Changing of the PCM

So today is the day...Today is the day that I change my PCM.

For the past 2 years here at Moody I have had the same PCM (Practical Christian Ministry). I have been a Jr. High leader at the Refinery youth group at Calvary Community Church in Schaumburg, IL. I got connected with the Youth Pastor through one of my friends who used to be a former student of his.

Ever since I started as a Jr. High leader I have loved it, and have felt useful and like I'm having an influence on these kid's lives, and helping them grow closer to God. It has been great.

BUT if you are regular reader of my blog then you know that recently I have had a burden for media in the local church. I have really been wanting to get involved in my church here, Park Community Church but just have not had the time to make the commitment. But I have been in contact with one of their media director's, @jasonwidney, and I had been considering possibly switching my PCM to working on the media team at Park, but I wasn't completely sure if it was what I should.

Well, tonight I attended the evening service at Park and I talked to Jason for the first time in person, and asked him if they did PCM's for Moody students, and he said absolutely. So we are going to have coffee this week, and talk more about it.

But I am writing all this to say, that today is when the PCM forms are due, and I am turning mine in and officially changing it, which I am really excited about.

I also emailed the youth pastor that I have been working with, just to let him know what I had been thinking, and he said that I am making a good decision. I told him that I'd like to still be able to come to the Refinery if possible, and he said that'd be great. So hopefully I can make it out there as much as possible, and still keep up with those kids, which would be good.

So I'm excited about what next semester holds as far as my PCM goes. I'm not as much excited about what my classes will hold, considering I have a 7:30am class, OUCH :( but at least I'll still be enjoying my PCM.

Here's to new and exciting PCM's
:)

respect

I'm writing to you from a seat on the Metra train in Chicago on my way to my PCM (Practical Christian Ministry) where I am a Jr. High youth leader in a church in Schaumburg, IL (click here to read a previous post about my PCM). I love working in this ministry every week, but the travel is just very time consuming. This is the second week in a row that I have gone really early so that I can work on the youth group's website.

So on this train ride every week I find myself spending alot of time listening to my iPod, but at the same time observing people on the train. I almost said that I enjoy observing people, but I guess I don't particularly enjoy it, I just find myself doing it alot. Although many times I do get enjoyment out of it just because people are really amusing to watch sometimes.

I just got on the train about 15 minutes ago, and I'm facing this man who looks like your typical city worker. He has his laptop bag, newspaper, 2 big cans of Miller Draft (the beverage of choice for many men taking the train on their way home from their job). I was watching as he was getting himself situated in his seat, and I usually notice things about people that are different from me. So the first thing I noticed was that 1. after he opened his can of beer he broke the tab off the can and threw it on the floor. After he did this I was a bit more intrigued to continue watching him. LOL, I know this post is sounding very stalkerish, but just bear with me. After that 2. he grabbed his newspaper and there was a sticker on the front page so he took that off and literally just put it on the train window. Following this 3. he took out a tissue, blew his nose and then to get rid of it he stuck it in between the train wall and his seat.

Now, I don't know what you would've thought about this, but anytime that I see someone just blatantly litter, vandalize or disrespect someone else's property I can't help but just shake my head. Sometimes I'm even in disbelief of how people treat things, and I mostly see it done to public property, but it urgs (not sure if thats a word) me even more when it is done to stuff that is owned by someone.

Actually, after thinking about this more, I guess what really urgs (see, I used it again in a sentence) me is when people are so blatant about it. This guy on the train just did it with a bunch of people around, and acted like it was his daily routine and that it was no big deal. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was his daily routine, because many times I see the same people on the train every week, and I'll observe them and they eat and drink the same things every week, and many times even sit with the same people. So I could easily imagine this guy taking the train at the same time everyday, sitting in the same seat, drinking the same Miller Draft beer, reading the same newspaper and putting the sticker on the window everyday.

Then again, we are creatures of habit, that doesn't make littering, or vandalizing the right thing to do, but if you do a sin once then it just becomes easier and easier to come back to that sin and not think that much about it.

It could go back to the way we were raised though. I was raised to always respect other people's property, and that included public property. I'm not getting on my high horse and saying I'm better than anyone else, but that is just how I was raised. Some people might have been raised by their parents to not have respect for people's property, and this might not have been blatant on the parent's part, but the kid sees their parent doing this, and then thinks it is okay.

This causes me to think even more about how very important it is to raise my kids the way that I believe is biblically correct. I actually think about this quite often (click here to read my previous post on parenting/raising children) and it often times scares me to think about how much influence I can have on a human life. Let me just say that I am writing this with the assumption that I am going to have kids, which I probably shouldn't assume so easily, but it is still something that I should think about. I mean, it can't hurt to think about it, right?

So this post has quickly gone from respect for others to parenting. Anyways, that is another post for another day, and I'm becoming very very long winded, so I'm going to shut up, and let you think about these words.

Do you ever observe people and just shake your head in disbelief? Do you think about parenting, whether you have kids or not? It is an interesting thing to think about. Comments please.

kids these days

the hoodie bandit

This past week has been an interesting one, alot of stuff has been happening. Some stuff good, some stuff not bad, but I mean not good at the same time. So I'll just give you a short rundown of this week and then I want to elaborate on a certain a funny event that happened.

Monday was my first night back to PCM at youth group at Calvary Community Church and it was great to be back with the kids. I helped lead a small group which was good. One thing I realized during this small group time was how poor my small group leading skills really are. Maybe it was just an off-night, and I think it depends on who I am co-leading the group with, but for the guy who also led (Gary Stachulla) it was just so natural for him, and he had me jump in on one of the group questions, and it was just downhill. I think it also has alot to do with the leader preparation as well. We had not prepared anything together, therefore I wasn't really sure where he was taking the discussion alot of times so it was difficult for me to jump in because I didn't want to take it in a completely different direction. But it was interesting.

Also throughout the week I have done alot of work as a TA (Teacher's Assistant) for Coach Dunn (The Sports Ministry Chair), so that has been good, and I'm actually starting to enjoy going into the office everyday as I'm starting to get more and more comfortable and close to Coach Dunn.

Ok, so now for the funny story of the week. It is really more confusing and weird than it is funny, but it's somewhat humorous at the same time. So a couple weeks ago I was walking through the SDR (Student Dining Room) and I saw this girl wearing a "Vertical" hoodie (Vertical is the name of my youth group from back home and she was wearing one of our hoodies). The funny thing was that I've never seen this girl in my life, and I was wondering how she got a hold of one of those hoodies, but it was one of the older ones so I just thought she might've gone to my youth group before I got into high school.

So then on Wednesday morning I have a class called Romans at 8am. I walk into class and I see this same girl wearing my Senior Class hoodie (ya know, like the hoodie that your whole senior class signs and it has your graduation year on it and such). So now I'm really freaked out. I spent the rest of the class distracted by the question of how the heck did she get this sweatshirt and why is she wearing it? LOL.

Keep in mind, I've never seen this girl in my life. So I lean over to my friend sitting next to me and ask her if she knows who the girl is. She said her name was Bethany (nope wasn't ringin any bells). I leave the class confused, yet amused.

I walk into chapel and the first thing someone says to me is, "Josh, do you know a Bethany Baxter?" I immediately respond, "Was she wearing my senior class hoodie?" She then goes on to tell me that she was sitting behind this girl in class and saw my name on the back of her sweatshirt. "Nope I don't know her. I don't have any clue how she got a hold of that sweatshirt."

A minute later I texted my friend, Heidi Summers because I thought she would think it was weird and amusing. So I explained to her the situation and what made it even funnier was that she was looking for that hoodie that morning and couldn't find it. LOL.

I still don't know who this girl is, or how she got these hoodies, and I mean I'd like to find out sometime, so maybe I'll ask her sometime.

OR

Bethany Baxter, if you are reading this post, please leave a comment or email me or SOMETHING, just tell me how you got those sweatshirts, cause its kinda starting to creep me out. The Vertical sweatshirt was kinda understandable...but my senior class hoodie? Really? I mean, I know for a fact that you did not graduate in my class, so just an answer would be nice.

LOL

That was halfway serious.

So that's my funny story for the week. Don't worry though it wasn't all fun and games this week. The fun was balanced out with an awesome headache that I've had for 3 days straight now. So that's been pretty awesome (please recognize the sarcasm in that statement).

Anyways, feedback please. What would you do in this situation? I mean I guess most people would just straight up ask her...I just feel kinda weird.

maybe hoodies are worth alot of money these days on the black market

useful

We have what we call here in the Moody realm a PCM. These letters stand for "Practical Christian Ministry." A PCM is something that every student here at Moody is required to do each and every week. This is some type of ministry here in Chicago outside of school. For example, tutoring, working in a church in some capacity, whether it be youth group or AWANA, or playing soccer in a park once a week. So last year me and Ben Harrison, a dear friend, were Jr. High leaders in a church in Schaumburg, IL. I was technically the tech and video guy, while Ben was the games and activities guy, and we both helped lead a small group. Well I decided to do the same thing this year just because I had built some good relationships with the kids already, and I didn't want to have to start over somewhere else, so I felt like it would be good to continue to grow those relationships. So I've been going to my PCM now for about 6 weeks. The first was really good, it felt so good to get back to a familiar place and do ministry with those kids and just catch up with them again. But the weeks following this were just, ya know, nothing too special. I think some things that contributed to that were just plain old tiredness because I have class all day and then soccer practice, and go straight to PCM, so I'm so tired by the time 7:00pm rolls around, so its a struggle to stay energetic and interact with the kids. Secondly, I haven't been involved in a small group yet because one of my responsibilities this year is to be in charge of the Jr. High website, so me and Nat (the youth pastor) have been setting that up during small group time.

So I say all that to say this, last night was the first night since the kickoff of PCM that I really felt useful. Why? Because I was a little more awake than usual and Nat asked me to do announcements which is a little unusual, but I'm happy that he asked me, and he also got me in a small group. But little did I know that he was giving me my own small group. So I had 4 Jr. Highers to discuss the lesson with for a half hour and it was great! It was just good talking with them and interacting with them on a different level than I am used to when we are just playing games or whatever. I could also say that this was the first time that I felt like I was doing ministry, but I know that that statement is not correct or true because I am doing ministry in so many other ways, but thats the way I felt at first. I don't have to be leading a small group, or be up in front of everyone doing announcements to be doing ministry. Ministry is done in the small ways as well, and I need to remember that. So I am definitely looking forward to the rest of the year, especially the retreat, because that is a blast as I found out last year. And I can truthfully and confidently say that I love my PCM, and not everyone can say that, and if you go to Moody you know what I mean.

shout out to all my guys and girls at Refinery!