Churches are funny. They actually hire people to babysit the teenagers….to take them to amusement parks, weekend camping retreats, and other fun activities. These babysitters are also known as Youth Ministers. Sure, these youth workers might occassionally have a teen pregnancy or other crisis that pops up, but for the most part everything is smooth sailing. Imagine being paid to have fun? Boggles the mind. It’s not that have have some type of resentment toward youth ministers. They’ve choosen their field because it’s something they enjoy and can easily have fun at. I might have chosen it if the pay was better and I had better speaking ability. For the most part, youth ministry is not a full time job. Teaching a class on Sundays and Wednesday nights accounts for 2 hours. Then there the weekend road trips which could account for maybe 20 hours. I’d imagine at the very most it would be a part time job of 24 hours a week.
Why has youth ministers become the cool thing to have a church? Mostly its because parents refuse to be parents….to get involved with their child’s spiritual well-being. Instead we let youth ministers carry the brunt of a kid’s spiritual well-being. You see, “Deacon in charge of Youth” doesn’t sound cool enough for most people. Deacons have to be married and with some kids. Once they get to be that age, they are uncool in the eyes of most teenagers. The title of “Youth Minister” is hip right now.
Author Archives: Jeff Whittle
Food Fighters
Food Fight at Columbine High School…..the only reason this is making news is because it happened at Columbine. At any other school, this would not have even been reported.
I remember when we had a food fight at my high school. I only saw the after effects of it. Basically everyone knew a food fight was being planned. I had a late lunch time. By the time I got in there, the 30 second food fight had ended. Apparently the teachers stopped it before it even had a chance to really get started. The cafeteria was a bit messier than usual. I was somewhat of a prude then and was pretty worried about not being able to finish my meal before the food fight started. I was also worried about my clothes being messed up.
I have a few other memories of the cafeteria. The high school cheerleaders were able to get a coin operated jukebox in the cafeteria to raise funds so they could go to their cheer competitions. Anyways, at the time Prince’s “Diamonds and Pearls” song was pretty popular. Someone would always put this in the jukebox, sometimes several times during the lunch period. At one point a school coach got so sick of the song, he unplugged the jukebox when it came up again. I’ll always associate “Diamond’s and Pearls” with that incident.
Lunchtime during elementary school was an interesting experience. Apparently the loudness of the cafeteria was getting to the teachers. (The teachers were forced to sit in the cafeteria to watch the students). I don’t recall it being really loud, but who am I to say? In order to combat the noise polution, the teachers set up a mircophone which Mrs. Duncan would go to and say “Five Minutes of No Talking.” Later on they got a stoplight – if it was green you could talk; yellow meant whisper; and red meant no talking. The “bad kids” never payed attention to the light. Just some of the stupid things we had to endure because of school mismanagement. The easy solution would be to get parents to volunteer to watch the cafeteria during the lunch hour while the teachers ate in the smoke filled teachers’ lounge.
One of the few times I got in trouble was in the elementary school cafeteria. It was during my kindergarten year. I had a nice metal Aladdin “Dukes of Hazzard” lunchbox. At the far end of a cafeteria table a kid in my class told me to slide my lunchbox to him so that he could catch it. I did and he just let it fall (on purpose). The metal lunchbox made a loud noise which caused everyone to stop talking for a second. For punishment my teacher made me hold her hand on the way back to the classroom. How embarrassing for a Kindergartener!
Fast Food Watch
For some strange reason, I’m always intriged by stories about fast food restaurants. Here’s one:
World’s first McDonald’s snowmobile drive-through opens in Sweden.
What’s my favorite fast food restaurant? For burgers, it would have to be Wendy’s. Anything else, it would have to be what I’m in the mood for. Maybe Subway or Fazoli’s. There’s something really interesting about fast food restaurants. First off, they all look the same. Almost exact same menu options. And there’s always a funny little character that goes along with the Kid’s Meal. They’re all trying to achieve brand name recognition.
I try to stay away from fast food restaurants that are connected to gas stations. I’d just rather not have the food to have too much gasoline taste to them.
Microsoft’s Terraserver….great views from the
Microsoft’s Terraserver….great views from the sky of your house.
Lobster
Just some news stories I’ve read lately:
College Student dresses up as a Lobster; stays silent for 3 months for “Performance Art”.
Vet Saves the Life of Komodo Dragon by Pulling a Stuffed Bear from Dragon’s stomach…..including really nasty looking picture.
Transformers and G.I. Joes
When I was in elementary school, way back in the 1980s, on summer days, I would go to my cousin’s house up the street to make up battles with our latest commercially induced toy line. Often the toys were Transformers, G.I. Joe, M.A.S.K., or He Man. I was very much into Transformers and M.A.S.K.; just slightly interested in G.I. Joe, and only had 2 He Man figures to my collection. I can remember putting a few of my own toys in a box and making a shortcut through neighbors’ yards in order to get to my cousin’s house. My only concern was the random dog, which would bark at me. We’d have some amazing battles before my uncle got home (which in my case was my queue to leave). My cousin would always keep his toys in premium condition. Sometimes I would inadvertently break mine from playing too rough with them. Or possibly due to them being underfoot. Neither my cousin nor me would even think to play with our toys outside (might get them dirty).
Toys weren’t the only thing that kept us busy. Sometimes we’d get out the Atari and play it for hours. Othertimes we’d play with waterguns or ride our bikes around in the woods behind my cousin’s house.
A Very Special Waltons Episode was on the other day. It’s the one where the new preacher comes to town to preach a tent meeting. The preacher is played by John “Three’s Company” Ritter. I wanted to see a cameo appearance by Suzanne Somers as the lady of ill repute on Waltons Mountain, but Suzanne didn’t show up.
Anyways this is the one where the preacher comes in preaching hellfire and brimstone sermons. Later on in the episode the preacher ends up getting drunk off of some elixir. He is shuned by some in the community for accidentially getting drunk. Because of that a lady ends up preaching the tent meeting. (I thought this was revolutionary even on Walton’s Mountain). The Waltons father ends up going to the tent meeting and saying everyone has sinned and let the preacher preach. The show ends when Grandpa starts up an accapella version of “Just as I Am” during the meeting. How heartwarming!
Faithsited
Has your church’s webpage been Faithsited yet? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, look at these sites:
- www.ottercreek.org
- www.brentwoodhills.org
- www.dianasinging.com
- www.faithmatters.com
- www.antiochcofc.org
- www.aultroad.com
- centralchurch.faithsite.com
- wingate.faithsite.com
- westend.faithsite.com
You’ll notice that the general layout of these sites are almost all the same…..navigation on the left; calendar on the right; banner on top; all having really small print. All of these sites are hosted by Faithsite.com. Faithsite offers low cost hosting to churches and businesses. Except for a few changes in colors and content, the general layout is all uniform. How depressing! A few years ago when I was looking for a host for my church’s website, I considered Faithsite. I’m glad I didn’t go through with it. I like experimenting around with the layout of my church’s webpage. I can’t do much experimenting with Faithsite. By using Faithsite, you will be assimilated into the Borg; with your creativity stifled. In principle, Faithsite is a good thing. However providing a bunch of uniform webpages just doesn’t cut it.
Somehow I wish more people would get creative with their webpages. Getting a template from Faithsite is just a cop-out.
Out of Ideas
Sometimes I think the music world has run out of ideas. For example, Mary J. Blige’s latest song “No More Drama” is a blatant rip off of “The Young and the Restless” soap opera theme. Puff Daddy/P. Diddy is notorious for ripping off songs like Sting’s “Every Breath You Take” and Led Zepplin’s “Kashmir.” Doesn’t anyone have any unique ideas anymore? I would certainly hope this rip off artists are paying the original composers sufficient royalties for making money off their songs. I don’t think I mind a short sample such as EMF’s sampling of Andrew Dice Clay in “Unbelievable” or the short sample of the Jackson 5’s “ABC” on the song “OPP.” Such small samples can actually enhance the songs. But when the entire song is the same tune as the original, just different lyrics, it provides no new enhancements to the original song.
Speaking of music, I stopped by the Lebanon Outlet mall. I didn’t find anything I wanted…..except at a music store. Ironically the only thing that I’d wanted to buy, I can’t buy. It’s a bunch of Better Than Ezra promotional posters. The music store clerk said that he’d call me about the posters once they were going to take it down, but I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for his call.
Refreshing
It’s always refreshing to see the youth involved at church. Case in point: For the evening church services they’re having the young boys from the “Young Soldiers Serving Christ” read scripture before the sermon. This YSSC is a special training class that seemingly goes on constantly for young boys who want to get involved in church services. I never had this type of class growing up in the church. I had to pretty much wing it when reading scripture or praying publicly. This class, which they have on Sunday afternoons, helps the kids get over fears of speaking in public.
Also I’ve placed some Real Audio Sermons on the church webpage. It was pretty easy to do. Just getting the equipment ready logistically was a bit of a challenge. Once everything was setup, it is going smoothly.
One Hit Wonders
One Hit Wonders: Those bands and musicians that only had one hit to their name. I’ve run across several bands that broke into the mainstream with their one hit, then faded into obscurity. I’ve made a list of the best One Hit Wonders:
- Blind Melon – “No Rain”….such a good band, it’s a shame their lead singer had a fatal overdose.
- Blur – “Song 2” ….otherwise known as the Wooohooo song as seen on Pentium Commericals. Blur has a large following in the UK, but I can’t name a 2nd song of theirs.
- Spacehog – “In the Meantime”….nice guitar song.
- Breeders – “Cannonball”….nice guitar bass.
- Son Volt – “Drown”….the best band you’ve never heard of.
- Len – “Steal My Sunshine”…this song was on the radio very breifly during the summer of ’99
- Nixons – “Sister”…great sounding song. I wish they’d get played on the radio more.
- Mr. Big – “To Be With You”…I thought the lead singer was a girl when I heard this song.
- EMF – “Unbelieveable”…this was a huge hit in 1991.
- Jesus Jones – “Right Here, Right Now.” They always play this song over images of the Berlin Wall falling down.
- Radiohead – “Creep.” Another band with a huge following in the UK. They’ve even got some rabid fans here. However you’ll never hear anything other than Creep on the radio.
Speaking of music, ever wonder why lame bands like No Doubt, Sugar Ray, and Smash Mouth put out multiple sorry sounding albums while outstanding bands like Wallflowers and Better Than Ezra have only put out a limited amount of albums over a long period?