cow tipping: wrestling with youth ministry

Top 10 Moments of 2007

10. Serving as the camp speaker at Forest Home (California) 2 weekends last winter.

9. Christmas with Kathy and Emma and all my other family members.

8. Middle school mission project to Duluth, MN - especially our footwashing ceremony.

7. 2007 junior high ministry summit at Forest Home - I am so thrilled to be hosting the gang here in Chicago this April.

6. David Crowder Band concert at the Chicago House of Blues with our entire Student Ministry team.

5. Doing my first seminar at the National Youth Workers Conference in Atlanta.

4. Entering my master's thesis into the Wheaton College library.

3. Having Kathy and Emma involved in the middle school ministry (staff meetings, retreats, camps).

2. Arcade Fire concert with Kathy on our 9th anniversay.

1. Partnering in ministry with my former junior highers and current students from Wheaton College. Watching God work in and through their lives will keep me in ministry for another 10 years.

Top 10 Goals for 2008

10. Lose 88 pounds by 8.8.2008. This includes working out a minimum of 3 times per week and limiting fast food to 1-2 times per week.

9. Spend 1 Saturday a month working on my house. Invite blog readers to join me.

8. Finish the ordination process! Change business cards to "Bishop Andy Jack"

7. Swim lessons (or some kind of weekly class) with Emma throughout the year.

6. Devote 1/4 of my work week to curriculum writing and crafting experiential learning opportunities for students. Make extra effort to partner with volunteers and parents in its creation and communication.

5. Develop a weekly routine of silence and solitude for prayer and journaling.

4. Invest in my 7th grade guys small group on a daily basis (prayer, phone calls, hang outs)

3. Form an accountability small group of guys who will kick my butt on a weekly basis.

2. Invest in my volunteer ministry team (both personally and professionally - especially my very committed and gifted college students.

1. Monthly date night with Kathy (it must be intentional, creative, selfless, and wildly romantic).

Happy? (Middle School Beatitudes Series)

The Happy Meal: The unending pursuit of happiness is symbolized by the Happy Meal, a stroke of pure marketing genius. Every child wants to be happy and Happy Meals send the message that all it takes is a little plastic toy that comes as a gift with your hamburger. And don't parents also want their kids to be happy? After all, the kid has to eat anyway, and it seems like a small, convenient thing to do to bring a little happiness to a child's life (or at least to avoid anticipated unhappiness!) In a matter of minutes, the half-eaten hamburger is thrown away. In a matter of days, the plastic prize is broken, lost or entirely forgotten. But no matter: there's always the next Happy Meal, and the next. Meanwhile, kids are being groomed to be good consumers, to have the kinds of desires that will keep a Happy Meal culture humming along. Yet whatever happiness this pursuit may bring is unstable and short-lived. (Cameron Lee, Unexpected Blessing, p. 26)

I think the visual for this series will be that of the Happy Meal (not just because Oak Brook is the international headquarters for McD's). The Beatitudes usually translated as "blessed" can also mean "happy." Lee unpacks happiness as a culturally-loaded word. Culture and media tell us what it means to be happy. It seems like something we can attain if only we buy the right stuff, fill our lives with important activities, and hang with beautiful and powerful people. It is no accident that "happy" shares the same root word as happenstance. Happiness basically means I'm luckier than you. Happiness isn't earned, it is a blessing of God's grace. Even those who are not happy by earthly standards can still be called blessed, and the dawning recognition of this will transform our happiness.

NOTE: I will start this series January 6th, so I welcome your feedback (good, bad, and ugly) as I get ready to unleash this on middle school students.

Resolutions Revisited

The blessing and curse of blogs is you can look back and see what I was thinking a year ago. I looked back at my New Year's resolutions from last December. I thought I'd finish off 2007 by revisiting my resolutions before I dare make any goals for 2008.

10. Blog everyday.NO! I spent way too much time Facebooking. Not only did I not blog, I didn't write or journal all that much either.
9. Run a 5K or 10K race. NO! I spent way too much time Facebooking. Every time I got serious about training I got an injury or a crisis of some sort distracted me.
8. Create organizational systems for home and work (less mess). Kinda. I rearranged my office this past year, added a 3rd bookshelf, and invested in color-coded file folders. As far as home goes, Kathy and I just got to cleaning and organizing our hallway closet. 2008 is going to be a great year for home organization!
7. Develop the discipline of reading and writing and selfishly protect my study day. Kinda. I think I did a pretty good job of protecting my study day. Most of my attention went to outside projects (retreats, conference seminars, research). I'd like to spend more time writing for my own ministry.
6. Write a minimum of 20 cards to my students and volunteer staff each week. Nope. Note-writing just doesn't seem to translate well with our kids. I think e-mail and texting is the medium for my kids. I did get into the habit of writing thank you cards.
5. Intentionally seek out opportunities to encourage friends. Probably one of the worst years for being a good friend. I got discouraged early on and never made an effort to get back in touch with people. I really enjoy my time with my volunteer team and consider many of them good friends. I just get nervous that my two worlds are converging and there is no break.
4. Lose 50 pounds. I think I gained 50 pounds. But I did get a new iPod from Santa under the condition that I workout a minimum of 3 times a week.
3. Take a daddy/daughter swim class at the health club. No, but our former club failed to offer the class. I will be starting a class with Emma in 2 weeks at the YMCA.
2. Stop being so critical of youth ministry and celebrate the fact I get to do it. YES! I really enjoyed being a middle school youth worker this year. I had a lot of opportunities to do other things, and I enjoyed them, but at the end of the day, I am content being a middle school youth worker at Christ Church of Oak Brook.
1. Creatively speak Kathy’s love language on a daily basis. Kathy and I had a lot of fun going to concerts, playing with Emma, and exploring our Enneagram number and how it impacts our marriage. That love language crap doesn't compare to knowing how God hard-wired us to view the world. I still have a long way to go to being a good husband.

Middle School Beatitudes Series

The middle school ministry team and I have decided to write a Beatitudes series for 2008. It will coincide with the launch of our summer mission project registrations and our first shot at the World Vision 30 Hour Famine. I've done more than a few studies on the Beatitudes, but a recent book has changed my perspective on Jesus' teachings. Cameron Lee's Unexpected Blessing: Living the Countercultural Reality of the Beatitudes is a challenging read. The Beatitudes are not a set of moral rules or a how-to manual. Nor are they "Eight Simple Steps to God's Blessing". Instead, Cameron Lee sees the Beatitudes as a window through which we may view the kingdom of heaven. He illustrates the nature of this kingdom by contrasting each Beatitude with the ways that middle schoolers self-centered culture tugs at them.

I think I'll try to post my outlines and thoughts as I write this series over the next month. I invite your feedback and ideas as I go. If you have any good resources, please shoot them my way!

Christmas Wish List