I opened with Tamar, who wasn’t a Jew, who lost 2 husbands and lost hope in the promised marriage. She took matters into her own hands and posed as a prostitute to get what was owed to her. We learned that sometimes people in teh church will give us lip service, claiming that we belong, but treating us like we don’t. We also learned that God never gives us lip service, and will bring us honor even if everyone else puts us into a place of dishonor.

The following week we learned there are a lot of prostitutes in the Christ family tree (ok, maybe not a lot but the first one pretend to be one and the second one was one, so it sure seems like a lot). Rahab probably didn’t grow up with great plans on how she was going to sell her body, but for what ever reason that is the path she ended up walking down. Then one day she got some customers that didn’t fit the mold. She was certainly full of fear, but she also had hope, probably for the first time in years. Over the course of several days she probably had some seriously mixed emotions. She betrayed her people in the hope that the spies would keep their word. Would they save her? Would she go from bad to worse or would things get better? She was an outsider, not part of the invading army she was trusting. Would they leave her and her family to starve? In the end she marries a war hero and lives happily ever after. God saw her in her brokenness and shame and saw fit to lift her up.

Last week we talked about Ruth, who’s life took a terrible turn through no fault of her own. Her sister in law went back to her old life and her mother in law found nothing but misery in the pain of her loss, going to far as to name herself “bitter.” God redeemed Ruth for her faithfulness in tending to her mother-in-law.

This week we will talk about Bathsheba. She also experienced loss, and more likely than not a good deal of shame and judgement. Even now she is judged. Was she trying to show off her body for the king and trap him with her womanly ways or was she forced into a no win situation by the most powerful man in the land, one clearly favored by God? How often do bad things happen because good people over step their bounds and how often do the victims get painted in the light of accusation? Fortunately we have a God who sees all and desires grace for the victims.

What a wild and crazy family tree, but we know that Christ didn’t come for the perfect, he came for the broken.

From there I got into WordPress development and this in turn created a living for myself. It has been a crazy 4 years but I’ve never met Jon, even though I’m listing in the thanks section at the end of the Stuff Christians Like book.

When I saw that Jon was a keynote speaker at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference that I had already planned on attending, I knew I had to stalk him.

If you somehow know this blog separate from SCL then you may not be aware of the posts in which Jon talked about Skittles, and his first meet up which was terribly unsuccessful despite having brought a huge bag of Skittles to share.

There is a lot more back story there but the important part is that I went and bought a big bag of Skittles. Then at 5:30 am I left the bags n my desk. So I had to spend time after I left hunting down Skittles.

Eventually I got some based on a twitter tip and successfully hunted down Jon to give him his Skittles, talk for a few minutes and get a signature in the SCL book.

So, I know you are looking for tips on how to successfully stalk Christian thousandairs. Here is how I did it.

First, get to know them before they become a wildly famous Christian thousandair.
Then tweet them before an event letting them know you plan on stalking them. You might desire to skip this step, but it makes the last step much easier.
Wait for them to tweet back where they will be so you can stalk them.

If you follow these three easy steps you can stalk a Christian thousandair too.

Have you stalked anyone? How did that work for you?

We had the “Winter is over games” and for the opening ceremony I used my t-shirt cannon. Several of the students had never seen it before, so that was a treat. I launched over 30 glow sticks about 40′ into the air. It was pretty impressive. Then the opening game was a snowman building competition, but we have had a really crappy winter (actually really good because I hate cold and snow) so we had to make due. First everyone had to wear gloves, because you can’t build a snowman without gloved, then I gave them a box of instant mashed potatoes, and some candy for decorations. I have to admit, they did a really good job.

Then we had a bob sled competition. Basically I setup an obstacle course in the youth building and gave the teams a big flat piece of cardboard. One person sat on the cardboard and had to be pulled/pushed around the obstacle course. If they crossed any of the lines or otherwise “wrecked” I stopped them for a couple seconds. One person totally missed a turn when they were way in the lead in the first lap, and the reset cost them dearly.

Finally we had a bunch of boxes. I let the winner pick a spot in the room and 3 boxes. I didn’t say why. Then the other team got to pick their boxes. Then I let them in on the rules. They were building an igloo and could use the boxes they picked, then could go get one box at a time and place that box, and only then could they go get another box. Boxes could be moved, but only when the whole team was there, when someone went to get a new box everyone had to leave the igloo alone.

In the end we had a lot of fun, but had a good deal of instant mashed potatoes left over. Turns out that makes some pretty good snowballs. I’m kind of hoping the evidence isn’t in the parking lot come Sunday.