I'm on my way to Hot Springs, Arkansas by way of Little Rock. I'm on a tiny jet both ways - so no first class. I've managed to reduce my inbox from 300 e-mails down to 42! Seems silly to get such satisfaction out of something so small, but even a hamster probably feels he's making progress on his wheel.

We rented the game Spiderman 2 for PS2. Great game, fun to play - the web swinging part of it is much improved from the first game.

Nate and I were watching a special on the making of the Spiderman 2 video game. Afterwards, he told me, "Dad, I want to have a job where I test games for bugs. I'd be able to play video games all day long."

That's my son, Nate. Behind him is a cherry tree. He got the great idea to use the cherries to make war-paint. He painted his face and arms. I sent him up to take a shower. Cathie goes to check on him, and he says "Mom, I don't need to take a shower. These work just fine." He'd taken the clorox bathroom counter wipes and was rubbing them on his skin to get the cherry stain off. My son is a great example of why the label has the warning "Do not use on skin". Boys are still 1,000 times easier to raise than girls.

Just read an interesting quote from an article in the print version of Relevant Magazine, discussing the "third way" of the Gospel as an anecdote that resolves the tension between liberalism and conservatism:
Jesus was more conservative than today's conservatives, because He thought that no one at all escapes the charge of being a great sinner. He recognized that sinners are not just hte drug-dealers and pornographers, but also the decent upright citizens who you'd let babysit your kids, but who have the same heart of darkness as ever other fallen person. Yet, Jesus is more liberal than today's liberals, since He is not scandalized by any kind of sin. Modern liberals are inclusive at the surface, but deeply offended and distrustful of people with traditional belief systems. These are the liberal's pariahs, the ones they smirk at, or, at best, patronize. But Jesus didn't smirk at anyone - He ernestly dealt with people who were deeply different than Him - not to leave them where they were, which is also the liberal tendency, but in order to redeem them.
I think there's a lot of truth in that quote, but I'm not sure what to do with it. Thoughts?

I can't stand Michael Moore. In the same way that Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura can be mean to people Michael Moore comes across in the same way, all while doing it under the guise of documentary-type reporting. I'll probably still see the movie at some point, but everything I've read from both sides of the coin are very negative.

I came across this interesting article on Michael Moore's new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11Unfairenheit 9/11 - The lies of Michael Moore:
To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery

Jason did the message/sermon today at church and did an amazing job. Here's the context: Jason's been gone for the past two weeks, at camp for the past week. He comes home drained mentally and physically with his voice gone to give his first every all-J message on Child Like Faith. 10:00 last night he's over at my house still tweaking what he's going to say. My prayer for him was that God would come through and save the day, like Superman always used to do. He blew me away - both God and Jason. In J's weakness, God was huge. The content and the delivery were phenomneal - lots of stories, which J is great at telling, but a message that you could tell J was passionate about. I was really proud of him. I'll try and make it into an MP3 and post it on here.

We made it back today from camp. We got the kids up at 7AM, which was a chore in itself. We loaded them up by nine and were on the road. They were beat. I was beat. I'm glad to be home.

Jason (Shinn) is teaching tomorrow. He's as beat as all of the leaders and has the joyful job of teaching tomorrow morning. He's over now and we're trying to hone his message. It's on child-like faith and is excellent.

This is a friend of mine, Matt, one of the leadres from camp. He's not retarded.
Two years ago, he got hit in the eye with a water-baloon and ended up with cyclops vision. This year he woke up at four in the morning with a bag of poop on his chest. Yet he keeps coming back because he loves kids. Go figure - I mean, it was poo.


This is Chris. Chris is a Youth Pastor in Ohio. He's got an amazing faith, one where he just expects God to show up and do huge things. This is the closest thing that I can figure to what Jesus meant about child-like Faith. Chris doesn't think anything is too little for God to worry about. He and I are pretty different people, but we both have the same passion for youth ministry. Chris's kids think he's equally amazing.

I heard a great story today and I verified it's authenticity. There are multiple camps going on at Kenyon College where we're at this week. One of them happens to be a Mime camp. I hate Mimes. Why anyone would want to learn how to be one is beyond me. Anyways, a kid from our group saw the sign and he walked into the class as if he were a part of the group. He participated in all of the mime exercises and actually learned miming stuff, just to see if he could. The guy saw such promise in him that he invited him back to the next class he was doing. He then found out the guy wasn't a part of the group and I guess Mimed kicking him out. As I said, Miming should be a lost art.

Wow, what a day today. The last day of camp is always wild - full of lots of emotions and connections. We started the day off with worship and session - kids were pretty wiped from a late night last night. After session we had The Battle of Helms Deep. As you can see from the pictures, it was a huge battle. The game took place on a huge hill, with our team defending the flag. Each team had thousand of water balloons and flour bombs (panty-hose filled with flour about the size of a tennis ball) and water noodles to use as a sword. Once you got wet, the flour stuck like nothing else. The air was filled with flour like it was smoke. I'm still finding this gunk in different orfices of my body. Is it okay to eat a flour buger?

Chris, Shawn, Mark, Mike and I then went to play paintball. I took out lots of kids, but got lit up myself, all three drawing wounds drawing blood. It was a great time.

The highlight of today was our youth group time. We messed around for a few doing a tradition we've had for a while - seeing which group could build a human structure that could reach the highest. We then sat in a circle and shared our favorite moments of the week. This is where the paycheck for this week comes. Kids talked about the relationships they'd built, the way their views had changed about people, growing closer in their walk with God, their intimacy with Jesus and most of all the worship. A number of our kids talked about how they went from being people who didn't sing, to having their hearts touched by the worship and really connecting with God at a heart level through music. I was so proud of our kids as a I sat there looking around at them. A lot of these kids I've known since before sixth grade and I've seen them grow up. I started to tell the kids what I was thankful for and got pretty choked up. I'd seen these kids treat other people well, grow, change and laughed with them.

The band ended up the evening with an amazing set of worship which kids really responded to and connected with. Again, the band was amazing. We then went down and played dodge ball, where I messed up my arm throwing. I kept throwing after I hurt it, which it turns out was a bad move. It hurt to the point that it was numb. I ate lots of advil and the pain seems to be subsiding.

Tomorrow, we're moving out. We're having the kids clean their rooms tonight or else they can choose to wake up at 6:15 AM to clean up and get to breakfast by 8 all packed and ready to go. If they clean up tonight, they can sleep in until 7. Funny, most of them are cleaning tonight.

We're all beat, especially the leadership team. We've all had 5 hours of sleep max and we're ready to head home.

I was able to fit 15 people in my room this evening. We had a card tournament, Chris Rays won. I think he cheated. Badly. At church camp none-the-less. I think that makes baby Jesus cry. The kids are stiting here as I'm updating my blog, putting the latest pictures on-line (You can see them here) and wanted me to share the following messages:

Greg Morgan says "I miss you mommy"
Chris Rays says "Way to give Billy the Xbox"
Jim Jeffrey says "Hi Mom. You were right, I did steal that stuff."
Evan Cornell says "Dad, don't touch my stuff when I'm gone."
Shawn Goldman says "I need more underwear."

I had a two hour nap today, so I'm going to be up late. Jason didn't get a nap like I did. He was hanging out with some kids instead, answering questions about God. Fool.

These are some great friends of mine who I do Youth Ministry with. John, Jason and Mark. We come from totally different church backgrounds but each person has an amazing heart towards kids, and that heart comes out in the way they lead kids.

Here's what I keep in my pockes while I'm at camp at all times:
Advil, Camera, Cell Phone, Camp Schedule, Gum, People's lost keys, a Pen, Change, My water bottle, My money.

Apparently everyone else has figured out this thing about pockets as well. We've all got cargo shorts with lots of pockets, and life is grand.

I've been bragging for a long time that my dollar store was the best. I was wrong. I love dollar stores, and found one worth making a 4 hours pilgramage to. We all bought tons of useless stuff, with each kid asking at least one person the question "How much is this." Jim Jeffrey turned it into an art form, asking it 5 or 6 different ways with a completely straight face.

I posted the pictures online from yesterday. They're here.

Another late night last night. I got to bed around 2AM, Jason around 3AM. We had a blast yesterday with most of our group going canoing, kyaking or tubing in the afternoon. The weather's been beautiful and the kids have been awesome. You'll notice from the pictures that most of them have gone from being individual pictures of kids to group pictures, because the kids have really connected with each other. The worship band is amazing and it's been great to see the kids really connecting with God through the worship times we have each day.

Cathie took off today. It really recharged me to have her and the kids here with me, but I was torn a lot of the time between how much time to spend wtih them verses the kids. It's a really tough balance that I haven't figured out yet.


Tim (the bald one laying across everyone else) took off yesterday to head down to Mexico as part of his new job as a youth pastor at a church in Port Huron. We miss him already. I'm so proud of our leaders. We have Jason, who leads with the heart of a servant and with a heart of humility, Sue, who is so laid back and whose authentic love for the kids and God just leaks out of who she is. Jess has such a spirit of fun balanced by a deep knowledge of God and an amazing love for kids. Kasey, Matt and Zach have a very special place in my heart, as they were my very first kids in our youth group - when our group was only 5 or 6 kids total. I'm so proud to see where they've come today as people, leaders and christians. Plus, they get my sense of humor. Always a plus. The common theme, which I've always believed is the most important in youth ministry, is that the leaders like the kids. This is a team I would do anything for.

Bobby Rays and I had a pretty interesting experience sitting in the emergency room last night. He'd cut his leg and we wanted to see if it needed stiches. Midnight in a small town hospital is great. We saw a convict brought in with cuffs, waist belt, and leg irons who happened to look just like Jess! By the time we got back, our pizza was cold.

Late night. Still not in bed yet. Jason Shinn and I spent a while tonight for our kids, our leaders, and ourselves. We're toast if we don't.

I then sat around until past 1 AM with the other leaders talking. It's such a diverse group of guys - backgrounds form Baptist, Evangelical, and Non Denominational. Some that I might not ever associate with outside of this - but you've got a group of people with the same heart towards kids, and it draws us all together.

Just got back from Walmart. We have an annual tradition of making a midnight run to WalMart where the guys stock up on everything - mostly stuff they don't need. They get everything - squirt guns, wrenches, candy, beef jerky - and this time - light sabers. Lots of light sabers.

Another great day with beautiful weather. No rain, not too hot, not too cold. We had a great sesion this morning (I'm in the Jr. High sessions) followed by team activiites. Our groups are broken into 16 different teams and the teams compete in all sorts of goofy, but fun games (see pictures for details). My team had to play a game with two-by-fours involving problem solving to get our group across the "hot lava" (note for concerned parents - the hot lava was actually grass). We lost badly, but had the most fun doing it. After lunch we had our first "Buck Wild" event - a two hundred foot slip and slide followed by afternoon options - swimming, canoing, golfing, ultimate frisbee, vollyball, etc. After that was our "Deeper" sessions - a time where the kids can go to a different hour long class on topics like worship, music, faith and friendship. We had dinner followed by our youth group time. At our Youth Group time we discussed the age old question - "If you were in a vat of vomit up to your neck, and someone was throwing poop at you - would you duck?" Think about it.

Cathie and the kids came up to visit today and are staying through tomorrow. I haven't been gone long, but I've already missed them and it was great seeing them. I've been coming here for 8 years and this is the first time Cathie's had a chance to see what it's all about and the people that I've connected with. She's gotten to know a lot of the guys like Ken Buck, Phil, Tim, Jason and Jess indirectly, but this is the first time seeing it all in context. Cathie and the kids are staying at a nearby hotel - I'm still with my peeps in the dorms. I'm not smart. It's late. More tomorrow. Day 2 pictures are up.

We made it here without a problem. We ended up taking a few extra vehicles because the two school busses were overfilled with luggage. Sue and I drove separately and for the first loooong hour and a half we drove behind the busses. Once, on a down hill slope with the wind at our back, we got up to 54 MPH. It was exhilarating. We rolled in around 4:30 PM and went to orientation. The kids quickly unpacked and headed over for dinner. After dinner, we had our first session. Sessions consist of announcements (which I get to do), worship and a speaker. Crossroads worship band is leading worship, and they sound amazing. Full lights and concert setup. There's a speaker for both the high school kids and the junior high kids. I'm hanging with the Junior Higher's, who have an amazing speaker - Jason Rates. He's a phenomenal story teller and has a great message on how important these kids are to God.

The first night is always a little funky as kids find their places, burn off their energy from the bus ride and get to know the campus and the schedule. We played a wicked game of dodgeball last night for a few hours and then headed back to our dorms. I found that few things feel better than a lot of sweat mixed in with a sunburn. We got to bed around 1AM last night and had an early start this morning around 7:30 AM.

We've had some technical difficulties so far - so I'm updating all of the pictures over a dial-up modem. It's a pain. Until I can get the ecrossroads.net site updated, here's a link to the pictures.

I was woken up this morning with breakfast in bed, and some great gifts from Cathie and the kids. The kids each wrote down why they loved me as their dad and Cathie framed the three notes. They were awesome. Cathie got me a great 5 man Eureka tent.

Friday night, Cathie and I went out with three other couples (Mark/Jen, Justin/Lori, Dan/Mel) for dinner and then to see the movie Dodgeball. The movie was hilarious if you go in with the right expectations.

On Saturday we went to Cathie's parents for Father's day and spent the day lying by the side of the pool barbecuing. My whole family learned about the joys of why we use sunscreen. We all got fried. On our way out the door, Emily got bit in the face, just below her right eye, by Brandon - Cath's parents cocker spaniel. It's old and not used to kids. I think each kid has been bitten by him at one point or another. We cleaned it up, put a band-aid on and didn't think much more about it. On the way to meet Will for a beer, I got a call back from my sister-in-law Beth (who's a Dr.) telling me we should probably take Emily in to the emergency room to have it looked at. I went back home, picked up Emily and took her in. She was great and the doctor's were nice. The irrigated the wound, put some salve on it and gave her a perscription for antibiotics. The hospital had to file a report on the dog, which meant the Dewitt P.D. would have to stop by my parents house and check out the dog. Hopefully it doesn't bite the police.

I was out in Pittsburgh yesterday for an executive level meeting with a customer of ours. I'd packed a suit, and went to get dressed and couldn't find my tie. I called Cathie and it turns out I'd forgotten to put my tie in my suitcase. No big deal. I can survive without a tie. I then went to put my shoes on and noticed they were two completely different shoes.

Just installed this Internet Explorer plug-in that enhances the search results from Google, called MoreGoogle. Pretty cool so far.

I've started reading Rennovation of the Heart again. My first time through I made it about 80% of the way and then petered out. What an amazing book on spiritual transformation. Dallas Willard is really freaking smart.

I'm going to be teaching at Crossroads again on July 11th on more of the Sacred Romance series, dealing with the larger story that we're a part of. Short of the overall theme of the sacred romance that I talked about a few weeks ago, this is one of my other favorite ideas from the book. It deals with the larger story of existence, of salvation and God's desire and passion to be in a sacred relationship wtih us. The downside is that we often choose to live in stories that are too small for our hearts, which are made to live in the larger story that we're often unaware of.

It's been a great week being home, but I've been working like crazy lately - partially trying to get things squared away for being gone next week at Camp, partially because things have peaked at work. I'm in the process of getting my team squared away - I had one new person start last week and I'm trying to hire another new person soon. This gives me a pretty green team with huge potential, but it requires a ton of time to invest into them while the rest of the world continues turning.

It's great having the kids home from school for the summer, being able to hang out with them, take a break whenever and see them. It really helps reduce my stress. I've also tried to get back into my workout routine, working out with Kirk a few days this week, and eating right as well. All that'll get thrown out the window come next week, but oh well.

Gotta love these nice, summer days.

Pretty uneventful weekend. Cathie and I went on a date Friday night to see the movie The Day After Tomorrow. The special effects were amazing, but the premise of the movie blew. The premise was that our use of fossil fuels was causing global warming, and that every ten thousand years an ice-age would occur because of this. They even had a nice, shaming part of the movie where Dennis Quaid looks to the camera to ask if we'll learn our lesson next time around. I reccomend going to see this movie for the first 45 minutes of special effects and then leaving.


On Saturady, the Kurt girls got together to work on their scrapbooks, so my brother Jon came over and hung out for the day. We didn't do much productive, except go to the park and hang out. Suprisingly, none of the kids got hurt (severely) while playing with my brother. Saturday night, I had some guys come over for a last minute texas-no-limit hold-em Poker tournament.


Sunday was paintball with our youth group. I learned two valuable lessons that day:
1. Just because a guy on your team has $2,000 in paintball gear, it doesn't mean he's all that brave or can play paintball all that well.
2. If you some kind of horrible allergic reaction that causes your eyes to swell up and your skin to break out in rash, don't try and create your own "allergy cocktail". I ended up mixing 2 24 hour claratin, 2 benadryl and some sudafed to hit all the angles. The rash went away, I could breate again and my eyes stopped watering, however I lay awake this morning from about 2AM - 5AM, when I finally got up to make some productive use of my time.

I made it back from California this evening. I started off with 340 e-mails in my inbox, and was able to pair it down to 18, all while watching three episodes of 24. I felt such a sense of accomplishment out of this, only to get home, sync up and have 50 new e-mail messages (in a 5 hour window) followed by 11 voice mails.

I borrowed the first season of 24 from my boss, and I'm loving it. Will put it best when he described it as "TV Crack". I can't stop watching it. Great show.

It's 2:30 AM and I just got into Orange County, CA. I flew out on Monday to Kansas City, had meetings for the past two days. After a dinner with a business partner of ours, a few of the guys I work with headed out to the Casino and played some blackjack. I broke even. I flew out Tuesday evening through Houston. Storms in Houston made things a little dicey trying to get a connecting flight, but I made it by the skin of my teeth. Continental's first class seating, service and food beats the heck out of Northwest's. I sat next to a guy who decided he needed to sing along with the soundtrack on the movie he was watching. Loudly. It was akward, but he was a nice guy. I've got meetings all day tomorrow, dinner tomorrow night with part of my team and then I'm flying back home on Thursday morning.

On Friday night we all hung out at "Camp Bartlett". The kids school hosted a camp-out where people could setup their tents (or motorhomes) on the playground of the school. The whole family went, but only Nate, Madeline and I camped out. They had a moonwalk, karaoke and all sorts of fun activities for the kids. That night, the firemen came and had a bonfire. They built the fire wearing their fireman gear, pants, jacket, everything. They used a bottle of lighter fluid and flares, and couldn't get the fire started - all while 200 people looked on. Pretty akward. Eventually, they got it going - but hey, they're supposed to be able to put the fires out, not start them, right?

It was a great time with the kids, except forthe sleeping part of it. It turns out that we slept about 50 FEET from a train, which happened to go by about FIFTEEN times that night. I slept horribly, not to mention the three of us were trying to fit into a 2 man tent.

On Saturday, we had some friends over to barbecue.

Today was my day to do the message at church, the topic was "The Sacred Romance: The Lost Life of the Heart". I didn't accidently say the word "breast" or have my fly down the whole time, so how bad could it have been? I really enjoyed pulling it together, doing the research on it and doing a full-blown message as opposed to some of the smaller teachings. All-in-all, I probably put about 20+ hours into this whole thing. I had a couple of weeks to get ready for it, so it wasn't too bad. I felt pretty good about it - I did the best I could and God filled in the gaps. You can listen to a copy of it here (16 MB MP3 file)

I was down at a vendor sponsored golf outing down in Ohio yesterday and I was reminded why I gave up golfing for the most part. I golfed horribly to the point that it was embarassing in the beginning. Nothing like golfing with three guys you don't know, stepping up to the tee, and and for the first 3 holes sending the ball 10 feet in front of you. As the game wore on, my game got a little better, but overall, it wasn't that much for. The social aspect was great. I think I was able to bring team down overall as the day went on. My bad golfing became contagious, and the fact that I really didn't care all that much caught on. If nothing else, we had a good joking around about bad our golf games were. Overall, we finished last in the entire scramble. The only semi-redeeming thing for the day was that I missed the longest drive by 5 yards. I whaled a 260 yard fluke drive that just happened to go straight as an arrow on the longest drive hole, and it didn't quite make it. The fact that I could hit a ball that hard and straight once in my life felt good, though.

On the way home, I was filling up my car with gas and I heard music, the band rush, playing the song Subdivisons. Rush is one of my all-time favorite bands that I've seen in concert four times. Turns out they were playing in concert across the street at the amphitheatre and I could hear them crystal clear. It goes down in history as the best experience I've had filling up my car with gas.

Great "kids say the darndest things" story...

My 3 year old Emily was sitting at the dinner table yesterday and asked "Mom, where's Jesus?" My 5 year old daughter quickly responded, "He lives in your heart, Emily." Emily quickly lifted up her shirt, looked, and said, "No he's not." Madeline tried to clarify, "He's in heaven." She looked up, and quickly shot back "No he's not." So much for faith like a child.

We had our annual Memorial Day party. It started small as a collection of two sets of friends from out of town (Thompson's and Heikkenen's) and it's grown to be a pretty big bash, where Cathie keeps telling me to stop inviting so many people. You can see all of the pictures here.

This mask was worn by just about everyone there.

This will henceforth known as the "Great Lemon Bar Fiasco": When I coordinated with everyone on what to bring for dessert, I think I used the example "Bring something LIKE lemon bars". Three people brought them. We had the husband tied to each lemon bar maker do a taste test, and see if we could put them in the akward situation of saying that they're wife's lemon bars were not the best.


This is Heidi (Jess's sister), Beth (my sister-in-law) and Erin (Beth's sister). We thought they were pretty much interchangable.