You may or may not already know that Mike King and I are hosting a gathering we are calling Prelude in April. I am excited to be with those of you who have already registered.
Today, I got word from our office that we have someone coming all the way from the Philippines! I am totally stoked by that…

You can learn more about Prelude at our website and blog. We would love to have you join us and other youth workers!

Do you know that laughter can add +8 years to your life (according to an AIG ad I read in Newsweek)? If that is true, we all need to stop taking ourselves so seriously and laugh it up a bit more…

Anyway, here is a joke in the AIG ad (pg. 67 of Newsweek pictured above). The next time your lead pastor asks you to speak or report or whatever to the whole congregation you can use this one to calm your nerves and lighten the room up a bit…

A guy joins a monastery and takes a vow of silence:

He’s allowed to say two words every seven years. After the first seven years, the elders bring him in and ask for his two words. “Cold floors,” he says. Seven more years pass. They bring him back in and ask for his two words. “Bad food,” he says. Seven more years pass. They bring him in for his two words. “I quit,” he says. “That’s fine,” the elders say, “You have done nothing but complain since you got here.”

I am in Kansas City today working with Mike King and others at YouthFront. Mike and I (and Matt Wilks) swung by this really cool coffee shop near the YouthFront offices and who is sitting outside enjoying a cup of coffee with his friends…? George Brett, considerably one of the greatest third baseman in all of MLB history. Very cool… especially since we ate a burger at his restaurant down on the plaza last night while watching a bit of the Monday night football games.

Some might say that Brett is most noted (outside of KC) for the “pine tar incident” at Yankee Stadium in 1983 but around KC he is noted as being one of the best of all time and now most noted as a genuine guy who gives back to his community is numerous ways.

Brett has always been one of my most remembered and favorite baseball players. I remember watching KC games on TV with my dad and hearing my dad (an accomplished baseball player himself) telling me that I was watching a player that would undoubtedly go down in history as one of the best. Today, to see him sipping a cup of coffee, give him the nod or respect and honor — and get a nod and smile back — will go down as one of the coolest moments in my life.

Earlier today I had a Video SKYPE conversation with one of my good friends. He asked me as he regularly does, “Chris, how are you?” I responded as I regularly do by saying, “I am doing really well.” He didn’t accept my response this time. He said, “You are so full of crap! When are you going to give me the unedited version of how you are doing?”

After 30 minutes or so of catching up, he sent me away to read a section of a book called, Telling Secrets by Frederick Buechner. Here is a bit of it…

“I have come to believe that by and large the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition — that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else.

It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are even if we tell it only to ourselves — because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real things.”

Perhaps you will be as challenged by these words from Buechner as much as I was. Today, tell a friend who you really are. It feels good. I promise. I just phoned my friend back and told him a few of my secrets. At the least, tell yourself so not to accept the “highly edited” version.

Blessings friends!

A week or so ago I got tagged by Stacy Sublett (a friend of mine who is a youth pastor in State College, PA) with a fun little deal he ripped from Jason Powell’s blog… So here goes, the 15 songs that came up when I opened iTunes and hit Shuffle.

1. Now’s the Time — Miles Davis
2. Dream in the Cup — David Wilcox
3. Sugarchrist and Blackheadlights — Eric Tasa
4. Slip Slidin’ Away — Paul Simon
5. Weeping Pilgrim — Natalie Merchant
6. Alibi — David Gray
7. Somebody Already Broke My Heart — Sade
8. Outside Villinova — Eric Hutchinson
9. Out of My Mind — James Blunt
10. The Naked Ride Home — Jackson Browne
11. Cinder and Smoke — Iron and Wine
12. Word of God Speak — Mercy Me
13. The Itch is Back — Michael Roe
14. Mary — Patty Griffin
15. King of Glory — Chris Tomlin

For my good friend Nathan in Australia — and the whole lot of us really…

“The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future…”

“The reality of naked trust is the life of a pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future.”

Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust, pages 12 & 13

This weekend has been a fantastic weekend for me so far… I hope you are having a great one too.