Blogelemy

Blue Hues

This morning I started to touch up some of the paint that we put up on the walls last fall.  What started as a little bit of touch-up became tearing baseboards out and opening several cans of paint.  In an attempt to paint over marker in our sons room, I neglected to pay close attention to which can of blue that I grabbed.  After I painted several spots I noticed that it didn't look like I used the right paint.  So then after conferring with my wife we decided that I had used the living room paint in my sons room.  So, since I had the paint open and the brush with that paint on it, I decided to touch up the paint in the living room.  This led me to the conclusion that it wasn't the living room paint that I had used in my sons room (or now the living room) I was using the bathroom paint.  After figuring all of this out I labeled the paint with a Sharpie and fixed my mistakes.  There's an illustration here I know it...

Early Easter

"The Christian holiday of Easter is unusually early this year.  Easter
is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring
equinox.  This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the
rest of our lives.  And only the most elderly of our population have
ever seen it this early (95 years old or above).  And none of us have
ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier.  Here's the facts:  1) The
next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228
(220 yeas from now).  The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if
you're 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that).
2)  The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the
year 2285 (277 years from now).  The last time it was on March 22 was
1818.  So, no one alive today has or will ever see it any earlier than
this year." 

Source: www.snopes.com

Maundy Thursday

Among other things I am preparing to speak at the Maundy Thursday
service tomorrow night.  I figured that I would post a few thoughts and
reflections that I have discovered in my pouring over this.

The celebration/festival that the disciples and Jesus were celebrating
was the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread remembering the
deliverance that God provided to the Jewish people after their 430
years of Egyptian captivity.  Passover was the name given to the event
of the Angel of Death passing over the Jewish families who in an act of
obedience put the lambs blood on the door and subsequently spared their
firstborns from death.  Each year the Jewish people would sit down for
a meal and retell this story.  Jesus and the 12 men in the upper room
would've known the nuances of this Passover feast and story all too
well.  However, this Passover would be different in that Jesus changed
some of the ordinances claiming that his body is the the bread broken
for them and his blood is the drink spilled for them.  Jesus was the
only one in the room that this was going to take place sooner than
later.  Jesus took over the role of the slaughtered lamb and this
deliverance spread further than the Jewish people, it was for
everyone!  I wonder if any of them remembered back to John the Baptist
referring Jesus as the "Lamb of God".  There truly was a "new" covenant
that was given! 

I wonder when this made sense to the men sitting around that table... 

Craziness on the Horizon

I'm staring at a crazy few days of ministry coming up in the next few
days. It looks as if things will be crazy until next Friday. While I
enjoy being busy I ocassionally find myself in situations where I
wonder if I have the time to prepare me for what is on my schedule.
This is all the more proof that I need to be taking necessary times of
sabbath. Busyness conjures the hallucination that all depends on me.
Sabbath allows me to trust in God and just 'Be'.

Planning Ahead

There are a few things that I am pretty schizophrenic about.  One of them is planning ahead. Sometimes I get in a mode and I want to plan as far ahead as possible.  Most times I am staring at what is coming up next. Today, Jed and I spontaneously sat down and planned the next six months for the Senior High ministry.  Man, does that feel good!

Home Projects

So, we are still working on things around the house.  My dad has hung a chandelier, put a light and switch in our master bedroom closet, fished out the toy lodged in our bathtub drain and almost completed the additional closet in our basement.  I have helped a little but nothing near the level of work he has put in.  His ability to finish projects has greatly outpaced our budget to pay for them!

MOA

My daughter is addicted to Nickelodeon's  Backyardagains.  After going on a date with the Junior High Pastor and his wife at the Mall of America we learned that they have de-Snoopied everything at the mall and have replaced it with Nickelodeon characters. So, there is a Backyardagain ride that we took our daughter to this past weekend. Let's just say that she loved the characters and was okay about the ride. She kept a FIRM grip on my arm throughout the ride.

Remodeling

My dad is flying in tonight to finish celebrating our son's 6th birthday and help me with some home remodeling projects. I am grateful to have someone who knows what they are doing help me with projects around the home. I typically measure a projects success by how many trips to Home Depot it takes. Currently, I am trying to rid our tube drain from a toy that our daughter put into it. Currently I have taken three trips without a toy removed.

Will the real Jason Barthelemy please stand up...

Thanks to my friends, Jenn and Grant Rogers, I have come to realize that there is another Jason Barthelemy (with a different spelling) who is a "baseball expert" at Scheels. It also appears that he fake bakes.

Overnighter... er... er.... er

I really enjoy this video by Simply Youth Ministry. Like many youth pastors I have felt the same about overnighters. Yet, we still keep doing them.

Labels: youth ministry

U23D at the Imax!

On my list of things that I would like to do sometime in my life is attend a U2 concert. Last night Jed and I did the next closest thing. We went to see the U23D movie at the Imax Theater. It was a sensory overload to watch the band perform 15 of their songs from a concert in Buenos Aires in 3D. Bono was about 6 feet tall on the screen! There were many times when it seemed that Bono was leading worship as thousands were singing along with EVERYTHING they had. I have always been impressed with the way that Bono takes the platform of the stage where millions will watch, listen and be called to action and speaks out against atrocities present in our world. There are so many rockstars who have placed themselves in the center of the universe and allows everything to orbit them. Bono illuminates the darkness with the lights.

Nintendo Wii to be unveiled...

We have had a Nintendo Wii in our home for the past several weeks. My wife and I have thoroughly enjoyed spending our evenings in active competition against each other. If you haven't played one yet, you really need to try it! Our son has not known about this because he will be pretty compulsive about it once he realizes what we have. Our daughter doesn't know either but we don't anticipate it being a big deal in her 3 year old world. Tomorrow is our son's birthday and tomorrow will be the day that we reveal to him that we have a Nintendo Wii. We hope to set up some guidelines for when and how long we will play this "new" toy.

Labels: Family