The Post Semester Report

Hey folks! I know it's been awhile. The 14-week fall semester is over and UWO students now have a three week break until the three week fall interim. If they don't have an interim class, they have a seven week break! As a 12-month employee, I need to take vacation to have any time off. I will be taking the next two weeks off, but decided to do some work this week.

I would definitely say that motivation has been a struggle as there are no students around, but I have been productive in working ahead in working ahead on items that would have otherwise needed to be taken care of during interim.

Christa and I have officially signed up for Netflix as our two week trial has run out. I think being members of Netflix will allow us to watch more movie for less money. We really enjoy watching movies and we appreciate the flexibility Netflix offers. also having the option to watch movies instantly with the XBox 360 only sweetens the deal.

This Sunday, I will be participating in the performance of a Bach Cantata at our church service. I will be performing the bass solo and singing with the choir. Even though I haven't been able to sing in the choir throughout the semester, I was able to make the last few rehearsals because school being over. It has been nice to be back with the group. If my schedule isn't quite as crazy on Wednesdays, perhaps I can sing with the choir in the spring semester.

When I got the red ring of death on my XBox and had it fixed, they gave us a free month of XBox Live with it as well. I attempted to use it for Christa's account, but her original account got corrupted. We created a new one and we have been able to play Rock Band 2 on-line. She is going to rent a few games and try them out on the 360.

Having the next two weeks off will definitely free up some time to play some games that have come out recently. On my to play list:

1. Fallout 3
2. Call of Duty: World at War
3. Grand Theft Auto 4
4. Left 4 Dead
   

What I'm Looking Forward to This Week:

Here is a list of things I am looking forward to this week:

1. Getting preparations ready for gaming on the 4th of October. Maybe I'll finally get a post on the blog. People are curious.
2. Seeing what the Brewers can get done this week. The playoffs are still possible. Can they do it?
3. Seeing how the Packers do against the Buccaneers this Sunday. The Battle of the Bays is back! :)
4. I do my first church service at the Evergreen Retirement Community. Their vesper service is at 4:30 PM on Sunday.
5. On Thursday we are having a Staff Development which will consist of us gathering together and enjoying pizza. How fun is that!?
6. After a break today, I will get back to running. I am hopeful to keep these workouts out for the rest of 2008 and see how my fitness and weight change. I am sprinkling in a few exercise classes at the Rec. Center as well.
   

Back in the Saddle Again

This morning I led the worship service at FUMC Oshkosh. It gave Pastor Steve an opportunity to take an extended vacation. The service was typical of a holiday weekend, with the congregation relatively small. It was nice to Christa joining me as the liturgist for the service; folks out there really got a kick out of that.

As I prepared the sermon for today's worship service, I was beginning to implement some of the ideas that I learned from my books on sermon writing. I felt like today's sermon had a clear message and was better organized. The weird things was that when I actually preached the sermon, I was sweating profusely. Typically, I only sweat like that when I'm nervous (which I wasn't) or when I perceive something isn't going well. I thought it went great, but my body disagreed.

The more I read and observe, the more I look forward to having my own church with an opportunity to lead worship and order the service as I would like. The readings I am doing offer so many cool ideas I would like to try out. One day, that opportunity will hopefully come.

Sunday Reflection

As I've said before, I try to pot here everyday. It's rare that I actually remember to post of the weekends...this one is an exception. I want to make sure that from now on the posts I make on here are meaningful and worth reading...worth reading to the 5-10 people that actually check this blog each day ;).

As someone who is looking to go into United Methodists ministry, this is tough to write: Christa and I are both struggling with going to church. Gasp! It had more to do with our own church than it does with church in general. When I go to my parent's church or to another environment, it always seems better. Perhaps the grass is always greener on the other side. Here are a few things that we are struggling with:

• Our service is pretty much the same every week. I am all amount having a certain schedule that people can come to be comfortable with, but some variety helps keep things fresh. Our service has the same components week to week.
• Church is at 9:00 AM. Hey, for the weekend, that's early...especially on a weekend. Try as I might, I can't get anyone to buy into the idea of a late morning, or dare I say, evening church service.
  
• Since our congregation errs on the older side, it is a pretty passive group. There doesn't seem to be much motivation there. The younger folks are trying to participate, but it can be easy to get burned out and frustrated if things don't change.
  

It will be interesting to see how I feel when I am a pastor of my own church or part of a ministry team. How might my feelings change? How will others view the service that I/we put forth for the congregation?

Daddy'll Sing Bass, Mamma'll Sing Tenor

I received a phone call from a member of our church saying that the church choir was being called back together to sing each Sunday until the end of May. When out music director left, I assumed the choir would be done for the remainder of the year. It was wonderful that he stepped in and brought the choir back.

I was curious to see who would show up given the hard feelings that some had over the leaving of our music director. Some of the regulars were not there...but, there were some folks who have not been to choir that are now back. I can not say for sure why.

When I arrived, there was only one tenor. Although trained as a baritone in college and a bass in high school, I bit the bullet and sang tenor as well. Yikes! Singing tenor when you sing bass can definitely be a strain on the vocal chords. However, it was interesting to see music from another perspective. The tenors often fill in harmonies in chords and have a smoother line than bass parts.

When you get used to something, it can be hard to change. I think this tenor experience will be good for me.

I Look Forward...

...to a time in my membership at First United Methodist Church in Oshkosh where members of the church will give the staff an opportunity to do their job. I look forward to a time in my membership when drama will not the focus of my spiritual energy. I look forward to a time when I will not be worried about who is calling at home or on my cell phone because it will be about church business. I look forward...

...to better news. I am signed up for the July ministry inquiry retreat for the Wisconsin conference. I am pumped!

Scandal at Algoma

Last night, I attended the Ash Wednesday service at Algoma Boulevard United Methodist Church. It was a joint service with First Church. I let Jocelyn Crist, friend and fellow RHD, know about the service so we decided that we would go and sit together.

Sadly, the majority of folks in attendance were Algoma folks. However, a few First folks did attend and sat around us. As they sat down, they would look at Jocelyn and I and their glance would take a little longer than usual. Jocelyn picked up on it, too. It was not just one stare, it got to be passing glances and other stares.

I should point out that Christa has a Wednesday night class and knew in advance that Jocelyn and I were going. There was no scandal (sorry). I just found it amusing that if I hang out with a female that is not Christa, it might elicit thoughts and rumors.

Or, I'm just paranoid.

Apartment...must....be....cleaned!

My apartment is a total mess right now! I was in the middle of my winter cleaning project when my computer decided to die on me...it put a lot of work on until I could get that figured out. Plus, with training and the second semester beginning I did not have time this past weekend to do the usual weekend cleaning that I do.

Among other things, I decided that the computer desk I had in my room was not fulfilling it s task. It allowed too much dust to collect in my computer, so it had to go. I converted another desk that I had to that duty, but disposing of the hold desk is kind of a pain because there is a lot to it. It has made a few moves, so it is rickety and I wouldn't want anyone else using it. With the desk transition there is a lot of additional clutter in the apartment.

When it's all done, I think things will look really nice. But, for now...it's bad. I will put up pictures with the new layout this week. I hope to do a lot of cleaning tonight if and when I find time.

Other News:

• Christa had her Jazz Band audition yesterday. She hasn't heard anything yet. We continues to wait.
• The first SPRC meeting came and went. We have a lot of work to do.
  

Sunday Reflection

The bell choir played this morning in church. We played a piece called God of Abraham Praise. It had a Jewish folk feeling to it. However, it seemed a strange fit right after the epistle lesson in the service. Either way, we played the piece better than we ever have, so we had good timing.

One of these Sundays Christa and I will get to sit together for church. Hopefully, Christa gets a partner to teach Sunday School so she can get a few Sundays off. I've talked about this before, but it's important to us.

I have my first SPRC meeting tomorrow. I have not even started an agenda yet. I am going to need to find time for that...soon!

The students move in today. While there is not as much fanfare this time, it is always nice to see the full complement of folks back in Breese. The energy comes back and the building feels more like home.

Sunday Reflection

As I reflect back on today's worship service, I both sang in the choir and played a bell solo. After playing the bell solo, I went over to the education wing so that I could participate in a lesson for the kids about the various committees at out church. The choir piece sounded great, the bell solo went fine (it was the second time I did it) and the education speech went OK. You can only do so much to explain the Staff/Parish Relations Committee to kids. They were squirrelly to begin with; my speech couldn't have helped things.

It got me thinking about everything that Christa and I do for the church. Christa teaches the pre-school kids on Sundays which can be a big ordeal (just ask her about the kids today). We appreciate helping where we can for the church, but it makes me wonder. Christa and I do not often, if ever, have the opportunity to be at church together. I'm in the choir loft and she's in the Sunday School wing. On a rare Sunday when we both might be off, we might get to be together. Many people in the church don't even know we're getting married because they never see us together.

It also diminishes our opportunities to simply sit in the congregation and be part of the service and not feel some nervousness or drive to do something related to the service. I think that's why I enjoy the summer because you have more of those opportunities.

Of course, this comes from someone who is interested in the ministry which would require participationg every Sunday. I imagine even pastors enjoy a Sunday off every once in awhile.

Sunday Reflection

Steve Kaehr led his first service at our church this morning. It is a good feeling to know that you have someone coming in who will be at the church for awhile. He did a wonderful job. Among the things that I appreciated about his first worship service:

• He used an older version of the Doxology. There is something about singing "Amen" on the VI-I chord progression that just accentuates the fact that you are at church.
• His sermon was longer than what I'm used to, but it was interesting. He introduced himself in a thoughtful way and tied into the message of the baptism of Jesus Christ.
• He had an Old Testament reading, a New Testament reading & a Gospel reading. You can never have enough bible verses in church :).
  

I am excited to see over time how the congregation responds to his style of worship. I am definitely on board.

Other Thoughts:

• I have checked out the first in a series of books that our church library has that interpret various books of the bible. I thought it would be a good supplement to the bible reading that I am doing throughout the year.
• I need to schedule an SPRC meeting soon. I will hopefully take care of that tomorrow.
  

The Birthday Weekend [Highlights]

I thought I would take today's entry to cover the highlights of the birthday weekend. It felt like this weekend was never going to end...it was great. There was always something going on. I was sad to have it end last night, but it is time to move with life after turning thirty.

Friday (The Breese Hall Birthday Party) - The pictures from this party are being developed as I write. They will be picked up tomorrow and posted on Facebook (with a few omissions due to content) Wednesday. I will also put a few choice pictures on the blog on Wednesday. Major events of the party:

• My best friend (and best man for the wedding) came up for the party. I had no idea he was coming to the party; he drove up from Milwaukee. He stayed for the entire party and got to witness all sorts of people that make of the residence life team. Thanks, Nick!
• A lot of people were introduced to the power of Guitar Hero. A lot of people are now disciples of Guitar Hero!
  
• The rootbeer keg only lasted two hours. I honestly thought we'd have leftover rootbeer...I was wrong. Never fear Breese hall leaders, I did save some rootbeer for you GLACURH attendees.
• I was not able to get an exact count, but 62 people signed in the guestbook...there were definitely more people than that. The world will never know the exact attendance.
• Thank you to everyone that brought cards or gifts.
  
• More on this party on Wednesday!

Saturday (Dinner With the Folks)

• We visited Christa's parents to catch up and see how they were doing. We were able to watch the Badgers eek out a victory against Penn State.
• We went out to the Porterhouse for steak. Christa said she has never had a finer filet than the one that she had there. They are so good.
• We had cake and made our way back to Oshkosh.
• Christa and I watched the Bucks win their home opener. They looked really good!
  

Sunday (Appleton & Youth Group)

• Christa and I had lunch at Chili's. We split the double order of fajita. Well, we really didn't split the order. I ate two thirds of it. That's pretty much the theme of the weekend. Jim eating a lot of food. Yeesh. I did some serious celebrating this weekend.
• I watched the Packers blow a game they should have one. Two turnovers in the redzone? Seriously...
• Lastly, I had the opportunity to play Apples to Apples and Bible Trivia with the youth group. That was a lot of fun as well.

I usually don't do lists like this, but I wanted you to know that I had an action packed weekend. Pictures of the party on Wednesday!

The Desire to Conduct

So, yesterday afternoon the choir director of my church called to let me know that she would be unable to rehearse with our vocal and bell choirs that evening. She asked if I would be willing to do the rehearsals. This would seem like a no brainer; after all, my undergraduate degree was in music education (with an emphasis in choral directing!).

However, there is a reasons I am not a choir director. I don't enjoy it. I discovered this with about one year left in my program while I was doing my clinical. I thought to myself, "I can't do this as a job...I would go crazy!" I was so far into my program that I did not want to change majors. So, I gutted it out and managed to get through student teaching, although I would easily consider it the worst 18 weeks of my life. It solidified the fact that I wanted nothing to do with music education.

If you didn't already know, I was the choir director of FUMC Oshkosh for one year. I did this when I graduated so that I had a source of income while I was doing my graduate school search for student affairs. I enjoyed that to some degree, mostly because of the people. The members of the congregation were wonderful and supportive. In fact, it was mostly because of them that I chose to come back as a member when I made my way back to Oshkosh.

To get back to the current story, I told Cara I would direct the choirs but I was not really happy about it. She understood, but was also very grateful. In the end, I can do it. It helped that Roger Lalk was willing to help with bell choir so that I could play bells. That made things a little more tolerable.

By the way, will this week ever end? It has been crazy busy...and this directing gig last night didn't help.

Vacation?

Tonight, I leave for Wisconsin Dells and the Chula Vista Resort so that I can attend Wisconsin College Personnel Association on Thursday and Friday. I have never been to the WCPA Conference itself, although I have been to the Student Affairs 101 portion of the conference. I am intrigued to see what it is like and am curious to see what programming opportunities are available. It will also be nice to see various colleagues from around the state that used to work at UW-Oshkosh or who I went to graduate school with at WIU.

For those of you that have talked to me or for the 4-5 people that actually read this blog, you can probably tell that things have been a little stressful for me lately. Work has had some frustrating moments lately and the dealings with church, while getting better, are still a little frustrating. This trip for WCPA will also serve as somewhat of a vacation. I know that sounds wierd, but it will be nice to simply get away from campus and not have to think about work. I have full confidence in my staff to make sure that the buildig does not burn down.

It also raises a larger concern that I should probably take a weekend off one of these days. Just like my staff, I have the option to take weekends off. Most of the reasonn that I don't take weekends off is because I am so grounded in the community, I truly consider Oshkosh to be my home. Usually, my parents are willing to come a visit me. Many of my friends are already here and I have many activities that I do here. But, for the birthday weekend I will be going home. I am sure my parents and friends in the Milwaukee area will enjoy having me around for a few days.

As an FYI, my ability to blog may become difficult Thursday and Friday because I may not have reliable internet access. It may happen, but don't surprised if you don't hear from me for a few days.

Other News:

• Kudos to Taylor Hall for winning the Homecoming 2006 competition! Breese Hall took 5th place and did an excellent job by participating in all events and putting up their best effort.
• I played two songs last night on the hard level in Guitar Hero and did not miss a single note...is that cool or just really sad?
• Gabe and Kristi stopped by to visit. It's always fun to have ex-Breese folks stop by and check-in.
  

Church Updates

For those of you that are curious and possibly keeping score with everything going on at my church, I thought I would provide an update for you:

• Our old pastor will be "checking out" of the parsonage today. Sadly, there are no Methodist Room Condition Inventories (RCIs), but there should be. This will be an awkward meeting for me.
• On Wednesday, the locks to the parsonage will be changed. Also, we will be having an emergency Church Council meeting to finalize a dollar amount that we will send on to the bishop. This is the dollar amount that we think our old pastor owes back to the church.
• After Thursday the members of FUMC will go into the parsonage and clean it up and furnish it so that it's ready for the interim pastor.
• The SPRC Committee continues to look to 2007 and figure out the staffing pattern for the year.

We are definitely moving along and the members of my committee are very supportive. We will have some controversial issues coming up, but nothing could be as chaotic as this current process.

Presentations & Progress

It has been a busy last few days and it will continue to be that way. I have a variety of presentations on the docket:

• I did a presentation yesterday to USRH regarding the NBC Village.
• I led my church's SPRC meeting last night. Thankfully, that meeting was only 90 minutes.
• I am facilitating the LBGTQ Council meeting this afternoon.
  
• I have an adventure to run for OshCon tomorrow.
• I am co-facilitating SAFE Training this Sunday.

I have blogged before about priorities and I have talked about how I couldn't add another commitment onto my plate because I am already pretty busy. As you can see, commitments can sometimes spike and all of a sudden what was once manageable can become temporarily insane. I think I have found myself in that mode right now.

As someone who is involved in student affairs, having a lot of the plate is not uncommon. You could almost call it a prequisite ;). So it's not the spike in involvement right now that's bothering me. It's the lack of progress.

I was talking about this with Christa last night. I am someone who craves efficiency and progress. Ask Christa, she would be first to agree...she knows all too well. Many of my larger involvements have not yielded too much progress. I know you are all aware of the controversy with the NBC Village and that has definitely slowed progress with it. You also know that the church is in a state of flux and continues to work toward moving forward.

Infortunately, the lack of progress has decreased my motivation and has made it more difficult get as motivated in other areas. I am hoping that after Saturday's adventure and after hanging out with my parent's I will have some time to relax and recharge.

Daily Shout-Out: Goes to our new interim pastor Earl Lindsay who offered some wonderful perspective at our SPRC meeting. He is just what this congregation needs right now.

Other News:

• Oh yeah, I do have other games for the PS2. It has been nice getting back into Star Wars Battlefront 2.
• I have some phone calls to make. There are people I really need to follow up with.
  

Days Until the Wedding: 226

Leadership Camp 2006

I thought I might utilize to today's entry to highlight some of the excitement that was Leadership Camp 2006 at Camp Onaway in Waupaca, WI. I really enjoyed my experience:

• My Leadership: Geek, Dork or Nerd presentation went well. I have over 30 people there and I assume that everyone learned something. It came after the first evening of people not sleeping, so enthusiasm seemed pretty good.
• The ropes course work that the group did went very well. The hall leaders were amazing and they actually managed to complete the red tarp exercise. Needless to say, a group of A/RHDs couldn't get it done...and they did.
• I got to play poker, spoons, salad bowl and other activities throughout the weekend. I kept myself busy :)
• I had the opportunity to in some way become closer with every member of the Breese Hall team that went to camp. It was a nice feeling as we left the island.
• There were some parts of camp that generated some hard feelings among the group, but it was amazing that the group was able to start having conversations that will help the group to work through it.
• I always appreciate the opportunity to share my love of role-playing games. Peter and I had that opportunity in the advisors skit. Apparently, we can play AD&D with our eyes closed.
  

Daily Shout-Out: Goes to the Breese Hall Camp Onaway crew: Paul, Lauren, Eric, Ryan, Larry, Stefanie, Kristen, Mary and Alexis. They were so much fun to work with. Remember the tarp!

Other News: Let's see...most of my weekend was dominated by Leadership Camp.

• Our new interim pastor started yesterday. I wish I could have seen him in action. I will this week. Christa said he seemed to be really great.
  

Days Until the Wedding: 230