My Friend Ken

I got to know Ken Buck about ten years ago here at camp. I'd seen him around and somehow we ended up staying all night and talking. The following night he invited me out with the leaders to play a great game they'd invented. It involved two golf carts with at least eight people crammed on each. Each team had a about 50 boxes of whipper-snappers and we drove throughout the college campus chucking these at each other's heads, trying to crash the other cart. What can I say, we were young, dumb and didn't understand lawsuits.

At that time, Ken was a Youth Pastor in Xenia, Ohio where he pastored a fantastic band of misfits that reminded me a lot of the kids in my youth group at the time. Ken was a philosophy major at Cedarville and thinks deeply about things, but at the same time has a sense of humor that rides dangerously close to mine. Ken has a passion and vision for what the church is supposed to be and has been a huge influence on me in this area and my understanding of the oppressed. Although Ken is a Calvinist, (and one of the few that is actually not pre-destined according to my own prophetic word), he approaches his beliefs with humility and respect and doesn't act like the tool that many of a similar Calvinistic bent seem to enjoy. Ken has a this great ability to humbly listen to others points of view and discuss tough topics, without feeling the need to make their view his. Ken savors learning from others and going deep in relationships. Ken also has a pretty similar sense of humor to me and all of the other youth pastors at camp - sarcastic and at about a sixth grade level. Unfortunately, he also has no problem walking around naked, especially if it makes others uncomfortable. Ken has a man-crush on Noel (who he is more than just camp-friends with) and likes the band Wilco because he thinks Noel does too.

Ken was recently able to give his entire youth group (30 or so people) food poisoning that was traced back to the beef at the Burger King they stopped at on the way to camp. Five years ago Ken and I once emceed the last talent show (there's a reason it was the last) at camp. We spent the entire two hours up on stage saying things that were hilarious to Ken and I while everyone else stared blankly at us. Jason Shinn and Mike Dicurci sat in the back of the auditorium and heckled us with a bullhorn.

Ken recently moved out to Jersey where he's going to seminary and youth pastoring. We get to spend a week together each year at camp, visit as we're in each other's area and we talk on the phone pretty frequently. Since Ken's parents are reading this, it's very important that you know that Ken is in fact heterosexual.