From our Sunday Readings. Please feel free to share this image via social networking…

Sometimes humor can be found in interpreting something from another viewpoint.

h/t to Ansel.

Later came separating sheep from goats

 and then finally separating wheat from chaff.

 So much on the Lord’s to-do list this weekend.

 from The Far Side

Seriously, this post has been in the “laundry basket” forever…
It is good to have it posted!

As we wrap up our ninth year of blogging, we are offering a retrospective of the best 20 things that I have most treasured about the blog. Here is #4.

It is not just a blog post, but an entire web site, ReBuild My Church!

A free on-line youth ministry web-conference which will be entering its fourth generation November 7.  It has featured some great speakers – both of the experienced variety as well as those gifted and talented folks that have yet to break through to the workshop circuit or main stage. Furthermore, with the most recent Pope’s selection of name, we looked nearly prophetic when we named the conference.

ReBuild has already branched off into spin-offs of its own…Blueprints, a Google+ hangout chat with a few smarties taking on a specific topic in the field and offering practical resources.

Partners Tony Vasina and Michael Marchand have collaborated in putting this all together and for the older guy in me, each time it is sort of a technological marvel that we can pull this stuff off… and it makes me wonder.. why isn’t there more of this?

Blogging is a wonderful opportunity to curate the information that is important to you and share it with others.

Blogging allows for a consistent opportunity to take a platform and build an identity of service… often referred to as a brand.  It is not a bad thing to be considered a “go to” source for information… but for that to take place, some updating might be required.

Blogging helps to build a community of like-minded folks to gather around a “virtual water cooler” to share and discuss.

Blogging is a gift that can be shared, a ministry offered to others.

Now come, write it on a tablet they can keep, inscribe it on a scroll; That in time to come it may be an eternal witness.

Isaiah 30:8

As we wrap up our ninth year of blogging, we are offering a retrospective of the best 20 things that I have most treasured about the blog. Here is #5.

Yesterday, we acknowledged the #1 all-time post on the blog according to the site meter, here is #2: Reconciliation. It is a post that is not unlike Monday’s BOB recipient… as it was primarily written by another person. Clay Imoo, Canada’s youth ministry wunderkind and hockey aficionado.

It all starts out recognizing that

     (This is) the beauty and complexity of the Sacrament of Reconciliation; teens can
     easily name it as one of the seven, yet many of them don’t frequent it regularly for
     various reasons.

Here’s the cool thing about this post.  Before I even understood crowd sourcing, the readership of this blog all developed a play-list of music appropriate for background during a Reconciliation service.

Read Clay’s Reconciliation post and then also check out the Sounds of Forgiveness.

Lots going on and coming up here.

I am a day away from a seventeen day vacation period from work –another Planned Vacation will be involved.  I’ve assemble a set of reading, have plans regarding who will get visits, know that Star Trek into Darkness is on the list. I have been organizing my life and work around this over the last few weeks to assure that I am all set and good to go for this experience and have been in countdown mode for well over a month about this.

Part of vacation time will be spent moving from old place to new place.  I found a slightly smaller but less expensive place that is a little more approximate to some key people in my life.  I have been packing boxes for over a month as well.  The dining room table has been disassembled and boxes are stored there.  Two bags of older sweatshirts and sweaters have been donated away as have six or seven piles of books.

Meanwhile, I have also recently reorganized my Outlook calendar as well as the task bar for organization and plowed through a severe amount of blogging in anticipation of my time away. All in all, this time all feels rather transformative and, while weary from months of hyperactivity have felt rather energized by all that is occurring around me.  It all feels flush with new possibility and opportunities… A beautiful new springtime which I did not chance upon but helped develop.

What are you doing to care and prepare for your own transformative springtime?

As we wrap up our ninth year of blogging, we are offering a retrospective of the best 20 things that I have most treasured about the blog. Here is #6.

This was actually the #1 viewed post all-time on the Catholic Youth Ministry Blog… and it said nothing specifically on catholic youth ministry and yet spoke clearly to the heart of the matter anyway.

The Question was a post designed to commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 2011.  It pulled two Quotables.  Here’s a brief clip:

       But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before.

Check the post to understand why King thought so nearly half a century ago and why this may still be true today.

It is a season of leave taking and passing the baton to others in youth ministry.  It is a process, not unlike parenthood, in which we should always be actively engaged while assuring both our and the community’s readiness, In the first chapter on 2Timothy, in which we see Paul’s notes on succession planning:

> Be Grateful to God for the opportunities for us (3)
> Remember one another in prayer (3)
> Recall that others are a people of faith (5) 
> Encourage one another to stir into flame the gifts given by God (6)
> Insist that we are a people of power and love and self-control that will be tested by hardships (7-8)

Passing the baton takes practice to make sure that the effort goes off with out a hitch. Speed must be modified by both parties, there has to be a letting go as well as a successful grasping and clutching.

In your experience, what makes for the best sort of transition?