We're Going Back In Time

Tomorrow we are going to go back in time without the use of the Delorean (Back To The Future), the Tardis (Dr. Who), the phone booth (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure), Uncle Rico's Time Machine Modulus (Napoleon Dynamite), the Time Sled (H.G. Well's Time Machine), or the Time Turner (Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban). How are we going to do this you ask? Simple, it's all in our minds.

It's amazing how fast the summer went by. It seems like it just started, and yet here we are, the end of August, and some are even back at school already. Tomorrow night we are going to flashback and relive the summer in one quick hour and a half segment. Join us tomorrow night as we look at pictures from this summer and remember all the fun times we had. Not only will we look at pictures, but we'll remember what we learned and what decisions we made during the summer. We'll laugh, we'll learn, but don't worry it won't be too "heavy" and you'll be "back in time" for your parents to pick you up. So come join us flash back to the past tomorrow night at Crash. "Don't be a square", I hope to see you there.

Shuffle & Deal

I love to play games of any kind, but I really like to play card games. Card games are just easy and versatile. If you don't have a table top for a board game you can just play a card game. Plus, if you're by yourself, you really can't play Monopoly or Risk, however you can play any number of versions of Solitaire with a deck of cards. This Wednesday night we'll be playing some fun card games. So in honor of my love of card games as well as this Wednesday night, here are my top 10 favorite card games.

10. Go Fish - This is a very basic game. I remember playing this with my brother and my grandma in her RV on family vacations. It's a really fun game. I always played where you have to get a book (all 4 cards) to lay it down and get the points as opposed to just pairs.

9. Rummy (& Hearts) - My brother, sister & I would play this on long, family road trips. We had it down to an art. We would all sit in the back seat of my parents van as they drove. We would then put down the two middle seats and use those as a table to lay down our cards. My strategy in Rummy was to hold on to the cards until I could lay all my cards down and go out on one turn. When it worked, it would catch my siblings off guard. When it didn't, I had a lot of points counted against me. When we played Hearts I tried to 'shoot the moon' more than I should have. I only pulled it off like 10 times.

8. Apples To Apples - This game didn't come out till I was in college. This is a classic party game. I remember being at the RHCC Fall Youth Ministry Staff Retreat at Alpine. So much fun, so many inside jokes. And playing it late at night when everyone is beyond the tired phase and onto the giddy tired phase makes it so much funnier. Though with this game, I always seem to misjudge people. What I think will be a winning card turns out not to be even close. Needless to say, I didn't win very much. But it was still fun anyway.

7. Super Uno - I remember learning this later in high school. This is like Uno, but much better & faster paced. It's played like regular Uno with a few extra rules: 1) You can slip in a card, out of turn, if it is the same color AND same number. 2) 'Draw 2' cards can stack up on top of each other. 3) If anyone plays a '0' then everyone passes their hand to the left. I remember a 20 person game that was just crazy!

6. Family Business - This is a fun mob game where you try to be the last mob standing. I remember that if you played with some of the guys from my college group, you could only talk using a mob-like accent. It made from some hilarious and good times.

5. President & Scum - I remember I learned this game at a youth center on a cruise ship. It was a really fun game. You try to get rid of your cards first by playing cards. The first 2 players to get rid of all their cards, is the president and vice president. The last 2 to get rid of all their cards is the scum & vice scum. You can play as many hands as you want but typically the presidents and scums change each hand. This is a fun game if you have the right amount of people.

4. Spoons - This is a classic, fast paced, party, card game. I remember playing with my family and some family friends. Once, my friend, who is pretty competitive, went to reach for the spoon, he tried to fling the rest away from me to the other end of the table. But in the process he inadvertently fell back in his chair. He didn't get hurt, but we were all laughing about it. I also remember another time when I was able to get a spoon without anyone noticing for 3 full minutes.

3. Egyptian Rat Slap (or Egyptian War) - This one I remember playing at high school summer camp. Everyone loved it and it was easy to jump into a game even if you weren't there when it started. I remember we would play anytime we had free time. Sometimes we'd even play for hours.

2. Hand & Foot - This is actually a game my parents taught me within the last 3 years and it has become one of my favorite. When you have the right cards it's really fun. When you don't it really stinks. I remember playing during Thanksgiving break 2 years ago with my parents and my brother and his wife. I remember Campbell & Krista going out and my mom and I weren't even half way done. We had half our deck count as points against us. Needless to say, they dominated that round. There was no chance to come back. Even though we lost, and even though I complained, I still had lots of fun.

1. Phase 10 - This is one of my favorite card games. But why this is ranked number one is all the memories I have playing this game. I remember when I was going to Biola, my friends Brian, Lauren and I would drive to Denny's or Red Robin late at night (at like 11PM) and sit and play Phase 10. Sometimes we had other friends who would join us. But it was always us. Those were some really good times that I will never forget.

Well, that's it for now. I hope to see all you junior high students tomorrow night at Crash, where we'll have fun playing cards.

The Best Beaches

To get everyone in the mood for our beach trip tomorrow, I'm going to share with you what I think are the best beaches. Now I have done my fair share of traveling. I have traveled all around the world. I have been to beaches in Spain & Italy, Oregon & Florida. It was hard to narrow down my favorite. I know there are plenty of other awesome beaches out there, but I'm not going to recommend a beach that I have never been to (or don't remember). So here is my list of the Top 6 Best, Most Awesome Beaches (That I Have Been To And Remember).

6. Waianapanapa "Black Sand" Beach in Hawaii - This beach, if I remember correctly is at the end of a very narrow, very curvy, very beautiful and very treacherous highway. We got to this beach in the late afternoon. The black of the sand made all the other colors spark. It was really beautiful!

5. Hanauma Bay Beach in Hawaii - I remember this beach when my family went to Hawaii. We all got snorkeling equipment and went swimming here. My mom also got an underwater camera. We read about a trick to get the underwater life to swim around you (put bread in the pockets of your swimsuit) and took a bunch of awesome underwater pictures. This was also where I learned I could blow air rings underwater.

4. Carolina Beach in North Carolina - Last summer for my vacation I visited my brother who lives in North Carolina. The morning I got off the plane (after taking a true all night red eye complete with 4 layovers), I was allowed to sleep a few hours. Then my brother and sister in law woke me up, packed up the car and took me to Carolina beach a few hours away. It was a fun day, and a great way to spend my first day in North Carolina.

3. Waikiki Beach in Hawaii - My fondest memory here is playing a game of volleyball. It was my brother and I verses two old guys. We ultimately lost, but I'll always remember playing volleyball on a team with my older brother and doing decently well.

2. Huntington Beach in California - This is one of the default beaches that everyone goes to. If you want to have a good time and don't mind driving a bit, this is a classically awesome beach. And it happens to be the beach that we're going to tomorrow.

1. Redondo Beach in California - It should come as no surprise that my home town is also my favorite beach. Nothing really beats home. And my home happens to have an awesome beach!

Look at those gorgeous pictures. God is fantastic! God's creation is beautiful! I can't wait till we leave tomorrow and head to the beach. It's going to be so much fun! I hope to see you tomorrow morning.

Friend Or Foe?

Sometimes our parents can be our friends. They'll drive us around, make us after school snacks, let our friends come sleep over and even let us go to the mall by ourselves. Yes, our parents can in fact be cool. When they're nice, it seems like the perfect relationship, where all they care about is your happiness. I know for me, there were times when my parents were awesome. Like when I was in high school and they let me stay out till 10:30 or 11 watching a movie at my friends house. In fact, I really didn't have a curfew per say. It was just as long as I was home at a decent hour and they knew were I was.

Although they can be nice, other times it seems like our parents are just a big enemy that we're always battling. Like they won't let us go to youth group until after our homework's done. Or they make us do 50 chores like Cinderella before they let us hang out with our friends. Or during our favorite TV show they tell us that if we don't take out the trash that we'll be grounded. Or maybe they won't take us to the mall because they don't feel like it. Or maybe they cause us so much pain because in their selfishness they don't keep promises, or they're always drunk or verbally abusive. At times you feel like their goal in life is to make you miserable. Like when I was in junior high I liked to hang out in my room, talk to my friends on the phone or play video games. But I would always get in trouble because they didn't want me to hang out in my room they wanted me to hang out and talk with them, even if there was nothing they wanted me to talk about. Or they would make me weed the entire garden before I could invite friends over. They knew I hated to weed, but they made me do it anyway.

It's said that, "people who love us the most can also hurt us the most." This is so true. Those who love us most, know us most and know how to push our buttons. So, what do we do when our parents are acting like a foe. What can we do when they're causing us pain and frustration? Join us tomorrow night as we wrap up our series on Teens Vs. Parents and look at how and why our parents can be friends AND enemies and what we can do when we think they're being an enemy.

(Don't) Stick It To The Man

Have you ever noticed how much humanity loves to rebel? Everyone seems to love "sticking it to the Man." And I'm not just talking about wanting our own way and rebelling against God. Rebellion seems to be a part of who we are. Every where you turn there seems to be some sort of rebellion, some sort of fight against the ruling power. In the movie Star Wars, the Rebel Alliance fights against the Empire. In the Civil War the Confederacy fought the Union. In business, the unions fight against the companies. Criminals rebel against the government. Even a couple Christian, God fearing brothers are inciting the youth to join up in a "Rebolution" (a combination of rebellion and revolution) to fight against low expectations (in the book Do Hard Things). People rebel when they wish to live their lives opposite from the ruling authority or social majority. People fight because they think they know better.

Everyone sees rebellion within a family- a kid rebelling against his parents. We see this all the time. A child who rebels against his or her parent. Children rebel because they think they know better and what to live their lives different from how their parents want them to live their lives. Sometimes the rebellion is minor, a kid wants to die his hair blue or get their tongue pierced. But other times the rebellion is major, a kid runs away, or always do the opposite of what their parents want.

Even though I was a good kid, I still rebelled against my own parents. It didn't really heat up till I was in college. My big rebellious act was to stay up and out really late. My parents didn't like that I was staying out so late. In their minds, they were being fair & reasonable. They were worried that staying out so late would get me pulled over by the cops, or into an accident with a drunk driver. But my view was that I was an adult, over 18 and could, "live my life how I wanted." My curfew was something that my parents and I fought over many many times. Eventually we were able to talk civilly about it and come to an agreement. But not before a lot of fighting, pain and frustration.

Is rebelling against our parents really the right thing to do? Even if we have a good reason? Ephesians 6:1-3 says, "Children, obey your parents in the LORD, for this is right. 'Honor your father and mother' - which is the first commandment with a promise - 'that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy a long life on earth.'" Why do you think God says that we'll be well and enjoy a long life on the earth if we honor and respect our parents (as opposed to rebelling against them)? We'll be talking about this and more tomorrow night at Crash. So I hope to see you all there.

Expect Expectations

I have been blessed with parents who have motivated and challenged me to be the best I can be. The best part is, what I knew they expected was hard but it wasn't impossible. They knew what I could do and challenged me to do better. For example, my parents challenged me to get good grades. They knew I could get 'B's so that was what they expected. But they help me and challenged me to get even better grades. My dad even made a deal with me that if I got honor roll he would buy me a Nintendo 64 (that was the big thing when I was a kid). I would try and try and honestly I didn't get it for a long time. It wasn't until my 8th grade year that I finally, and after a lot of hard work made honor roll. My parents knew I could do it. They didn't just expect it from me, they challenged me, pushed me, and even helped me.

Here's another example. My dad didn't expect me to do anything that he couldn't do, so when I was in Boy Scouts, he didn't expect me to get Eagle Scout because he didn't get to the rank of Eagle. He wanted me to, but he didn't expect me to. When I got to rank of 1st Class my parents sat me down and said, "OK, now things are going to get harder. Do you want to keep going for Eagle or do you want to stop here." When I said that I wanted to keep going their response was, "OK, we'll help you and push you to get there." With me wanting to go on, they now expected me to get Eagle. And days before my 18th birthday, when you are no longer a scout, I earned my Eagle Scout rank.

My mom always said, "It takes a little bit to be above average." Her expectation of me was to be above average. As far as I know, I have not let her or her expectation down. She is very proud of me, and tells me all the time. As I said, I know that I am blessed. The reality is every parent has expectations of their children. They generally wants what's best for them. For some parents this means pushing their children to live up to their expectations even if they are high and unrealistic. Some parents seem to expect perfection and don't settle for anything less. They think they know what's best, so they push their children to be the best, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. I don't think some parents really realize just what kind of pressure they are putting on their children.

So, the questions remain, how do deal with our parents expectations of us? How do we even find out what our parents really expect of us? Join us tomorrow night at Crash as we continue our series of Teens Vs. Parents. We'll be looking at how people try to live up to the expectations of their parents, how they deal when they can't and what we can do about our own parent's expectations. I hope to see you tomorrow night.

Imperfect Families With Imperfect People

When I was in college I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine. We were talking about families. I argued that family is, to an extent, one of the few things you can (or at least should be able to) count on, families are worth fighting for. I have been very lucky to have a family that is very close & loving. My friend, on the other hand, was not so lucky. He doesn't get along with his family at all really. Yes, there are times when his family plays nice, and gets along. But for the most part, his family isn't very nice to him, and as a result he has a lot of hurt and pain. He argued that very rarely do families get along and for the most part, can't stand each other. Can you count on your family? Or are they just a big disappointment full of hurt and pain? Is there any such thing as "The Perfect Family"?

I think the answers to these questions become clear when you realize a huge truth about families. Family is full of people & people are not perfect, which means that family is not perfect. There is no family in the world that is perfect. Every family has issues & problems. My own family, although we are close & loving, are not perfect. We may look good, but I know I have caused my family pain and at times they have caused me pain. There maybe families that look good, but every family has some conflict that they will go through, at some point or another there is hurt & pain. The world is full of broken families, and families are full of hurt & pain. But what do we do with that hurt & pain? How do we respond when our families make us mad or sad, when they cause us hurt & pain?

Join us tomorrow at Crash we will begin a new series called Teens Vs. Parents. It's about the relationship between students & their parents. Over the course of the next 4 weeks we will look at different aspects of that relationship. We'll start off tomorrow night, by looking at the idea of the perfect family and how we should deal with the fact that no family is perfect because no person is perfect. I hope to see you tomorrow night at Crash.