Why not me?

Why couldn’t I have been Bryce Harper's father?

If you are a baseball fan, or a resident of the DC region, you probably know about Bryce Harper. This 17-year-old phenom, already featured on a cover of Sports Illustrated and heralded as the “LeBron James of Baseball,” was chosen by the Washington Nationals with the first pick in the 2010 Amateur Baseball Draft yesterday. He is being billed as the greatest hitting prospect in the past 50 years. Harper is already a legend. Once, when he was ten years old playing on a 12-year-old team, he went 12 for 12 in a tournament with 11 home runs and a double. This spring, when he should have been finishing his junior year of high school, Bryce was playing for a junior college in Nevada in order to be eligible for the draft. He set records and wowed the scouts with his prodigious talent. Soon he will be a multi-millionaire.

If Bryce Harper was my son, I would be quoted in the daily papers, know all the scouts on a first-name basis, have unlimited access to the highest thrones of Major League Baseball, and never need to work another day for the rest of my life.

Why couldn’t I have been Bryce Harper's father?

Instead, I am stuck with the three boys who happen to live in my house—none of whom projects as a first-round draft pick, none of whom will play Major League Baseball, appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated, or become a millionaire. I have been given a raw deal.

Consider Jonathan, for instance. He’s 17—same age as Bryce Harper. He’s never hit a home run in a game, though he’s given up a few. Truth be told, he likes to play guitar more than he likes to practice baseball. And get this: The other day he was sitting in church with his friends. A friend of our family, Miss Patty, the mom of one of Jonathan’s best friends, who’s been coming to church by herself for about three months, came in after the service started. She always sits with us, but we were scattered about, so she sat down by herself in the row behind Jon. And wouldn’t you know it, my son, ignoring all decorum and blowing off his friends, put his dirty shoes on the seat cushion right there in the middle of church and climbed over the seat, plopping down beside Miss Patty. The nerve of that kid! I wish he was Bryce Harper.

Or consider Timothy. He’s 15—only two years younger than Bryce Harper. He doesn’t play baseball anymore—he gave it up for tennis, of all things. What’s the future in that? Last night he was working on his homework for hours, trying to get his grades up. He says he wants to go to Grove City College—where Karen and I went to school, and more importantly, where his cousin goes now. Grove City is not exactly a professional athletic factory, if you know what I mean. And get this: After only three hours of studying, he gets lazy. Instead of studying terms like Blitzkrieg and Armistice, he gets a bucket of water and sponge and goes crazy scrubbing our refrigerator. He even threw away valuable pieces of art that have been hanging on there for years. When he was done, I didn’t even recognize it anymore (it’s white – I didn’t’ know that). The nerve of that kid! I wish he was Bryce Harper.

Or consider Thomas. He’s 12—two years older than Bryce Harper was when he was crushing those 11 home runs in a single weekend. The only home runs Thomas hits are when he assumes the identity of "Joe Random" and tries to make his way to the majors in a video game. He likes baseball and is pretty good at it, but he’s not even on the travel team in our little town. Instead, he spends most of his time sitting at the piano composing arrangements of praise songs. And get this: He can’t even leave the house or go to sleep without telling us that he loves us. Just the other night, as Karen was leaving his room and turning out the light, Thomas said to her, half-asleep, “Tell Dad I love him and thanks for being my dad.” What kind of feeble attempt at parental manipulation is that? The nerve of that kid! I wish he was Bryce Harper.

Okay, I’m done venting now. I guess I’m stuck with my three sons—limited as they are--with their bad manners, poor study habits and manipulative affections. You get what God gives you. Like the cliché says, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” I’ll try not to sound sour about it.

But why couldn't I have been Bryce Harper's father?

Joy, Sorrow. Baseball.

This past Friday, the Walkersville baseball team lost in the regional finals to North Hagerstown by a score of 5-2. It was a rematch of last year's regional championship, which Walkersville won. Last year was exciting, but this year I had a much greater personal investment in the outcome. It is Jon's junior year, and he's been a big part of the team. So for the past few days I've been feeling a bit downcast. I'm trying to sort out why.

One reason is that this team consisted mostly of players whom I've had the privilege of watching since they were eight years old. Many of them are seniors and so it was our final chance to see them all play together. Our first full summer in Maryland, Jonathan made the 8-year-old all-star team at Glade Valley. That scrappy crew won the Cal Ripken state tournament. The picture of those little dirty, smiling faces clutching trophies is frozen in our memory banks. They had lots of other great moments through the years, too, playing rec and travel ball, and competing in tournaments. Now about half of them are donning their caps and gowns and shaving their "playoff beards" for graduation. I don't know during which season they grew to be so tall. They are a special group of young men, and although Jonathan has another year left with some of them, it feels like a chapter has ended. It was a wonderful chapter.

Another reason I'm a bit downcast is the actual circumstances of the game. Based on the situation with the pitching staff, I was certain Jonathan was going to be a key factor in the game. Sure enough, he came in to pitch in the bottom of the 3rd. There was a 2-0 count, a runner at second, two outs, and we trailed 2-0. He got two quick strikes and I was sure he was going to be the hero, but then the batter hit a ground ball through the hole between third and short to plate the opponent's third run. I felt that ball scrape across my heart as it trickled into left field.

Jon pitched another 2 1/3 innings after that. He threw quite well, striking out North's #3 hitter and not allowing any good contact. But some more ground balls found their way through, a few plays didn't quite get made, and there was a strange stoppage of play that resulted in a balk, sending my taut emotions over the edge. The result of all that was another two runs. Meanwhile, as every baseball fan knows, hitting is as fickle as a girl with three prom invitations, and on this day, the Walkersville bats chose their right to remain silent. The five runs were too much to overcome. Jon needed to be great for his team to have a chance, and he was merely good. I felt his pain.

So we're left wondering what might have been. Two more wins, and we would have been playing for the Maryland state championship at Cal Ripken Stadium this weekend. How incredible it would have been to see those dusty eight-year-olds come full circle and win a state championship again. My wife tells me I spend too much time "what-iffing," but I wonder what it would have been like to see one of these kids I know so well make the key play or get the big hit, or to see Jonathan at the bottom of a dog pile after recording the final out? What a glorious moment that will be for some young man this weekend. His parents will cry, I'm sure.

So I'm sorting out my emotions. For someone who loves the game as much as I do--for whom baseball is inseparable from life--to have the joy of watching my son and his friends display such talent and achieve such success all these years has been a gift. But every season comes to an end, whether we are ready or not, and I guess that's the only time it hurts to come home. Joy and pain are as intricately connected as winning and losing. I'm just not sure which is responsible for the tears in my eyes.

Nostradamos, You Got Nothing On Me!

We had our annual “Senior Banquet” for the youth ministry on Sunday night. It was a great night for everybody there. We laughed a lot, shed a few tears, and reminisced about the many wonderful times we had together. We recognized 13 seniors, many of whom have been part of our youth ministry for seven years, and all of whom were faithful participants to the end. That’s unusual for a group of seniors, and for this reason, and many others, I’m particularly fond of this class. I have an abundance of memories of each one of them, and it was fun to sift through the thousands of pictures and video clips of our many experiences together.

One of our traditions at this banquet is a thing I call “Senior Futures.” After much prayer, deep soul-searching, and conversations with the Holy Spirit, I write down what each senior’s future is destined to be. Ok, I confess the only “spirit” these come from is the spirit of caffeine and sleep-deprived insanity, but nevertheless, they could come true. I mean, anything is possible with Christ, right? I can’t publish the full “stories” here, but here’s the list in an nutshell. If you know any of these kids, you’ll definitely get a kick out of them. They are in order in the picture above, left to right.

Andrew Tolbert –- Forges career as Jonathan Lipnicki look-alike (he’s the little kid on Jerry Macguire)

Laura Beth Stafford –- Mother of five boys is driven to become Cookie Entrepreneur

Grace Kneebone -- Is “discovered” and becomes Rock Star and Judge on American Idol

Zach Bensley -- Enters newly formed “College of Hogwarts, later becomes founder of Mercedes Bensley (cars for tall people)

Heather Mee -- Majors in surfing at Biola and marries hippie guy named Jon Yu, making her Mrs. Mee-Yu

Jacob Augustine -- Mistaken for Luke Skywalker, becomes Heir of the Star Wars saga

Carlee Lambros -- Future “Mrs. Keckler’s” strange power to text animals leads to career as pet psychologist

Travis Lowery -- Graduates from Jimmy Cone College to become Circus Acrobat and successor to Six Flags dancing guy

Kristen Seymour – Becomes crazed Field Hockey Coach of Five-Year-Old Girls

Daniel Henry -- Founder of the Jewish Ultimate Frisbee League (this was my personal favorite)

Rebecca McDaniel -– Saves child falling from Ferris Wheel to win Frederick County Fair Princess and inherit giant shoe house

Kasey Ring -– Yet another mysterious illness leads her to become Patient of Dr. House; she recovers to cheer for Liberty flames

Adam Krop -- Flunks out of Princeton but makes comeback as Professional Wrestler and creator of the signature "Krop Circle" move


I suspect the accuracy of my predictions may be less than 100%, but one thing I do know for sure; these young men and women are going out into the future with a full measure of our love and best wishes. The Lord has blessed our years together, and I trust that the truths they’ve hidden in their hearts will guide them through life. Seniors; remember that your true identity is a child of God. That is what you are! Nights like Sunday can carry a youth pastor for another year.

Bureaucracy vs. Architecture.... and the Winner is....

In just a few months, Mountain View Community Church will be taking up residence in our new church building. After 13 years of meeting in a high school, we are very excited to have our own place to call home. I can remember most of the lengthy process it took to get there -- buying land, hiring an architect, forming committees, evaluating and envisioning our space needs, sitting in congregational meetings, raising funds. It hasn't been easy, but God has been good to us and our people have been generous. Our dreams are becoming realities, including my dream of a youth center to house our awesome student ministries. Soon Mountain View will have 30,000 square feet of space in which we can do whatever we want, whenever we want.

Well, almost. We can't have a cross. At least on the outside.

Throughout the lengthy process of creating this building, one theme that came up more than once was, "We want it to look like a church." That can mean a lot of different things. Certainly, no one was thinking medieval cathedral, but we wanted something to set it apart from a school, library or auto body shop.

As the design took shape, it became clear that cost restrictions and design preferences would preclude such classic touches as a bell tower or steeple. So someone proposed a simple idea that seemed to accomplish our goal. What if we put a cross on the side of the building, tastefully and artfully done, back-lit for a pleasant affect at night? This would be a nice, inexpensive touch, and ensure that everyone passing by would know this is a church.

Not so fast. When the design for this feature was submitted to the county for approval--along with other important details like the number of loops in the lobby carpet, the shade of leaves on the exterior shrubbery, and the capacity for individual sheets of toilet paper to be flushed in any given 48-hour period--the wise and magnanimous Frederick County Permit Office informed us that this was unacceptable. In fact, it was a violation of code 481037-f7-b5, which explicitly states that the amount of signage permissible for a building our size is 60 square feet.

That's right--a cross is considered a sign, no different, I guess, than a golden arch. Erecting a cross AND a sign with our church name on it would be a gross violation of our signage limits, akin to allowing us to float a giant inflatable Jesus over Rt. 270. When pressed, the FCPO's polite response was "What we say, goes."

The common sense oozing from this official declaration got me thinking. The cross, a symbol of faith and an important element of architecture for hundreds of years, is now considered nothing more than a sign in violation of code. What other historic feats of architecture would never have seen the light of day had they been built in Frederick County in 2010? Imagine the conversations.

"I'm sorry, Pharoah, but your pyramid is required to have 8,394 other sources of egress..."

"Citizens of Pisa, your tower must be knocked down and replaced with a one-story structure..."

"Michelangelo, we have tested the paint you are using on this chapel ceiling. The lead content presents presents a hazard for young children who may climb up here and eat it..."

"All skyscrapers with iconic towers are required to have ape-proof fencing around the exterior..."

"You are allowed a maximum of seven letters. You will have to go with H-O-L-L-Y-W-O..."

So, chalk up another victory for bureaucratic common sense. We can all rest easy knowing we have a county government to protect our safety, manage our growth, and preserve our freedom. We will be spared from unsightly crosses, giant apes, and other heinous violations of architectural decorum.

I wonder what they'll say when we hang that cross from the ceiling?

God's Day Timer

Every Tuesday morning, I sit down with my Planner Pad and plot out the course of my week. I group things into categories (prayer, teaching, leadership, encouragement, administration) and try to figure out how to manage my time to accomplish everything I'm supposed to accomplish, talk with everyone I'm supposed to talk with, and be everywhere I'm supposed to be.

This morning, my list started with "drink coffee," because I was really sleepy. First things first. Prayer was next.

Anyway, I just finished filling in the rest of the blanks with important tasks -- plan Sunday's parent meeting, SOS movie night, and next week's staff meeting. Write the weekly email. Get back to her. Arrange to meet with him. Call so-and-so about this'n that. It really helps me to see my week in front of me, and it blesses me to be able to X-out the tasks when they've been done. I feel like I've accomplished something at the end of the week. I guess I have.

I'm glad God doesn't work like that, though. For God, there is no such thing as a Day Timer. He doesn't need to keep track of anything, and he never checks off something as finished. There's a big difference between being a steward of responsibilities and being God. God is just...there. Doing. Working. Amidst. Among. Outside. Inside. Holding Up. Sustaining. That's who he is. No administrative assistant, no reminder emails. He's God. Always completely involved and never forgetting the smallest detail, from setting up a king to caring for a sparrow.

Consider God's relationship to time. He sees the beginning, the middle and the end of all our human activities and days, and has forever. Time is irrelevant to him and he can even bend it if he wishes. Because he's outside of the whole scene, He doesn't need to make himself notes, "Scare the heck out of Zechariah in the Temple. Remind Gabriel to visit Mary. Prepare stable. Stick star in sky." God is beyond the sequence and intimately involved in it. All things are at work because of God. He holds all things together.

Consider God's relationship to our will. That's a mystery too big for anyone to understand, but somehow God allows our choices to affect our circumstances and the circumstances of others. Our prayers can even change the course of events on the earth. Yet nothing happens that surprises him and nothing happens without his foreknowledge. We can sin, we can fail, but we can't thwart the plans of God, who sees the whole amazing tapestry of every person in the world, and knits it all together in his perfect plan.

Consider God's relationship to you and me. We plan, we schedule, we discipline ourselves to complete our tasks. We think some things are more spiritual than others, and some of us make great efforts to improve spiritually, physically, intellectually, or whatever. But God works through every detail of our lives, even the ones we are unaware of, to make us aware of him and more like him. Every moment (if you can use that term in relationship to God) he is thinking completely of every one of us, pouring out his love and his mercy.

Romans 11:34 says, "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?" The answer is, of course, no one but God himself.

And he can keep track of it all without writing it down on his Planner Pad or programming it into his Blackberry.

So today, as I set my agenda for the week, I'm glad that I have a purpose and a mission, and I will work hard to complete it. But I will also pause and remember that God directs my days. He is at work. Always has been. Always will be. His agenda is the only one that really matters. Remembering he's at work makes my work a lot less overwhelming.

Reflecting on a Decade of Youth Ministry and Pondering the Next One

(This is an article I wrote for our student ministry newsletter. It's a bit long for a blog, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.)

I cannot believe it’s already 2010. Where did this decade go--these 3,652 days, 87,648 hours, 5,258,880 minutes? Think for a moment about the things we now take for granted that did not exist, or at least weren’t as commonplace, just ten years ago, things that most of us need to survive:

Cell phones Facebook Panera Bread
Texting Flat screen TVs YouTube
Ipods Terrorist Alert Colors
Miley Cyrus (I don’t need her to survive, but some of you do!)

Anyway, for most of the people reading this, the now-ending decade equals the majority of your life. For me, it’s like somebody hit the FF button on my remote and skipped a whole scene.

It seems like yesterday we were preparing for the turn of the century, known at the time as Y2K. There was a lot of hype that night. People were worried the world was going to end, all computers were going to crash, the electric grid was going to explode, and the moon was going to fall out of the sky. They stocked cases of water and giant cans of beans in their pantry. I celebrated by parking cars at a country club in Colorado to earn some cash. It was our last year of seminary. We were poor and happy. Karen was at home with three little boys. Thomas was only 1 ½. The world didn’t end. In fact, for us it seemed to be just beginning.

A few months later, I walked across the stage to accept my diploma. I was as proud as David after slaying Goliath. I only had two B’s my entire seminary career (both in Greek). I got an award as the best preacher in my class. I had already visited, interviewed, and been hired as the first-ever youth pastor at Mountain View Community Church. I even had a fancy title: Associate Pastor of Student Ministries. It was the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. We celebrated with a family vacation to Yellowstone, where we camped under a sky as big as the dreams we shared.

We arrived in Maryland in June and moved into a home the church had arranged for us to rent in Adamstown. It was a cool old house, but one of the first days there, Karen saw a spider big enough to be Maryland’s third largest city. A couple of days later, we were looking at a little brick ranch house in Walkersville. It was about the 10th house we’d looked at that day. It was small, but the backyard was huge, the neighbors were nice, and while we were there a little steam engine rambled down a railroad track behind the fence. We knew. The boys have grown up in that house.

Of course, while our boys grew up, so did the youth ministry at Mountain View. Our first event was XXXL Beach Day – a one-day marathon to Rehoboth Beach. Joel Stafford “helped” out—he pulled up beside me at a stoplight and opened fire with a Super Soaker. Some things never change. A 7th-grader named Ben Roembke ignored my plea to put on sunscreen. On the way home, the fair-skinned, freckled Ben was in agony, shivering and moaning in the back seat of my car while I debated about what I was going to say to his parents. Either, “I’m so sorry; I should have put the sunscreen on him myself,” or “Your son is dumb.”

That fall, we started SOS. I thought the name was cool, an import from Colorado. It stood for Stoked on Sundays—you know, “stoked,” as in, “Woah, Dude, there’s a foot of powder today! I’m stoked! Let’s grab some big air.” The kids thought I was a dork and made fun of me. I cajoled Scott and Erika Rape to join me as my first staff recruits. We were the whole senior high youth staff.

We met at DeGrazia’s house in Holly Hills. Their basement was perfect. Mrs. DeGrazia stocked the fridge with sodas and made us pizza. That was probably the reason anybody came. Somehow I convinced 13 kids to go on a retreat despite having no real answer for their nagging question, “What’re we gonna do there?” Melissa Hite (who has since moved to Florida) called to offer to teach Sunday School. I told her she had to come on the retreat. Scott and Erika came, too, with their new baby, Cale. There were 18 of us that weekend at a little camp called Refreshing Mountain. I brought an Al Gore mask; he was running for president. He’s in the picture.
Meanwhile, our middle school group met at Urbana Elementary for something called Manic Mondays. Now that was a name that made sense! Trying to teach a lesson to kids sitting on the floor in the corner of the gym was like trying to get the attention of a cattle herd by waving a feather. On more than one occasion I thought it might be worth the jail time to strangle Christopher Reynolds and Nathaniel Jones, two incorrigible middle school boys. I needed more than Joel’s Super Soaker.

In the summer of 2001, we took our first mission trip to Matamoros, Mexico. The heat, the rotten-egg- smelling showers, and the dirty-toilet-paper-in-the-garbage-instead-of-the-toilet changed us all, but not as much as the incredible bond we felt with the people we could barely understand.

In the fall of 2001, we officially became The View. An old acquaintance of mine was working as a graphic designer near Harrisburg. I asked him to make us a logo that looked kind of like “Mountain Dew, only with a cross.” He did a good job.

In the summer of 2002, 29 people had nothing better to do, so they signed up to to go to Atlanta for something called “Nationals.” I told them it was going to be awesome. They didn’t believe me, but they went anyway. It was 95 degrees with 100% humidity when we arrived.

That evening, we walked into Georgia Tech’s basketball arena. The place was packed with 6,000 students. Lasers lit up the room, speakers blared. Our students looked like a bunch of Amish kids who’d been air-dropped into Disney World. Soon a little guy nobody had ever heard of named Chris Tomlin started to play. By the end of the week, our lives were changed. Mary Sarah Kneebone was changed the most – she no longer hated me. And more importantly, she loved God.

I could go on for a long time. There are so many memories from the past ten years. There was the first-ever video-making contest in 2002, producing the classic, “Monday Night Football.” There was the trip to Nationals in Salt Lake City in 2004, when we took advantage of our time in the west to climb rocks at Zion National Park, ride horses through the dust of Bryce Canyon, and eat burgers fresh off the buffalo at the ranch. There were more mission trips to Mexico, Peru, Pittsburgh and New Orleans—and more fall retreats at Refreshing Mountain. There were long drives through the snow to Camp Orchard Hill, and short drives to deliver blankets to the homeless in DC. We changed Manic Mondays to Mini Mondays and then, for obvious reasons, to Wise On Wednesdays. We moved SOS from DeGrazia’s to Katsotis’s to the Landon House to Jones’s and eventually to Leggit’s. We celebrated Christmas with the microwaveable egg timer reappearing year after year as the prized gift, and started a sweet banquet to honor our seniors.

We laughed a lot. We learned a lot (I hope). And we cried a lot, too, especially when Louisa died, a moment most of you won’t remember, and which I will never forget. It was December 5, 2005--the halfway point of the decade, and the seminal moment of Mountain View’s youth ministry. I’ve never looked at this ministry the same way again. It’s really, really important to realize the battle we face as we fight for the souls of young men and women.

And through all of this, God was good. He was faithful. He was teaching us. He was growing us. He was leading us. He was living in us. As he has always done, and will always do. Everything changes, except Him.

Who knows how the world will be different ten years from now. I heard that Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are merging into a new network called YouTwitFace.

But this new decade belongs to you—the current generation of the View. You may be 12, 13, maybe 17, and your time at the View is now! Take advantage of it. SOS and WOW will provide friendship and community. Morning View (soon to be “DTour”) will provide discipleship. Backoftheline will provide practice. Mission trips will provide new eyes. Challenge will provide passion. The youth staff will provide guidance and love. Our new youth center will provide space (Woohoo!). The Holy Spirit will provide a new heart. And YOU will provide the enthusiasm and energy necessary to make our memories complete and our decade all it’s meant to be.

How fast will these next 3,652 days go? If they go by as quickly as the past ones did, I’m going to need oxygen to catch my breath. But I’m ready. And whether you know it or not, so are you!
Happy New Decade!

How to End Poorly

Yesterday, a man named Brian Kelly accepted the head coaching position at Notre Dame. I had never heard of Brian Kelly before a few weeks ago, when I watched his former team, the Cincinnati Bearcats, beat Pitt in a miracle comeback, 45-44, to finish their regular season undefeated and win the Big East championship.

Brian Kelly seems to be a very good coach. He took Cincinnati's football program and built it into a national power in just three years. This year they are ranked third in the nation and will be playing in the Sugar Bowl in front of millions of viewers.

In that game, however, they will not be coached by Brian Kelly. He's already left for South Bend. He grabbed the money and the prestige and headed for the promised land faster than any of his players can run the 40.

This displays a lack of character that I find disheartening and shameful.

It's not his leaving that I find offensive. He's Irish and he's Catholic. Being the head coach at Notre Dame is to Irish Catholics what being being the quarterback of the Steelers is to boys from Pittsburgh. It's how he did it that I cannot fathom.

He accepted the job and agreed to leave his post while his team prepares to play their biggest game ever. He left his assistant coaches and more importantly, a group of young men he invested in and supposedly cared about, right before their greatest challenge. He's like a ship captain abandoning his vessel right before the battle. His actions demonstrated incredible lack of tact, shameless cowardice, and a frightful sense of narcissism.

This is how he did it. He met with his players after their football banquet (what should have been a happy time) and told them he was grateful that they made this possible for him. Then he told them he would not be coaching them in the Sugar Bowl and then snuck out the back door, with a police escort, leaving them to answer questions for the media. On the way out, he had time to change his Twitter and webpage, replacing Bearcats with Fighting Irishmen, red and black for green and gold.

Some of his players cried. Others were angry. All of them had to ask themselves a very legitimate question: Couldn't he have stayed for the Sugar Bowl, and headed off to his new job with a sense of completion? Couldn't he have taken some time to say goodbye to everyone he purported to care so much about? If he had done so, he could have left with honor and good will. He could have left with unburned bridges and relationships intact. He could have taught his team a lesson about commitment. He could have ended well. Instead, he made it all about him, left under the cover of darkness as a coward, and alienated everyone he purported to care about so deeply these past few years. In doing so, he revealed his true character as a selfish glory chaser and not a leader of young men.

Good luck, Notre Dame. I have a feeling you will regret this decision. You hired a good coach, and a lousy person.