Fight World Hunger

February 22, 2008 @ 1:26 am by Pressed

I’ve forsaken my website for a period of time in order to work on a different site. Our youth group is doing the 30 Hour Famine again this year and I’ve decided to create a website that goes along with our efforts to raise awareness and raise funds.

I wanted to come up with a creative idea for advertising what we are doing and for raising awareness.  I thought if our students had something easy they could share with people, like a website, then maybe we would be able to get the word out more.  I think that would make a good t-shirt too.

Make sure you click the image above and take a peak at the new site.  I’ll be back to posting at AE soon.

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9 Months Pregnant And Still Not Slowing Down

June 26, 2007 @ 3:18 pm by Pressed

My wife is amazing. There is nothing that seems to slow her down. No matter what we do with the youth, she really wants to be there. It doesn’t matter that she is 9 months pregnant, that her legs and feet are swollen, or that it is 93 degrees outside. Every Tuesday in June and July we have some youth event. This week we went to the zoo. My wife came too! She walked around, up and down the big hills, up and down stairs, and pretty much kept up with everyone else. I think there is part of her that was wanting to somehow induce labor…but that didn’t happen.

Oddly enough, I figured the zoo trip would be the least attended Tuesday event, (I mean come on, who wants to trot around the zoo in 90 degree weather?). Apparently the zoo is a popular place. Not only was this our largest attended Tuesday trip, the zoo was jam packed full of people. Which made for a better show when it started pouring down raining.

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The Wrap-UP : M-Fuge 2007 - Belmont University June 11th - 16th

June 18, 2007 @ 9:41 am by Pressed

We’re back home… finally. What should have taken 6 hours ended up taking us 10 hours once our trailer tire blew. Fortunately we found a Wal-Mart that was next door to a big mall in Marion, IL. The group went over to hang out at the mall while me and one of my adults sat over at Wal-Mart with the ailing trailer.

Now that I’m back home, I’m ready to reflect on the week. Overall it was a good trip except for the administrative stuff that I dealt with behind the scenes and wrote about here. This was the third year that I’ve taken my group to Nashville for M-Fuge. We’ve gone other places, but I’ve always enjoyed coming back to Nashville. It is familiar, it is a nice campus, and the people are friendly. We arrived on Saturday June 11th, had dinner about an hour later, and then jumped right in to worship. From that point on we were going non-stop! Bible study, mission sites, worship, planning times, night life, these are just some of the many things that go on everyday.

The Plus Side:

Belmont University makes the Nashville Fuge camp one of the best. Their campus is beautiful and their staff is amazing. The people that work in the cafeteria at Belmont are some of the nicest people I’ve met. The food was ok, but if you didn’t like the main course they also had burgers and fries, pizza, ice cream and other snacks that you could grab.

The worship was excellent as well. The Blue Water Band led the worship this week. Being a drummer myself, I enjoyed watching the drummer and the dude playing the bongos. The band sounded good together and had a very inviting and uplifting stage presence.  We sang several songs made popular by Chris Tomlin, some Charlie Hall songs, and a few songs that I never heard before, but really enjoyed by the end of the week.

Most of the ministry tracks were excellent as well. We had a large portion of our group in the Games and Rec track. Others were in childrens, social, pcy, and creative. My site was at Preston Taylor Ministries where we put on a day camp to tutor kids in reading, math, and other skills. They pray, they learn to respect one another, they learn the basic skills needed to get where they need to be in school and best of all they even learn the Bible during the Bible stories reading time. Later they have snacks that relate to the Bible story. This is a consistent thing for these kids who come week after week. After getting to know them, I hated to leave them behind.  The cool thing about my site is that normally it is an after school program that is closed during the year.  The only reason it is open in the summer months is because of M-Fuge.  With the M-Fuge kids helping week after week, Preston Taylor Ministires is able to offer this summer camp for its kids to come in and learn.

The Bible study was good this year too. I was not impressed with last years material, but this year the material looks better, it was well done, and the messages all related very well with what we were doing and where we were going.  It really spoke to the heart of many of our teens.  We had several rededications and a couple of people who feel like they are called to missions or to further ministry.  Our church intern that went on the trip actually came forward in church yesterday to publicly accept a call to missions.

I also think that the group picture we get at the beginning of the week is nice.  They started this last year and after doing it again this year I’ve decided that it is an excellent idea.  We always have such a hard time remembering to get to gether for a good group picture.  Sometimes we just don’t have one.  The other good thing about it is the price.  The cost of the pictures is relativily cheap compared to some.  This makes it nice, especially if the teenagers want to purchase pictures as well.

The Negative Side:

The number one complaint by both adults and teens at M-Fuge this year was the new schedule.  Nobody from my group liked it.  Some didn’t really care, but the majority of my group strongly disliked it.  The main issue is the free time.  They took away the majority of the free time that we all used to rest, shower, and take care of other buisness.  This year we got home from site at 4:00 p.m. and had 30 minutes to run up to the dorms, shower, get dressed, and run down to dinner which started at 4:30 p.m.  There was very little time for students to hang out, socialize, nap, shower, rest, or even go to the bathroom.  By the end of the day we were all just worn out.  If this type of schedule is hard on young teenagers, how do you think the adults felt?  This trip was hard on my adults and on myself, and that is the first time in 7 years that I can remember it being this way.  I had to skip my track planning time in the mornings and sometimes I had to skip the adult Bible study in the mornings just to take care of other buisness that had to be done for my group.  It was not only frustrating, it made me so worn out and tired that I had a hard time hanging out and relating to my students.  I don’t know how accurate the info is, but I heard they changed the schedule mainly to give the staffers and extra day off before the next group comes.  Maybe that is a good thing for them, but it isn’t a good trade off for us.  The schedule change was not a good idea, and it is something that needs to be fixed before I ever consider going back to M-Fuge.

My other problem with the schedule change is the days we go to camp.  I have taken my group all over the U.S. to many different M-Fuge camps, but with the new schedule I am forced to go to only those camps close to us.  Any camp that requires two days of travel to arrive means we will miss two Sundays in a row.  That is an impossible schedule for us.  I’m the youth pastor, but I do have other duties and there is no way that church staff can miss two Sundays in a row every summer.  So, because of this we are forced to go to St. Louis or Nashville if we want to attend M-Fuge.  If the people who organize this camp actually believe that most church groups will just stay with the camps closest to them, I think they are mistaken.  I’m already starting the process of looking for a different place to go and a different camp or trip to attend.  The main reason I’m considering something other than M-Fuge next year is this horrible schedule.  If their hope with schedule changes was to weed out some churches that attend their camps, they have certainly accomplished that goal.

The track planning time in the mornings was just as big of a waste of time as the training time we always had on Sundays in years past.  Everyday the majority of my students and the people who were in my track group would just lay in the floor and sleep.  They had nothing to plan for.  My site was the same thing every single day.  There were no plans that needed to be made, so we just sat around being bored.  Many of the groups had to just go outside and play games because there was nothing else to do.  It wasn’t a very good choice to take away free time for an hour or more of wasted time for the majority of the track groups.

The other stuff that I thought was on the negative side of things can be found here and here and here.

All in all the trip was ok.  It’s not what it used to be and I think the changes made things worse not better.  My students enjoyed it.  They loved the worship, the Bible study, the mission sites, the games, and the staff.  The normal stuff they enjoy at camp was all still there and I truly believe there were some lives that were changed this week.  As always that must be attributed to God and not anything else.  No matter where we would have gone, it is God who is about the buisness of changing the lives and hearts of peopel all around us.  That is why I don’t have a problem looking for another place to go next summer.  It’s not M-Fuge itself that gets the glory for what has happened this week, it’s God.  Regardless of what camp we choose next year, we will be serving the same God.  So why put up with all the legistical junk and all the shcedule mess that M-Fuge has adopted when we can just find a different place that fits our group better?  Maybe God has other things in store for us next year.

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Fuge ‘07 : Belmont Steps Up, Fuge Falls Further Behind

June 12, 2007 @ 11:53 pm by Pressed

After yesterday’s fiasco I woke up this morning with the fire alarm still ringing down the hall.  The thing had been going off for over 13 hours straight and the security people just gave up on it and left us in the hall to suffer all night.  I went down to the office of the main Belmont University guy in charge.  We had a little chat about the mess and it was all corrected immediately.  He even showed up later that day just to check on everything himself.  He went out of his way to make sure everything was taken care of.

Fuge, however, is still in the process of frustrating me.  I can’t get over the video camera thing.  M-Fuge needs to stop using copyrighted material, make their own stuff and allow churches to film or they need to trust youth ministers enough to allow us to film just our kids and not the stage.  Eliminating the cameras all together is not the answer.

My other frustration is with the complete lack of any staff member to give me directions to a hospital.  One of my female sponsors had a bit of an accident and we needed to go to the emergency room immediately.  I went to find a Fuge staffer to get directions to a hospital.  I went through at least three different staffers who all had to refer to the camp director because they couldn’t give me the directions.  So we tried to contact the camp director who couldn’t be located at the time.  My sponsor had to wait 15 minutes with a possible broken arm before the M-Fuge staff could come help us get to the hospital.  That was frustrating to me.  It wasn’t really the camp directors fault.  I’m frustrated with the fact that Fuge staff couldn’t simply tell me where the hospital was…it’s something they should know.

My hurt sponsor is currently still at the hospital.  We are waiting on the x-rays to see if it is really broken.  It’ll be another late night for her.

The tracks went very well today.  Our teens are starting to have really good experiences as they begin to actually do ministry.  The music, preaching, & ministry aspects of Fuge remain to be the highlight of the trip.  As it should be.

**Update** My sponsor made it back to campus at about 2:00 a.m. She has fractured her right arm. We’ve called her husband to come pick her up. It leaves us a sponsor short on the girls side, but I think we will be fine.

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M-Fuge 2007 : Change Is Not Always For The Better

@ 12:48 am by Pressed

Note: This article is written from the perspective of the administration, planning, and organization of an M-Fuge trip.  I in no way want to diminish the impact that Fuge has on the lives of children and adults in the various cities. From the student perspective, M-Fuge is a quality, life changing camp. My issues fall specifically on the administration end of things. These are simply the things I deal with behind the scenes as a youth minister.

We have arrived at Nashville, TN for M-Fuge. For the first time in years (maybe even since M-Fuge started) they have decided to make some very drastic changes to the schedules and to the way Fuge works. Many of these changes have left seasoned youth leaders and many youth frustrated and confused.

I’ve been attending M-Fuge for 7 years. I’ve taken our youth to M-Fuge in Charleston, SC, Denver, CO, Nashville, TN, Mobile, AL, and we’ve even been to Riverside, CA. I’ve always said that M-Fuge was one of the greatest camps for us and I thought that would never change.  Unfortunately I started to run into problems last year. For the first time ever I had a problem with the camera guy in Mobile. You can read all about that in my article entitled : “It’s LifeWay’s Fault”

It’s our first day here and I’ve already had more problems in one day than I’ve had in the last 7 years combined. I’m not embellishing any of this at all, this is the truth.

Problem #1: Pre-Camp Registration and Fees - This year all of the money was due and a room list was due 14 days before we go to camp.  I have no problem with that.  However, if you didn’t turn it in on time LifeWay applies a $75 late fee.  This I have a problem with.  While there may be good intentions with this new rule, it turns out to be a fee that punishes churches who are trying to deal with the most fickle people group in the world - teens. They make the job of the Youth Minister harder, and then punish him for it when he can’t get the cooperation he needs.  Not every church can afford to send a $12,000 check when they are still collecting funds or when people may drop.  What happens if they don’t get it on time?  The church that already can’t afford the full amount gets stuck with an additional fee of $75.  I have kids dropping and adding all the way up to three days before we leave, so I can’t possibly collect all the money by 14 days in advance.

This year I added a few more students and waited for a confirmation letter in the mail to tell me how much we had left to pay.  I was told I would get an updated confirmation letter in the mail.  I waited until the due date and never received it. I think I should be able to charge LifeWay a $75 fee for not sending me a confirmation letter on time. Instead, I don’t get a letter, I have to call them to figure out how much we owe, and then I may get stuck with a $75 late fee.

The other problem is this non-refundable deposit business. February 1st is the deadline for the first $50 and if you drop after May 1st you get charged an additional $50. I have no problem with that. The explanation from M-Fuge for the fee is that they hire staff and make plans for people to come and then when they churches drop their spots it ends up costing Fuge money. My problem comes when I drop 2 spots and get charged the $50 deposit plus the $50 drop fee for each and then another church comes along and picks up my 2 spots. They pay the full price for those two spots even after I paid the $200 worth of fees. That is wrong. Fuge should refund the money if the spots fill up. They shouldn’t make fees on reservations that they fill.

Problem #2: Camp Registration - We arrived at M-Fuge at about 3:15 p.m. In all the material it says M-Fuge registration is open until 4:00 p.m. We ended up being one of the last groups to arrive and because of this my students were not given a fair chance at getting into the groups they really wanted because the Fuge staffers had already picked most of the groups and filled them up before we even registered. No one from our group was even considered for Peer ministry because they already had 30 people signed up, they were only taking 18, and basically they had already picked them. If you are going to have a registration open for a certain time period, then everyone in that time who comes in should have a fair chance at each of the track groups. There was nothing in the material about this being a first come first served deal. It is unfortunate that many of my students were cheated out of a fair chance to get into some of the groups that they wanted.

Problem #3: Housing - This is not the fault of M-Fuge, but it has made the day more frustrating. We were thrown into the “overflow” dorms. This was actually a good thing in my mind because that means we got to go to the brand new dorms that have suites and bathrooms per two rooms. Unfortunately its in a building that is far away, none of the beds or the rooms were put together, everything is in disarray and there is no toilet paper. There is no one working downstairs in the dorms so there is no way of getting anything fixed. There is an alarm going off in our dorm floor that has been going off since 5:00 p.m. It is 1:17 a.m. right now and it is still going off. I’ve called security and they can’t get it to turn off. So all of my boys have to try to sleep tonight with this constant, high pitched alarm.

Problem #4: Overly Obsessive Control Over Video - This problem started last year, as noted above, but is worse this year. M-Fuge is no longer allowing anyone to bring video cameras or regular cameras into the theater during worship or celebration times. The explanation is that the movies they show and the things on the stage are copyrighted. By who you ask? None other than LifeWay “The Cooperation”. When it used to be LifeWay “The Ministry” we were able to make videos for our church to see. We do a presentation for our church because they provide the funding for these trips and therefore they deserve to see what we do at Fuge. I don’t have a problem with not taping copyrighted stuff. If they don’t want the movies or the stage to be video taped, then fine. But now I can’t even tape our own kids. The church can’t see the faces of our students as they enjoy celebration times and as they worship. One of the most significant times during our Fuge experience can’t even be seen by the people who sent us here. It could be argued that we could just buy the Fuge DVD (which we do every year anyway), however the church is not interested in seeing a bunch of kids they don’t know. They want to see our kids, the kids they supported. As I’ve argued before, we are an SBC church who has always supported LifeWay which is an SBC agency meant to support and equip SBC churches. Now it seems that LifeWay is going to tighten the reigns, limit what the churches can do and in a sense punish the very people they were created to equip. This is wrong on so many different levels. It forces the staffers to be strict, which always comes across as arrogant and rude. It also makes LifeWay look like an organization that is more concerned about money than ministry… which as I’ve also pointed out, is becoming increasingly obvious in many of the things they have done.

Problem #5 : T-Shirts - Every year M-Fuge gives out shirts. They don’t give them away, we pay for them in our camp fees. You write down the shirt sizes you need and they give you the shirts. Every single year I’ve written down the shirt sizes we need and every year since I started M-Fuge 7 years ago we’ve had to exchange shirts because we received the wrong sizes. This happened again this year. We got an extra XL and not an XXL like we needed. I went to ask to exchange a shirt and guess what? The new policy this year is they can’t exchange shirts. Due to the way they do inventory, you get what you get. Doesn’t matter if they mess it up or if you mess it up… your stuck. So I asked the question, “If everyone in our group is supposed to wear these shirts and I have one student who can’t fit in the shirt because they have the wrong size, you are telling me that they just have to stick out and feel out of place because you can’t exchange the shirt?” The answer was, yes. So now M-Fuge is a camp that cares more about inventory than about the heart of a student. A student who had to pay $295 to come to camp and to get a shirt now has to feel bad about themselves because they can’t wear the shirt that everyone else has on.   It makes me sad that LifeWay is making changes that force staffers to be more concerned about product rather than people.

The first mistake LifeWay made this year was implementing too much change at once. Instead of gradual change they just piled it all on at one time. The second problem is that they didn’t communicate the changes to the leaders of church groups before we came to camp. The third thing is I believe that LifeWay is starting to alienate and distance itself from its own SBC churches. Three, Four, or Five years ago we never would have had problems like this. These changes seem to me to be less about making M-Fuge better for the people and more about making it better for the product and profit. That is the image they are making for themselves.

This very well could be the last M-Fuge I attend.

**UPDATE** It’s 6:10 a.m. the next morning. The fire alarm is still going off in our hall way. I have had about 2 and 1/2 hours of sleep.

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