Laura Drapkin, Kay Hill, Becky Watson (now McCleery), Jill Painter (now Watson) and I all served as teachers. We tried to give a little different perspective to God's Top 10, and I think it worked, because the crowd kept building all summer long.
Of course it didn't hurt that the study was always followed by an event! Things like The Great Gumby Search, Banana Night, Snow Blast, Christmas in July and a trip to Old Town made each week special. As always, things seldom went exactly as planned- usually because Todd Willis and Jocelyn Sessions were cheating at the games!!! But we always had a blast, and slowly but surely Wednesday Night Live! became a huge year-round part of our student ministry at FUMC-K.
We tried a few other new things that summer as well; a Mid-High Mission Trip, a "kidnapping," Beach Breaks and much more. You will hear more about several of these events. Looking back, I think we succeeded in moving the group out of the past and into the present that summer. So many of the youth were feeling like that were a day late and a dollar short for the glory days of youth ministry at the church. With our efforts that summer I think we convinced them that they weren't late; in fact, they were just in time. We were ready to follow Jesus into the great WIDE OPEN...
Because of Jesus,
Our final stop before heading for home to Kissimmee on our 1994 mission trip was a fun stop in Atlanta. I had not really made any plans for this stop; I just knew I wanted us to have some fun to wrap up what had at times been a very stressful trip. And we did have some fun...
We got rooms in a Days Inn just off the interstate and located behind a strip club. It turned out we were not is a very nice part of town, but we didn't really care. It was decided we would try to go to an Atlanta Braves game. We had no tickets, but I had been to enough Braves games to know you can always scalp tickets outside the stadium. So off we went. I remember absolutely nothing about the game. To tell you the truth, I don't even remember if we got in. I do remember how excited Jocelyn Sessions was that we were going to scalp tickets. She just kept talking about it. Only thing was, she kept referring to the fact that we were going to "sculpt" tickets. It was hilarious. We all kept joking about what that would look like; to see artists sitting in front of Fulton County Stadium forging tickets out of clay. "Sculpting" tickets became a catch phrase I used for many years. Jocelyn would have many more "moments" in the coming years, and you will read about them here; they would only reinforce what a special part of our youth family she was!
The next day (I think) we visited Underground Atlanta. Again, I have very little memory of the event, but it did produce one of my all-time favorite group pictures (at top). Getting dressed up, posing for the photo and laughing so hard we couldn't stand up was exactly the finish the trip needed. The guys look so serious because the photographer wanted us to look like old west bandits- and it worked. The girls were just supposed to look pretty- and they did! It was all great fun. We headed home with a new bond, new enthusiasm and a bright future. God can do amazing things when we surrender to Him. Dr. Jill definitely got it right- it was the best worst week ever! See you tomorrow.
Because of Jesus,
Hollywood lives! Thanks to Lauren Carr Cacciatore for sending me a picture of John Willis and his muppet Hollywood (with sunglasses) to share with my readers. Lauren is a regular reader and was recently married. You will be reading about her in the days to come. She is still an angel!!!
I have mentioned before that while on our Mountain Top trip in 1994 that we had two church vans; a nice white one, which Jill Painter drove, and a blue one, which I drove. The blue van had issues. The radio didn't work. The cruise control didn't work. The air conditioning was suspect, seeming only to work when it was not hot outside. The speedometer was questionable. And, most importantly for purposes of this story, the gas gauge was not accurate.
We had left Mountain Top for the last time (and I do mean last; there was NO WAY I was ever going back again!) and were driving through the hills of Tennessee when suddenly the blue van came to an abrupt halt. I know very little about cars and engines and such, but even I was smart enough to figure out pretty quickly that we were out of gas. The gauge didn't say so, but we were. Oops. I had overestimated how far we could make it before having to refuel, and now we were stuck in the middle of the middle of nowhere. Jill drove ahead (left us, in other words) and found the nearest gas station a few miles down the road. After you hear what we did next, you may ask the question, "Why didn't you just send Jill to buy a gas can and bring back some gas?" I have no response to that. It would have made perfect sense. But it was not what we did. Instead, the manly men of our group- Matt Schmidt, Todd Willis, Brian Watson, Matt Wheeler, Brad Watson, Ben Thacker, Hamp Sessions, Scott Burlison and myself- pushed that van for about 2 miles in the hot June sun. I give all the guys credit, because to tell the truth I don't remember who all actually pushed. But push we did, and we eventually arrived at the gas station. We had conquered the road and were feeling very macho...
We were bonding over our manly feat of strength when it came time to continue. We were also incredibly sweaty and smelly, and preparing to continue our journey in a van without a decent AC system. So the guys decided to "air out." All of the windows were opened. The girls were are securely placed in the white van with Jill. Most of the guys then removed their shirts and their pants and rode for the next couple of ours in only their boxers. It was a unifying display of manly pride that once again served as one of those unplanned events that pull a group together. Only those of us who were not wearing boxers did not participate as I recall. Thank God we had the good sense to excuse ourselves from the adventure! Between the boxer brigade and them making fun of me for running out of gas in the first place, the trip was very upbeat and joyful as we headed for our stop in Atlanta. And Dr. Jill and I were even now- a speeding ticket for her, running out of gas for me!
This merry band of travellers was becoming quite the youth group family. And we still had a couple of adventures to go...
Because of Jesus,
Happy Mothers Day to all Moms within the sound of my keyboard!!! I would especially like to take a moment to thank God for the moms in my life; my own mother Anne Jones, my mother-in-law Marie Steele, and my incredible wife Marilyn Jones. God has used each of them to bless me, and I am so thankful to have them in my life. Don't miss the opportunity to let the moms in your life know how important they are- and do it today!
Today is a very special anniversary for me. Thirty-one years ago today, my friends Carl Semmler and Alan Brown joined me in my dad's 1977 Honda Civic Wagon (named Clyde, after Clyde the Camel in the great Ray Stevens song Ahab the Arab) as we began a month long cross-country trip. I have not told many of the stories of the trip here (the exception being A Waste of Good Cookies), but perhaps I will give more details at a later date. It was one of the best months of my life. In the days that followed the excitement of May 9, 1979, we would travel to New Orleans, where we would meet the "Ash Tray Kid," nearly die from the heat while inside our motel room, and lose the Jazz Museum. We ate at a Holiday Inn, Jr. because it was the only restaurant we found in a 200 mile stretch between Houston and San Antonio, where we would camp in poison ivy while exploring the Alamo and Riverwalk. We stood on a corner in Winslow, AZ...and it was such a fine sight to see (it was a Denny's). We would visit Flagstaff, AZ, and camp on the south rim of the Grand Canyon, then nearly die on a hike into the canyon while consuming only warm root beer and malted milk balls- then have to pay for a shower when we got back to the top. We would visit Carlsbad Caverns and be attacked by bats before eating a really bad, terribly expensive meal in White City and losing our campsite because we had no flashlight (and we always managed to find the darkest campsite.) We stayed with my Uncle Dick and Aunt Rusty in Vegas (our excuse for the entire trip, by the way) where we saw Don Rickles and won $20 worth of pennies. We visited Disneyland, staying in a motel with no working TV and thousands of silverfish, as well as a bathroom door that fell off the first time we opened it. We saw a famous wax museum, but failed to visit the Pacific Ocean. On our way back Alan drove a tent stake through a water pipe at a KOA Campground in Utah, causing mass chaos and a small flood. We ate pizza one night, then 24 hours later ate pizza again- with nothing in between. We drove 5 mph on I-70 as we reached the top of the Rockies because our carburetor wasn't adjusted and the air was too thin for Clyde to go any faster. We spent three days in St. Louis because there was no gas to be bought on Memorial Day weekend during the gas crisis of '79. We camped on the lawn at Quaker Hill in Richmond, IN at the offices of Friends United Meeting while visiting our friend Paula Teague (Imagine the surprise of the employees when they arrived at work to find a giant tent pitched outside their offices). We invented the game I'm Thinking of an Object to kill hours spent in the car and in the dark. We visited DC, but for the life of me I can't remember anything we actually did while there. And then we returned home to NC and started our summer jobs at Quaker Lake. It was an amazing trip.
And through it all, there was Clyde. He was overloaded, with a giant tent on top, but he never let us down. Despite the troubles in the mountains, Carl throwing up in him, a rogue windshield wiper that pinned the driver's door shut and a few other mishaps, that car became a folk hero to us. So today, as we honor all mothers, I also give a tip of the hat to Clyde, the little car that carried us on our big adventure. May he rest in peace. And if Carl and Alan are out there, Happy Anniversary, guys!!!
Each afternoon during our week in the mountains of Tennessee we had free time at Mountain Top. This time resulted in naps, some wonderfully hardcore basketball games and other leisure activities. One such afternoon I decided to go sit on the grassy hillside and play my guitar. This was my Applause guitar, with the steel neck and the fiberglass back- the one Alan Brown nicknamed "The Boat." It was the same guitar Jay Osborne had once dropped off the roof of the lodge at Quaker Lake in the early 80's (That's me pictured playing it at QLC in those same early 80's- by 1994 it was on its' last "string."). It was beat up, falling apart and almost impossible to tune anymore- and I loved it. I sat on the grass in the afternoon sun, playing songs and singing softly to myself. It was a great way to kick back.
As I sat playing, a few members of our group came and sat with me, and we began to sing songs that were familiar to us. The more we sang and laughed and hung out on the lawn. the more people came over to join us. After a while there were probably 50-75 youth and adults who had joined us, many of them calling out requests. I tried to play them all. And we sat there and sang praise to God for a long time. Without question it was the best bonding time of the week. Leaders from other groups thanked me for doing it, but in truth I had not done a thing. As with all great moments of ministry, God had orchestrated this one.
At least one person did not see it that way. The Director soon confronted me and wanted to know why I was trying to disrupt the camp. Apparently, no ministry was allowed to happen unless it was planned and led by he and his staff. I was actually told that if I did it again my group would be sent home. To this day I still don't get it. It was so tempting to leave right then and there, but I knew that was not the right thing to do. I took my admonishment and tried to finish out the week without causing any more "trouble." The week ended without further incident.
The bonding that took place around Scott Burlison's misadventures and his birthday, and around this incident, was of great help to me. Many of the youth on this trip (and Jill Painter) were already very close. The questions were about me. Would I fit in? Would they learn to trust and respect me as a leader? I came away from Mountain Top feeling like we had made great progress in the midst of a rough week. The trip home would only confirm that.
Because of Jesus,
