2 Things That Everything In Your Life Needs
Last month we threw a Christmas Party for the Volunteers in our Children’s Ministry. These are great people who serve all year long mentoring kids in our community. They work hard and do what they do on top of their jobs, families, and other commitments.
We were going to meet up at the church and bus everyone down to Alto Loma, which is about 40 minutes from where we’re at in Victorville. Alto Loma has a few neighborhoods with Main Street Electrical Parade style Christmas lights covering the landscape. It’s like stepping into another dimension. The people who live there spend half the year getting ready for Christmas.
Our staff was excited to take out volunteers and their families to experience this. We put together a great event, filled with games and prizes to give away on the bus ride down, snacks and drinks while they toured the sights, and a few short Christmas movies to watch on the ride back. Everything we wanted to do was coming together, except for one thing.
It was scheduled to rain, with a chance of snow, all day Monday when we were planning to go down the pass to Alto Loma.
We had charter buses already chartered. We had games, prizes, and refreshments ready to go for hundreds of people. The linchpin to our plan, visiting Alto Loma, now stood a really good chance of falling through.
When I saw the weather report Saturday morning I started making calls to my staff immediately. We still wanted to do something for our volunteers but how in the world were we supposed to throw something together so soon? We already had weekend services to get ready for leaving only a couple of hours on Monday to really work on it. So we made a bold decision.
We told our volunteers, who were also worried about the weather report, that we would still have something for them and their families at the church on Monday, rain, shine or snow, even though we had no idea what it would be.
We met Monday morning and started working on Plan B. By the end of our meeting I think we ended up with Plan G.
We decided to have everyone meet in the chapel. We set up all of our food and drinks there, along with a few last-minute Christmas decorations (thankfully it was already pretty decorated for Christmas as it was, so we didn’t have a lot to do there). Everyone had some time to mingle and hang out with some Christmas music playing in the background. Then we loaded everyone up on our buses (did I mention that our deposit was non-refundable?) and, instead of going down to Alto Loma, we simply bused around our local community and enjoyed some of the lights there.
We did some of our bus games and gave away some cool prizes along the way. The lights around our area weren’t half as good as the ones we would have seen in Alto Loma, but some of them were pretty cool. When we got back to church we watched “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and called it a night. Even thought things didn’t go the way we wanted them to, everyone still seemed to have a good time.
This little snafu was a great reminder to me of two assets that everything in our lives need:
1. Planning
Our staff had a great plan in place. We used this planning form that has taken me years to perfect. It’s got spots for pretty much everything you’ll need to think through for an event. It even has a spot to help you think through what to do if it gets rained out which, ironically, I overlooked. But sometimes a good plan, no matter how good it is, is not enough. Every good plan needs…
2. Flexibility
I hadn’t planned on rain. That’s a detail I definitely should have thought more about with our outdoor winter event. No question there. Truth be told, though, no matter how well you plan for something there’s always something else that will happen, requiring some kind of change in what you want to do. Always. It seems to be an immutable law of life that none of us can ever fully escape.
And that’s OK. As hard as it was for us going through it, we still had fun and came out of it better on the other side. It wasn’t easy, but great things in life never are.
As you think about what you have going on in your life right now, it’s always good to go into it with a plan. It would be irresponsible not to. But leave some space for something to go wrong, because it probably will.
Being willing to flex when life happens to your plans will help you relax and have more fun during the process.
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My Top 10 Posts of 2011
- Kids’ Ministry Budgeting Templates & Tips
- The Secret to Powerful Communication
- How I Lost 60 lbs, Pt 1
- Why You Need to Say “No” More Often
- Free Kidmin Volunteer Orientation Kit
- REVIEW: “Read and Share Bible”
- 5 DOs and DONTs of Teaching Kids
- Why Your Volunteers are Miserable (and what to do about it)
- The Mistake Every Kidmin Makes
- How to Write Emails that Your Team Will Actually Read
What were some of your best posts last year?
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Things I Learned and Loved in 2011
I loved becoming a dad for the very first time.
I learned how to lose over 60 lbs and keep it off without starving myself, spending lots of money, or having to step foot in a gym.
I loved being able to buy a great house at a very low price.
I learned there is more paper involved in buying a house and adopting a baby than in 1 complete volume of Encyclopedia Britannica.
I learned that bacon-flavored jelly beans taste about as revolting as they sound.
I loved cancelling our cable and switching to Netflix and Hulu Plus. Not only has it saved us a ton of money but we pretty much get to watch whatever we want, whenever we want.
I loved seeing 28 kids come to Christ this year at High Desert Church and dozens more get baptized.
I learned you can complain about the obesity problem in America all you want but it isn’t going to stop iHop from offering unlimited pancakes for $4.99 or people from making cookies within cookies.
I learned the down economy has had little effect on the vast array of tasteless and unneccessary products infomercials will make available to the public, like this, this, this, this, and this.
I loved seeing kids come up with crazy stuff like…
- The 10-year-old who told me his whale made of Legos was meant to represent man’s eternal struggle with nature. Art like that is always lost on me.
- The 4-year-old who said: “If you ever find a green Chicken McNugget, throw it away. Don’t eat it.”
- This 7-year-old: ”After I was bit I got a shot in the butt and the doctor didn’t even give me a cool band-aide.”
- This 3-year-old girl: “Nobody wants me to take off my shoes because of my stinky feet”
I loved seeing a guy get baptized in his street clothes because he forgot a bathing suit and towel. It was both funny and inspiring at the same time.
I loved having uncrustable sandwiches for lunch. Why aren’t more sandwich companies doing this?
I loved the weird conversations my wife and I have:
Sarah: My Bible doesn’t work anymore.
Me: You mean the app on your phone?
Sarah: Yeah.
Me: Might want to clarify that next time.Sarah: What’s that?
Me: Miami Vice.
Her: Never heard of it.
Me: It’s like I don’t even know who you are anymore.Me: I’m taking a chance with this expired milk.
Sarah: I took a chance on you and it turned out OK.
Me: Yeah…not the same thing.Me: Whatcha reading?
Sarah: Baby Poop: A visual guide.
Me: Oh…
Sarah: Not what you think. It’s a slideshow.
Me: That doesn’t make it OK.
I learned I can not let those who know me least define me the post.
I loved having a Subway with a drive-thru less than 5 minutes away from my house.
I loved this quote from a dad in my adoption class: ”Nature may determine the cards you’re dealt, but nurture is how you play the game.”
I loved getting (and using) my very first BBQ – for free!
I learned God gives people influence for one reason: to speak up for those who don’t.
What about you?
What did you learn/love in 2011?
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10 Things to Do Before Christmas
Hello, Friend!
If I did everything right you should be receiving this a few days before Christmas. As I sit here in the past writing typing, my mind is racing with gift ideas just for you. “What is it you, the readers of my blog, would like this Christmas season?” I spent many an hour pondering this, and other queries. For instance:
1. Do people who don’t draft business contracts or instructions for microwave manuals even use the word query in real-life talk these days?
Hard to say. Most of my friends went to school to draft business contracts and write instructions for microwave manuals. So from my experience, yes, yes they most certainly do.
2. Is cold, hard cash the best gift I could give?
Sure, cash would acceptable, but it is so cliché. It just screams of something your uncle would do when he’s at your house and, forgetting it’s your birthday, excuses himself, races to the nearest WinCo, buys a Secretaries Day card by mistake, races back to your house, slips a $5 bill with as many coins as he can scrounge from the change holder in his car into the card, and hands it to you like he planned it the whole time. But deep down you know what really happened. You both do.
3. Or I could make a cheesy list of the top 10 ways to spend the days leading up to Christmas.
Bingo! We have a winner!!!
So, in the spirit of 1,997th Christmas (the year Seinfeld aired the now classic episode about Festivus, which has more holiday cheer per capita than Frosty the Snowman, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Rudolph combined) here is my gift to you: “10 Ways to Spend the Days Leading Up to Christmas”
1. Buy a partridge in a pair tree, wrap it up, and give it to that special someone on Christmas Day. We’ve all thought about it, but you’d be the first one to actually do it. This single act will forever reserve you a place in the annals of Christmas Awesomeness. You’ll be a legend! Just keep it on the DL so PETA doesn’t get wind.
2. Ring a bell till 100 angels get their wings. Lots of work now, but it’s one of those big picture, living for eternity things you’ll be glad you did later.
3. Build a time machine, travel back in time, and unmake the Jim Carey version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
4. Don’t shoot your eye out. If you do, the Bumpuses’ dogs will eat that delicious dinner you spent all day slaving over and you’ll be the only family in town eating Duck at Panda Express. They’ll try to cheer you up by singing Deck the Halls but it just won’t be the same.
5. Make Santa something healthy to eat, like vegan gingerbread cookies and soymilk. He may not like it at first but if it keeps the old guy around breaking into our houses and stalking children longer then…well, when you put it that way, maybe we DON’T want him hanging around anymore. Never-mind.
6. Buy a little kid two front teeth. It’s really all they want for Christmas.
7. Read A Christmas Carol in a British accent, have someone video you while you do it, and post it on Facebook so we can all share in the holiday cheer, Charles Dickens style.
8. Have your picture taken with the Easter Bunny. Everyone’s having their picture taken with Santa. Those lines are long and annoying. The Easter Bunny lines are much shorter. I promise (Canadian Scout’s Honor).
9. Call your local Zoo and ask what their Holiday Hippo Lease policy is like.
10. Enjoy this time. I know it’s busy. I know it’s crazy. I also know it can be a fun and miraculous time, if you let it. Thank you for being your amazingly awesome self.
I hope in my own weird little way this helped you laugh, even a little bit. If not, feel free to print up this post and recycle it as a napkin, Kleenex, or litter box lining for the neighborhood cat.
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How I Lost 60 lbs, Pt 2
Last week I talked about the biggest catalyst that helped me lose over 60lbs this year: the right motivation. I’ve struggled most of my life with weight. It wasn’t until I got to the root of those issues and framed losing weight in a larger context than just a goal to meet that I was actually able to lose the weight I wanted and keep it off.
Today I’d like to share what I did to lose the weight once I decided on what story I wanted to tell:
1. I started counting my calories.
Like most people, my problem was that I was eating too much food. So my first step was to figure out what my ideal weight was and how many calories I need to eat per day to get there. I used LiveStrong.org to help me out with this. I told the website my height, build, current weight, etc. and where I wanted to go and it told me how many calories I need to cut back to get there. The first part of this step was simple, easy, and free.
Once I got clarity about this I was able to track my calorie intake each day with the Live Strong app for my iPhone. The app is pretty cheap and easy to use. It has most foods and restaurant menus already in it, so there wasn’t a lot of manual data entry I needed to do here. I would just type in what I ate during the day and it told me how many calories it would cost me.
This was a HUGE eye-opener for me. I quickly realized I was eating over twice the recommended amount of calories I was supposed to on a daily basis. Seeing this visual really helped me make better choices for meals and snacks each day. At first it was really hard, but after a while my body acclimated to having a healthy amount of calories each day. Now I don’t have to think about it so much, but I still track my food every day so I don’t fall back into those old habits.
2. I drank 64 oz of water every day.
While I was having twice the amount of food I was supposed to have, I discovered I was drinking less than half the amount of water my body needed to stay hydrated. So I started carrying around a water bottle with me everywhere I went. I measure out that I would need to drink three full bottles worth every day to give my body the water it needed. The downside of drinking this much water is that I had to go to the bathroom much more frequently. A LOT more frequently. The upside was I started having more energy, I wasn’t as hungry throughout the day, and I was getting a bit more exercise (because of all the trips to the bathroom).
3. I began exercising every other day.
A good friend of mine turned me on to using burst training for my every other day work out. Basically, burst training is a 10 minutes a day, every other day, high-intense workout. It’s tough to do, but it only takes 10 minutes, three or four times a week. You can do this in a gym, on a track, or at home on a treadmill or running around your neighborhood. I did this at home, just running in place in my living room. Here’s the video I watched to help me get started:
4. I evaluated my progress on a daily and weekly basis.
Like I said in #1 I tracked my calories and water intake every day. After each burst training session I weigh in and recorded my progress on the Live Strong app. This helps me see what progress I am making and if I needed to work harder or simply continue at the pace I’m going at.
5. I didn’t go it alone.
The biggest mistake I made in the past while trying to lose weight was doing it on my own. I think some people can do that just fine, but I’m not one of them. My wife and I decided to work this plan together. We’re doing the same exercises, using the same app, and are committed to drinking the same amount of water and tracking our calorie intake every day. She has been the biggest factor in my weight-loss success (she has lost over 35lbs). I couldn’t have done it alone.
The secret I’ve found to losing weight is having the right motivation and coming up with a plan that will help you eat a healthy amount of the right foods, stay hydrated throughout the day, and give your body a good workout a few times a week. However you decide to do it, these are the crucial ingredients that will help anyone get in the right shape.
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