...and the internet gods deliver these beautiful guys to me. They are cord wranglers. I have my table/desk pushed up against the wall to try to keep the cords from falling in the floor. How cool would it be to have little hazmat guys to do it for you. 

I guess I have been back into it since Sunday night, but I think I am ready for my lesson tonight. I have spent a great deal of time browsing the online communities of creationists and evolutionist. Here are some things that I have seen that have nothing to do with the debate. 

• I will believe you more if you have a prettier website. It has nothing at all to do with the quality of the information, but if you have a good web designer I trust your information more. 
• My favorite part of the Intelligent Design side of things are the people who contend that it could have been designed by Aliens rather than God. It is just fun to read their stuff. 
• Isn't it funny that two different groups of people can have radically different ideas and both claim to be taking the Bible literally?
• Smugness in an argument is an immediate turn off for me, even though I think I do it often. 
• One example of smugness is when Young Earth people make comics to make fun of all the assumptions you have to make to believe in evolution. Sure it may be true, but it is playing to your base, not helping change anyone's mind. 
• As a video editor I have no problem with the distance of stars and the speed of light even from a young universe perspective. God could have very easily created the universe and then fast forward it a bit to the place where it looked cool and then kept on creating, (sort of like with creating a grown up Adam). This isn't creating something false, it is making sure that we could see the vastness of his creation. (Without it there would be no starlight)
• I do think that holding to an exact 6,000 year timeline is being a little dogmatic.
• I also think that God didn't write a science book or a history book when he wrote the Bible. There is science and history in the Bible, but the Bible is ultimately the story of God and the way he interacts with us. It is supreme arrogance to worry so much about our origins and forget that the story is about the creator and not the creation. 

My sister should be already awake in Africa so I wanted to give her a birthday shout out. Hope you have a good day, Sumer, we are all praying for you! 

I have set up an old computer as a Netflix/Hulu box to sit beside my desk. I used to have a TV sitting here, but I moved it back into my bedroom. I didn't foresee the change from cable TV to Netflix causing me problems, but it does. 

Late night television isn't very good, so I got into the habit of having something on the television for background noise and tuning it out while I worked. Now I want some sort of noise in the background so I like turning on Netflix, but the problem is that I am picking what I want to watch with Netflix. This means that it isn't just "something that is on" but "something I want to watch." And that distinction means that I stop what I am doing more often and watch the shows. Which also means that lately I haven't been watching anything. 

Tonight the show that caught my attention was an old Nova documentary on how Pluto lost planetary status. It is fun and informative. I have such a soft spot for documentaries. Now I just need to find some time to watch them that doesn't keep me from working. 

I feel like every few weeks I need to denounce the people at Westboro Baptist Church. Their vision of God, the Bible, and Christianity is so flawed that it almost seems like a joke. When I saw the "God Hates Nerds" picture floating around the web today I was sure it was something made up. There is no way that these hate filled people would decide to picket Comic Con right? 

But apparently I was wrong. On their upcoming picket schedule you will see on July 22 that they plan to picket Comic Con because all of the people there have made comic book characters into idols. They are also planning to picket Al Gore in San Diego that day too, so I don't know which event came first and which one was "hey, while we are here." If you have a minute check out their picket schedule. It seems like it must be fake. It is what someone would write if they were trying to sound like the stereotype. 

My heart breaks for these people, and also for the people who feel that they represent Christians. At least now they are going so far off the deep end that most people understand that they are far from followers of Christ. 

As you can see from the incoherent ramblings of my past few days I need a little break from this study. I have actually done enough research that I know what I am talking about next week (unless I have a ground shifting change of mind again) so I am going to take a break until Monday and see how the world looks then. 

The problem with the internet is that it allows me to vehemently defend positions that I have held for all of three days and even have sources to back me up. This morning as I was writing down my final outline for my youth lesson today I just kept coming back to the other side of the intelligent design discussion, the side that holds to an older earth idea, but still a creator of man and a full belief in the inaccuracy of the Bible. 

I think today, like the true Creationism Agnostic that I am, that I am really feeling like a believer in a middle ground between the young earth and old earth people. Let me make some totally uniformed bullet points that I will never be able to defend later, but represent where I am at this moment as I continue to research, pray about, and generally ruminate on this subject. 

• I can fully believe that if God made Adam as a full grown man that he could have made the earth as already old. 
• I believe in a universal flood, and that catastrophe of all catastrophes had a profound effect on the earth. 
• In looking at the rest of the Hebrew scriptures I see many places where genealogies are problematic at best when it come to determining years. This doesn't mean that the Bible is wrong, just that it isn't real concerned with exact dates, but rather a retelling of major events. 
• I still have a problem with a millions of years life cycle of dinos and other things that happened before the fall. I see the fall as a world breaking event.
• As such the death of thousands of created creatures (such as dinosaurs) would not be possible before Adam and sin

So I am now espousing a totally non-informed, opinion that I am calling the Middle Earth Creationism theory. (Which probably more accurately should be called the Adult Earth Creationism Theory, but I like the Tolkien sound of my way) This theory says that God created the world and that he made it in 6 days, but that we have no way of knowing when that time line happened so the time from Adam could have been 50,000 years or more. So the earth is both old and young. 

See that at least makes my brain stop hurting for a while, but tune in tomorrow when I am sure to have a new theory partially cooked up from my own brain and partially misinformed by books and the internet. (Sometimes there is too much information in this information age).

Disclaimer: Just so no one yells at me about teaching this when I don't even know what I believe, from the beginning (last week) I have been teaching that there are 3 major theories (evolution, old-earth creation, and young-earth creation) and trying to present the arguments that the two creation camps make. So tonight I will be doing the same. 

Is the earth 6,000 years old or over 4 billion? That is the question that has been dominating my study time this week. It is at the heart of any discussion of evolution or creation. In many ways the Bible only works if you take it literally and evolution only works if you have billions of years for things to evolve. So the age of the earth is at the heart of this debate. 

And since it is so essential you can find people from all spectrum of science and religion with all manners of agendas and quite varied levels of craziness trying to defend their ideas of the origins of the world. I have been trying to wade through it all to find some real scholarship that at least acknowledges its bias even if it isn't without bias. 

In my readings I have discovered lots of new things (like a reason for your appendix) and have been trying to distill it all down into a few hour long lessons. The biggest struggle is to try to present information that some people are thirsty to hear, but others don't care about, in a manner that isn't intolerably boring. I don't think I have found the balance yet, but maybe before tomorrow night I will.  

Is it wrong that I am a 35 (nearly 36) year-old youth minister and I really have never given any thought to what I believe when it comes to the whole creation/evolution thing. Well that isn't entirely true. I have thought about it, and always just sort of believed what the Bible said, but I have never really given much thought to how that account is reconciled to the science that is out there. 

I always have had sort of a half-way theory about how the flood messed up the fossil record and I how carbon dating must be wrong. From time to time I have espoused theories such as the "God days are longer" to explain way the age of the earth and even argued that since God created a full grown man why couldn't he have created an already old earth. 

But all of these were not really based on scholarship or study, just on my own assumptions and picking up bits and pieces of information here and there.

This week we are kicking off a youth study about just this topic, however, and it has me scrambling trying to find the best scholarship and at the same time figure out what I believe.

Because when it comes right down to it, everyone must make a choice about what they believe happened at the beginning of time. You must make a choice because you weren't there, and no one was there (with the exception of God of course). Then based on what you believe you will shape the data that you see to meet what you already believe, because the origins of life is where science and myth meet up.

I thought I was ready to go for my first lesson tomorrow night, but in trying to do some fact checking found out that some of the things I was going to teach was a little out of date and some of it just couldn't line up with the rest of what I teach about God, sin, and salvation. So this little study on evolution has exploded into a 6 hour marathon of reading, searching, and praying trying to figure out the best way to present the truth found in the Bible to a generation of students who have been told that everything that we will ready tomorrow is wrong.

I could continue, but now it is after 2 and even though I want to keep reading and writing I have to go to bed. More soon.  

If you are a regular reader you know that my sister and brother-in-law sold their house in the suburbs of Nashville to go live in a major city in Africa The community that they are working in is beyond poor. It is situated right beside the city landfill so most of the people survive by scavenging food and other things from the dump. 

They along with people in their church, have started Project 61 ministries (the name comes from Isaiah 61). One of the ways that they are making a difference is by getting sponsors to send children to boarding school. Our Vacation Bible School offering this year was enough to send a kid to school and also help with the summer food program. So we we given a boy named Takley as our sponsored child. 

Yesterday my sister posted something on her facebook account that just broke my heart. Takley says that he likes summer camp (a sort of pre-school program they are doing), but he is hungry. At the camp he only gets 1 meal a day, but, he says, "In the dump I can eat all day." 

Here is a guy who has no concept of clean and healthy food. He just knows that he is hungry and so he is willing to root through a trash dump to eat. I see so much of myself in this boy. Sure I have never missed a meal, but I have more times than I want to admit gone after the easy rather than the good. I have looked at the need in my heart for love, acceptance, purpose, etc and instead of going to God and getting something good I have turned back to the same old ways that always made the need feel like it was gone for a while. Like Takley I have turned down one good moment, one true thing, one thing to place my trust and faith in, for what I was used to, for a smörgåsbord of stuff that I know is wrong, stuff that will make me sick, but at least for the moment the deep need was gone. 

If you would like to learn more stories like this check out Project 61 on Facebook. If you would like to donate to help children like Takley go to http://p61.org and follow the donate link. 

You would think that 12 teenage guys who grew up watching the show would be the target audience for this movie. We had a blend of hardcore, seen every episode, fans and people like me who had watched the little arrow head dude fly around on his "luck dragon" and liked it well enough to check out the movie, but The Last Airbender was so bad that by the end the theater was laughing incredulously at the attempts at drama. 

After church last night I thought it would be fun to grab some youth and go watch a midnight show. Airbender seemed perfect. It looked like a fun summer movie with visual effects and nothing I would be embarrassed to see with guys from my church. I have to say that as a youth event it was a roaring success. I have never seen a group of students come together in the way they did over the horribleness of this movie. Since we were all in different cars we stood outside in the parking lot reliving some of the worst scenes for nearly 30 minutes. 

So what is bad about this movie? Unless you go it is hard to explain. I can't decide if the acting is weak or if the script is so weak that then can't do anything with it. I never thought that "I have the high ground" would sound like good writing, but compared to this movie it does. After the first 10 minutes I turn to the guy beside me and ask if I was missing something because the movie just seemed to be wrong somehow, but I am rambling now so here are some bullet points. 

• There is a very pointless voice over narration that tells you things that you are seeing on the screen
• The dialog sounds like it came from an 80s comic book with characters telling what they are going to do and why multiple times before they do it, even though we understand why you are going to hit that fire guy with water. 
• Then there are places where people just do things for no reason and we get no explanation. (Anyone who has seen the movie have any idea why chick hits the big ice ball in the opening)
• The acting is rough to say the least
• The dialog is even worse. There were multiple times when it felt like someone was asking a rhetorical question only to have another person give a detailed answer. 
• It tries to cover too much time and too many different stories. You just can't get into the emotional story of 7 different character in a two hour movie. Just pick one and go with it. 
• Speaking of that, it doesn't even end. This is just "book one" so it stops rather abruptly much like the second Pirates of the Caribbean. 
• Let's not even begin to talk about the ethnicity of the characters. The "Southern Water Kingdom" is filled with people who look like Inuits, but everyone who has a line is very white, just like all of the good guys. Of course the bad guys are of Indian or Middle Eastern decent so the racism just keeps on giving. 

I could continue, but most of the rest wouldn't make sense unless you watched the movie. At about the hour mark the theater I was in just gave up and started laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole thing. 

I am trying to decide what to tell you about this movie. I almost suggest that you go just because of the experience of such a big budget flop. But if you do take a group of people with you and maybe a notebook to keep track of the great lines you will want to quote later. 

Last night we concluded our short series on being "ONE" with a prayer for the persecuted church. Of course it followed the age old maxim of youth ministry. If you plan a high impact evangelistic type lesson that needs lots of people to be fun and effective only 10 church kids will show up. Last night when I was looking for an intimate time with a few Christians students, and we had 2 new kids show up one who had never been to ANY church before. What a crazy first lesson on the gospel. "Follow God and you will suffer! You wanna sign up now?" 

But I digress. The big teaching point for me was when I was walking around to groups and I heard my church kids saying they didn't want to pray out loud. They were reading a story about a Somali girl who was tied to a tree for days because she wouldn't stop being a Christian and they didn't want to pray out loud in front of 3 other people. I really did a good job keeping my cool because I almost canceled church and sent them all out of the room right then and there. But instead I tried to point out to calmly point out to them the gross selfishness of such a refusal to pray. Honestly I think some of it got through. 

If you would like to read about the event, see the stories, and some advice for doing it yourself check out the rest of this article after the jump. 

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Tomorrow night we are talking about how as Christians in America we are also part of the Universal Church. As such we should care about the persecution and sufferings of Christians around the world. If we honestly believe that what 1 Corinthians 12:26 to be true when one part of the body suffers we should all suffer with them.

The bulk of the lesson tomorrow will be a prayer time for persecuted Christians. We will have 3 prayer stations, 1 discussion station, and 2 letter writing stations. One of these is for a prisoner in China and the other is for the child our church recently started sponsoring in Korah, Ethiopia. 

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know that my Sister and her family recently moved to Ethiopia to work with the children there. At VBS this year we took up an offering to send one of the kids who live in abject poverty to boarding school for a year. My sister thought it would be perfect for us to sponsor the sixteen-year-old older brother of the child that she sponsors. 

Tonight I was writing a sample letter for the students to follow tomorrow. I was thinking about the fact how different the lives will be of the teenagers who are writing the letters and the boy who will be receiving the letter. I wanted the students to put something personal in the letter, but how do you say to a guy who spent his day scrounging for food that your favorite thing to do is sit in front of a computer all day or play video games in your air conditioned house with a room full of food right down the hall. How do you explain to this guy that you have spent more on random toys, gadgets, clothes, and well junk than he will make in his lifetime. 

It is almost too much to comprehend that the students that I minster to and this guy have anything in common. But they both have a need to know they are loved. They both have a need to know they matter in the world, and they both have a need to know their savior. So I am very excited that our students get to be a part of this young man's life. I hope that his story inspires us to give of ourselves for others. 

Sometimes a youth activity comes to my mind that just makes me smile. I wanted to talk about how we all should be working towards one mission. We all have different gifts and talents, but as a group we have one mission. So I came up with an activity to try to show how to use crazy gifts to accomplish one mission. This activity may be very unique for my group, but it actually worked well and spawned a new Catalyst catch phrase. Here is how it works. 

• Divide your group into teams of 5-10. (If you have more teams then you will have more teams who need to present their ideas so fewer groups means that the activity goes faster.)
• Pass out the items list below to each team. Teams should divide the items among their team members. So that every item is distributed (I put them in an envelope and had the teams pass them out)
• These items now belong to the person and cannot be traded. (I didn't enforce this, but I think the activity works better if everyone has a "gift" that has to be used with the gifts of others)
• Once everyone has their items pass out the directions you see below. (Modify them to fit your youth room and situation of course) 
• Give teams around 8 minutes to come up with their plan. Plans can be fanciful but somewhat plausible. Any questions that they have about the aliens or items have them work out on their own. 
• Ask teams to present their plan of attack. They don't need to act it out, but every person should share how their items will be used. 

Item List: Bongos, Rake, Live Chicken, Skis, Backpack, Stun Gun, Red Paint, 3 yards of wire, 10 greeting cards, 8 marbles, 3xl t-shirt, Remote control car (without batteries), Rolling Chair, Pack of Bubble Gum, 5 CDs, Toilet Paper (3 rolls), Flying Squirrel, Whale Tooth, 1 large pizza, Helium Balloon

Instructions:

Each member of your team has been given multiple items. Team members must keep and use the items they were given at the beginning of the activity. You must work together with your group to come up with a plausible solution to the problem below. You may only use the items you have been given and the people in your group. Also, you must find a way a way for each person to use the items given.   

Aliens have taken over the Calvary Vacation Bible School. They are holding 4 children hostage in the youth room. Your mission is to rescue the children and get them to safety without raising the alarm. What you need to know to be successful

• Assume that you are outside of the church building
• There are 3 guards in front of every door.
• You must neutralize the guards without giving them a chance to raise the alarm
• Once inside the room there are 4 guards (one for each child)
• These guards can also raise the alarm if you method doesn’t get them out of the way quickly
• Once you have taken care of the aliens you must comfort the children and find a way to get them out safely.
• In the interest of fun assume that once you enter a door something happens and you can’t go out the same way you came in
• You have exactly 8 minutes to plan your extraction. 

Debrief:

In this game you had to use each of your different “gifts” to accomplish a common mission. This is the same as what happens in the church. We all have been given a certain gift, made in a unique way, so that we can be a part of the body of Christ. You, as a part of this youth ministry have a role to play. You have a job to fulfill if our mission will be completed, you must be involved. 

Read 1 Corinthians 12:4-30 with me.

We are all part of the body of Christ. If one part decides that it isn’t needed anymore that doesn’t make it any less useful and valuable. It just hurts the body. You have a part to play. We have a mission and you are a part of that mission. 

One of the groups had the idea to distract the guards by letting the chicken and the flying squirrel fight each other. So when I was teaching I said something like this, "If you choose not to use your item then the mission will fail. If Ashley didn't throw down her flying squirrel then the children would have died." The remarkable thing was that even in that crazy sentence the students totally understood my analogy. So I thought that would make a great T-Shirt. "If you don't let go of your flying squirrel, a child just might die." Crazy and morbid all at the same time. 

We are working through VBS this week. It has been a fun time, but I am tired already and it isn't even Wednesday. I always forget just how much cutting things out teaching 3rd and 4th graders involves. I am getting quite skilled at it. At about this point in the week things get easier and harder. They are easier because the kids are starting to find their groove and most of the schedule kinks are worked out. Also, since we have a few lessons under our belt we can do more review questions and play those sorts of games which the kids just love. Things get harder because the kids are getting tired and so are the teachers. 

It is also harder because the teenagers that we use are getting tired too. It seems like I spend much of my time herding them back to rooms where they are working. Of course at the same time they are doing a great job. We couldn't do VBS without them. Just sometimes they forget what they are supposed to be doing. But of course I do sometimes too. 

On top of this we are also having our regular youth meeting this week. I like to meet during VBS because I like to do something not kid oriented for a while, but it also just makes my week even longer. Tomorrow night we are trying a new activity that I will post tomorrow with tips on how it worked out.