For any of you looking for a little fun and excitement to fill your day, check out my last German post. There was quite the comment war between my friends Josh and Pam a few days ago. I threw in a jab here and there, but Josh quickly silenced me. Ah, to be as witty as that kid. :)
So this past weekend was Quizfest. It’s an invitational quiz that the Chicago Central District hosts once a year. This was my second Quizfest, and actually my one year anniversary of quizzing, since my first ever event was Quizfest last year. It was a good time. It was a regional event, so I was a little nervous at first. I’ve only had experience at the district level, which isn’t nearly as hard. Not that its hard, but some of these kids coming from other districts really know their stuff. In the mixup quiz (kids get to quiz with people on other teams) on Friday night, I had some kids jumping on the second word of the question, saying 4 different questions and 4 different answers and getting it right. It was nuts. I didn’t have any of those kids on Saturday, since I was a quiz master in JV, but it was still a lot better competition than I’m used to on our district. I was in JV room 1, so I got to quiz master every round of the finals, plus the final round. In the end, New Lenox (who is on our district), took the JV crown with a come from behind win to beat the only other remaining team. I was really proud of them!
All in all the day went really well. I had a really good content judge, so it was nice to be able to bounce questions off of someone else and not have to rule just by myself. The content judge I had the week before didn’t really help me in that way, so I was kind of on my own. I also did my best to try and follow the rules set forth in the rule book, and make fair rulings, so by the end of the day I was much more confident in my quizmastering skills. I was also able to hang out with some of the kids from our district, so that was fun. I took some pictures (which can be found here), but none of them are really good enough to post here. I was too busy all day to take any pictures and I wish I had taken more.
Deutschunterricht ist heute abend viel spaß gewesen. Alfred hat zurück gekommen. Er ist in Deutschland gewesen. Er hat viele Geschichten gesagt. Alfred ist sehr lustig. Es ist nett, daß haben wir ihm zurück.
Ich habe 5 Übungen für Hausaufgaben. Hoffentlich werde ich vor nächste Dienstag ihnen tun.
Has it really been 9 days since I last posted? Boy, I really should get on the blog train. I’m sure many of you have been waiting with baited breath to find out what’s happening in my life, so here goes. We have 9 days to make up (OK, probably more, but who’s counting?).
Well, first off it’s been a pretty crazy week. I’ve gotten myself way over committed and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. I’ve been better since this past weekend, but the weekend was crazy busy, and I just about collapsed when it was over. Some of that was fun stuff, but trying to make time for my friends along with everything else can be tiring. Granted I probably made some bad choices in terms of time management, but it was for a good cause in my mind.
So the weekend is probably a good place to start. First off, Friday morning I led my first Men’s Breakfast with Eric and George. We’re going over the book “The Pursuit of God” by A.W. Tozer (Aidan Wilson Tozer for short), so I had to lead the discussion and come up with questions, etc. I think it went pretty well. I was able to keep stuff on track and I think I asked questions that brought out more discussion than just yes or no answers.
That night I was able to hang out with Simon, Becca, and Jackie (yes I skipped The Journey), but I hadn’t seen all of them in a long time, what with different schedules and such. We went to Buca Di Beppo’s for dinner and hung out in the ultra loud kid party room (Some girl was having a birthday party in the same section). After that we went back to Becca and Simon’s and played hand and foot for awhile. We played two games. Jackie and I got destroyed in the first, but came back and one the second. If we could have stayed up until 5am I think we would have done a tie breaker, but leaving at 1:15am put me home by 2am, and in bed by 2:15am. That wouldn’t normally be all that bad, except for the fact that I had a quiz the next day. Don’t you remember when 4 hours of sleep used to be plenty? Man I miss those days.
So I was woken up by Sara at 6:15am when she called me, spouting off something about 6am being the Devil’s hour. I had to ask her what she said at the quiz because I was so out of it. So I went back to bed, slept for another 15 minutes and got up at 6:30am. After getting ready I left at 7:30am, and arrived a little after 8:30am at the Chicago First Church of the Nazarene. Quizzing was a lot of fun. It was my second time as a quiz master, but this time I got to use a computer, instead of a blue box. I’ve decided I like the computers better because they give you the names and you don’t have to worry about holding down the button all the time. I think the day went fairly well. I only screwed up a couple of times, and it was fun to hang out with the kids. We didn’t get to do the Pro Series quiz (Adults get to quiz), so that was a little bit of a bummer. Though I only knew 6 of the 9 memory verses, so it’s probably good that it got pushed back until next quiz. Then I can be totally ready. Pastor Deb here I come!
Here’s some pictures from the day, with the whole gallery available here.
After quizzing, I headed up to Allstate Arena to watch the Chicago Wolves play some hockey. It was my friend Corinn’es Birthday this past Monday, so we celebrated on Saturday. They went apple picking during the day, so I couldn’t make it for that, but I did meet them up for the game. That was a lot of fun, as I got to hang out with Corinne and Mads, and some of Corinne’s family and friends. I had forgotten how long a Hockey game is. I figured we’d be out of there by 9pm since the game started at 7pm. 3 20 minute periods right? You figure you throw in 5 to 10 minutes per period for penalties and the occasional fight. Oh wait, I forgot about the 2 twenty minute intermissions. :) It was a lot of fun, but by the 3rd period all I could thnk about was going home to sleep.
Here’s some photos from the game. The full gallery is here.
So after I got home I still couldn’t go to bed, because I had to finish preparing for small group on Sunday, because I was leading there as well. I need to do three lessons, of which I had only done one. I got through one before I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. I think I fell asleep at about 1am. Luckily I had set my alarm, just in case I accidentally fell asleep, so I was up again at 6:30am so I could finish the last lesson.
The it was off to Church, where I had to setup, run sound, and tear down. I had help on all of those steps, but suffice it to say I didn’t really feel like I was part of the Church service. Hopefully things will become a little more stable and I’ll be able to sit up in the regular seating one of these days.
After Church I headed for Jackie’s and we had small group. That went well, and I think I was able to come up with some good questions to ask people. I really love that group, because it really is all about community, and living life together.
After group I headed home, took a quick 15 minute nap and then headed to Youth Group. That consisted of me hanging out with a few of the leaders and us praying for kids that will hopefully eventually join our youth group. We have 1 kid in the right age range that actually attends our church, and he doesn’t come on Sunday nights, so it’s been a little depressing not having any kids come. We’re desperately trying to reach out into the neighborhood, but it’s been pretty slow going. Though I actually am pondering dropping doing youth group stuff for now since I have so much other stuff going on. If we had kids it would be a different story, but we don’t so it makes it easier to walk away from, at least for now.
So after that I went home and really just wanted to goto bed, but by the time I got home and realized I really had no responsibilities left I got a little less tired. I actually watched Without a Trace with my mom and caught up on last week’s episode of Smallville. Then after that I crashed. I was able to get a well deserved 8 hours of sleep, and by Monday morning I felt pretty good.
So that was my weekend. Hopefully yours was just as exciting. :) OK, So we really only got through 3 days, but the rest of them were kind of boring anyways. I swear. :) Actually this is already way to long to even be considered for a blog post, so I better stop it here before my database runs out of space.
So how wrong is the statement “ATM for Jesus?” I came across an article in the Chicago Tribune at lunch the other day and I’ve been meaning to post about it here. The article talks about a Pastor in Georgia who has created an ATM for giving tithes at Churches. I can’t even begin to tell you how wrong I think this is and for so many reasons.
First of all, tithing is supposed to be about worship. It should not be something that should be entered into lightly. I’m not a big fan of putting your donation on a credit card and just having it auto deduct. It is still a donation and you are still supporting the Kingdom of God, but you forget that you even did it after awhile. It gets sucked into the same realm as a bill you have to pay every month. I just don’t think God meant for tithing to be such a throw away concept. It’s supposed to be meaningful. To me using an ATM to tithe just cheapens the entire concept. If you’re going to tithe make it an act of worship because thats what it is.
Secondly, if you read the whole article it talks about the pastor starting a company which is actually making money off of support of these ATMs as well as the fact that the company doing the electronic transfer of funds is getting a percentage of what you tithe. This seems to remind me a of a piece of scripture…
>Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, ” ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’ ”
>Matthew 21:12,13
I guess I just have a hard time with the whole concept. It doesn’t seem to fit with what Scripture says, and in my mind it cheapens the act of tithing. It may give the Church more income, because it makes it easy for people, but I don’t remember anywhere in the Bible where it says tithing should be easy.
Here’s the link to the same article in the LA Times.
So, it’s been awhile. To all who check my website on a regular basis, kudos to the fact that you hung in there in my 11 day drought of non blog posts. Things have been a bit busy and I’ve had other projects I’ve been working on so the blog has suffered a little bit. We had a long talk earlier and my blog told me I didn’t love him enough, so I’ll have to make up for it to get back in his good graces. :)
Last weekend was a lot of fun. I went to Minnesota for Bethel’s homecoming and my 5 year reunion. 5 years! Can you believe it? The weekend was rather fun, albeit very busy. I got to see lots of my friends that I hadn’t seen in awhile, plus see several people I hadn’t seen since I graduated.
I drove up Friday (which turned out to be a work day since I spent half my time on the phone with clients or my office) with my friend Jon and one of his buddies. They were coming back on Saturday night, so I drove seperately, but we carpooled. When I wasn’t on the phone I was listening to A berlitz German CD that Jon let me borrow. It was pretty good and I even learned a thing or two.
When I got to Minnesota I went to Erik and Megan’s house, which is where Erik, Karen, Trish, and myself stayed for the weekend. That was really cool to be able to reconnect with Erik and Megan as well as to see their 10 month old Bjorn. He’s extraordinarily cute. If you want to see pictures of him, either check out my gallery or the “cute pics of the boy blog.” The Anderons made us dinner, which was excellent, and we just spent the night hanging out reconnecting, etc. It was a fun time all around.
On Saturday I went to the department breakfast with Pete and Erik. I was able to reconnect with a few of my professors, which was nice. I hadn’t seen any of them since I graduated, because when I make it up to Minnesota I usually don’t visit Bethel. I slipped up when saying hi to Dr. Turnquist. “Hi Brian…err…Dr. Turnquist.” Does it ever become acceptable to call your professors by their first name? Anyways, it was cool to talk to him as well as Dr. Gossett, find out what things they had been doing the last 5 years. We also talked about several of the people that had been in our class and what they’ve been doing.
After the department breakfast it was time for the Fall Classic, which was going to take place at the spot at the Seminary formally known as the Fish Bowl. This was my first Fall Classic since before graduation, so it was cool to participate. I made a good run for the title. I had several very lucky shots, and I was actually the first to make it through the half way point. I even almost made it to poison, but I missed a clutch shot and Phil knocked me out. All in all I think it was a good showing. Pete came out on top with some amazing croquet maneuvers, and now the trophy is safely resting in his house. Seth and I tried our darndest to try and take the trophy out of state. Ah well, there’s always next year.
After croquet we just ended up hanging out at Arby’s and then we played some Frisbee Golf which John joined us for. I positively sucked at it. I think I need to work on my frisbee skills. I used to be pretty good, so I’m not sure what happened, but I consistently bogeyed holes or worse. Regardless of my terrible performance it was fun just to hang out. After frisbee golf I went home with John and we hung out with his wife and their 6 month old son Nicholas. He is also super cute. :)
Saturday night was our reunion. It was fun, weird, and awkward all at the same time. It was weird seeing people that I hadn’t seen in 5 years, and awkward to talk to some of them. I mean it’s easy to ask someone what they’ve been doing for the past five years, but what else do you talk about? In all reality I probably won’t see any of those people again for another 5 years. I guess that’s just the way it goes. You choose who you’ll make an effort to stay in contact with because there just isn’t enough time in the day to keep a lot of close relationships. Anyways, it was fun to see people, hang out, eat pizza, here what people had been doing the last 5 years, etc. I think the planning committee did a great job of putting it together, and I’m not just saying that because two of my friends and ex-roommates were on the committee. After the reunion I ended up hanging out with John some more, though a headache prevented me from enjoying parts of it.
Sunday was great as well because I was able to goto Open Door for church (my church during school) and hang out with Peter, Sonja, and their 3 month old daughter Hanna (As you may have guessed she is also cute. :)). I hadn’t gotten to spend a lot of time with them since I didn’t stay with them this time, so it was nice to have some time just to hang out and talk at Perkins.
After a quick lunch with the Andersons I carpooled back with Trish. The trip was pretty uneventful, other than a stop at the largest Culvers I’ve ever been too. It was also awesome listening to the Bears pound the Seahawks on the radio (I love being a Bears fan right now).
So that was my trip. As always visiting Minnesota is a ton of fun. I really need to do it more often. A few pictures are posted below, but you can also see the whole album here.
The croquet crew. And yes Chewie is wearing a kilt…
Nicholas and I. I told you he was cute!
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