eZine 08.14.2001

TheSource4YM.com
	Jonathan’s Resource Ezine

Weekly Resources, Ideas and Articles from The Source for Youth Ministry
Tuesday, August 14, 2001

In This Issue

• A PEEK AT NEXT ISSUE’S INTERVIEW: Exclusive Interview With a Youth Pastor Who Lost His Ministry and Marriage to a Pornography Addiction
  
  
• ULTIMATE OCTOPUS
  
  
• DIVE-IN MOVIE
  
  
• MCDONALDS BREAKFASTS, DISNEYLAND, AND TIME ACCORDING TO KIDS? A Week in the Personal Life of Jonathan
  
  

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A PEEK AT NEXT ISSUE’S INTERVIEW: Exclusive Interview With a Youth Pastor Who Lost His Ministry and Marriage to a Pornography Addiction

NEXT ISSUE, Jonathan interviews a youth pastor who was in charge of several hundred students in a large, successful church . . . until the secret was out.? Here’s a sneak peek at the interwiew:

PASTOR X: My wife finally did catch me looking at pornography on the internet.? I tried to lie and cover it up but it did no good.

JONATHAN: You really didn’t want to deal with it.

PASTOR X: No, it’s an embarrassing addiction. Years before I was in ministry I had a struggle with alcohol and still call myself an alcoholic.? I haven’t had a drop in over 9 years.? That addiction was easier for me to deal with than this pornography addiction.? When my wife caught me with the pornography it was much more difficult to deal with.? There was so much more shame, guilt and embarrassment around it and I did engage in a program of recovery to start dealing with it.? I don’t think I was ready for the degree of recovery I would need.? Now I attend three meetings a week.

So I started to deal with it- but I kept struggling with it.? I totally underestimated the depth that I would need to go.? Unfortunately it not only cost me my ministry but my marriage as well . . .

ULTIMATE OCTOPUS

I know a bunch of you are always eager for a new SICK AND TWISTED game.? Someone sent this one in – a great game with a sick twist! This game is just like Ultimate Frisbee . . . but . . . you guessed it- played with an octopus.?

Purchase an octopus at your local grocery store or fish market.? Divide into two teams and play ULTIMATE FRISBEE, with the octopus.? If you haven’t played? ULTIMATE FRISBEE, check it out on my outdoor page:

https://thesource4ym.com/games/outdoor.asp

or check out the description below:

-Ultimate Frisbee-
If you’ve never played this you’ve missed out. Divide into two teams, each trying to get to the opposite end zone. One team kicks (throws actually) off and the other team receives. When a player catches the frisbee they can take only 3 steps then they must throw it. Team work their way down the field, passing to each other until a team scores. If the team hits the ground it’s the other teams ball (frisbee actually). If a defensive player knocks the frisbee to the ground possession switches as well. Defensive players must give any person already holding a frisbee at least 3 feet clearance.

Even more fun with an octopus!

DIVE-IN MOVIE

What better week than The Discovery Channel’s SHARK WEEK to pump an event like this.? I just did this event and someone e-mailed it in to me the same week- so it must be a good one!

I used the church’s video projection unit and projected it onto a huge screen at the edge of the swimming pool.? Everyone brought their air mattresses and I got a big raft from my friends at Rock’n Water (the best white water rafting camp in California- check them out on my link page).? Then we all floated in the pool while we watched JAWS.? All the lights were out except the pool lights.

We barbequed threasher shark that night and advertised it as the event where “you eat the shark!”? During the middle of the movie some of the guys were swimming around acting like sharks and scaring people.

The sky’s the limit with this one folks- enjoy!

MCDONALDS BREAKFASTS, DISNEYLAND, AND TIME ACCORDING TO KIDS? A Week in the Personal Life of Jonathan

By Jonathan McKee
August 14, 2001

I’m already tired . . . and next thing you know I’m being fed a line of bull from “a fast food joint!”

It all started last Monday when my family and I packed our bags and took off in our mini-van for three weeks of conferences, speaking, training and family vacation.

DISNEYLAND
We hit Disneyland for a day and I watched my 3-year-old, 5-year old and 8-year-old giggle their heads off when my wife cranked their Tea cup in a spin faster than any body builder out there could crank it.? It’s fun hearing their point of view about the day:

Jonathan: What was your favorite part of today?

Ashley (3 year old): I liked the mountain ride (the Matterhorn) . . . but not the monster.? I’m scared of him.

Alec (8 year old): I like the Matterhorn, ESPECIALLY the monster.

Alyssa (5 year old): I like Splash Mountain and the song they kept singing . . . Alec, what was that song again??

Alec: (non-enthusiastically) Zip-a-dee-doo-da.

Alysaa: Yeah, that one.? And I saw the bear . . . he was like this.? (Pose) I saw him.? (Nodding)

What can I say . . . my kids are cute!

SHOPPING
Then we went shopping in the outlets in Palm Springs.? My son was embarrassed to walk into the “Maidenform” store with my wife.? My wife went into a changing room with my two girls to try on “undergarments” and left my son and I sitting between a rack of bras and oversized “waist control” panties.? My son went nuts.? He started talking to himself.

“Bras, bras everywhere!? I’ll just look at these nightgowns.? Nothing else.? Just nightgowns.? Yes, nightgowns.”

I started throwing bras at him.

TIME
I don’t know how many of you have ever had to explain the concept of TIME to little kids, but in my family we learned early on that our kids would be asking us “How long does this take?”? “How long does that take?”

The first time I answered my (at the time) two-year-old “30 minutes!”? He just stared at me with a confused look on his face.

“How long is that?”

How do you explain time to a two year old?

“Uh . . . as long as a Veggie Tale!”

Well,? I set a precedent that has governed our lives for the last 6 years.? Consequently this vacation has been filled with the question, “How long til we get there?”

From LA to Palm Springs: “A Milo and Otis”

From Palm Springs to Phoenix: “Two Milo and Otis’s and a Veggie Tale”

LA to Sacramento:? “Two Anne of Green Gables”

“Are we there yet?”

“No, it hasn’t been a whole Veggie Tale yet . . . it’s only halfway through. . . it’s only at Silly Songs right now!”

FAST FOOD
Finally this morning we ventured into “a fast food joint” for breakfast.? It was 10:17 AM when we pulled in the parking lot, so I knew we had plenty of time left for breakfast.? Everyone knows that McDonald’s, Burger King, Carl’s Jr., and all the fast food joints switch from breakfast to lunch at 10:30 . . . or so they claim!

There are two “older ladies” in front of me. They take FOREVER to order.? They ask what every item on the menu has in it, how it’s prepared, how the animal was originally killed, etc.? Meanwhile, my kids are all telling me what breakfast sandwiches they want, asking me when they’ll get them, why we’re still waiting in line, etc.

Finally, at 10:27 when AUNT BEE finished her two dollar order I went up to the line and ordered five breakfast sandwiches from the young man at the register.? He simply replies, “I’m sorry, we are no longer serving breakfast.”

My wife starts praying intensely.? We’ve been married ten years and she’s seen me come a long way with my temper since the time I pulled the guy out of the car by his tie when he was tailgating me (I was young- I’ve changed!)
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So when this guy announce that breakfast was over, I reached out and looked at his watch which read 10:28 AM.? My wife’s watch read 10:27.? Everyone in the restaurant’s watch read 10:27, 10:28, or 10:29!? If BIG BEN WAS IN THAT RESTAURANT, IT WOULD HAVE SAID 10:28!!!

But he points to his stupid computer which says 10:36.

This has happened to me way too many times. I’ll be with group of students traveling, we’ll get that mid-morning hunger and make a last minute duck into a McDonalds.? I don’t care what anybody’s watch says, their clock will be faster and they’ll have Big Mac’s pumping out of the horse factory by about 10:25 and you’re up short!

So when this guy wearing the watch that said 10:28 told me that they “were no longer serving breakfast,” I wanted to start hucking Happy Meals across the room.? But, being a man of God . . . I simply asked for his manager in a very kind voice.? He went to the back and talked to a manager, came out immediately and said, “okay, which breakfasts do you want.”

Ten minutes later I’m sitting across the booth from my wife who’s nodding her head in disagreement.? And unfortunately she was right.? She said, “You think you won . . . but you didn’t.? I used to work at a McDonalds in high school you know.? You’re the exact kind of guy whose food we’d spit in!”

It was a lousy tasting Sausage Muffin with Egg!
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