The Contract

This is week three of the Long March in our household; similar in many ways, to its historical antecedent (except, you know, without all the communism). A couple of times a year, Kadie takes out a contract at her hospital and commits to work more often than normal.* Normally she works for two shifts a week which allows us to meet most of our financial goals at this point. But there’s little $$ extra for things like major household and vacations. One of the frustrating elements of my own job is that I cannot really pick up any extra work. (Unless I moonlight at Chili's).

So during such times, Kadie bites the bullet and signs a contract in which she guarantees that she’ll work 40 hour weeks for the specified duration. Most of the time, these contracts are 6 weeks in length, but these are great days to be a Registered Nurse. Hospitals are desperate for their services and are grateful for any hourly scraps that nurses can provide. So Kadie has signed up for a four week stint.

So that explains the “Why?” but not the “How?” Whenever she signs one of these contracts, our household goes into lock down mode for the duration. Adding to the difficulty of these days is that fact that with this particular contract, she’s working the 11 pm to 7 am shift. So on a good day, she arrives just after the morning rush to get the kids off and goes straight to bed. She then sleeps until the kids start to get home at three, giving her a nice 7 hours of sleep.


Only it never works that way. First, in most instances, a busy night has pushed her morning arrival as late as 10:30 am. Then there are those mornings when there is street construction going on outside the house. We’ve also experienced multiple visits from assorted judges and representatives in the days leading up to the recent election who were out “courtin the electorit”. Lack of maternal sleep leads to increased tension for all.


But enough about her. These contracts are tough on the rest of the family. The kids (and the husband) have to be a little more self motivated than normal. Mornings are particularly eventful. Scooter wakes up Squealer at 6:00 and prepares him breakfast while I hit the shower. Then I fix his lunch while she fixes her own. At 6:40 we wake up Skeeter. Then we get dressed and three of us hit the door to get to Squealer and Scooter’s bus stops. I then return to make sure Skeeter is progressing well. At 7:30 she hops on her bike and I leave for work. I drive by her crosswalk to make sure the guard is there and then head for my own school.


The evenings are filled with homework and house cleaning. I try to pick up the slack because Kadie only has a limited amount of time with the kids. We’ll all be glad when the end of the week hits and her contract ends.

*I’m well aware that the phrase “taking out a contract” has a Mafioso connotation. I’m sure that this is intentional. In my experience, with both a hospital contract and a mobster contract there is a high probability that someone will die during its duration.

Cross Posting

No time for a full blown post at the moment. I do note two cross posts.

First, David Rogers continues to take a ball-ping hammer to my fragile views on ecclesiology in an excellent SBC Impact post.

In addition, a good friend of mine from seminary stole referenced the blog post “Deep Waters Ahead” in a sermon this last Sunday. He tells the story here.

True feelings

This morning, Squealer wandered through the house shouting my name. When he finally found me he said “Daddy, Scooter called me weird!” Now weird is one of those nebulous words that is highly discouraged, but not actually forbidden in our house. Still, it’s unusual for Scooter to use that term with her brother. But clearly it was a situation that I had to address.

When I went into the living room I found Scooter sitting on the couch reading a book. I said “Scooter, did you really call Squealer weird?”

Without raising an eye she shrugged and said “Somebody had to finally let him know.”

Guest Post

In the range of mountains that form the tectonic presence of the Southern Baptist Convention on the internet, the Mount Everest of publications is a site known as SBC Impact!. Judging from today’s lead article, their editorial screening process needs some serious revision.

Deep Waters Ahead

Over the last few weeks, I’ve shared some special moments with my kids. With the small perspective that being a parent for 13 years provides, I know that these moments are fleeting. The brevity of childhood hit me years ago, the first afternoon I arrived home from work and Scooter didn’t meet me at the door with a shrieking “Daddy’s Home!!!!”

What I’ve long known in the abstract I’ve now witnessed in the concrete: kids grow up. Even worse, my kids grow up. So over the course of the last month, I’ve had three experiences that I know won’t last much longer. I feel like I’m walking from the shallow end of my kid’s childhood to the deep end of the pool where teen years and adulthood lie in wait. My toes can still touch the bottom, but not for much longer.

We’ve recently wrapped up soccer for the second season and the kids all loved it. But unlike last year, Squealer seemed to finally get the point of the game this year. He scored his first goal in his first game. A writhing, amazing shot as he fell down under a heap of defenders. As he scored the goal, simultaneously falling face first to the ground, he laid on his stomach with one fist raised victoriously in the air. His eyes met mine and he scrambled up and sprinted toward me on the sideline and gave me an enormous hug. Thus it started a trend. Whenever he scored a goal this season (a not uncommon occurrence, given his mother’s athletic abilities) he sprinted toward the sidelines and hugged me. It made me hope for high scoring games.

Skeeter recently, out of the blue, asked me a question I hadn’t heard in years “Daddy, can you rock me tonight?” And so, for the first time in a good two or three years, she crawled up into my lap (much smaller now than it used to be) and we rocked, although her feet were practically touching the ground. He face was in the crook of my arm as we sang and talked and pretty soon I felt moisture on my arm. Realizing she was crying, I asked her what was wrong. She said “I don’t want to go away to college. I want to stay here with you and Mom.” So of course, not only was my arm wet, but soon her hair as well. I don’t know how many more times I’ll get to rock her, but such moments too are disappearing. And of course, when the day comes for her to leave for college, I’ll be the one wishing she could stay while she’ll be the one looking forward to new adventures.

Scooter is the biggest and the oldest, neither hugging Dad in public nor rocking with him in private. But she still gets happy when I’m able to stop by her school for lunch. She likes it when I sit with her and her friends at the lunch table and they explain to me again all of the intricacies of early teen life. She rolls her eyes at my corny jokes and turns beet red in front of her friends when I display my attempts at cool lingo “Between us, let’s keep it on the ‘LD” or “That new group is really on the chain!” But her face lights up whenever I get the chance to come by and she gives me a quick peck on the cheek goodbye when her friends are safely around the corner.

But I can see changes coming. Squealer will one day celebrate goals with high fives instead of hugs and Skeeter will ask me for gas money instead of time in the rocking chair. Scooter will beg me to take her off campus to lunch instead of eating around her friends. But I’ll treasure these moments and I’ll miss them at the same time.

My feet can still touch the bottom, but not for much longer.

A Pastor Search Committee Observed

I wanted to consolidate all of the PSC posts in one spot in order to impose order on my chaotic posting schedule. Here are the posts for the Pastor Search Committee experience at Lakeview Baptist Church. Once again, I’m certainly not indicating that this is the best way to conduct a search. My desire is simply to illustrate for other committees, or for pastors going through the process, what one search looked like. We dealt with a variety of problems and didn't always make the best of decisions. But it is my hope that others will find our experience valuable and will offer observations, suggestions, or rebukes to our conclusions.

1. Joining the Committee

2. Committee Composition

3. Chairing the Committee

4. Is Unanimity Necessary?

5. Determining the PSC Process

6. PSC as Ministry

7. Initial Contact Questions

8. PSC Covenant

9. PSC Etiquette?

10. War and wiring

11. Update

12. The Macro View

13. Gathering Resumes

14. Initial Contact

15. Checking References

16. Mealtime Interview

17. Meeting the Candidate

18. A Second Meeting and Shocking News

19. David’s Resignation

20. Resignation Aftermath

21. Visiting the Candidate’s Home Church

22. Visiting the Candidate’s Home Church (II)

23. Pastor Search Committee Interview Questions

24. The Theological Interview

25. The Theological Interview (II)

26. Background Checks and Insider Candidates

27. More on Credit Checks

28. The Announcement

29. The Phone Call

30. Phone Calls and Fire Fighting

31. Preparing for the Candidate’s First Sunday

32. In View of a Call

33. Setting a Pastor’s Salary

34. The Business Meeting

35. The Vote

36. The Installation Service

37. Loose Ends

38. Pastor Support Committee