Tuesday, March 31, 2009

She's 8.

She's been on Planet Earth for 8 years.

There are signs, though, that we're doing it right. She wanted file folders and pencils for her Birthday presents. She wanted Giordono's pizza for her Birthday dinner. She wants to see Monsters Vs. Aliens for her Birthday party.

Honestly, all things that either Courtney and I would want for our own birthdays.

When does it really hit you, though? It hasn't hit me yet. Everyone says, "Oh, time flies. You'll blink and she'll be 16. Blink again and you'll be walking her down the aisle." It hasn't happened yet with me. I've enjoyed all of the time so far. It hasn't passed too quickly or too slowly. It has just passed. I've loved every step of the way, the good, the bad, the hard, the fun, the hilarious...and there has been a LOT of hilarious...

And now she's 8. And I can't wait to see what kind of 8 year old she's gonna be. If it's anything like 7, or 6, or 5, or 4, or 3, or 2, or 1, it's going to be incredible.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

The One List To Rule Them All

There are so many things I want to do. The list is HUGE. I'm guessing that all of us have such a list. Our In Box is constantly and consistently full. The more we accomplish the more we have to do.

So, here's my list. I'm going to write it down, honest and clear, and see how many I can cross off in 2009.

My wife thinks I don't have goals. Hah. Here it is, without reservation or order of importance. The first few probably have to do with where I'm typing this and what I'm looking at.

  1. Finish off our basement
  2. Grade our backyard
  3. Buy the lot next to our house
  4. Get to know the kids in our neighborhood
  5. Let other people teach on a Sunday Morning
  6. Play golf somewhere other than Illinois
  7. Teach and train Children's Workers at another church
  8. Write a show based on the Memory Verses
  9. See that show performed
  10. Record a Praise and Worship CD wih the kids
  11. Create a business and marketing plan for Faith Kids Club
  12. Take our family on a REAL vacation
  13. Buy bikes for Courtney and I, so we can go for rides in our neighborhood
  14. Teach at a conference
  15. Compile and distribute a curriculum based on the Memory Verse CD's
  16. Teach chapel at 5 schools
  17. Take a business trip and fly first class
  18. Write a book (thanks, Courtney)

I realize that most of these have to do with work...but I'm finding that a lot of what I'm drawn to is teaching and training and instructing and performing outside the church. Is it because I think I have something to say, that people would actually listen? Is it because I want people to think I'm cool, and talented?

No. I really think it's because I believe kids will like it. I love it when kids learn. I love that feeling of finding a way to teach a kid something where they understand it. Taking someone without knowledge and teaching, showing, displaying in some fashion to where they get it. Where they really get it.

I don't want to hear about the next big thing, I want to write the next big thing.

So...anyone know someone who can drywall?

Monday, March 16, 2009

Crystal Skulls Make Me Angry.

I could just spit.

Last night I sat with my bride and watched "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", which should win the award for the longest title ever.

It should also win the award for biggest suck-fest of 2008. Sean Connery was the best thing about that movie, and he was a picture on a desk. Not even Shia LaBeouf riding up (see Marlon Brando in Easy Rider) on a morotcycle, hat tilted, could make an impact. I laughed out loud.

When they first cut open the cocoon holding the alien...THE ALIEN...IN AN INDIANA JONES MOVIE, AN ALIEN...I looked at my bride and said, ".....really?"

I raised my eyebrows in disbelief when the "natives" came out of the ground and started fighting Karate-style (see The Rundown).

I put my head in my hands when the big CG ants swarmed (see the scarab beetles from The Mummy) and ate the guy alive.

I sat through almost 2 hours of this ridiculous premise, watching Indy survive a NUCLEAR BLAST by being tossed around in a lead lined refridgerator (see nuclear fallout kills you anyway), Cate Blanchett with a horrible wig and an even worse accent (see Natasha from Bullwinkle), the awesome guy who played Boers from King Arthur with Clive Owen reduced to saying "Jonesy" at the beginning of every line, Shia LaBeouf HAVING MONKEYS SHOW HIM HOW TO SWING FROM VINES TO CATCH UP WITH A SPEEDING CAR...

That's it. I'm so angry right now. I want George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to come to my house and apologize. I want them to build me a time machine so I can travel back and relive those two hours shaving my uncle's back hair, because that would be more enjoyable that watching this movie.

And while he's on his knees grovelling for my forgiveness, Mr. Lucas can apologize for the dialogue in the Star Wars movies. Hold me like you held me on Naboo? Are you SERIOUS?

What cuts deep is that Indiana Jones is iconic. One of those characters that is basically immortal. The hat, the whip, the satchel, the half-smirk when sneaking away with the idol.

ARGH.

Spielberg and Lucas may as well stood on my front lawn and egged my house.

If there is ANY, and I mean ANY buzz about doing another Indy movie with Shia LaBeouf...I...I can't even continue that thought. I have to go now.

Just pray that I don't go postal on the Skywalker Ranch.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Cleaning = Hell.

What is it about it that I can't stand?

It's not like I like clutter. I don't, in fact. Don't like it at all. But it seems like the hatred for the clutter doesn't outweigh the hatred for picking it up.

Is anyone else like that? Of the massive amount of readers to this blog...I'm just wonderin', thinking out loud, here. Anyone else just walk past the toys, and the papers, and the pencil on the floor, or the LEGO block on the stairs, or the glass on the nightstand, or the wrappers on your desk?

Don't get all holy on me. I'm not a pig, but I'm not a neat-freak, either. I enjoy when things are picked up, everything in its place, a clean slate from which to work. But getting there. UGH. Maintaining it. DOUBLE UGH.

I type this as I'm sitting among the clutter in my office at work. It's a pigsty in here. How I function, I don't know. I probably spend more time looking for things, OR, the bigger kicker, buying new things when I can't find the one I have.

Ever done THAT one before? You end up with three letter openers. Or fifteen screwdrivers.

Ugh. Just ugh. I know I have to do it. But it feels like I should be doing more important things. There are children that need saving, and sermons that need writing, and videos that need editing, and lives that need changing. I can't be picking up old Kleenex boxes and cutouts of hearts and jars of Play-Doh and old phone message notes.

I say this as I look at the pile (mile) of clothes that are still here from last month when I changed for basketball.

I'm starting a new ministry of the Children's Department. The P.A.C.C.A..

The Pastor Adam's too lazy to Clean up his own Crap Association.

I'm now accepting members. There's a a small fee.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Rufus Xavier Sassparilla Is My Friend


I found an article on Group's Children's Ministry Magazine website. An incredible website, to be sure, full of inspiration and explosive creativity. I get encouraged often by what I read on this site, and today was no different. Check out this blurb from the article:


"When a person memorizes something that is put to music, it is stored in the subdominant hemisphere of the brain, where emotions and creativity take place. This information is permanently stored and easy to retrieve when sung," says Jan Bedell, a certified master neurodevelopmentalist, plus founder and president of Little Giant Steps, a company that helps people build accelerated learning abilities. "It's been observed that information that is memorized to music lasts the longest and is the last to be forgotten. Even Alzheimer's patients can often retrieve songs from their childhood when other information has been lost."


I knew that music was an incredible learning tool. Think Schoolhouse Rock. Conjunction Junction? What's the function of a conjunction? Hooking up words and phrases and clauses. It's embedded.

That's what I want for the Faith Kids CD's. Years later, I want adults able to recall Scripture because they sung it off of the album. In Children's Church, what is it that you remember the most? An object lesson? The teacher?

Chances are its the songs you sung. About Zaccheus. About all the little children of the world. About Abraham and his many sons. About how Jesus loves you, for the Bible told you so. Do YELLOW and RED and BLUE do that?

I think so. My son was standing, playing the Wii, mindlessly singing a song - as kids do - without even knowing he was singing. The song? "Don't give up...when your faith is being tested...James chapter one verse twelve..." off of RED.

Just half humming, half singing, God's Word just swimming around in his head, on his lips, in his heart. It warms mine just thinking about it. Knowing that there is a file cabinet with those lyrics and melodies in his brain.

I know it works. I know it's needed.

The question for me now is how hard to pursue.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Imagination You Can See


Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?

Can you tell me how to get to a place where the ideas in your head show up on a screen?

Can you tell me how to get from thought to the physical manifestation of that thought?

I look at Sesame Street and I see imagination. I see physical things that started as ideas, or dreams. I am watching one (or a few, now) man's ideas completed. Start to finish.

Can someone tell me how to get there? My biggest problem is getting from idea-in-head to idea-in-hand. I have, at last count, 1,268 ideas a day. Of those 1,268 ideas, I'd say about 1% of them actually get finished. Actually get from inside my head to in front of my eyes.

Is it about time? Is it a work ethic issue? Is it about ability? No, I don't think so.

I think it's about control.

See, when you have an idea, or a thought, or a mental invention, it's yours. Yours. No one else can see, REALLY, exactly what it is. You can explain it, you can draw it, you can spell it out, but it's like trying to describe a dream you had last night to someone else.

No, it was like a floating disk, and I was standing on it, and there were these people all around, but they really weren't PEOPLE, they were more like animals, and the next thing I knew I was in my house, but it wasn't really my house, but I KNEW it was my house...

Um. What?

YOU can see it, but they can't. It's your brain. It's the movie in your mind. Same goes for ideas. They're yours, and most often, the fight is to get that idea into physical form, and even THEN, sometimes it's not exactly how you envisioned it. And you want me to let other people do it?

Are you insane?

It's about control. And I've found that releasing that control is the key to getting ideas from my head into my hand. No, it's not exactly how I would do it, that line is a little crooked, that color is a little off, that could've been acted better...but you know what?

It's in my hand now.

It's not in my head any more. For creative people, I think it's so important to fight for your ideas, but on the flip side of that, I believe that it's equally important to not let "credit" drive "control". I'm pretty opinionated, and have no problem expressing that opinion; but I'm now learning that I don't need to be the one to do everything. In fact, the few things that I've let go of have turned out better than I could've ever hoped, or better than if I would've done them myself.

So, how do you get to Sesame Street?

By being okay with someone else's hand in your puppet.

Monday, March 2, 2009

The Latest from Faith Kids!!

Check it out! Faith Kids BLUE, the latest Memory Verse album from Adam Walsh!

For some reason, the player won't fit in the space...hmm...

But hey, I'm just thrilled I can post it to my blog!! What?!?!