Fun times and Random thoughts from a Youth Pastor

Lets get along

2011-04-09T07:48:00.000-06:00

I wonder if Facebook sometimes challenges relationships. I’ve noticed a couple of groups in my youth group that are having challenges this week. I think it’s that time of year, but I hate seeing relationships hurt. Here are a couple of hints:

Facebook is not the place to air out personal grievances. Pick up the phone, go get ice cream together, grab a cup of joe.
Another boy/girl is not a good reason to lose a friend. God values all of our relationships and our relationships here on earth model the relationship we have with God.
Reconcile, Reconcile, Reconcile. If you can learn to work through differences you will go a long way in life. I believe Jesus said something about forgiving 70x7.
The way we treat each other as Christians is the way people outside the church view Jesus. Take a second to think that over.

Over the years I’ve had lots of students (and Adults) who have had challenges with each other. I know that even the biggest differences can be resolved. Let’s not ignore problems, but face them head on with candor and courage. Often we grow in our understanding of each other and as a result in our God.

Keeping Jesus #1

The Real Economics of Christian Education

2011-03-16T20:10:00.000-06:00

I've spend a lot of time in the last few months thinking about Christian Education. (for you non SDA's out there by Christian Education right now I am talking about school, not discipleship classes on Sunday/Sabbath mornings.) Anyways now that we have that cleared up, the Adventist church is about to go through some very difficult times or is already going through difficult times depending on where you are (AUC/WAU, you know what I"m talking about.) And there are many out there that are thinking of ways we can do this more easily by tightening our belts. I think that while we need to be good stewards of God's money, this is not the first thing we should do. We have already found that this hurts us.

First of all let me tell you about our church situation. Our local congregation, a great one at that with a little over 600 members, has over the last 4-5 years pumped around 200k-400k into our school. I could go into a lot of details about those numbers, but they would not necessarily help in my points here. I ask my self, if we did not put that money into the school where would it have gone? Perhaps we'd have a new sanctuary by now, or a youth room or a few more pastors? My belief is that money and the money people paid for tuition would have stayed in their pockets. We are really good at laying up our treasures here on earth, instead of in people. Stuff doesn't go to heaven, people do.

Perhaps, one of the great things that Christian Schooling does is that it helps us not accumlulate so much worthless stuff. I spent this evening in a very nice mall in Edina. One of the stores I went into was Crate and Barrel. As I perused the store I found many things that were both useful and very attractive. But as I was walking out (empty handed) of the store I made the comment to my wife, "There was a lot of really good looking stuff in there that we don't really need." I guess I need to challenge myself sometimes do I really need that? the answer is usually know. Now, don't get me wrong I impulse buy with the best of them, and sometimes we do need to just have a little happiness in life, but perhaps its things like having a tight budget that keep our spending in check as well as our priorities in the right place. And nothing says tight budget like 2-3 kids in Christian school.

So while it may be cheaper to do Christian Education other ways, perhaps the idea of investing in people, both teachers and students is actually the wisest Kingdom Economics thing we can do.

Keeping Jesus #1

Feeling a little Lance Armstrongish

2011-01-13T09:53:00.000-06:00

Ok so today I started Cytoxan which is a form of Chemo therapy for my Minimal Change Disease. It's a long story. Its kinda scary. I don't know what the side effects will be but there is something unsettling about taking 10 pills when you get up in the morning. Anyways as always chin up and hope for the best. who knows what the future holds make each day count.

For those who even mildly care...which I doubt you do, but the purpose of this is to get me off of another drug, which was working but can cause cancer in 25% of people taking, and hopefully wean me off medicine all together and put this into remission. That would be awesome. Nonetheless I still may be on something called Cellcept for a long time but its better than the drug I'm on now.
For all of you CHIPer's and health nuts out there I have looked at alternative methods and both Google and some Dr.'s that I trust say that for this there really isn't much you can do for this disease. In fact I am in such a small segment of the population that right now my Dr. describes what we are doing as 'voodoo' medicine because there is just no research on cures for what I have. that's encouraging isn't it.
Well my class is coming in now so I gotta go. I have lots to blog about especially Adventist Education! so keep your ears tuned.

2010-01-26T18:54:00.002-06:00

So we had buttermilk left over in the fridge so I decided to make buttermilk pancakes. the recipe on cooks.com was not tasty. However the evening was saved by my syrup. Got lucky with it and decided to share. All measurements are approximate

1 Cup Apple Juice
1 Cup cubed Mango (used trader Joe's frozen mango chunks)
1/4 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup light coconut milk
2 tsp corn starch

Bring Apple Juice, mango, coconut and coconut milk to a simmer. I used my hand blender to semi-puree the mango, but I left a few chunks. Dissolve the corn starch in water and add to mixture return to simmer for a couple of minutes and then remove from heat.

It was pretty yummy so I decided to share...

Ideas for the future, add pineapple chunks, perhaps some candied ginger or ginger powder?

Secrets of girls need exposure

2009-11-21T15:13:00.002-06:00

This morning as I was putting on a spritz of the cologne (Tommy Hilfiger) that I've had since college(same bottle), I was reminded of one of the mysteries of life. As a guy who is happily married for almost 10 years I feel it is high time that I receive some answers. Here's my question...How come, in college, whenever I, as the perfect gentleman that I was, loaned out my sweater, coat, or hoodie to a girl did it come back smelling like it had been dipped in the pools of heaven? How do girls do that? I would actually loan out stuff and then not wash it for weeks until the wonderful smell wore off? It wasn't just one girl, its a universal phenomenon it seems that this is a conspiracy. I've tried different sprays, laundry detergents...none of if recreates that smell. I'm completely mystified and my wife is no help it's like there is some sort of conspiracy. Can any of you in Facebook/Blogger land help with this great mystery of life? Thanks

Communion and more

2009-11-05T16:02:00.004-06:00

Ok so below I'd like to post the Special Feature article that I put in the Bulletin this week so that we can get some discussion going on the topic. Part of what made this topic interesting to me is that I've been really wondering for the last few years "what's next." I remember in high school and college how Contemporary Christian Music was what gave the Christian youth of the 90's and early 2000's their identity in the church separate from the adults. Then the adults started liking that music too. Now in my youth group the parents and kids basically listen to the same music, ok the parents are 2-3 years behind, but music no longer creates an identity for youth culture. So how do the youth 'rebel' or feel different or create their own thing for church? To me this is a very interesting topic and perhaps, according to Youth Ministry 3.0 it is an irrelevant question for this generation. Below is the article I wrote:

I don’t know about you but I love to read. I probably read about 5-6 books a month. In fact if you see me walking around with headphones in my ear (which admittedly is a lot of the time) I’m probably listening to a book. (Does that still count as reading? I like to think so.) If you’re a reader like me then you probably also have an ever growing stack of books to be read sitting somewhere in your house. This week I was able to pick up a book from that stack and read it through, and I found some insights that may be valuable to us as a church. See what you think.

As many of you know I like change, probably more than most people. Because of that I’m always on the lookout for trends and asking myself the question “What’s next?” I’ve been challenged in many ways because the future has looked somewhat cloudy. In the past I could go to conferences, hear speakers, listen to the newest music and put my finger on the “next new thing” that was going to bring effective change to the church. However, over the last few years the “next new thing” has gotten seemingly more elusive. In my reading this week I began to get some clarity on why it has been so difficult to identify the newest trends. I was reading a book by Mark Oestreicher called Youth Ministry 3.0. In it he identifies that our culture, especially youth culture, has become more and more contextualized. What this means is that one thing, one program, one event, doesn’t work anymore. This is not only true in culture, but I would venture to guess that even in a church our size that there are multiple contexts and communities within our small congregation. There is no “next new thing” anymore! So how do we be relevant and missional? Perhaps some of the answers come in the idea of community. I know that it is somewhat of a catch phrase, but the more I look at church and it’s reason for existence (even in multiple cultural contexts) community seems to rise to the top. Community answers the key question of the postmodern era “where do I belong and to whom.”

The following are some key concepts of what communion is as described in the above mentioned book. See if you agree, and ask yourself the question as I am: Is the Minnetonka church doing this well? If it isn’t, how can we do better?

"Communion is best done small

Communion building takes time and takes patience

Communion is simple and not flashy

Communion is fluid

Communion is present – it demands face time and lives in the here and now

Communion is Jesus-y – God is expected to show up"

Haircuts

2009-11-03T20:53:00.002-06:00

So I went in for a haircut today, much needed. Maybe this is just me but getting a haircut is always a little awkward. Most of you know that I'm a 'people' person, but its just always a little awkward talking to the hairstylist. It's not like you can ask them what the do for a living as a conversation starter.

Anyways, let's get to the point here, I sit down in the chair and get comfortable and then comes the question: "What do you want me to do to your hair" or something like that...The problem is that I never know? Sometimes I'll try to say one thing or another, but what I've found is that I usually don't like the product that I try to explain to the stylist. Tonight I think I surprised the stylist, but just saying, "do what you think is best and I guarantee I'll be happy with it." And you know what, I was. Hey they are the professionals not me, if you can call Great Clips professionals :) So I wasn't sure whether to make that part of my Facebook status or make it part of a blog since I haven't blogged since April. You can see what decision I made.

So as all this is mulling over in my mind, still sitting in the chair, I wonder what my decision making process about getting a haircut says about me? Still not sure, but its fun to think about why we think the way we think.

Sorry for not posting anything deep tonight.
Benji

Prophetic Arrogance

2009-04-23T13:24:00.002-06:00

First let me say before you get up in arms. I'm a big Ellen White fan, for my non-Adventist readers, look her up www.whiteestate.org

I'm sitting here in Prophets class and thinking about the role of the prophet. One of the problems that Israel had was an arrogance that God was only for them because they were the ones who got the prophets. (Interestingly enough look at how much of the writing of the prophets deals with other nations) this notion blinded Israel to the fact that God was a God for all nations, the Abrahamic covenant was for everybody.

Are Adventist falling into the same trap as Israel and thinking that God's message, through his prophetic revelation in Ellen White, means that we have a corner on truth and on God's favor. That line of thinking didn't turn out too well for Israel. How do we not repeat that mistake without throwing out the 'real' role that prophets play.

Question for thought.

Adventist Education

2009-03-27T11:17:00.004-06:00

Below I'm going to post an article I just wrote for our church newsletter about the impact of Adventist Education in our church. I know that the system is hurting and in some cases has its issues. But I think you will see from the article the importance that having a both a strong youth program and a Christian school. I know that the three legged stool is an over used metaphor, but I really think that if the home, the church and the school work together we will do the best at keeping students involved in the church. We have a much better chance with these three working together than we do without it. Let me know what you think of the article and perhaps post your pros and cons of Adventist Education. How can we do better, how can we save the system, should we work to save the system?

"As we are faced with the financial crunches at MCA it is easy for us to ask whether having the school is worth it. I have had the benefit of observing the impact Adventist Education has had over the last 9 years, specifically through MCA. I can not speak for MCA students that attend other churches, but I have kept track of the students who are part of our youth ministry. I have long been curious about whether there is a correlation between church attendance and being enrolled at MCA or another Adventist school. Over the past several weeks I have gathered data about 120 students who are either currently High School aged or have graduated from our youth ministry. For the current students separated them into four groups: Public School, Other Christian School, MCA, Other SDA schools. Then I looked at their attendance at church, those students I see at church more than twice a month I marked as involved, less than twice a month: occasional and those I don’t see over a two month period: not involved. Currently there are 35 students in the High School Ministry. As far as our average we are at an all time low of students from the youth group who attend High School at 43%. The average of our alumni who attended MCA is 53%. As you can see both with the alumni and our current students about 60% of the students are actively involved. Here is where the rubber meets the road however. The question to ask is ‘does going to MCA increase the chance of a student being involved in Church?’ Here is what the numbers say 83% of the students who attend an Adventist school are involved in church and the other 17% are occasionally involved. Of the students who do not attend an Adventist school the numbers are different, 35% are involved 17% are occasionally involved and 48% are not involved.

The numbers are impressively stacked in MCA’s favor for our current students, but what about the 84 students who are alumni of our youth program. As you can see from the graphs 53% of our alumni graduated from MCA with a whopping 70% attending Adventist Education. What interested me was the difference in church involvement between those two groups. Historically has MCA been an influencer of future church attendance or involvement. I must admit that there are some assumptions with these numbers and that they are in no way 100% accurate, but I feel that the margin of error is within acceptable ranges. According to national polls of high school students, it is generally understood that 60% of students leave the church after graduating from high school. So that is a benchmark for us to look at. According to my data the students from our church defy those numbers, in our case 68% of our students who attend an Adventist school are still involved in church. This is contrasted with 44% of the students who did not attend Adventist high schools currently being involved in church! That is a big difference. Not only are we 28% above the national average with the kids that attend MCA the numbers for those who did not attend MCA are right around the national average. This tells me two things. First MCA is very important and is beneficial to the long term future of our church. Secondly this tells me that if students do not attend MCA we must to better at keeping them as part of the church. I hope as we consider the future of MCA and Adventist Education in the metro area we keep these numbers in mind, I am so grateful to the commitment of the Minnetonka church’s dedication to Adventist Education and to Youth Ministry. Our kids are important! Let’s keep fighting on their behalf and seeking God’s will for the future of our church."

Sabbath and Sports

2009-03-07T16:27:00.002-06:00

A few weeks ago in our staff meeting at church we were discussing the impact of sports on church attendance. Over the years this is something that I have thought about a lot and over the course of this post I hope to explore (and journey together) some of the issues that are being risen by this recent phenomenon in the Adventist Church.

I have found myself on both sides of this issue. Growing up one of the greatest benefits of having an Adventist Education, (it still is a great benefit) is that I didn't have to choose between playing sports and the Sabbath. This choice was made less difficult because I never made a sports team :). My Senior year of high school I went to my first High School football game because a good friend of mine, Kyle, was playing. I remember how rebellious, cool, and guilty I felt as I went to the game and then went to a local pool hall afterwards to hang out with people we'd met at the game. I stayed up so late that it was difficult to make it to church the following day.

As I began youth ministry, the first church I pastored at had no kids in Adventist Education. All the kids attended public school. Dances, and sporting events were all on Friday night and so I had the difficult decision to make about whether I should attend games when invited by students. Part of me wanted to show up and support the kids and part of me wanted to show them my respect for the Sabbath. I remember reading about athletes and teams who had taken a stand and refused to play on Sabbath, and articles were written in the youth magazines lifting them up as heroes of the church for making difficult decisions.

Being a big fan myself, I also read about athletes like Deion Sanders and James Worthy who took a stand for their faith as Christians and were able to spread the gospel in their respective sports. As I thought about it, I was sad that there would never be an Adventist who could share our unique and valuable perspective on Jesus with the sports world. If we were to share the gospel to the entire world didn't that mean athletes? And if people did accept the Sabbath would that mean that they would no longer be able to use their greatest gift to minister to other athletes and use the stage of sport to spread the gospel and the blessings of Sabbath? I didn't have good answers for these questions, and perhaps I still don't. So I left the issue alone.

Recently my mind has returned to these issues. More and more, kids at our church, beginning as young as 5th grade are choosing sports over church and worship. Kids are joining a traveling team or they have tournaments that all take place over a whole weekend. Kids and parents are more and more often choosing sports over community worship. And I, as a pastor, am starting to get worried. Are we going to lose a generation of kids to because of sports. I am seeing that sports is the catalyst that begins the slippery slope of prioritizing things higher than corporate worship. I would love to see some posts by my non-Adventist friends on whether this is an issue in their youth groups as well.

So I want to start a conversation. I am more and more convinced that God is concerned about community and unity. Worship services are one of the church's greatest tools of creating these two things, and more and more families are missing out. Does this concern you or am I over reacting. I'm hoping that people will post on both sides of the issue.

p.s.
After seeing some of the posts I wanted to put up this chart that I have used to evaluate Sabbath in my life. I try to find the balance between Rest (stopping, taking a break) Blessed (what brings joy, happiness) and Holy (set apart for God) which is what God intended the Sabbath to be. I try each week to eat the whole pie, but sometimes more often than not, I fail. I think that for me the most difficult part of the pie is to find the holy aspect of the Sabbath. It is easy to stop our everyday activites and take a break from them, it is easy to be happy (Isa 58) but to find the holiness of God through the Sabbath can be the critical evaluator when we determine how to be fully enriched by the blessing of keeping the Sabbath.

Is it time to change our Outlook.

2009-03-07T12:37:00.004-06:00

I'm a little frustrated with our eschatology. Why are we always doom and gloom? This morning at church during prayer I heard the lament again of how awful this world is and that things are going downhill so fast that Jesus better come quick to yank us out of this miserable existence. Now, I will freely admit that I have lived a relatively pain free and sheltered life. Sure I've had some bad things happen to me, but not to the extent of many people especially the millions of children who will die this week because of starvation. But for a while now I've been a little miffed by the view that this world for the lack of a better term, sucks.

I'm blogging about that this week because I am in the middle of reading a book titled "Younger Evangelicals", while I don't really consider myself and evangelical there are many things about the book that resonated with me. In a nutshell what the book said was that from 1950-1975 fundamentalist evangelicals held the view that since Jesus was coming pretty soon, (premillinialism, which Adventism including myself believes) we don't really have to worry about the problems of the world, i.e. the environment, the poor, social justice, because Jesus was going to come and judge everybody and we'd go to heaven and live wonderful blissful lives. I'm finding that this view (often promoted by modernistic evangelists) has gotten the Church (capital C) into a lot of trouble.

I remember being about 15 the first time I thought about Adventist believes in this vein. I had heard through Revelation Seminars or maybe at school that at the end of time those who worship on Sabbath would be persecuted and that Sunday worship laws would force us to choose between the Sabbath and our lives. (Theoretically this could all still happen, who knows) These events would mean that Jesus was about to come. My thinking at the time was why in the world are we paying all of these lawyers to protect the Sabbath, just let it go and Jesus will come sooner!

My postmodernism has taken over my thoughts in this area. I have travelled to several parts of the world. Interestingly enough people are pretty happy. In fact I'm pretty happy. I like living, I like growing in the shape and purpose that God intends for me. I like hearing the stories of peoples lives. I like technology, I like my family, I enjoy a good meal, playing games, sports, music. In spite of some of the crummy things that happen I dig the life that God has given me. So I just don't resonate with doom and gloom eschatalogical thinking. Why do we focus on the bad instead of leading people to the good?

I like to think that I'm looking forward to Jesus second coming as much as the next guy, but perhaps I also am looking forward to the journey of searching for Jesus in this life as well. What do you all think?

Day 2 -- Chillaxin' at the hospital

2009-02-27T10:24:00.003-06:00

After getting a few hours of rest at home I'm back at the hospital this morning. What an awesome expeience being a dad again. Holly is just so wonderful, she wiggles and loves being held. Amazingly she has taken to feeding right away with no problems at all. Just a content, and very little, baby.
I thought that I'd go into why we chose the name Holly. First of all like Dylan we made some lists of names, (this time it was even easier because of a sweet application on Steph's ipod touch). Holly is cool for us in many ways, it derives from the term Holy which means set apart and special. Holly is also the birth flower for Dylan's birthmonth (Christmas time duh) so that was a nice tie into Dylan as well.
Marie is my mothers middle name so that ties Holly to my side of the family and Dylan is tied to Stephanies family by his middle name. Marie Carlson is also a great mom here in our church that has been very good to our family and has been present at both our kids birth so the middle name was easy to choose. Here is a video I took with my web cam this morning. Holly has so much hair compared to Dylan and it is very dark. We can't quite figure out who she looks like yet, but tell Stephanie that she looks like her :)

Welcome Holly Marie Ferguson

2009-02-26T18:22:00.004-06:00

At 8:55 Holly Marie joined us. She weighted 6.2 and is 19 inches long. Everything went fine and we are super excited. She is a beautiful baby girl with wonderful dark hair and bluish grey. Pictures and video very soon.

We're getting on the schedule

2009-02-26T18:22:00.003-06:00

Right now there is an anesthesiologist in the room getting Stephanie all set up, blood work, IV and we're going in for surgury between 7 and 7:30. I'm still trying to crank out a paper on the Chronicles of Narnia for my seminary class. I know it sounds rediculous. But this crazy girl is coming early.
I wonder if this is a sign of things to come, this young lady is going to have a mind of her own. I think I'm in trouble :)

Update: We are now scheduled for 8:30. Dr. Dedeker/Torres is coming in for the surgury. Steph is busy puddling on her chux. Dont' ask, the nurse just said it and it sounded funny. So my next post should be after the baby is born!

A long drive

2009-02-26T17:26:00.002-06:00

So here we are in the hospital, we got a bunch of snow and of course Steph's water broke during rush hour on top of that. So it took about 40 mins to get here, but we're here and Steph is in her hospital gown and now she is getting hooked up to the monitors now. Anyways we'll keep you up to date with whats going on.

The Best Laid Plans

2009-02-26T15:51:00.001-06:00

So.. about 15 minutes ago I'm working on a paper for my class and I see Stephanie rushing for the bathroom...It seems that her water just broke so we're heading to the hospital now. Not sure what is in store, but I'll keep people informed.

Only Child No More

2009-02-26T08:03:00.002-06:00

In 25 hours Dylan will no longer be an only child...At 7:30 this morning I was summoned by banging on Dylan's bedroom door. The next 20 minutes were spent in bed playing, and snuggling with Dylan, when all of the sudden I realized that this was our last day alone with Dylan. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited, but it is going to be a different experience. As an only child myself, I don't know all that comes with siblingness, this is new territory. My sister-in-law flew in yesterday with her youngest, Jovie. One of the first things she said was how nice it was to have just one child for a couple of days. Robb, her husband said the same thing on Skype last night about Brody and how it was nice just for the moment to have just Brody at home. Of course this doesn't mean a parent loves any less, it just helps us refocus. So as we get ready for baby, today I plan on appreciating that special time with Dylan.

The Name Game

2009-02-24T22:04:00.005-06:00

Today is Tuesday the 24th of January. If all goes as planned we should have a new addition to our family by about 9:30 A.M. CST on Friday the 27th. Of course we're prepared for surprises, but actually this pregnancy has been surprise free. (Please hear me knocking on wood right now.) So speaking of surprises, since we know the gender (female), and even the birthday (Feb. 27) we're leaving the name for the big surprise, and you'll hear it right here first. So I would suggest checking this blog often on Thursday and Friday as I try to chronicle the first 24 hours of baby right here.

That said things have been busy at home as I try to get caught up on some homework, it never seems to end. And we are trying to do all of our shopping for the next few weeks. With Dylan we told ourselves that we were not going to change our routine of life too much we'd still hang out with friends, go out to eat, etc. I think we did a pretty good job at that, but already the challenge of two kids under the age of two is hitting us. I have no idea how one parent can go get groceries with an infant and a toddler at the same time. I actually don't remember seeing anybody at a store in that situation? Perhaps because it is not possible?

Keep checking the blog, and Keep Jesus #1
Benji

Ecclesiology and Marketing

2008-11-08T14:21:00.007-06:00

Just saw this video on the YS website, I'd love to hear your feedback :) Also to those of you who have subscribed to my blog thanks, I'm glad you have done so, but if possible I'd love it if you could post your responses back on the blog to generate some discussion :)

I add this because it is part of a paper I'm writing now on Ecclesiology. When I was talking to a friend of my about the identity of the Adventist church he said that he thought that the church had a weak ecclesiology. What do you think? What makes church ...church? How do we balance our idea of being the remnant people and the true church with any sort of ecumenicism? Or should we just think that we're the best and nobody else has "the truth."

A few months back as I was sitting in a meeting with a bunch of Adventist pastors somebody started throwing around the term truth like... truth was the Sabbath or belief in Ellen White. What would Ellen White have thought of that? I'm no EG White scholar but I think that she would have pointed to only one truth. Jesus Christ. Wasn't it Jesus that said that he is THE Truth? How do we balance and market (see above video) ourselves and our view point without the arrogance of being the only true religion? Perhaps that is what my friend meant by our having a weak ecclesiology.

Keeping Jesus #1
Benji

Not the Caddilac of Computers

2008-11-05T00:13:00.003-06:00

So everybody complains about Vista and Microsoft...Let me tell you apple has it's share of issues as well. I bought Stephanie an refurb ipod touch which is a pretty beautiful machine. I was super excited to install some apps but when I hooked it up to itunes I had to pay $10 to install a new OS. Not cool at all, no where on the apple site was I warned about this, I also had lengthy discussions with people at the apple store before I purchaced the ipod asking about the differences between 1G and 2G machines and never was warned about this. I know, it's only $10 but I felt like I was being robbed.

Then on Sunday Stephanie's Macbook crashes. I make an appointment with the genisus at the apple store and they proceed to tell us that the hard drive is toast. All of the data is gone (Stephanie doesn't have an accompanist so we have recorded two versions of all of her choir songs on Garageband...it's all gone) Apple was good enought to do an out of warranty repair and replace the disk as well as upgrading us to leapard and ilife 08. It helped to ease the pain of losing a lot of data. I got the computer back in less than 24 hours however when setting up the computer this afternoon it crashed again! Same thing.

I'm glad (knock on wood) that I'm running my trusty HP. with beautiful windows Vista...I don't understand all of you haters :)

Benji
P.S. after this nerdy post I will hopefully be posting on a fun theological topic in the next day or so.

Sitting in Class at Seminary

2008-10-21T09:45:00.002-06:00

Ok, so last week I promised myself that I would post to my blog. Mostly so that Stew couldn't make fun of me about not posting during Intensives. I had this great idea that I would post daily on my progress on my sermon and maybe get feedback that I could incorporate into my sermon. I will do that someday, but obviously it didn't happen last week.

This week I"m sitting in Systematic Theology, which despite me posting during a lecture is pretty interesting. (We are talking predestination right now, which Adventists have conveniently passed over and as far as I know don't discuss much.) This month has been very busy but last Sabbath took the cake, those of you in church know what I'm talking about. I am very much a notes preacher and I lost my notes between services, that was scary, but it went ok.

I posted some new pics of Dylan on Flickr and you need to check them out, I can't you how much Dylan is changing, it's so amazing to watch! Plus we're having a girl end of February/early March!

Hopfully more posts later one some interesting topics, i.e. life and theology
Benji

Renters vs. Owners

2008-04-25T20:32:00.004-06:00

It is somewhat funny that I usually blog during some of my busiest times, when I should be doing other things. However, tonight is the Sabbath and I am enjoying just decompressing from a week of intensives at bethel. This weeks intensive was for my measurement based leadership course. Very interesting... I wonder if there are any of you that read the blog that may wonder if measurement and church should not go hand in hand? Here are my major take aways from the class so far...
We have just scraped the surface of stewardship culture in the church. The issues of time/talent/treasure is nice and helpful, but what we have done is created a culture of renters. Part of this goes back to our wonderful Catholic friends and the idea of a priesthood that we as protestants have never really gotten away from. However I think in the Adventist church, along with others who have a structure like ours where the church does not choose it's pastor, we have aided and abbeded in this renter culture.
Think about it...it is only recently that pastors even think of staying in a church more than 3-5 years. How can a pastor really be an owner of that churches vision to fulfill the Great Commission in a community when they are constantly thinking of their exit strategy and the congregation knows that what ever ideas a pastor pushes on them are going to change when the next guy comes anyways. This creates a culture of both renter pastors and renter congregations that are never allowed to have a long term strategy for reaching the lost in their community because of the revolving door of leadership.
So how do we fix it? I don't know about you but as I look at many of the challenges I have at my church many come down to this issue. It truly is an issue of stewardship. How do we get rid of a patriarchical top down system and replace it with one that is more empowering, one that creates a heart of service and one that has the customer (i.e. the people we want to see in our church) in mind.
Random thoughts post by
Benji
p.s. Couldn't post without adding a Dylan picture, this was taken at the Madison Zoo and this lioness had her eye on Dylan...it was actually a little disconcerting.
p.p.s. I finally broke down and got a facebook page, Stephanie is on Myspace, if you know us please check out our pages!

Dylan's One

2008-01-07T13:54:00.000-06:00

So it's been a while since I blogged. There were a couple of times in the last few months where I actually started a post here. In fact, this week is so busy that I really shouldn't be on here now. But I wanted to let people know what's going on... My winter quarter started yesterday. Fall was a good quarter with some very intriguing classes, which paired along with a very fulfilling trip to Youth Specialites, I feel that some of the pieces of a puzzle that has been sitting on my table for a while is coming together. Of course the puzzle is far from complete but perhaps I have sorted out teh edges?

This was a wild Christmas, we spent time in Santa Cruz/Bakersfield/College Place and racked up about 7000 miles each in the air...Dylan and I got pretty sick, it was Dylans first illness so it was stressful and we made a few trips to the Dr. :) But he is on the mend now and walking around the house, pulling stuff off of shelves. He's picked up some cool words like "ut-oh" I think mommy taught him that one? And he is just a great blessing for us. I better go and do some of the reading/typing/studing/sermon prep/ that I have to do. Check out the flickr account for some pics of our holiday adventures.
Keeping Jesus #1
Benji

Schools starting againhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

2007-09-04T18:49:00.000-06:00

A few of you want up dates on the life...It has been quite a while and I would encourage you to visit our flickr site to see what's up with us over the past few months. Of course most of you know that we had an awesome time in Wales and the UK. In fact right now I'm wearing the Manchester United jersey I got while I was over there! I'd love to see your comments on the photos! Also You can see what's up on stephs myspace account.
So steph started school again today, After hearing the woes that 4/5 boarding schools in Mid-America had decreased enrollement it was a little scary. We actually were a few students over budget with the good adventist number of 144 students! So we'll see how that all pans out but it's good news for MCA!
I'm staying busy, I had the pleasure of doing my first wedding for a student who used to be in youth group on Sunday! I had fun with that and now I'm spending this week with the students at the school and also getting ready for a sermon this Sabbath. School starts for me in a couple of weeks, I'm a little worried for this quarter because I'm really busy with work, but we'll see how that goes.
Also a fun new thing for me is coaching "varsity" volleyball. Our team is brand new and it's fun seeing dramatic improvement in the girls. We got schooled by the Deaf Academy here but I think that by Union Tournament we should be able to hold our own. Anyways thats an update on the Fergusons, if you have skype you can find me there often I'd love to video chat with all of you non-minnesotans and show off Dylan!

Benji
p.s. join my fantasy pickem league! get info how on my youth website/blog

Rock Climbing and some Vintage Dylan

2007-07-04T22:21:00.001-06:00

Last week was the annual Rock Climbing Trip... Steph and Mindy were busy with taking caring of the babies while Rob and I, along with some Youth Group alumni did the rock climbing duties. We had a great time with everything, I made my second trip up to the top of spire 4 and all but one of the students made it up to the top of the easy, yet very exposed climb. Anyways Steph and Mindy were very busy during the week too, this is a photo of Dylan taken in Hill City, SD... The other photo is a characture taken at our city festival last week...Wales is only a few weeks away!

Benji

This is a video from campmeeting 07!

2007-06-21T09:32:00.000-06:00

Ok so here is a video from campmeeting this year

My kid's a mule!

2007-04-20T20:10:00.000-06:00

Well it's been a month since I last worked on this blog...I've been busy. Being a work at home dad isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'll do my best to fill you in. The most fun thing I did was to go over to Wales and help Ed do a weekend retreat for the Welsh/Scottish/Irish Missions. There was about 100 kids there and it was a blast! It's all about international speaking engagements. I'm looking forward to taking kids over there this summer it should be awesome.

Next two weeks I'm in intensives, we'll be out in Cali next weekend for Steph's 10 year at MBA, I get to be a trophy husband for a weekend! Should be fun.

I got guitar hero for my 360 the day it came out...it is very addicting and one of the best things about it is that stephanie likes to play too :) If you are ever interested in playing give me a call and come on over...If you have no idea what guitar hero is...well just come over :)

Tonight we went to Taco Bell for dinner. When I went up to get my order stephanie told me to get lots of hot sauce, our supply at home was getting low. So I grabbed a handful of the good stuff and we proceeded to eat our dinner with Dylan happily sitting on the table in his carseat watching us eat. When we were finished I got up to throw away our trash and turn back to the table just in time to see Stephanie putting all of the sauce packets in Dylan's carseat and covering it with his blanket, like we needed to smuggle out the sauce. I had to explain to stephanie that it wasn't good to make our kid into a "mule" at 3.5 months espeically if there's no money in it for us :)

Anyways that's our fun life. Last time we weighed Dylan about 2 weeks ago he was 14lbs. 2 oz! and he's about 23'' long! The Pic is of Dylan holding his passport, we just got it today so he can go to Wales with us this summer! (Notice the drool on the passport already)

Keeping Jesus #1
Benji

Tourney fever

2007-03-16T15:45:00.000-06:00

well I've never really gotten into college basketball, but I decided to try my hand at making picks this year. here's the link to my brackets :) http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/men/723472/bracketoverview

I went way overboard with picking upsets.

I wrote a few weeks ago about dumb advertising...Has anybody seen the new McDonald's add? It makes McD's look very bad. There is this guy full of energy who gets into a car full of tired and slovenly people who can't function until they get their coffee and breakfast from McD's? The happy guy doesn't get any breakfast and in fact when they get to work he takes the stairs and everybody else looks at him like he's crazy! OK. so isn't advertising supposed to make you want to buy a product? I'd much rather be the happy healthy guy than the zombied out tired people...doesn't make sense...

I'm almost done with my classes for the quarter. Next quarter I take a Gospel's class and also another leadership class.

Dylan is doing great, next week is the big week where mommy goes back to teaching and daddy lugs Dylan around with him for the next 9 weeks...should be interesting, very interesting :)

Keeping Jesus #1
Benji

getting hectic again

2007-03-07T21:02:00.000-06:00

Well I just got back from a fun weekend in California. We missed the biggest snow storm of the year and got to enjoy 70 weather all weekend. Dylan got to meet a ton of grandpas and also Grand Jan for the first time! He met some great grandparents and a greatgreatAunt. Good times. The flight home was the red eye and i had to take the school kids to Waterpark of America the next day. wow I was tired. Dylan must have been tired too, because he slept almost all night last night and all day today. We'll see how that goes for us tonight.

Another quarter of Seminary is closing out and I'm franticaly working on the papers I've procrastinated on. One is a history of the youth ministry at our church here for my history class and the other I have to start thinking about but it's not due till next week:)

MCA has spring break next week and for once I'll be around? kinda strange... Other than that just check the flickr account for some photos from this weekend. Oh a highlight of the weekend was that Dylan got to see the ocean and even put his feet in the water, the picture of that is very cute...

Keeping Jesus #1
Pastor Benji

Random Monkey thought

2007-02-02T20:48:00.000-06:00

It's time that I add to the randomness of this blog. Those of you in the midwest are aware of the Taco Bell rival Taco Johns. Today as I was eating my breakfast their commercial came on and I was amazed at how ludicris it was....As we get close to Super Bowl adn commercials are the highlight of our lives I would like to pause and analyize this commercial. First of all, some of you will recognize Taco Johns from the news a few months back after quite a few costomers got sick from eating there....Fast forward a few months later and the company is using a burrito delivering monkey that rides on a dogs back to deliver food to costomers stuck in traffic...Does that make you want to eat a burrito? As for me I want my burritos as far away from dogs and monkeys as possible. Especially monkeys! These same monkeys who supposedly are the cause of AIDS and Ebola...Please if you see monkeys anywhere around my burritos let me know, as for Taco Johns you get my vote for the poorest choice of a mascot for your company, perhaps in the histoy of mascots.....

http://www.tacojohns.com/Media%20Files/whiplashrun4.asx

As usual Keeping Jesus #1
Pastor Benji

Ok, Ok I'll Post Something

2007-01-22T19:21:00.000-06:00

Well after that first week I've been a bad blogger. But things definitely haven't slowed down at all. I have no idea how big Dylan is now but he's growing and putting on some weight or at least he better be he eats every two hours. We have a slew of visitors. First Jeni (she wants to be called "old lady") came to visit for a while. That was during week one and she ended up staying a couple of extra days. She was a great help and I don't think we'll need to iron or do laundry for the next couple of months!!! I'm not looking forward to that January water bill :)

Then Dave (he wants to be called Papa) came for MLKJr. weekend and we had a great time together just hanging out and doing some shopping. He got us a very cute toy chest for Dylan that I need to get a picture posted of. Oh by the way be sure to check the flickr account as there are new pictures up. Not as many, but there are some quality ones:)

Mindy is our current resident guest, and she brought along Brody as well. (They want to be called Mindy and Brody) She has been a great companion for Steph and the sisters are having fun together, but basically the just sit around the house and try to get some rest between feedings.

I have been pretty busy with stuff here at home and work. I am learning the trade of dad by assembling all of the baby gear, it's definitely a job I can handle. My school work is going well. I'm taking two classes this quarter a Christian History class and a Missions class. I really like the reading in the History class we have just finished reading up to the 6th century. I have a paper due this week comparing some historical accounts of one of the fathers of the monk lifestyle named Anthony... It is also student week of prayer at the school and I'm pretty excited about what's going on there, and last weekend we had 3 students preach for our main services which was pretty awesome as well. My big worries for the next couple of weeks are basically school and getting our mission trip (looks like we're going to Wales) all settled. But as Jesus says, I shouldn't worry to much He's got everything under control. I just need to focus on following the direction He's leading!

Keeping Jesus #1
Benji

This isn't so bad...

2007-01-04T22:09:00.000-06:00

Well after many of you have wished us well after those first two night, I have to say I'm getting a little worried. Things are going way too well. We went for a little trip on the town the other day and I found out something wonderful about Dylan! He sleeps on car rides. If he's crying before the car moves, once the car is on the move he quiets down and goes to sleep! Then last night he only woke up twice to eat and poop! Amazing... Anyways things are going so well, I know we must have some tough days and nights in our future, it can't all be this good. By the way at his checkup yesterday Dylan was up to 6 pounds 9.5 oz. The day before he was 6"8oz! the nurse weighed him twice and this was after he had just gone #2! so when we left the hospital on Sat. he was 6 even and on Wed he was 6'9.5 unbelievable.

Belle and Dylan are getting along great. When visitors come over Belle will take them over to Dylan and then stand between them and Dylan until she notices how we react to the people. It's pretty cute.

I start school again on monday with a Christian History class and an Evangelism class. The reading load is going to be impressive but I've gotten a little head start. I guess that's all for now.

People have been asking for more pictures, and they're on the way, but it will probably be the weekend before I get them on the web. I think I'm going to have to change accounts because the free flickr account only allows 200 pics and we have much more than that. So I'm switching over to Yahoo, but it'll take a little work. BOOO Flickr

Keeping Jesus #1
Pastor Benji

Day 5

2007-01-01T11:04:00.000-06:00

Well it's a new year, and there's plenty of other new things in the Ferguson house! We brought Dylan home late Sabbath to plenty of rain showers. We walked into the house and Steph started crying. It was a pretty overwhelming experience. Saturday night was rough too, Dylan had a very hard time sleeping and because of that so did we. He was so good in the hospital and he came home and cried all night. Finally we gave him some drops of some stuff that helps with gas (did he get that from daddy?) and he was able to have a little stool in his diaper which seemed to help things out immensely, but he still had to sleep on mom's chest for the rest of the night which was only minimally restful for mom.

Sunday morning, Marie came over and gave Steph a break and watched Dylan so Steph could sleep. While Stephanie was sleeping Marie worked her magic on our house. She got the guest room rearranged and cleaned up so "the old lady" would have a place to sleep. She did a lot of other stuff too and helped me move my desk so that I would have a place to study while we have this influx of visitors over the next few months.

Steph got her wish Sunday and the rain outside turned to snow! We got a few inches and should have some pictures of that up on flickr really soon. That made the ride to the airport to pick up Jeni a long one and Steph and Dylan stayed home since the roads were so messy. But Dylan loves hanging out with Jeni. New Years eve was a better night for Dylan and Dad and mom are a little more rested.

I wish all of you a great new year. May you find a closer relationship with Jesus and the people God puts in your path in the coming year.

Keeping Jesus #1
Benji

Photoshop is a scary thing

2006-12-29T22:31:00.000-06:00

This is a note from a good friend of ours that noticed the Yoda reference....
"Wise you look, young Padawan"
"Future bright ahead is"

"Benji and Steph,

Congratulations on Dylan's birth. Enjoy the miracle.

Since you mentioned it, I couldn't help but see what he would look like as Yoda. So... no disrespect to Dylan -- I hope he'll forgive me

See you soon,

B<"

2006-12-29T19:56:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone. This is Stephanie, or mom. Today was an exciting day. Dylan has been getting frustrated every time he tries to feed. He cries and moves around and it is very hard. I visited with a lactation consultant today and of course that was the one time he latched on and did his thing. She said I was doing everything perfectly. So, for the rest of the day I struggled to get Dylan to eat. He didn't until 6:30pm. Crazy little boy. He just lays there and falls asleep. At least we are blessed that he sleeps so much. Last night he slept from 2:00 - 7:30. We do enjoy that. He was circumcised today. Benji asked if he could go with the doctor to watch. The doctor said, "Uh, I don't recommend it." So Benji didn't go. We heard a baby screaming down the hall while Dylan was gone. We're pretty sure it wasn't him, but traumatic all the same. When he came back he seemed fine. The only times he hasn't been fine is when we change his diaper. We had several visitor's today. Pastor Elvera, Ken and Rita Dedeker, and Kendra and Elyssa Pettis. Marie Carlson also came and stayed with me while Benji went home for a while. Thanks Marie! Benji is going home tonight to stay with Belle. He's taking a blanket that Dylan has been wrapped in for Belle to smell. She'll get to meet Dylan tomorrow. I know they'll be good friends. The highlight of the day though, was when Benji came back from home and had brought me a bunch of red roses and Dylan one yellow rose. He sure is a special guy. I couldn't ask for a better husband and now a better daddy for our baby. Just look at the picture. See what I mean?

Dylans first day

2006-12-28T21:18:00.000-06:00

As you can tell the blogs have slowed down but fun things are still happening! We actually go some sleep last night as Steph's body caught up with her and the adrenaline wore off. We put Dylan in the hospital nursery and they brought him in during the night when it was time to feed, but for the most part we got to sleep about 7 hours or so!

The day was full of adventures, but mostly we just enjoyed holding our little dude...Some of you I'm sure are wondering about the name thing. The short answer is that it's the name that was on both Steph's list and mine. But there was a reason for that, something important to me was the meaning of the name. Dylan is a Welsh name and we both loved Wales when we were there last year, the name means "son of the sea" or "born from the ocean" and as most of you know both Stephanie and I have a love for all things ocean! As for his middle name it's Stephanie's maiden name and as there were all girls in her generation the name was going to die out, so we wanted to continue the proud Crane tradition! So there you have it...

Another fun thing that happened today was that we got to see our pediatrician. He came in and told us our baby was perfectly normal which was very nice to hear. Dylan also passed his hearing test, and we cringed as his PKU test was administered. The PKU test is a blood test where they prick the baby's heel and squeeze out a bunch of blood for testing, that was hard to watch.

On a brighter note we've enjoyed sharing with friends and family the news and getting to talk to family over and over again as the day goes on.

Since this is a random thoughts blog I have noticed that Dylan looks amazingly like Yoda? does anybody else see it, perhaps I could photoshop his face green? but I don't have photoshop:(

Also there should be about 30 more pictures on flickr by midday tomorrow

Keeping Jesus #1
Pastor Benji

Dylan Crane Ferguson

2006-12-27T21:34:00.000-06:00

We welcomed Dylan into the world at 7:02 CST today! He is 6lbs 7oz and was about 20 inches long! Still no pictures, but they should be up on the site soon! It was a pretty uneventful afternoon, but after 4 hours with no change in the dialation of the cervix (can you say that on national blogosphere?) The doctors decided that a C-section was the best way to do things. At that point things went super fast. Our good friend/parent of stephs student/OBGYN skipped her daughters dance party to come and deliver Dylan. And yes I got to watch the whole thing and I didn't even come close to fainting :)

I then got to walk the baby to the nursery while they stitched Steph up. I didn't get to cut the cord though :( The baby got his temp taken, then a shot of Vitamin K, and some eye salve. After about 10 minutes alone with Dylan, Stephanie came out of surgury and got to hold Dylan for the first time and it was super awesome being a threesome family together!

So the deal is that we'll be in the hospital for a few extra days now. Probably at least until Friday or Sabbath. We are both exhausted, especially Steph after a full day of work for her body! We thank God for a very blessed day and for all our health. Also thanks to Marie Carlson for being there all day for us and for the Latterals for watching Belle for us.

Keeping Jesus#1
Benji

14 hours and counting

2006-12-27T15:38:00.000-06:00

Ok so we are finally at 4 cm... it's 3:45ish and we're on nurse number 3, (tanya) She promises to get the baby out before she leaves at 11:00 p.m. :) Contractions are happening but at this point its like waiting for water to boil. That means we're on the home stretch 6 cm to go and at around 6 hours and baby should be born, I'll blog after the baby is born so keep watching for updates!

Benji

The Epidural is in...

2006-12-27T09:51:00.000-06:00

Well as you could tell from the last entry it was a surprise visit to the hospital...We got in and they confirmed that the Stephs water did break and from there we got to go into our own little room here at the hospital. I can't find my cable to get the pictures off of my camera so you'll have to wait for those till I get home, but I assure you that there will be plenty :) At about 6 this morning Steph started on Pitocin and at about 9:30 they put the epidural in, so that's were we are at this point in the capable hands of the Southdale nurses and docs...

Benji

This kid has his own timing

2006-12-27T01:55:00.000-06:00

I didn't expect to be woken up at 12:56 this morning, but I was....Stephanie came in and said her water broke so we called the Doctor and they said to come on in! So 1 shower, 1 set of dishes (it's my turn and I had procastinated on doing them) we're just now leaving for the hospital at 1:56 a.m. So the clock is running for this baby and so are we...

Benji

Still Waiting

2006-12-26T15:15:00.000-06:00

Well It's the day after Christmas and still no baby, I don't know why we are expecting it so early, because the baby isn't due till the 29th anyways. Even though it would be a great tax break for 06 I'm still holding out hope for the first baby of the year on the Jan 1, 12:00:01 AM :) A shout out to my sister in law Mindy on her oft forgotten birthday today and also to my brother-in-law Val for his birthday tomorrow. Perhaps baby Ferguson will be on the 28th to make three family birthdays in a row?
Stephanie and I spent a very relaxed Christmas and it was really nice, I hope that yours was good too. I think that's about all for now...Oh yes you can check out the pictures link here on the blog page and it will send you to my Flickr photo albums and you can peruse pictures of the last few years of our lives and also check out the baby pics when they are available!

Happy Chrismasdays

Keeping Jesus #1
Benji

This video is the best

2006-12-12T10:47:00.000-06:00

I buddy of mine from seminary sent me a link from this video. This is simliar to the gang that Jon Ponder and I wanted to start in high school. (The pic is an old picture of one of the kids in my youth group doing a skit at a patfinder campouth)

KJV (Boooyaa)

Keeping Jesus #1

Benji

http://www.devilducky.com/media/25512/

Xmas Break!!!!

2006-12-11T21:19:00.000-06:00

Well I'm officially done with my first quarter of classes. I finished my last paper today...I think I already have senioritis, because it came to a point on these paper where I really didn't care what grade I was going to be getting. Steph is on the home stretch of school. She went to the doctor today and her blood pressure was high so if she wants to go on the field trip this Thursday to see the biggest gingerbread house in the world she'll have to go in a wheel chair....I think she'd rather stay home :) So it's up with the feet for the next couple of weeks until the little "dude" arrives. I think the name list is narrowed down to a manageable 2-3 names and we'll just have to see what he looks like before we name him.

Belle is pretty cute, we brought a doll home so that she'd get used to us carrying it around the house? Books said it was a good idea to make sure the dog is used to a baby. And now whenever we get home Belle will take us to the crib to make sure we know the "baby" is ok...Anyways attached are some recent pictures of stuff. I hope to post some stuff on the blog when the baby is born, but we'll see how long that takes.

So a very merry xmas to you all, this is the only xmas card you're getting :)

Benji

P.s. I just got a webcam and want to talk to people with it. I can use skype, yahoo or msn IM....

2006-11-22T08:37:00.000-06:00

I got thorugh last week, we'll see how I did on my papers, as long as I get at least a B in these classes I'm more thna happy. Thanks giving should be really fun, Chris and Sara Lowry are coming from the cheesehead state along with their dog George. Belle is going to have a blast having another friend to play with. Belle hasn't really had another dog in the house since the Siglers ditched us for the West Coast and took Olive with them. (I'll post a picture of Belle and Olive at their finest)

Anyways we're at like 5 weeks until baby due date, pretty insane. Here's a couple of pictures of Stephanie with her , shall we say little? belly. It's pretty sweet we can see the baby wiggling around in there adn stuff.

Also a crazy week, my step sister Dawn was in a pretty intense car crash and brok her C1 vertebre, ut I think she'll be ok. My mom's surgury while a little more invasive that we thought it would seems to have gone well and so now I'm going to have to start supporting those pink ribbon causes:)

Happy Thanksgivng sorry nothing funny this week to report

Keeping Jesus #1

Please slow down

2006-11-10T15:34:00.000-06:00

Ok so this is my second entry... I did a 24 hour wedding last night, it was acutally super fun, but I couldn't stay very long because Steph and I had to leave for birthing class it was our first one! Here this is funny at the end we did this breathing exercise. First picture the scene, 6 strangers lying on the floor of the gynacoligists office in the dark...some of you have probably been there. Anyways, we were practiceing our breathing exercises, I havn't eaten since noon (it's like 8:00 p.m.) and I couldn't relax because I was so afraid of my stomach growling. Then there's this lady telling us all to picture these beachesque scenes and breathe...I wonder what it would have looked like walking into that room? I started thinking about that instead of the breathing exercizes and I almost could hold back my laughter. But I was able to just giggle on the inside.

So next week is going to be super crazy. 2 papers due, 1 sermon to write, I can't wait till Sat. night is all I can say.

Hope to remember to blog again soon, perhaps add some pics.

Keeping Jesus #1
Benji

a first time bloggers blog

2006-10-18T10:00:00.000-06:00

Ok so today is Wednesday, A good day because Lost is on tonight. Anyways, Stephanie is 29 weeks pregnant, wow! I'll post a few pictures of that on my site here once I figure out how. We're having a dodgeball tournament at MCA which should be pretty fun because students have to attend this event so it acutally goes pretty well.

Saturday, is my Orientation for my masters degree that I'm starting/have started. I'm a little intimidated by the amount of reading and work...and I guess I also am wondering if I chose the right emphasis for my Masters as well. I love Youth Ministry, but everybody was telling me not to get a masters in that because it wasn't very flexible, but now I'm in a Masters that could be pretty interesting, but isn't going to be as exciting as a youth ministry degree... Oh well, it is the lot I've chosen for myself.

I guess this is a good start for a blog, we'll see how this thing develops.

Here's a scary picture of me :) I took it last spring before I got my hair cut. If I ever come out with a punk rock album, this will be the cover.

Keeping Jesus #1