Vacation Bible School - 2008

SO, we are in the middle of our 2008 Vacation Bible School, and things are going great. We have had over 100 kids the last two nights. This is great to have this many kids coming to VBS, but it also puts a great strain on our resources and volunteers as we try and deal with very large groups of kids. But overall this VBS is going great. We are raising money for Boys and Girls Missionary Challenge. For those that don't know it is an Assemblies of God program that provides ministry tools and resources to missionaries around the world. Basically the money we raise will be able to make sure kids around the world can have programs like VBS where they are. The kids are really getting excited about this as we are making it a Boys VS Girls Contest. As of last night (wed) the girls were winning, but barely. We are not sure of the money count - and it really would take too much to count all the money, so we are doing it by weight, and just a guess is that the Girls bucket weighs slightly more than the boys right now. We will all find out on Friday who wins.

Overall VBS this year is going great and we are excited about the impact that is being made on over 100 kids each night. FUN, FUN, FUN.

God is AWESOME!

The First Church of Second Life (a response)

I just read this blog post from Out of Ur called The First Church of Second Life.  I have recently been intrigued by Second Life as it seems to be gaining in popularity and being mentioned more and more as the new and upcoming way to Social Network.  I created my own Second Life user with the name of Brit Quandry to check out exactly what Second Life was all about.  

Here is kind of my thoughts about the whole Second Life program.  I personally found it kind of creepy.  For one, I couldn't use my real name - now I know for many people this is actually a positive for them because they can become something different in their "second life" than they are in their first life, but that leads me to the second reason that I find it creepy.  I think it is creepy because people who don't like who they are in their first life end up with their alter egos in Second Life.  They can do the things that they only wish they could do in their real life.  If they secretly want to be a stripper - that is available to them in Second Life. If they secretly want to sell drugs - just do it on Second Life. My point is that Seconf Life seems to be a way for people to escape reality, which I don't think is necessarily a good thing.

Now I do want to say something positive that can come out of Second Life. I think that almost any of the Social Networking sites, whether that be Myspace, Facebook, or Second Life allow the minster to see into peoples lives and see the needs and struggled that they may not see in the course of the noemal day. People seem to be more open to sharing their personal life over the internet through a social networking site than they are through other means of communication. I think this gives the minister, whether that be the pastor of thr church or youth pastor or even children's pastor an avenue to minister to someone's needs more effectively because the need is known, rather than just guessing. So while Second life seems to me to have some real creepy qualities, I also see the value in it as a ministry, I truly hope and pray that those churches and ministries that are utilizing Second Life can be effective in ministering in cyberspace.

The Return of Internet

As I said yesterday, our internet had been down for a couple days. I go to the point of frustration as this had been a common occurrence with our internet provider. Here was the rub. The internet provider we had was providing us free internet in exchange for using our facility for a wireless signal tower. So now I have decided to sever the contract and instead am signed up and paying for DSL internet. It is much more reliable and faster. AND so NOW I am reconnected to the world out there and hopefully will not be disconnected again for quite some time.

Now to catch up on how the world has changed in 3 days.

Without Internet

Well we have been without internet at the church and at home now for almost 3 days. You may be wondering how I am writing this blog post without internet, all I can say is a Blackberry is a wonderful thing. Anyway, throughout this time without internet there is something I have come to realize - not having the internet is like not having a car. You don't really realize how much your life revolves around it until you don't have it. For example, I really would like to do some research on Sunday School curriculum where the kids and adults are all learning the same thing. The problem is, without the internet I really can't look these things up. It really makes me wonder what people did 15 - 20 years ago when they wanted to do some research. I guess that people went to a library or something, but that doesn't seem to be as useful as it once was. This could be a reason why we are seeing the world change at a more rapid pace than ever before. Now instead of waiting months or years to find out what the new wave of thinking is by reading a book, it is now immediately at your finger tips on the World Wide Web. When someone figures out something new, or has a new idea and they mention it on the web it is available for everyone within a matter of seconds. Even those with a rudimentary knowledge of the Internet can find out what people are doing all over the world and whether or not it is beneficial to them. This has great impact for ministry because as ministers we need to, at the very least, know about these trends and possibly even utilize some of this within our own Ministry area.

So here I sit without internet, trying my best to surf the web on a cell phone - and boy can that be painful.
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