Another Roundup

August 3, 2007 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Life, Religion, Work 

I’d like to apologize to my readers for the lack of deeply thoughtful articles of late.  Life and work are a bit busy at the moment and I only have time for these roundups.

Work
I’m on the old laptop, reloaded from scratch.  I’ve been told today that I’m getting a new one in the next few weeks.  Given that this one was nearly top of the line when we bought it in 2000 or 2001 – it’s time.  Company culture issues aren’t touching me as much as they had been a while back.  One of the “problem children” has resigned and another in a different state has been told that her job is moving to my location by spring and her department reorganized.  Given that and a few other things I can’t mention here it’s unlikely that she’ll be here by then.  It’s unfortunate when people lose their jobs, but in some cases it’s necessary – anybody who consistently and willfully provides negative productivity (not only are they not productive, they make others less productive) needs to go.

Church
I had a good meeting with with the Youth and Young Adult council this week.  We’re getting ready for the new year.  We talked a lot about the philosophy of how we lead/schedule the group and some possible changes.  The one thing that was a common thread was consistency – that each weekly meeting follow the same pattern and that we choose simple and meaningful as opposed to trying to do a major production each week.  This follows the trend in Youth Ministry nationally to move away from the “let’s bring in new converts” blockbuster events of the 80’s and 90’s and for most the over-30 crowd in the council represents a step back to what they experienced as a youth.  We’re also talking about changing the names of the groups.  Right now they are CHAOS (Christians Hanging Around On Sunday) for the Senior Highs and WILDLIFE (which is an acronym nobody can remember off the top of their heads) for the Junior Highs.  The youth director wants to de-emphasize the chaotic aspects of the names and I agree.  We’re going to see what the youth want early this fall.

The youth director also asked me if I wanted to help lead the Confirmation Class.  This year is the first year doing the class for 9th grade youth (it had been 8th grade, and last year there was no class due to the switch).  I’m honored to be asked, a little uncertain about my ability and the strength of my faith being sufficient, and probably nearly overbooked already.  The Welcome and Outreach Task Force is about to get started, I’ll still be working with the Senior Highs weekly and attending the YAYA council once a month, and the confirmation class is every other week for 8 months plus 3 weekend retreats (one just overnight).  I’ve asked the youth director to lay out time expectations, and perhaps I can be a guest speaker on topics that I know well (polity would be one, and I’m sure that there are a few others).
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The Lawrenceville church and a Princeton church (I think it’s Nassau Presbyterian) are putting together a new young adult event called Theology On Tap.  It’s the 2nd Thursday of each month (starting September) in the Yankee Doodle Tap Room of the Nassau Inn in Princeton at 8pm.  The idea is for 20’s/30’s somethings to get together and share a drink (alcohol optional), fellowship, and talk about theology.  You can find more information HERE, or in the Theolodoodle group on Facebook.  I barely qualify by age, but it’s intriguing enough to me that I’ll probably attend at least the first session.

The youth director also told me a freaky coincidence story.  He was at Triennium 2 weeks ago, sitting with a woman minister friend of his.  She was working on a sermon.  On the table she had laid out a Bible, some books, a few printed e-mails, and one printed blog post.  My director asked, “Can I look at that?” and picked up the blog post.  You’ve probably guessed by now – it was one of mine (either from here or a comment elsewhere).  He started laughing and when she asked why he explained:  “This is one of my adult advisors.”  Since Triennium was attended by youth from all over the world, he claims that I’m now internationally famous!  Somehow I doubt that, but I’m glad that folks are finding worth in my ramblings.

Life
All is well, but we’re so busy with other people’s events (family, camp, church) that we’re neglecting work around the house.  The outdoor trim needs to be painted, the garden needs weeding badly, and the driveway needs to be sealed.  We need to decide whether or not to pay someone to do some of these things (we can afford to) or to stop our commitments and just get it done.

We also need to be sure that we get some downtime.

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