WEDNESDAY EVENING, October 1st, 2008 is the Kidology Celebration Banquet as the Kick Off Event to Kid U Celebration Conference. YES! We are celebrating 10 YEARS of KID U! Actually, we’ve done FIFTEEN of these large conferences (in different states same year) and I’ve literally lost track of how many of the smaller Kidology To Go events we’ve done, including their predecessor, “Science of Kidology.” We are takin the opportunity of this 10th anniversary event to celebration, look back, and vision cast for the future of Kidology!
We have many family, friends and fans who were not able to make it to Chicago for the banquet so I’m excited to announce that we are planning to broadcast the event LIVE via Ustream.com.
GO TO: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-with-the-kidologist or just visit the home page of Kidology.org. You not only will be able to watch the event, but chat with others who are watching as well. I recommend you register on the site for a free account so your chat name will be your username. I did a test braodcast last night and got to chat with four members from virginia, florida and oregon all at once and they got to see my Star Wars museum in my basement. What a perk for being the first! I will send out a reminder via Twitter if you follow me there or on facebook.
I HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE - well, you’ll be able to see me, I’ll be able to say hi at the camera and occasionally in the chat room! Now you can attend the banquet no matter where you are! (Isn’t technology fun?)
September 20, 2008 at 8:29 pm · Filed under Family, Luke
Today was the day we finally gave Luke another haircut. We love his curly hair, but when it starts getting in his eyes we know we have to cut it again. It’s a bummer because he always seems to age three months with a hair cut. We know, “It’ll grow back” – but he’s so stinkin’ cute with those curls! Too bad, today was hair cutting day! And for the past two years Sara has been cutting both boys hair to save money. (haircut prices have gotten ridiculous if you ask me!)
Here he is, all smiles and read to go under the knife,
er, scissors anyway.
That’s one curly head!
Our personal hair stylist at work!
Bye, Bye Bangs! (my wife would like to ask you not look at the
messy counters in the background)
Oops, was that an ear lobe?
Elmo helps the time go by as mommy sculpts the head.
It’s a brand new boy!
Is this the same boy!?!? Amazing how different he looks.
September 20, 2008 at 8:05 pm · Filed under Family, Luke
First off, I have to say, my sister is the ultimate party planner. She puts together the most amazing themed parties for her kids (sample). Today was no exception. It was an overnight camping Indiana Jones theme where they went geo-caching for treasure and every kid got an archeologist bag, brown fedora and a whip! Due to having a two year old, we came for the morning fun. It was a beautiful forest preserve I’ll be returning to for hiking! Luke took to the trails immediately…
It is right along the Fox River in Cary, so there were many water views on the hike.
One funny sight (that I couldn’t take a picture of) was three guys fishing with beer bottles. A poor man’s technique perhaps. They tied fishing line to the neck of their beer, threw the line out, drank while waiting, and when then got a bite, wound the line around the beer bottle to reel it in. Yes, we saw them catch one!
One of the kids caught a craw fish. Going with the theme, we just pretended it was a scorpion!
I showed my son how to intimidate a small creature by returning its taunts right back at it!
While he wasn’t given one, due to his age, Luke found a whip and quickly was giving the bigger kids an amazing demonstration on how to do it!
Which is how he earned the title, “Illinois Luke.” Yup, that’s my boy!
A few weeks ago, our pastor gave a wonderful salvation message – it was so good, I wanted to get saved all over again. I was kinda bummed that I already was, since he made the invitation to be a part of God’s Kingdom so inviting… it got me thinking… what if I DID get saved today, in fact, everyday…
Below is what I wrote in my journey the next morning, and I was thinking perhaps others who are already saved might want to consider getting saved again.*
I dare you to PAUSE and reflect on each of the questions below… it’s not easy, I know.
WHAT IF I GOT SAVED TODAY?
What would change?
What would I do differently
What would I give up?
What would I stop doing?
What would I start doing?
Who would I ask forgiveness of?
Who would I choose to forgive?
What would I give away?
How would I spend my time?
How would I spend my money?
How would I arrange my life?
How would my relationships be impacted?
Where would I go?
Where wouldn’t I go?
What would others notice about me?
How would I start my day?
How would I end my day?
What would be different throughout my day?
If Jesus was LORD of my life TODAY?
Go for it – get saved TODAY – see what happens!
* Please don’t comment or e-mail me about theology of the saved getting saved again – if you do, you’ve missed the point. The point is to ask, how is your salvation impacting TODAY? Theology is only valuable when it intersects with real life. That is the point.
September 16, 2008 at 12:59 pm · Filed under Family
It was 1986. There were hardly any computers. To figure out the first Friday night of September four years in the future required some manual scratching on paper trying to remember leap year! (a PDA would have been wonderful then!) But I finally figured out what the first Friday Night of September 1990 would be… why? That would be the first Friday Night of my Philippine Missionary Kid Pen Pal’s first eligible date when she finally came to the USA for college!
Perhaps she thought it was a joke, or was just being nice, but she accepted the rambling invitation to her first date with me, granted four years in the future, and I began counting the days!
Finally, the date arrived, and we had our first official date in the United States! September 7th, 1990 finally arrived! I could only afford a one way limo ride to the shore where we went for a dinner cruise at Navy Pier in Chicago – however, it was not the place it is today. It was an empty freight yard with only one ship! (I’ve had to work closely with Mayor Daley to get many much needed improvements though for my annual date!)
The Spirit of Chicago, now completely remodeled and relaunched a few years ago tends to be our boat of choice, though we like the Odessey too. The Anita Dee II was a HUGE disappointment… unless you want to be the only sober people on board. (Tip: The Entertainment Book has a buy one get one free for Spirit of Chicago, worth twice the entire book cost!)
A few years ago McDonald’s added a pretty cool Ferris Wheel, that for years was only $2, but eventually they got greedy and realized the same number of people would probably pay $6 to ride it, so they trippled their income. But it goes slow and the view is pretty nice. (the picture of the boat above was taken from the ride, as was this view of the Shakespeare Theater w/ shadow of the Ferris Wheel)
The cruise is usually around three hours and has the best view of Chicago! One year the weather was so bad we never left the dock and another year the waves were so high the huge roast fell and rolled across the floor. Oh, and there was the year a small boat got crushed during docking…. ooops. But hey, out of 19 years you gotta have some excitement!
We now head down early to enjoy Navy Pier before heading out to sea… er, out to lake.
Then the sunset comes and the sky starts to glow. (I didn’t edit this picture at all)
We often make some new friends. (like the Phillipinos last year) This year we happened to sit next to a pastor and his wife, celebrating 30 years of marriage, Larry and Michele Mosher of Tinley Park. We were enjoying some nice quiet conversation when suddenly the DJ picked Michele and I for a little “skit” we had to act out!
She was told that she was now a showgirl named “Lola” and I was her lover. Another guy got a gun… which was bad news for me…
I wound up dead and she unhappy for the rest of her life. I’d never heard the song before, but perhaps you’ve heard it, “Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl…” It sounded familiar but I’d never heard the words before until we had to act out what we heard. I was dying to get out of it. Turns out, I did!
It was a fun evening, hard to believe it was our 19th cruise! (or that next year will be 20!) At least it didn’t rain like last year!
One of the highlights is that every year they take a picture as you board, so this is our 19th boarding photo! Next year we will put all 20 together and make a flip book of us getting older! First, we have to FIND them all! Hopefully we can get them all in order! But it’s been a really neat tradition.
Here’s to 19 more! Though maybe it will be a levitating hover boat by then!
For the first time in his little life my son woke up crying because of a nightmare. We awoke to his tears and like a good father I ran upstairs to see what my little boy needed. Did he climb out of the climb and fall? Did he get an arm or leg stuck through the railings? Did he drop a toy or binkey that he can’t sleep without?
Nope. He saw a cow. (don’t laugh)
I came in the room, “Daddy’s here, everything’s O.K.” to see his fear filled eyes looking to me for salvation. He reached out to me like someone drowning reaching for the life guard. I scooped him up, and seeing that nothing was physically wrong, asked, “What’s the matter, Lukie?”
“Cow!” he whispered in my ear as he pointed up toward the ceiling. “Cow up in the sky.” I put his head on my shoulder so he wouldn’t see the smile I couldn’t resist. My voice remained deeply concerned but my face couldn’t hide the silent laughter at such a cute fear. I was so happy the scariest thing in his little world is a cow in the sky! He clung to me as I tried to gather more info through simple questions. I learned that the cow was in the sky, that he had a white nose and was black. That’s about all he could tell me with his limited language skills. What seemed cute and silly to me was terrifying to him.
I’m not sure where the evil cow image came from. We haven’t watched any slasher cow movies lately and I’m not sure we have even exposed him to the cow that jumped over the moon. (I was just glad he didn’t say Darth Vader or I’d have been in big trouble!)
I held him for awhile and then put him back to bed but 30 minutes later the scary cow returned as did the tears. So I spent the night in the guest room holding my boy close so he could finally sleep assured that no cows were going to get him as long as he was snuggled up to daddy. Daddy slept fine. He knew there was no danger from cows in the sky, but to my boy the threat was real until he was in his daddy’s arms.
It makes me wonder…
How silly do my fears look to God? What things do I worry about that God has to hide his smile, how silly and cute they are from His perspective? But how loving and patient and caring my Abba Father, my Daddy is, who will come to me at any time, running even, when He hears my cries, and he will hold me. And listen to me, and wrap His loving arms around me and say, “It’s O.K. I’m here.” And if I need it, He’ll even spend the night with me. He has nothing to fear, and when He is close, neither do I.
The 5th installment of Kidology Online Training is now available. This Leadership Lab, titled Define, Refine, and Shine, is priced at only $9.99 for Kidology Members so that everyone can afford this valuable resource. We think it’s that important!
Are you exhausted? Stress robbing you of the joy of ministry? Overloaded with more to do than time and resources allow? Then now is the time to evaluate your life and ministry. Yes, life and ministry. In this Leadership Lab, Karl Bastian will walk you through a thoughtful process that will bring definition, margin, and joy back into these areas.
PLUS! This Lab includes a FREE BONUS REPORT: Slaying the E-Mail Monster. Learn 10 AMAZING SECRETS from a leader who personally manages hundreds of e-mails a day. What’s he’s learned the hard way will put YOU back in charge of your computer again!
September 9, 2008 at 8:50 am · Filed under Kidology
Oh faithful readers, you heard it here first on my blog! We often have people ask how they can help Kidology when they don’t think they can do much. Well, a lot of little helps make HUGE help and we need your help for some advancements we are eager to do on the site. So let me introduce you to a FUNd Raiser we are launching this week for this fall:
Kidology’s “This One’s On Me” fundraiser is a way to support one of your favorite children’s ministry websites with small donations that otherwise may seem insignificant. To make it fun, you can choose to “buy” the equivalent of many every day products as your donation. The catch? You’ll get nothing in the mail, but will receive our heartfelt thanks and a tax-deductible receipt at the end of the year!
If you’ve ever treated a friend to lunch or picked up the tab for a colleague’s Mocha Frappucino latte with whipped cream, then you know the joy a small gift can bring and the satisfaction from giving it. Here at Kidology we consider you a friend of our ministry and enjoy giving you the tools, resources, and ideas you need to be effective in your ministry to children.
We’d like to give you a fun opportunity to give back to a site you love! As a non-profit ministry we are dependent on donations to underwrite the costs of this extensive high-traffic site. Keeping our membership fees low means we need those who benefit from the site to help cover the expenses that memberships and product sales can’t cover alone. Plus, it may surprise you that a large number of members pay nothing due to being a student, an overseas missionary, or part of a Group Membership.
So ask yourself, what would you be willing to give for Kidology? A Starbucks drink? An ice cold Mountain Dew? Perhaps just a candy bar or a new pair of shoes? We’ve created a fun “This One’s On Me” section in our store to help you give symbolic ‘gifts’ to Kidology ranging from a $0.99 iTunes song to a brand new Lexus or Lear Jet.
While we are a very small ministry, using conservative estimates, Kidology.org impacts well over a million children each and every month as over 10,000 unique visitors come each and every day to find ideas, soak up encouragement, and shop our helpful resources. As we look to enhancing the site we often wonder, “What if every visitor gave just a small $1-5 donation (or more)?” The impact on our ministry and the Kingdom would be significant.
So shop the “This One’s On Me” section and pick something that you’d like to give to Kidology. We’ll send you our utmost appreciation and continue to invest in making Kidology.org even more helpful to your ministry!
Attention: If you live in California and speak Spanish, then this post is for you! I’ll be going West November 1st to speak at NINOMANIA, a Spanish Conference at the Crystal Cathedral at the invitation of Noel Ascencio, one of our Kidology Spanish trainers. (See Spanish Tract at Kid U in October)
Espero a hasta la vista allí. Tendremos buen tiempo y aprenderemos mucho. Soy muy feliz ser un participante en este acontecimiento. ¡Hasta la vista allí! (I sure hope I said that right!)
