Tuesday Tea Time!

  Hello Tuesday Tea Time followers!

After a few days away in sunny southern CA, I am adjusting back to the February chill in pure MI. 

The last week has been another incredible experience at my 4th ELCA Youth Ministry Extravaganza. I connected with friends from my past, strengthened relationships that were still fairly new before the trip, & made many new connections. It is a privilege to be part of such a wonderful group of leaders from across the country that work in a large variety of ways for the sake of God's love being shared with children, youth, young adults, & adult ministry. 

This event is a time of Spiritual & Relational Renewal. It is a time to be in community, continuing my education around topics that are important to my personal context (there's something for every context) in ministry. You can't ask for much better continuing education than that, if you ask me! 

I took part in conversations around the event's theme of Wonder regarding the rite of confirmation, self care, gender knowledge & appropriate respectful language, mental health realities in ministry leadership, & community college campus ministry. That is only to name a few of course. The few days of the "E" are so jam packed with two to three & sometimes four things or more to choose from attending at any given time. The speakers are profound, vulnerable, beautiful people that know how to share life, God, & laughter. There was even a magician who taught us all a "simple" trick that I couldn't do again when I went to show Z!

Seminary professors, synod staff, bishops, rostered leaders, college faculty & staff, plus a slew of other people acknowledge this event as the one event for those of us who work in children, youth, & family ministries to attend each year. It is a time to reflect on your personal leadership & expand your knowledge & renew your spirit.

I'm already looking forward to #ext17 in Louisville, KY. Hope to see many of you there! For one more thing to check out, check out OMG Center for a great place to wonder about God & life.

Sunday Snippits:good, bad, & awesome!

GOOD: Watching a movie you enjoy the day after watching a movie that horrified you. There are certain movies that you see the previews for & think along the lines of 'if I watch that it will need to be in my home so that I can turn it off or walk away when I want.' Then you find yourself renting the movie & so enthralled by the story line that is horrifying you that you don't turn it off or walk away. I followed Gravity with two episodes of How I Met Your Mother's final season that I'm still working on finishing. Then the next day I chose to watch the movie The Hundred Foot Journey. This second movie was much more my speed! The love for food, travel, adventure & connection to life struggle is beautifully woven into reality throughout the story.

BAD: The desire so many of us who love living in the great north have for Spring to appear soon this time of year. It would be scary - in my opinion - if it came earlier than March. However, we pull out all the tricks to endure the gray winter months & are very thankful for the days with cloudless skies & sunshine. Some people just cannot be shook of the grump that sets in & those of us that can even everything out. All in all making us all a bit mad, bonkers, & off our heads!

AWESOME: Days of unexplainable sunshine in Pure Michigan in January! Go with the flow sorta work days, friends reaching out for prayers & sharing in life near & far.

WORD: While I have yet to finish I Am Malala - & maybe I never will - I have been enjoying The Paraclete Book of Hospitality. This is one of several books that I thought I would use for my graduate studies capstone project & simply did not get around to until the last week or so. A short easy ready & being based in Benedictine thought it gives some great Biblical & other references.

coming up: This is a very exciting week filled with many reunions & many gatherings of new friends at the Extravaganza!

Tuesday Tea Time!

Tuesday once again! What will you be having for Tea Time today?

It's the last Tuesday Tea Time of 2014. It hasn't been a bad year by any means, but it's alright to say g'bye to 2014 & hello to 2015.

What will come in 2015? The only few things for certain are ministry events, trips to Detroit for the Extravaganza & ELCA Youth Gathering, & a vacation to FL to visit family & have a little Fun.

2014 is a year I never could've quite imagined. It started off with a funeral for a church member, then was followed by funerals at least once a month clear through June. In the middle of the celebrating of these friends' lives we made our trip to Paris & kicked off a month or more of traveling. Only with a couple hundred photos of MG growing up thrown in the middle. The travels started with Paris, ended with Denver, & led to 2 months at camp. In July one of my very best friends officially joined the "cancer kid club" with me. After playing the resource game one last time, I spent August recovering from the summer & projecting around the house. And spent September prepping to start my new job in October. Now it's hard to believe that I've been at this job for nearly 3 full months. Consecrated & all! Of course since starting I've also accepted the call to serve as a Practice Discipleship coach & had previously committed to being the Synod Day Director for the 2015 ELCA Youth Gathering.

So 2015 is going to be just as busy as 2014, but in a whole new adventure filled way!

May your 2014 be memorable & your 2015 be one more adventure filled day than you currently think will happen & more tea & more Life, Spirit, & Sparkle.

Tuesday Tea Time!

Tuesday Tea Time!

In lieu of AJO's diagnosis with Hodgkin Lymphoma I've finally been reading Cancer Theology. This book is a collection of essays/reflections on how to theologically think & live with cancer.

At the ELCA Youth Ministry Network Extravaganza I was naturally drawn to ask more about this book as a cancer survivor myself. Connecting my cancer story (most of my childhood) with God - Father, Son, Spirit - has been a challenge. At the age of 7 all I knew was that God was with me & that was enough. While I still have a few essays to get through, I'm finding a theme of what I will call "returning to the foot of the cross."

Nobody will deny the variety of ups & downs in life. As Christians we are reminded through scripture that all that we are is because of the resurrected Jesus & the sending of the Spirit. God is with us. That is enough. God is with, in, through, & around us. Let's chew on that for a while & enjoy your tea time.

Sunday Snippits: Good, Bad, & Ugly!

Sunday Snippits! Bringing you the good, the bad, & the ugly from my world view. With a few other Snippits of life.

GOOD: This last week started with the second to last day of the ELCA Youth Ministry Network Extravaganza! This event is for ALL leaders working in children, youth, young adult, & family ministry throughout the ELCA & our partners in faith. I say this because you do not need to have any special degree or special title to be part of the network. You simply need to have a heart for serving the kingdom of God for the sake of children, youth, young adults, &/or families. This means your volunteers, parents, pastors, & youth leaders on all levels can join the network & attend the Extravaganza next year in Detroit, MI for renewal, education, & connection surrounding 1/3 ministries! Upon returning to Chebooboo the good is that the days are getting longer & there is hope that with the slightly warmer temps that Spring is on its way despite what that groundhog saw.

BAD: Not having much interest in football & knowing the Superbowl was boring. Leaving your interior car light on for a couple of days in a parking garage 12 hours from home & having little to no knowledge about cars is bad. I couldn't stay awake during the opening ceremony for the Olympics. Anybody else have this problem of wanting to eat & eat & then entering food coma?

UGLY: People's response to Superbowl commercials & how AMERican we are. People's attacks on Russia & having a bad outlook for having the Olympics there prior to the Olympics even starting.  Can we please live into each other's strengths & not worry about the things we cannot correct?

WORD: That read the Bible in a year plan I mentioned I restarted, I'm struggling. While having the Bible on all our techy devices is great, I still do better with opening up the book & reading as I was taught. Plus, I clearly work better with others or I'd not be struggling so much. So today my focus is on finishing Bittersweet & reading my daily devo from one of the many sources I have around here.

coming up: Another week of Zumba & phoning for YE & Valentine's Day & of course lots of Olympic games watching.

Friday Favorites!

SO many favorites from this past week.

This picture of the word "frame" is painted on a stole that was gifted to me as a first year in ministry person. While I've truly been working in ministry of sorts for the past 10 years, graduating from seminary & living into a more defined calling made it more official for me to stand up with the people who have been working in Children, Youth, & Family Ministry for 365 days or less.

YE has been a part of my life since 1996, if not sooner. Here I am with a number of team alumni from across the country. Many of us are serving in parish ministry settings, some of us are still in school, others of us work for YE on some level or have in our past, & we all have been crazy enough to follow a call to live in intentional community sharing the Gospel around the world.

The Luther Seminary connections were around every corner at the ELCA Youth Ministry Network Extravaganza! AUB & I became good friends just in our senior year. She is now serving in IL, so we are not horribly far from each other, but visits are hard to fit in. We are both looking forward to what the future of ministry leading holds for us.

The ELCA YMN is all about networking & connecting. Here I am connecting with the lovely leaders from InterServe Ministries, Raphael Malpica (his son was one of my seminary housemates), & comedian Jason Earls.

And that connecting piece I mentioned, wasn't to be avoided at this event. Here I am with 3 of my Diaconal Ministry leaders. We all attended the Diaconal Formation Event together in 2010. Three out of the four of us were students then, & now we're serving in 4 outta 9 regions of the ELCA.

May your week be as full of favorite moments as this. This is a plethora, I fully acknowledge that, but that is why we attend continuing education events and personal retreats and community events and worship, so that we may be filled up to move forward with the daily drain of life.

Tuesday Tea Time!

I don't wear graphic tees very often any more because for so long people thought I was significantly younger than I am & graphic tees didn't seem to help. The comments were never very complimentary either. This is one graphic t-shirt, however, I would wear.

Reflecting on things of my past has been a prevalent theme of the last couple of days. Not in a "woe is me" sort of way, but in a "what the what (I'm totally overwhelmed)" sorta way.

Not that a t-shirt gets me overwhelmed, but the works of the Spirit sure do. Z & I recently road tripped to St. Louis where we were surrounded by such an incredible cloud of witnesses all working for & with children, youth, & family ministry

I've been reflecting because many of the people at ELCA Youth Ministry Network Extravaganza I have met through one piece of life or another. This past weekend I was with friends from my high school years, Capital University, Outlaw Ranch, Scotland days, Youth Encounter, Diaconal Formation Event, Luther Sem, Michigan, & most likely a few more connections than I can fully remember.

It's crazy how one place leads you to the next & you never have any idea what you're going to do when you have to head to a new place, but before you know it, the new place is the comfortable slightly aged place, & you're looking into another unknown adventuresome day.

Sunday Snippits: GOOD, BAD, & UGLY

GOOD~ Its vacation & continuing ed. week! So this past week has been busy work plus a lot of time inside due to weather. Aside from the busy work there was Tea Time with TE. In my attempt to make us scones I made one giant orange scone & it was delicious. I'm all about the no fuss recipes, so I purposely made one scone instead of a dozen individual ones. Plus earlier in the week I had an unexpected phone call from KT & later in the week an unexpected card from JM! A couple good heart to hearts is energy for the soul.

BAD~ Death in the family is never fun. Z's last living grandparent - Grandma Esther - went quickly into heaven Tuesday morning. We are all thankful she was on hospice for less than 24 hours. Now prayers for decent weather for travels for both the memorial & inurnment.

UGLY~ The way the winter weather makes people complain. Find something worth complaining about! I'll be the first to admit I'm not amused with the fresh snowfall anymore, but it's January & it snows.

WORD ~ Today I restarted a plan to read the Bible in a year. I read a LOT of Nehemiah, yup. I started this plan at the end of 2012 & made it 80 some days before getting tired of it so I figure I'd give it another try.

Coming up~ A little work & a lot of play & the EXTRAVAGANZA!

Sunday Snippits: Good, Bad, & Ugly!

Happy Sunday Snippits!

Another week has gone by in another blur of life.

So here we go with the GOOD, BAD, & UGLY of Juls of #LifeSpiritSparkle (use this hashtag to share the love of connection & networking)

GOOD: Last Monday Ma & Pa N made the trip back to MN safe & sound. It was good to have them here & to be able to show them where we're living. Ma & Pa P were here all week with a little bit of adventure each day. We found our way into Johnnie's, which Z & I had been wanting to check out. Tuesday afternoon I had some time to learn from the annual 3rd Tuesday Conversation (aka 3TC) offered through the ELCA Youth Ministry Network that happens each month. This months topic was about working through transition and conflict. Always a fun topic! Shout out to Interserve Ministries! Thursday we ventured to the quaint town of Charlevoix where we feasted on candy from The Taffy Barrel & jalapeno popcorn from The Poppery. It's a great place to vacation! Ma & Pa P made their way back to IN safely & welcomed family from AZ. While Z & I reacclimatized ourselves to our quiet home, made apple-butter with all the apples we had, & built our first fire in our fireplace!

BAD: Learning to juggle having guests & continue on with some personal matters is hard! I LOVE being around people, but I also am learning to carve out more "me-time" to take care of myself & my sanity.

UGLY: Our car & it's check engine light. And having friends & family who are hurting. and women's education rights in other countries (see articles on Malala)

WORD: Luke 18:1-8 God grants justice & so must we. In what ways do you experience justice in your life & how can you share that with others?

COMING UP: Skype dates with friends & a youth worker's retreat at camp!