It’s a boy!!!

Noah Wesley Burnham was born on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 at 12:01 pm. He was 8 lbs. 11 oz. and 23 inches long!

Technorati tags: burnham, baby

Baby and Bible School

It's been a full week.

As of right now, we're still hanging around waiting on Baby Burnham to decide to get here. He/She isn't squirming around quite as much lately, but has rather decided to stretch and stick it's body parts out. It's entertaining to feel the little lumps and bumps move across "mommy's" tummy. The estimated due date is the 24th, but who knows!?! It could be anytime, I guess. This has been an exciting time, moving through the pregnancy, looking forward to this time for our family. It seems to have flown by so quickly. I can look back on the past months and have snap-shot memories of moments and times that have been special to me. I'm sure the pace and rhythm of life is going to be so different soon, but it will be a good kind of different. I'm sure it'll take some adjusting, but we're both excited about life as we imagine what lies ahead.

We've just wrapped up our church's VBS week. It went well. We had lots of our teenagers helping out and leading this week. Of course, they put me in charge of 'recreation/games' (Does it seem like they always put the ythdir in charge of games? Why is that?) It was good, and I had a good group of middle school boys helping to lead things out there. We had a pool party this afternoon for all the teens who helped during the week, and I'm cooked. I didn't wear sunscreen and it shows.

That and I'm beat. It's been a long, full week. Would like to think I'd get some sleep tonight, but I'll be up in the morning with the "To-Have-Done: @Home" list in full swing: painting new doors, touch up paint upstairs, cleaning out the garage, yard work (if it's not raining), and vacuuming the new carpet on the stairs.

Technorati tags: pregnancy, life update

Don't blink...

Really loved this bit of encouragement / challenge / advice / observation by Mr. Seth Godin.

"Most people blink. Most people get stuck."

I don't want to be 'most people'.

Technorati tags: seth godin, remarkable

Pathways Prep 1

First thoughts on Pathways event... Remember this is brainstorming. Comments welcome as we shape the workshop...

-teens (and anyone for that matter) can only absorb so much information in a short period of time. if the teens involved in the workshop are spoon fed a truck load of info, they won't enjoy it, won't retain much, and won't be excited about taking a leadership role within their local church's youth ministry. so i'm thinking we don't overwhelm them with a dozen seven point lists of what makes a great student leader. it would be great to create some type of experience or experiences that would communicate the core principles we hope to pass on. (and then give them some lists) :)

-note to self, remember to tell the youth: "Your youth leader WANTS you to step up and take a leadership role. Your youth leader NEEDS you to step up and take a leadership role."

-could promote basic discussion by asking youth what, if any, type of youth leadership team/roles/opportunities (formal or informal) they have within their ymin.

-leading through some spiritual formation or meditation on a passage of scripture

-potential scripture study
Luke 22:24-27 (least shall be greatest)
Luke 16:10-13 (faithful in little, faithful in much)
John 13:3-17 (Jesus washes disciples feet)

-i wonder what size group we should expect: twenty something? sixty-five? seven? the approach would vary depending on this.

Technorati tags: youth, leadership, pathways+event

Prepping for Pathways

In August, the SouGaConf will host a training called "Pathways to a Healthy Church", which will be a day of training seminars covering a variety of ministry topics. I have the privilege of team-teaching a workshop on youth leadership with Jim Morrow. Specifically (or generally) the one sentence summary is "Youth who are emerging as leaders in your local church youth group will be taught some of the basics of spiritual leadership." It will be one of the 'all-day' workshops, which means it's three (I'm guessing about an hour+15min long) sessions.

As we prep for the event, Jim and I are going to open the discussion here to gain insight from the masses. We talked the other day and decided to go with the 'puke on the page' approach, so realize much of this will be brainstorming. Feel free to chime in on any of the ideas thrown out here and know that you get to help shape the workshops.

Pathways Prep 1
Pathways Prep 2
Pathways Prep 3
Pathways Wrap-Up

Technorati tags: youth, leadership, pathways event, jim morrow