Soccer Finale

Like a meteorite streaking across the fall sky, soccer season has now come and gone. The kids played their last games on Saturday. Squealer’s team performed exceptionally well. It’s interesting to note that some kids just seem to “get it” at an earlier age than others. I’d guess that 95% of the goals were scored by about 4% of the kids. Squealer’s team had one kid who got it and she scored 4 or 5 goals a game. The other kids scored only when the mob of kids happened to migrate into a net. Squealer scored a couple of goals throughout the season, but spent a lot of his time zoning out on both butter and dragon flies.

Strangely, right after his final game, he was stung by a bee. I tried to comfort him by explaining the impressive symmetry that the bee sting brought to the season, bookending his and Scooter’s experiences with soccer, but he didn’t find much succor in that.

Scooter’s team was beaten day in and day out throughout the season. There were three teams in her league and the other two teams just beat on her team relentlessly. They lost all their games. She had a blast though, manning (?!) the defender’s position and blasting out soccer balls whenever they came her way.

Skeeter’s team performed well. We (for I am an assistant coach on this team) played the much hated Red team for our final game. We had played them in our initial game and they pasted us 5 to 1. They then went undefeated the rest of the season. Shockingly, we also went undefeated, although we had one tie game.

In this final game we scored two quick goals and then managed to hold onto a 2-1 win over the fearsome Red team. After the game, the opposing coach told me that our two defenders (back guarding the goal) were the difference. “Every time we got back there, one of those two little girls would clear the ball out. They were the difference in the game.” Needless to say, Skeeter was one of those two. Because of our tie, the hated Red team won first place.

Final Thoughts:

1. It was worth it. Trying to watch three kids playing on three different fields at three different times was often a pain, but they all enjoyed it.

2. A church league offers just a slight reduction in the insanity level of parents. I suspect that it doesn’t happen all the time, this leagues was a good choice.

3. The cheesy pablum often offered up about team sports is true. It’s good for kids to work with other kids toward a competitive goal. The children learned a lot and I suspect we’ll be doing it again next year.

Pastor Search Committee Questions

We've worked out a procedure for making initial contact with the candidates whose resumes we've received. As a committee, we reached the decision that I (in my role as committee chairman) would contact the candidates and ask them similar questions in the initial phone conversation. In order to standardize our communication and to treat each of the candidates as identically as possible, we developed the following questions.

When I first contact the candidate, I ask the following questions:

1. “Are you interested in being considered for the position of Pastor of Lakeview Baptist church?” A necessary question of course. A few times the answer has been “No.”

2. “Would you please tell me a little bit about yourself?”

We felt that this question was open ended enough that it would allow the candidate to talk about the things that are either most important to them or would best tell others about them. Many candidates share their testimony at this point, or will discuss their role as a father or husband. This question also serves as an ice breaker because it starts them off talking about themselves…and we all tend to like to do that!!

3. “Why do you feel that God may be leading you to another place of ministry?” This question identifies the elephant in the room by determining why they want to leave their current church, without asking it quite so blatantly. I’ve been appreciative about how honest and straightforward people have been. Some answers:

“I’ve got teen age kids and there’s nothing for them in this country church.”

“My current church is comprised of mostly senior adults who are satisfied with how church is.”

“God told me and my wife in January of this year that we would be going to another church.”

4. Our final question is “Given the fact that you have always pastored Baptist churches and attended a Baptist seminary, being a Baptist is obviously very important to you. Why is the Baptist tradition so important to you?”

This question gives an initial opportunity for the candidate to share a bit about their theology. Also if they are politically active in the convention they will often mention this fact at this time. Plus if they give an answer indicating that they haven’t thought through being Baptist, that reveals important information as well. Most of the answers revolve around the importance of baptism by immersion and inerrancy of Scripture.

One question that we had planned on asking was “Why do you feel that the Lord might be leading you to Lakewood Baptist?” We’ve abandoned that question because most of our resumes have been sent by Directors of Missions and friends, not be the candidates themselves.

(Back to main Pastor Search Committee Menu)

On a Pale Horse: Grades

AS I said in the original post, the pale part usually comes from the color draining from mom and dad's faces when report cards arrive. Grades are a thorny issue with our family, due no doubt to the different roads that Kadie and I traversed through school. Kadie was a student who was highly motivated and performed consistently at a level of excellence throughout her academic experiences. At a very large high school, she was the valedictorian. Nuff said.

I…was not the valedictorian. My memories of middle school are pretty dark. For reasons that still escape me, I rarely did any school work. I met exams and homework alike with a shrug. For some reason, I simply didn’t care. (This was all brought back to me recently when I received a call from my old school and learned that they were throwing out their old records and they asked if I wanted mine).

Through Hurculean effort, my parents got me into a great magnet high school (I suspect money exchanged hands). One of the great stories in our family’s lore is how my docile and gentle father became unhinged as the guidance counselor tried to dissuade him by saying “Some young boys, like Taran, are just not meant to go to college”.

While there, I suppose I only supported the counselor’s case as I maintained a C average during my best semesters there. In college I did a little better but really only got things going at Seminary and later in my doctoral work.

So all this means is that Kadie and I bring a different set of experiences to the table when our kids come home with report cards. One of the girls does above average work and the other does average work. But they are each capable of performing at the top level of their class. So Kadie and I have to really work at communicating because Kadie sees things as simply an act of caring enough about the work to do it. At the same time I remember well my parents and/or the teacher asking me as a 12 year old “Why aren’t you doing the school work?” and I simply had no answer for them.

We’ve tried rewards to ensure performance and we’ve tried punishments (no TV, no computer). So far, the punishments have proven to be more effective. So when report cards come home, the anxiety level rises and punishments and restrictions are meted out. Kadie and I feel our parenting skills are at their weakest in the area of motivating our kids toward school performance.

On a Black Horse: Night(mares)

Nights have been unusual for us for years. Ever since Scooter was born a dozen annums ago, our schedule has been off its pre-child orbit. I was a heavy sleeper when Kadie and I married, but now I wake up at the slightest sound. An overactive paternal gland and active infants have ruined my slumbering prowess.

Scooter has been a sleep walker for years. I’m not sure what the proper term is, but I refer to it as “bladder induced somnambulance”. When her bladder is full, she wanders around the house, drawn to any light source. Usually it is the television in the living room. It is not uncommon, while Kadie and I are up late mocking Joel Osteen, that Scooter will wander in and start speaking nonsense. We then will carefully guide her to the bathroom and then off to bed. The next morning she never remembers the previous evening’s activities.

Skeeter is the only one whose sleep patterns approach normalcy. She’s simply a grouch when it is time to get up.

Squealer is still young enough to wake up crying out at various times. Recently he woke up screaming and screaming. When we arrived in his room he was obviously terrified and still shaking under his blanket. We asked him what was wrong?

“It…..it jumped up on my bed!!!” said the most pitiful voice imaginable.

“What was it, Squealer?” asked Scooter.

“It was….it was a SQUIRREL!” he shouted in terror.

We’ve got them all over our neighborhood and now that he knows they can jump up on his bed, he regards them more circumspectly.

On A Green Horse: Vomiting

Vomiting comes up (sorry) often in our home, usually in a quotation which occupies the highest insult in our family “You miserable vomitous mass!” Plus there is something inherently fascinating to kids about throwing up and our household is filled with juvenile euphemisms ranging from the amusing (tossing cookies) to the brief (Yack) to the 70’s (throwing the velvet green carpet) to the crass (blowing chunks) to the literary (Great Expectorations).

Although it afflicts each of the kids equally, it seems to arise suddenly and with little prior warning. (This very day, as I am writing this, at 10:00 am I received a call from Scooter at school telling me that she had thrown up.) One day recently I had Squealer in my car after having dropped off Skeeter at school. Squealer said “My tummy hurts” as I drove along a major highway in our town. Looking quickly around the inside of the minivan I spotted my 2006 Dallas Cowboy souvenir cup from the last time I went to a game in Texas Stadium. Torn between my love for this particular cup and a new green interior for my vehicle, I quickly handed him my cup from the front seat as we sped along the road.

Just. In. Time.

But last week it hit Squealer pretty hard. Last Sunday evening, Squealer was acting lethargic at church which is another way to say something was seriously wrong. But as we so often do, we ignored the problem until we got home. Kadie left church earlier than I so that she could begin a 12 hour night shift. I took the kids home alone.

After we got home, I held a thermometer under Squealer’s arm and found that he had a raging fever of 103. I called nurse Kadie at work and she instructed me to give him some children’s purple Acetaminophen chewable pills. The color is important because I was to see it again later. A few minutes later I heard him cry out and complain about his stomach feeling like it was “wiggling”. He then arched his back (in that way familiar to sick children everywhere) and deposited the contents of his stomach on the floor and side of his bed. He then settled down and restlessly slept through the night (on a sleeping bag, for his bed linens were now in the wash).

We were presented with a problem the next day. Kadie arrived home from work around 7:00 am and was going to sleep through the day while the kids were in school. But Skeeter was now at home. After working all night, taking care of sick patients, she now worked all through the next day, keeping up with a sickly four year old (who obviously couldn’t go to school). Moms are saints.

She called me during the day and informed me that he needed suppositories for his fever. I got them for him and went back to work, thanking God yet again that He brought a beautiful R.N. into my life. It means that for any medical procedure, I can opt out due to her recognized expertise. I was unsure how it would go. What possibly passes through the mind of a four year old as he receives his first suppository?????

When I returned home I asked how the “procedure” went. She told me that she described it to him as a “bottom pill.” I applauded her descriptive prowess. “So how did he handle it?” I asked. She paused in thought for a minute and then looked me in the eye.

“He took it like a man.”

On A Red Hobby Horse: Fever

Riding a red hobby horse is that marauder of small families: fever. Each of the children have run a fever over the last two weeks, with Squealer and Scooter each going through it twice. It presented an early problem because we only possessed a very cheap thermometer, the kind where the kids must keep it under their tongues for 19 minutes before it chirps its completion. (Yes, that will work with a four year old. So you put it under their arm and add a degree, or put it in their rectum and subtract a degree. Or something like that.)

We had a tympanic thermometer that was beautiful and registered temperature after a few seconds by simply pressing a button. For reasons which remain unclear it was taken, and then left outside by one of the children. (I vaguely remember a brief snatch of conversation a few months ago involving the kids wondering “if the dogs were sick”, but the three children have remained remarkably united in their silence). In any event it was left outside.

Then it rained.

It no longer functioned and we didn’t want to drop another $40.00 on a new one when we did have the cheap digital thermometer that continued to work, albeit at a glacial pace. (And as a side note, both of these options are far better than the medieval practice of filling a breakable glass tube with deadly mercury and inserting it in a child’s mouth…now there’s a bright idea).

In any event, after Squealer developed a fever, I made the decision to purchase a new thermometer. I was immediately confronted with a new option: the temporal thermometer. With a wave of the hand, one can swipe it across the forehead of the afflicted person and it registers a temperature from the temporal artery. I had seen one of these first used in our pediatrician’s office and after some initial internet research I made the purchase.

So we got it and used it. It is about the size of an electric toothbrush (or a lean cucumber) and gives a healthy feel to the user. It makes you feel a little bit like Leonard McCoy as you scan your child’s forehead. But the best part is, it’s instantaneous, generating an immediate reading. It is particularly helpful when the kids are asleep.

The only problem is that the kids want to play with it, so we’ve had to restrict its use to humans. On several mornings, the kids have come into the kitchen and announced “I think I’m sick, can I take my temperature?” And immediately another one will yell “I’ll take her temperature. Our new rule is that if you are well enough to fight over who gets to use the medical tricorder thermometer then you must not have a fever.

So as for now, we have a new thermometer in the house. At least until the next time it rains.

In some ways the fever is the worst of the four riders. It snatches your normal electric kids and replaces them with burning, sluggish, automatons. While the fever rages they don’t move or even speak that much. Although the house is quieter, it

The worst thing about fever though is that it is often a emissary, an initial messenger, yea, a harbinger of worse things to come.

Tomorrow: Riding the Green Horse -- Vomiting

On a Pale Hobby Horse: The Four Riders of the Children’s Apocalypse

I dedicate the next few evenings of blogging to those who look back fondly upon their childhood memories. As with the rest of our lives, childhood has its depths as well as its heights. While I’ve mentioned several of the fun times with our kids (see here and here for example) fond memories they will no doubt recall, we oftentimes forget that life can be tough as well. This series recounts how the last few weeks have progressed for us. Anyone who ever yearns for the halcyon days of bygone childhood has forgotten weeks like these.

So with that, let me preview the next four entries

On a Red Horse : Fever
On a Green Horse : Vomiting
On a Black Horse : Night(mares)
On a Pale Horse* :Report Cards

*Pale refers to the shade of Mom and Dad’s faces when we saw the grades

PSC as Ministry

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had a few encounters that have put an interesting perspective on the Pastoral Search Process. What has surprised me the most so far is the possibility of this committee work itself being a form of ministry. I haven’t read any other accounting of the Pastor Search Committee as an act of ministry, but this possibility was pointed out to me over lunch a few months ago.

What planted this concept in my mind was a lunch conversation I had with the search chair from the previous search committee. He mentioned that in the course of their search, they had an opportunity to minister to pastors, even the ones whom they then did not call. That got me thinking about ministry possibilities with this committee. I think there have been a few opportunities for ministry already in the process.

First, and perhaps most obvious, are those opportunities for us as a committee to minister to our own individual members. We’ve had a few scary situations arise involving the family of committee members and we’ve taken the time to pray for them and to encourage the committee members themselves. The Pastor Search Committee has provided an additional support system beyond Sunday School. At times our meetings consist mostly of prayer and a substantial portion of that prayer has been for ourselves and for our families.

A second opportunity for ministry has been to individuals within our church. Due to distant conflicts, our previous pastor made the decision to isolate the senior adults within our church. They have not been included in any decision making over the course of the last decade or so. After our committee was announced, we noted that no senior adults were included on the committee. So we designated one of our committee members a special liaison with the senior adults in order to provide them with appropriate input. We also conducted a special break out session with the senior adults during the Sunday school time (instead of during the evening service, as we did with the rest of the church) because so many of them are fearful of driving after dark. They have expressed a lot of appreciation and I think are feeling like they have more of a role in the decision making process of the church.

Lastly has been an opportunity to minister to pastors. I’ve had several initial conversations with around seven pastors and several of them have expressed appreciation for our conversation. They mention being flattered, or feeling honored that we have even contacted them. Some of them have described private hurts, or frustrations, and have identified us as a “safe” group to talk with about their ministries and their dreams. There are a lot of good, humble men in the ministry out there.

I must confess that I am intrigued by this concept of a PSC as ministry. We’ll see if I still feel that way later on!!

(Back to main Pastor Search Committee Menu)

Frogs and Doughnuts

“The frog jumped off the log and onto the blue lily pad” said a serious voice.


I wasn’t sure what to do with that information.

Kadie was on the other end of the phone, driving home from picking up Squealer from his preschool program.

“Hmmm” I replied, trying to match the gravity in her voice.

“You have no idea what that means, do you?”

Silence.

Finally, I said “Nope” popping the “p” as much like Black Adder as I possibly could.

She sighed wearily, reminded yet again about how often she must explain things to the other four members of the household, and with a voice of resignation said “All the kids in Squealer’s class have frogs with their names on them sitting on a log. When the kids misbehave, their frog jumps onto a blue lily-pad. If the kid continues to misbehave, the frog next jumps onto the red lily pad and a note goes home to their parents.”

A few minutes before, Squealer had gotten into the car and announced to his Mom that his frog “fell off the log” and onto the blue lily pad. I loved how he described the frog as “falling off,” thus absolving himself from all blame by characterizing himself as a helpless pawn who is merely the passive recipient of universal forces far beyond his ken.

As punishment, we grounded him from Words World.

{In an unrelated note, whenever Squealer gets out of his bed at night and starts roaming the house, Scooter normally sees him first. When she sees him she announces in an official sounding voice “The jelly has left the doughnut.” I’m unsure where she first heard this, but it never fails to induce laughter from me.}

Unbelieveable!!!

Since I noted the "Seattle Slip" last season, I feel obliged to note the most incredible four yard run I've ever seen.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylON9AzHr8M







You know it's an incredible run when the Rams are the ones who call time out after the play!

Update on Pastor Search Committee

We've had a few weeks without any entries regarding the search committee, so I'll pass some notes along here. I’ve been thinking about this “live blogging” of a pastoral search and balancing the fact that some might find this helpful verses the confidentiality which we keep as a committee. My intention is to be somewhat circumspect and emphasize that this is how we are approaching this task and other strategies would work equally well. I hope some might find it helpful.

The PSC (Pastor Search Committee) put together a Search Committee covenant. I think we’re going to put it up on our church’s website, but I would prefer not to link to our church through Coffeespoons. We signed the covenant and shared it with Lakeview. They appreciated (or feigned appreciation for) the fact that we communicated our expectations for ourselves and for the church in the document.

We then decided that to give the church an opportunity to identify our own strengths, weaknesses and opportunities. We conducted break-out sessions after a Sunday evening service and divided the congregation into smaller groups to get their perspective on these issues. I should mention that there were a few in the church (though not on the committee) who found it to be a waste of time, apparently thinking that we should simply go into seclusion for eighteen months and then signal our choice for the new pastor with white smoke. We then went through their responses so that we now have a good idea of the church's self perception. (It was almost identical to our own evaluation of these areas of our church).

The committee has also spent several meetings identifying the particular procedures we will use for interacting with candidates. We have received several resumes over the last few months. As the chairman, I will call each name we receive and will have an initial conversation with them to see if they are still interested in being a candidate for the position. Following this conversation we will begin the process of prayerfully considering the various candidates. When we have a few that we want to hear we will go and attend a worship service at the church where they are currently pastoring.

Looking ahead, I have been somewhat concerned about the level of theological understanding of Lakeview Baptist. Oddly, I think our church has a strong understanding of tier one and tier three level doctrines, but not as much of tier two doctrines. Essentially, whatever the pastor has believed, the church has followed. For example, I don't know that our church has a position on the issue of open or closed communion, accepting those baptized by immersion in another tradition, or divorced deacons. My concern is that when we begin the process of talking with candidates we will get some questions that we have not previously addressed as a church.

So in an effort to begin a conversation on these questions, each PSC meeting will include a discussion about a sections of the BF&M. My hope is that it will help us have a clearer understanding of our theological foundation. Then when we begin to speak with a pastor we will have a better understanding of our own beliefs and a framework for discussing his.

(Back to main Pastor Search Committee Menu)