conversations from the couch

There’s a large concentration of ministry organizations in Colorado, and a lot of visiting that goes on between each other. Visiting usually involves the seeking of “partnership opportunities” which is code for “business venture.” It’s OK—we’re all looking for ways to grow and expand our ministries, but I love the occasions when we all meet without any agenda but mutual respect of ministry efforts.

This was the case with our friends from Dare 2 Share. Greg Stier, Debbie Bresina and Carol Ann hung out with our crew on Thursday to share the latest ministry happenings. Although Greg has spent time with other folks at Group, I personally didn’t really know him other than having heard him speak at various events, and I wondered if this would be another typical “partnership” business meeting.

It wasn’t. The time was authentically refreshing. The folks at D2S are committed to one thing—Jesus.  Greg isn’t about politics, condemnation, feel-good motivation, or an ego-driven sense of himself as the holy deliverer of the salvation message. He’s got a passionate, loving heart for sharing the message of Jesus, and he and D2S are dedicated to equipping others to share this message too.

Greg Stier is speaking at the Sunday evening general session at NYMC, as well as teaching a track on evangelism. I’m sure he’ll impart his message with the colorful intensity and personal illustrations that illuminate his passion, but it’s the one-on-one conversation with Greg that will blow you away. Look for him on the couch hanging out with other youth workers when he’s not speaking–it’s worth the time to get to know him.

If you know about Simply Youth Ministry (Doug Fields’ youth ministry resource company), you probably know Andy Brazelton.  Andy was one of Doug’s youth group kids from a decade ago who stuck around to run SYM. Andy’s also a part of our National Youth Ministry Conference crew, and he’s organizing a whole series of practical, hands-on, how-to media/technology workshops at NYMC, along with Chris Davis, the tech master behind  from youthministry.com. (Chris was also kind enough to set up this conference blog for us)

Andy’s actually visiting us in Colorado this week for some meetings at Group, and brought along his wife, Julie, and son, Carter, for company.  Since my husband, Tim, oversees the youth ministry resource area at Group and works closely with Andy, I thought a home-cooked dinner would be a nice way to include the whole family while we talked about the media workshop series at the conference.

Shortly before Tim and the Brazelton family showed up for dinner, I discovered disturbing evidence that our 85lb Golden Retriever puppy, Molly, had officially “entered into her womanhood.” Since Molly is a gregarious attention-loving beast, I couldn’t just lock her outside the patio door and spend an evening trying to talk over her frantic barking. A quick trip to PetsMart and some disposable dog diapers was the only solution. With the help of my mortified 12 year-old daughter, and 10 year-old son, we manged to wrestle a pamper on her and have a nice little impromtu, illustrated discussion about adolescent body changes. Problem solved.

When Andy, Julie and Carter arrived at our home, Molly barrelled into them with a super-hyper greeting. Her not-so-fresh doggie diaper exploded right off and launched at them as well. Welcome Brazeltons! Andy and Julie were kind enough to assist me in round 2 of the dog-diapering rematch. (it’s hard to put a wagging tail through the pamper tail-hole.) We proceeded to hang out for awhile and talk about some new workshops that need to be added to the NYMC website when Andy noticed Molly was trembling, graciously mentioned something smelled bad, and asked if the diaper allowed her to go to the bathroom if needed.  An a-ha moment for all of us. The sanitary pamper effort had taken an unfortunate 180 degree turn. I’ll stop the story here. We tried to enjoy our dinner conversation, but it was really hard to hear over the barking.

Thanks for being a great sport, Andy!