Beach Musings

As our family vacations this week at Sunset Beach, NC, I have had plenty of time to rest, relax and read. Those are my favorite vacation activities. Oh eating is nice, but on Weight Watchers, eating is not the primary focus any longer.

Getting to hang out with Peggy's parents, her sister's family, an aunt, and our very own Turtle this week has been a great source of comfort, much laughter, and a little orneriness of the family variety.

I finished up Shawn McMullen's "Unlesashing the Potential of the Smaller Church" yesterday, and started reading Reggie McNeal's "The Present Future: Six Tough Questions For The Church " as recommended by my bud Robin Sigars. Challenging reading to say the least, but both books have reinforced thoughts of mine. Cool how God places these books in my path at just the right time.

Anyway, the vacation timing was wonderful. It is nice to rest following a major ministry week like C-I-Y Summer Conference. One more full day here, means I have much reading to do if I am going to finish McNeal's book, and then on Friday, we pack up and head south to Vero Beach so Emily can be at work Saturday. I'll be in the office for one week, then it's off to church camp for a week, and following that, a week's vacation with my side of the family in Alabama! Can anyone say mansion on the lake? Yay!

Now that Peggy has decided to stay up here with her family next week, that means I won't see her until after I come home from camp. It took some fancy foot work to get everything worked out, but we did. It will be lonesome without her, but she will enjoy the family time with some cousins who will be here next week.

Oh yeah, I have posted pictures from C-I-Y and from our beach vacation in North Carolina on my flickr site. Leave me some comments, eh?

Wise Youth Worker

As promised earlier, here it is. I think the video speaks for itself!

Final Day at Summer Conference

Friday, June 22, 2007

Influence. We all have it, the question is will we influence for Jesus or against Him? This was the main wrestle-with question for the day. What a fantastic end to a fantastic week at C-I-Y Summer Conference (soon to be known as "Move").

Doug Aldridge's morning devotional was once again right on target, and I survived the adult elective again in the afternoon. It is such an honor to get to lead an elective and to teach materials written by Zus!

Peggy, Tyler and I took the vans to gas them up, and apparently everyone in Elizabeton, TN, decided to gas up their vehicles at the Wal-Mart as well. Tyler commented that he hadn't seen gas lines like this since the hurricanes. Of course, since it took so long, we were going to miss supper on campus, so we sacrificed and headed to Taco John's, for some Taco Bravos. Yay!

Celebration tonight was amazing. Greg Frazee does an excellent job in leading folks to the throne of mercy and grace. He is quite frankly, my favorite C-I-Y worship leader. His presence on stage is totally designed to take the attention off of him and place it squarely on Jesus. Robin Sigars knocked it out of the park with the closing message of the week on Identity. I so appreciate Robin and his heart for students. Since Robin loves me more than he loves Dave VanBuskirk, it makes it even more special to get to hang out with my brother. I am excited for Robin about the new direction he is heading in ministry, although I will miss hanging with him at Conference.

Youth Group Time was intense. One student expressed fear about heading back home and falling into the "same ole, same ole" pattern. This open expression of what many were feeling led to one of the more intense discussions we've had in Youth Group Time ever! It was fantastic, and it certainly gives us plenty to think about and work on as we head back from the Mountain Top experience that is Summer Conference.

We Blounts will depart from the rest of the traveling party on the way back tomorrow, heading to Sunset Beach, NC, for a week's vacation with Peggy's family. I am looking forward to some time with my stack of books, with the laughter and good times with family that awaits. It will be a time of physical renewal and refreshing to follow this time of spiritual renewal and refreshing at Summer Conference.

Thanks Robin and all the C-I-Y folks from Tennessee 2. You RAWK!

Day Five of the C-I-Y Trip

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Isolation. Sometimes...okay often, it is self-inflicted. Many other times it is not, and the pain of isolation is deep. We were not meant to be alone, and God desires us to be in community with Him and with others. So was the theme of the day at C-I-Y Summer Conference today.

Doug Aldridge's treatment of the relationship between David and Jonathan during Morning Encounter was right on the money. We all need a Jonathan in our lives, but just as importantly, we need to be a Jonathan in the lives of others. I have spent a good part of the day reflecting on my "real relationships." There aren't as many as I would like. Peggy is my best friend and confidant. Jeff Sagstetter is my brother, and we still communicate fairly regularly even though he is in Kansas (where every "good Jew" knows to avoid when traveling from Oklahoma to Nebraska since Kansas is the Samaria of that region of the world...hey...you had to hear Jim's message the other night to get that one, so don't worry about it). I have isolated myself from folks locally for fear of truly being crushed. I have plenty of professional relationships, and I do consider Greg and Anne (our high school youth sponsors) good friends, but I don't have a Jonathan relationship even with them. Something to work on. Yeah.

Our trip to Roan Mountain was a blast. Okay, so we started the trip off by having lunch at Taco John's in Elizabeton. Oh yeah, baby! My lunch was 23.5 points in the Weight Watchers' system. Can you say "Flex Points"? Anyway, having been alerted to a particular sign on one trail at Roan Mountain, I wanted to make sure I got this picture:

Since I was the only one in the party at the time of this picture with a "handy cap" I could take this particular trail.

The beauty of God's creation is so abundant in the mountains, and I always love taking the Florida flatlanders for exscursions such as this when we are at Conference. Breathtaking views and lots of "ooohhhs" and "aaahhhs" were commonplace this afternoon.

Doug Aldridge spoke at Celebration tonight. If I forget anything else from the week, I want to be sure to remember "call the whole world" and the need to be intentional and desperate in reaching others to pull them from their isolation. During Youth Group Time, we discussed several students who could have been here with us this year but aren't. Two have been in the past. Others are new to the group and need to be included in a better way. There are so many others who have been on the fringe, visiting from time-to-time, but not really getting involved. The question of the year for us in the VCC youth group is: "what are WE going to do about that?"

Our prayer circle continues to be my favorite time of the day. We are praying for the person on our right and the person on our left each night, and they have to be different people each night. Our prayer circle is filled with laughter and tears as we love on each other, building community and reinforcing the idea that we were not meant to be alone.

Watch for a special post detailing our "Wise Youth Worker" Anne. As soon as I get the video clip uploaded to You Tube, you will know it!

Day 4 of the C-I-Y Trip

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Injury. The theme for the "heavy day" at Summer Conference. Doug Aldridge got the theme started with his look at David's life and specifically his sin with Bathsheba. We're not just talking about physical injury, but emotional injury and spiritual injury as well. The D-Group lesson provided an excellent opportunity for students to open up about their injuries. One of our students did so in a major way. It was so beautiful to see this student become so vulnerable before the rest of the group. It was so beautiful to watch the rest of the group shower the love of Jesus on this person.

Jim Johnson continued the theme with a powerful message during Celebration. I appreciate Jim's ability to mix humor with a very serious subject. I'll never forget his mad parenting skills (can you say broken femur bone and busted heads?) I so much appreciate the story that he is Number Three on Andrea's list of best kissers...makes me feel not-quite-so-bad that Peggy told her parents I was "gross" when they tried to encourage her to date me way back in the 70's. But Jim nailed it when he reminded us that support groups are a good place to start the healing process for our emotional and spiritual injuries. They are not the finish line. Jesus is. In our Youth Group Time, we reminded our students that sometimes the most loving thing we can say to someone who is injured is that, "you need to repent of your sins." Sometimes, what is needed is a hug and a shoulder to cry on. Always, what is needed is someone to point the inured to Jesus.

Our students loved Robin's story about the farmer and the lamb that he had to injure to teach that lamb to let the farmer take care of him. See, the lamb kept running away, so the farmer had to injure the lamb and keep him in a special pen in his barn while nursing the lamb back to health, and while teaching the lamb to be okay with being dependent on the farmer. How often do we run away from Jesus, especially when we are hurting? I know that during my times of great emotional or spiritual injury, my natural tendency is to distance myself from Jesus. How foolish!

Of course the day wasn't all heavy. Bucket O Fun was a hoot with the tennis match. I love the short clips of "Juans." And Thor Ramsey had us all belly laughing for 45 minutes in the afternoon session. Good times for sure!

As we closed in our group circle prayer, I had everyone pray for the people on their right and their left. that meant you got to pray for someone who had just prayed for you. Once again our prayer circle was filled with emotion. Tears and laughter abounded in those prayers, and I know that God was right there with us, laughing and crying. When the student who had really opened up earlier in the day asked to pray after our prayer circle had ended, we were all in tears. They expressed heartfelt gratitude for having a place to belong, and having a family who accepted them just as they were. We do, but we love this person (and all of them) enough to not leave them like they are right now. We want to help them grow to be more like Jesus.

After our crew headed to their rooms, a fellow youth minister who also happens to be a young man we have seen grow up in youth group at another church came to me with tears in his eyes and a heart burdened for his students. He said that he felt so inadequate, and that he didn't know how to "fix" the kinds of injuries the students in his group had expressed today. I told him welcome to Youth Ministry. We are not called to "fix" those injuries. We are called to love those students in the Name of Jesus and to point them to Him. Many of those problems may never be "fixed," but our students need to know that they were never meant to be alone. Not only is God with them, but we are with them through this journey called life.

Thanks again, Christ In Youth, for a fantastic day at Summer Conference, and for plenty to think and pray about. The tears I have shed for my students today remind me to keep my heart pure and my eyes focused on the love of Jesus and the need to stay in step with His Plan for my life every day!

Role With It

Role With It
Originally uploaded by blountman

Here are "Clueless Hot Chick," "Ladies Man,", "That Guy," and "Weird Girl" striking a pose at C-I-Y 2007 at Milligan College! For individual pictures of these characters, please visit my FLICKR site.

Day 3 of the C-I-Y Trip

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

"Ladies Man," "That Guy," "Clueless Hot Chick," and "Weird Girl" all made their debut this morning. Pictures will follow. Sorry, I didn't upload them yet.

The theme for the day is Identity, and I pray that our students (and our adults) got the message that our identities are not complete until we know Jesus. In fact, our identities don't truly exist outside of Jesus!

Doug Aldridge led the Morning Encounter Devotion with an excellent look at David's life. Peggy led our D-Group and did her usual excellent job in tackling a tough subject: the masks we put up to be our "identity." We are to bring the masks with us at Celebration tonight. Oh yeah, and "Bucket O' Fun" in the AM Session was a hoot! Good times to start the day, fer sure!

Today we also had the first of two electives times. I am leading an adult elective this year titled, "Youth Ministry From The Inside Out." It is excellent material written by Zus, and preparing to lead this session has had me re-examining once again my priorities as a Christian and as a youth minister to make sure I am lined up with God's priorities!

The Alternative was an absolute scream! Amber got up in an impromptu display of courage and sang a Spanish lullaby. She rocked! However, you must ask anyone who was there about Joe's rendition of "Old MacDonald."

I spent much of our free time researching Roan Mountain for our Thursday excursion, and am looking forward to that trip on Thursday!

Meal time has been a much more pleasant experience than some of us expected. Eating in the Cafatentia is not bad at all, and I am able to easily stay within my daily point boundaries for Weight Watchers.

Celebration was once again phenomenal. Jim Johnson nailed it in so many ways with his sermon on Identity. Ask me sometime about the illustrations dealing with Julie and with Daniel. Sweet stuff fer sure!

Our students are really enjoying the chance to pray for one another in very specific terms this year, and I also got to sneak in on South Haven's prayer time at the end of the day. A FANTASTIC DAY in every sense of the word. Can't wait for tomorrow!

Day Two of the C-I-Y Trip

Monday, June 18, 2007 Tim's Birthday

Happy 47th birthday to my younger bro, Tim. I called him last night from the motel knowing that I would be on the road and busy getting us started at Conference today.

Our morning meeting with sponsors, breakfast and topping off gas tanks before heading back on I 26 West went as smoothly as possible. Now traveling with 33 total people in five vehicles, we knew we would be in for plenty of "pit stops" along the way, and we made several. My goal was to get us through Ashville, find a spot for lunch and then cruise on in to Milligan. We almost pulled that plan off without incident. However, the passenger side front wheel of the van Amos was driving decided it didn't want to travel all the way to Tennessee, so it jumped off the van. On the Interstate, with lots of students and luggage in it. No one was hurt in any way whatsoever, and because Southside had plenty of room in their van for extra passengers and luggage, they were loaded onto that van, and we found aspot for lunch. While Amos called AAA, we ate lunch and made plans to take the rest of the group on in to Milligan (about 50 miles away at this point), get everyone registered and settled in, and then we could come back for Amos if need be. Amos was agreeable with that plan, so I helped Julia go through registration to get the South Haven crew taken care of at Conference. Amos kept me posted as to the progress with the van getting picked up and taken to an auto repair place. God was so good during this whole process. The van was easily repaired, with no damage other than to the wheel, and Amos was able to join us at Milligan in time for the Adult Sponsors' meeting at 6:00 p.m.!

The theme this week is ONES with a subtheme of "We were never meant to be alone." What a great practical demonstration of that subtheme! Since we were traveling with two other church groups, WHEN something unexpected happened, we had plenty of help from brothers and sisters in Christ. We were not meant to be alone as individuals, but neither were we meant to be alone as congregations. As the body of Christ, we need to realize that each congregation is not a body, but a body part. Southside certainly played the role of helping hands for South Haven today. Thank You Lord for being so good, for keeping everyone safe, and for giving us a practical application for the Conference subtheme before we even got to Conference.

Celebration rocked! The open illusion was powerful as the story of the Creation of Man and the Fall from Grace was read from Genesis. Robin's message was right on target as always, and the bar for the week has been set extremely high. It's gonna be a GREAT WEEK! It has already been off to a GREAT START!

Playing Catch-Up

Sunday, June 17, 2007...Day One of the C-I-Y trip.

Having gathered up the church van and getting the ever-sinking feeling that we won't need the luggage carrier attachment that Kevin Aldhizer spent a good part of this past week getting, putting on the van, and having way too many problems in doing so (he just got it taken care of in final form yesterday morning at 8:30 after miles of driving and many different automotive locations in trying to get this done), Peggy and I gassed up the vehicles and loaded our minivan for the trip.

This morning everyone was to meet at the Sunday morning worship facility (for those who don't know, we are in temporary quarters these days, meeting at the Cox-Gifford Seawinds Funeral Home) to load up the church van and help with setup, since we were leaving immediately after the worship service. Plans were to meet up with Southside Christian somewhere on the road, and with South Haven Christian at the first exit in Georgia where we would top off the gas tanks for cheap, and fill up our bellies at the "everything under the sun" truck stop known as Cisco.

Most everyone made it on time, but I had failed to communicate the whole 8 am need with Samantha, oops! Boy was she surprised when I called her at about 8:20. Fortunately, she had her C-I-Y bag packed and ran it to me so I could load the church van. Church services went well on this Father's Day, and we were actually in the vans by 11:45 a.m. and heading for Buger King...our Vero lunch stop before hitting I-95 for the long drive ahead of us.

Oh, while at Burger King, Alison's Mom joined us. Alison had forgotten a pillow. Of course Jordy had forgotten towels, and Turtle had forgotten sheets, but both had already had those needs taken care of before church started. Confident that we had all the necessary gear, we hit the highway at about 12:30, get timing as far as I was concerned.

I heard from Ron at Southside and they were only a few minutes behind us on the Interstate, so we figured we would see them very shortly and would caravan to the meeting place in Georgia. It was not to be so. They made a stop at a Krystal's and we didn't know it until about an hour later. I was getting worried when they never appeared in my rear view mirror, but a quick call to Ron let me know that they were now 40 minutes behind us on the Interstate! Meanwhile, a call to Amos gave me the news that South Haven had gotten trigger-happy and left about an hour earlier than they needed to. Ha! They got to wait at the truck stop for a LOONNNNNNNNNGGGGG time.

To make this long story shorter, we did finally all hook up in Georgia, drove to Brunswick where the group will stay on the trip back next week, took care of the motel business there, and ate Father's Day Supper at Sonnys. hey, I got free desert, which is not much of a temptation for someone on Weight Watcher's these days, but I had a few bites of a not-the-greatest pecan pie I had ever tasted.

We completed our last leg of the journey on this day by driving to Columbia virtually without incident (unless you count the whole Dave VanBuskirk from Fort Caroline Christian pulling along side of us on the Interstate, and hanging there with us until we figured out it was him...what a hoot!), arriving at our motel (Qualtiy Inn) in Columbia South Carolina at 10:20 p.m. Right on the time frame I had figured for the day. An UNEVENTFUL day of traveling, just the way I like it on a youth group road trip. I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

He Made It!

He Made It!
Originally uploaded by blountman

On Saturday, June 2, 2007. Ian Scott Johnson Blount graduated from Vero Beach High School. It was an evening of pride, relief, and extreme happiness for us all. Ian, along with fellow chorus mates Kevin Wellmaker and Jonathan Woodward sang the National Anthem during the ceremonies. They sounded fantastic, and we couldn't have been more proud for Ian than we were at that moment. Or so we thought.

Ian has expressed a desire to go into full time Christian service as a Youth Minister. That is a thought that humbles me to my core, and a thought that causes praise to our Lord Jesus to course through every fiber of my being.

To the 600 or so members of the VBHS Class of 2007, I send out my heartiest congratulations. To Ian, I send my deepest love. You are a son that any parent would die for. You are a son that every parent dreams of. May God continue to watch over your every step, and direct your path always. I love you with all my heart, Ian!