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Seems Like A Good Day to Pray

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Sitting at The Met–a coffee shop–down in Renton.  This morning I am doing some work on the new editions of RoadGrip, HomeBase and Merge.  In just a bit I’ll be honored to grab some time with my friend, Dave Devries.  Instead of just jumping into the writing and the meetings, I’m starting my day with some concentrated prayer time, I’d be much obliged if you’d join me by praying for the following:

  • Pray for the many youth groups Youthmark has the opportunity to train for Mission51–being a missionary always, all ways a missionary!  We have completed three of our six retreats, over the next three weeks we conduct our northwest/local retreats!  The travel season was great, but it sure is nice to be home!
  • Pray for my neighbors.  We have several in our neighborhood who we have started to build relationship with.  Pray that we’d be an encouragement to those who know Jesus and build relationship with those who do not.  What an honor it will be to share Jesus with these friends-to-be.
  • Pray for discernment.  I am in the midst of creating/outlining/designing/etc. a ministry/business plan.  I need to know where I am aiming in order to hit it.
  • Pray for the lost.  Do you have non-Christian friends, relatives, co-workers, etc.? Pray for them.  Prayer=Care.  The more prayer usually means the more care.  As you care for these folk, I pray you’ll begin to share the Great news with your mouth.  It doesn’t take much to start a spiritual conversation.  Not in a cheesy, “your yard sure looks beautiful, but do you know what needs some work?–Your heart” type of a way.  Genuinely loving and listening will provide entry points!  Go for it!  I am praying for this for you!

Grace,
Brian

Top Five Tuesday: Jr./Sr. High School Dances, Slow Songs

Brian Aaby 1 Comment

Are you ready to stroll down my sappy-memory lane?

Today’s top 5 explores the memory of my dance-career in high school.  Do you remember the days of being dressed up in your high school gymnasium or cafeteria on a Friday or Saturday night, hoping that the next song is a slow one?  I do.  Don’t give me the fast-paced MC Hammer, give me some slow songs from Richard Marx.  The white-man overbite and running man never suited me, but the mix-tape of Chicago and some moody-Madonna got me geared up for the slow-dances with the ladies.

The criteria for today’s top 5:  these were the top 5 songs I can remember grooving too in my late Jr. High through High School years.

Without further ado, the list.

Five: Time After Time, by Cindy Lauper. Okay, I might be remembering the snowball skate in late elementary with this one, but hey, it was “mass-rad-song.”

Four: One More Try, by George Michael. C’mon, listen to this one and you’ll be drawn back to the slow-swaying of yesteryear!  Wow, I just did and I just flashed back to my Meeker Jr. High Cafeteria and the wretched smells of over-perfumed girls and mal-deodorized boy-pits.

Three: Crazy For You, by Madonna. This one landed in my 6th grade year, I think, but I can remember requesting it at a dance in 7th grade.  I can’t believe that they actually played this stuff.  It’s pretty risque if you ask me.  Warning, these lyrics are NC-17 if you ask me.  But I guess I’ve become quite-the-old-fuddy-duddy.  Or, I have daughters.

Two: Could’ve Been, by Tiffany. Not only did she rock, “I Think We’re Alone Now,” only one of the most popular songs of my eighth/ninth grade summer, she slowed it down for us with this little gem.

One: Somebody, by Depeche Mode. The live version of this song blasted through my white boom-box way too many times to count.  I distinctly remember shot-gun riding in my friend Mike’s Red VW Bug and hushing the convo and turning up the tunes so we could dream of our future MRS. that was sure to be at the dance the next weekend!  Depeche Mode was also known as “Depress Mood,” but they hit the grand slam with this song.

No doubt I am missing some great ones, hook me up with your memories and let me know some of your favorite dance-sap memories of these songs too!

Grace,

Brian

ColoRADo!

Brian Aaby 2 Comments

The retreat in Colorado was in fact, Rad-o.  Yes, I will have some cheese, please.

I’ll post about the retreat soon, but for today, I’ll give you some shots.

Grace,
Brian

Top Five Tuesday: Childhood Toys

Brian Aaby 5 Comments

Join me in my walk down memory lane.  I can honestly say that taking on this subject will be tough, and will make me seriously wonder about hitting Toys-R-Us tomorrow just to re-enter my childhood.  I might just have to.

This top 5 looks at my favorite toys as a young’n.  The criteria… I had to have owned one (or more) of these in order for it to qualify.  They don’t necessarily have to be legitimate “toys,” rather something I used to do to go out (or in) to play.  Side note: Do you remember the days of just calling your friend and saying, “can you come over and play?”  I think we should still do that.

Without further ado, the list.

Honorable Mentions: Electronic Football Field, Intelevision and Nerf hoops.

Five: Legos.  Spaceships, hydroplanes and cars made out of these plastic gems.  Enough said.

Four: Big Wheel/Green Machine.  I loved the three-wheel wonder that is the Big Wheel.  I don’t know why they don’t make these for adults?  Do you remember when you did the power brake and power-slides so much that it actually made the wheel go square?  I didn’t mind, because that meant a new one was coming next Christmas…. until I was 12.  Getting old stunk.

Three: Big-Tonka Trucks. I remember a couple years Tonka made some vehicles that were almost perfectly to scale, I had a couple Broncos, Jeeps and Tow-Trucks that were about 18-24 inches in length and a good 8-10 inches tall.  These differed bigtime from what you have out there now… back then it was metal; I’d send those things off rock piles and cement barriers and it was just like I saw on the Dukes of Hazzard!  Loved me some Tonka.

Two: Baseball/Football Cards. I know, not a toy, but the sheer energy spent in purchasing, trading, drafting, researching, ranking and studying these things easily make them a true childhood toy.  I still have thousands.

One: Stompers. These little 4×4 were the best.  I know it is pretty silly to think, but I would honestly still play with mine if I had them.  Equipped with a single AA battery these Stompers did the offroad and off-carpet racing.  I loved setting up the ol’ Sandbox with tall mountains, deep tunnels and  plenty or boulders (baseball sized rocks) along the way.  Anyone have one they want to give me?  C’mon!

What stuff did I forget? Got one you agree or disagree with me on?

Grace,

Brian

CONTEST: Best Addition

Brian Aaby 13 Comments

This just screams “Contest.”  The picture below is a list of rules for teachers in the first school in San Diego, circa 1872, exactly 100 years before my birthyear!  I took this picture the other day and I haven’t stopped laughing!

So, the contest, staying consistent with the current list you can read below I’d like some more rules that you’d like to add.  The best additional rules will be listed as “in the running” and then after a couple days I’ll crown the Best Addition King or Queen!  As always, please keep them clean!

If your comment doesn’t appear right away, no worries, I may need to approve you if you haven’t commented ever before or in the last few weeks.  Have fun!

The 1872 San Diego School Rules for Teachers

Grace,
Brian

Note:  One of the best things about this, we discovered that the original teacher served for 1-year at the school, then married the school board President?  Hmmm?

********* In The Running **********

9. All teachers must be able to correctly define, spell, and use properly in a sentence the words nib, whittle, and scuttle. ~Calia

Any teacher who smiles at a child shall remain in isolation until a scowl returns. ~Jen

“Any teacher who actually dies physically, is required to tell somebody verbally, so the issue can be dealt with promptly.” ~Jan

9. Any teacher found to be a Confederate sympathizer will be tarred, feathered and sent to the new state of West Virginia indefinitely. ~Marc

Any teacher who stutters or mumbles while speaking will be sentenced to no less than three hours of cleaning up cattle manure. ~Richard Judd

ALL teachers who enter the evil Silicon Valley will be required to pay the penitence penalty of one apple. ~Joe Monto

If you balk at the first 8 rules the other 1864 rules will be applied more harshly. ~Aaron

************ The Winners*************

These were great, I honestly had a very tough time deciding… Monto’s was very prophetic, Aaron’s may have been the most unique/clever, but Jan and Jen get the prizes (it’s a tie!)… I’ve got a “Live and Love Loudly” (theme for the spring retreat for YMV’s) t-shirt for each of you as the prize!  I’ll arrange getting these to you.

Timing

Brian Aaby 1 Comment

The last several weeks have been filled with some very cool “God’s Timing” moments.  Things that happened that it was just so evident that God was orchestrating that exact circumstance for that exact moment.  For instance, I wrote about Brandon in Pine, AZ, who just happened to be pulling into the library at the exact time we were stopping in to ask about a church.  Then last week it was just so obvious to me that Sitka, Alaska was to be the place that our team from Dallas, Oregon should go.  However, the pieces did not fit and the day after they said, “not this year,” I heard back from Haines, Alaska who had not gotten back to me in three weeks.  Their leadership voted unanimously to have the team from Dallas!  God’s timing is perfect.

Well, yesterday He did it again. As I was listening to the Podcast of the sermon I missed last Sunday and after a much-needed 11 mile bike-ride while I was still cooling down, I thought I’d stop the procrastination and pull out our old lawnmower and begin the yard work for the year.  Side-note: our lawn mower is old.  It was old (used) when we received it in 1999. I had a hard time starting it this year and when it finally did start it would only go for about 30 seconds.  So, needless to say, 15 minutes into my lawn-mowing experience the front lawn was only 1/3 done.  It looked horrible.  As Pastor John was preaching through my earbuds and as the lawnmower was sputtering I was thinking about how long this would take with the engine lasting about 5-6 seconds each time I started it now…

…John, in his sermon, was talking about being Jesus in our world.  He literally had just introduced the point “share the Gospel” and was talking about our unsaved family, coworkers and our neighbors.

Over the light hacking of the mower and the proclamations of John I heard, “Hey, let me know if you need to borrow mine!”

My neighbor from across the street and a few doors down was inviting me to borrow his mower.  I had never met, nor seen the man.  However, this was a loud shout from God, not just a invite from a neighbor.

I love God’s timing.  Elisabeth and I had committed ourselves to this being the year we really invested in getting to know our neighbors.  We’ve seen some progress this year, but this was an unexpected blessing.  I did borrow my neighbor’s mower, and way more important than the lawn getting mowed was the foundation of relationship we now have through the couple of conversations we had before and after the mowing.

We left the conversation with the hope of doing a barbecue together soon!

Jesus is Lord of time!  He knew I’d be listing to that sermon at that time.  He knew our cruddy ol’ mower would sputter at that time and he  Thank you Lord for your timing!

Grace,

Brian

Top Five Tuesday: Spring Projects

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It’s been a busy early spring.  Between the Youthmark Mission Venture Spring Retreats, a wedding in Montana, writing for the summer of 2010, and other family happenings, I am noticing a growing list of stuff that I want to get done (and sometimes NEED to get done) growing.  So, for today’s list, I thought I’d procrastinate on getting some of these projects started and give you the list of the Spring Projects I want to work on in the order of most excitement.

The Criteria:  These projects are all things that I have not yet started work on (otherwise, the next five spring retreats would dominate the list, because I’m so excited about these).

Without further ado, the list.

Five: The Yard. Yep, that’s right, haven’t even mowed the lawn once in 2010.  Ouch.  It’s looks nasty, the only saving grace so far for our yard is that my lovely Bride has been a fantastic blessing and done a lot to keep the yard looking good (leaves, weeds and other general “yard” stuff).  Okay, I’ll get to it… oh darn, it’s starting to rain…

Four: The Garage. New Youthmark inventory means re-arranging the clutter of the garage, once again.  The good news, Elisabeth has still been able to park in the garage.  The bad news… I can’t remember the last time I parked in the garage.

Three: Odds and Ends for Elisabeth. I hate to call it a “Honey-Do” list because Elisabeth is just not that type of a gal.  However, she does have several things on her list that I could be of great help to her.  So the little things like the drooping curtain rod and large hole in our kitchen ceiling are on the list of things I look forward to getting done for the family.

Two: Revised Business/Ministry Plan. This whole “Youthmark” thing has been quite fun.  However, it can get a bit overwhelming and though I am a planner, I have discovered that without a road-map it can become difficult to know exactly where we are going.  I look forward to sitting down and coming up with a comprehensive ministry/business plan.  With this being said, please understand that it starts with and is maintained with a trust in the Spirit to guide (just don’t want anyone reacting to the word “plan”).

One: Pre-Marketing for 2011.  I have had a lot of ideas zippin’ around the ol’ noggin.  The only problem, I haven’t had a lot of time to get them written out and started.  However, my goal is to have 2011 “stuff” written by the beginning of the 2010 missions (this makes for better/smarter marketing as well).  Fun stuff in store, and quite different than the previous two years!

That’s the list for now… I don’t want it to grow, so please don’t send in your suggestions!

Grace,
Brian

500th Post!

Brian Aaby Leave a comment

As I begin this, my 500th blog post at brianaaby.com, I wondered about “the early days of my blogging,” so I decided to go back and re-read my first posts here (three posted in late June), I wondered what I had done for my 1-year anniversary on that date, so I looked back at the archives and I posted twice, here and here.

June 28… a significant day, not only the day that I started my blog, but also the day that I started my spiritual journey with Jesus (way back in 1990)! Now, not even two years into my blog, I am up to 500 posts!  It’s been a fun journey and sorry to announce that this will be my last post as well.

April Fools’!  Since I didn’t get you on April 1, I thought I’d try the 18th.

In all seriousness, it has been a fun discipline to maintain this blog. I hope you will continue to be a faithful, semi-faithful or occasional drop-by reader.

In case you were wondering, here are the stats up to 500 posts:

The total views, as of 4.17.10 was 40,518 (I guess my mom has come by nearly 40,000 times, thanks Mom!)

I have received 752 comments… that means I average over 1 comment per post… man, it doesn’t seem like that, I’d like to hear back from you more!

The busiest day was Tuesday, January 5, 2010.  For whatever reason, 288 people wanted to see this. Which, in case you were wondering, hasn’t been totally fulfilled (there’s still time)!

500 down, at least another 500 to go, right?  We’ll see.

Grace,
Brian