CrossFire // Jan 30, 2005

Well, it was a fun afternoon. It was my second official crossfire, my first one knowing that I am gonna be full time. It felt really good, and I felt very relaxed. Even though it was an eventful night on many levels, it also seemed to go rather smoothly.

I gave another talk using Bobo. I was able to do it a little better than I did for the weekend, and I promise that a Bobo blog is forthcoming. I might do a separate page with a Bobo blog, but that might just be too much work.

It was Michael Sime's last night as worship leader. He will be sorely missed. I respect that guy, and I hope we get some time to do our philosopher's walk sometime soon.

I am talking on the phone and having three AIM conversations so I'm out. I'll post more details later.

Bobo and such

Do I look tired in this picture? It’s because I am.

We just finished with Radical Relationships yesterday, and I went home and slept for 12 hours straight. It was awesome. Both the retreat AND the sleeping. The poopy part was that I missed Tommy. Makes me very upset, but it wouldn’t have been worth going, as I would have passed out in the parking lot on the way in. I was that tired.

There were 12 of us at the retreat, and we all had fun. We played stupid games like Sardines (see post below) and we worshipped a bunch. I talked about Bobo and his experiences with friends, family and dating. Bobo is a (semi) fictional character that I drew pictures of to help keep the talks moving. He also invented Egypt. (blog forthcoming on Bobo)

I’m talking at Crossfire tonight, and am thinking about bringing Bobo along. We’ll see. For now, I must go and prepare. Good day to you all, and sally forth and such.

Pitch black...

I an sitting here in complete darkness as i play sardines. I am dominating

*edited for more info* - I had been sitting in the dark in a corner of the church waiting for someone to find me for well over an hour and a half before I finally started whistling to give them a clue. People had come by before that, looked right at my corner, and walked away. I even sent out a text message hint. So the only times people found me were when I gave out clues, like whistling (Michael and David found me) or when we all screamed really loud and stopped. Also, some kids cheated (used a flashlight).

ReFind - Jan 26 // 2005

ReFind went well last night. We had a smaller group due to the so-called "Tommy" effect, but it was still a good time to be had by all.

The topic was prayer, and I gave out these cool daily prayer cards. Or are they weekly? I dunno. They have a different area to focus your prayer on for each day of the week. Here they are for those of you without a card...

m//depth
t//growth
w//worship
r//leadership
f//vision for future
ss//inspiration+revelation

(those are the days of the week for those of you who are slightly slow =) )

If we join in prayer together over ReFind and focus our prayers on a daily basis, God will be faithful to provide.

If you have no clue what ReFind is, well, I'm sorry.

You're missing out.

Workin...

For blog
Originally uploaded by RagamuffinAg.

I'm at the work place. Christ UMC.

Tonight is the big meeting where they decide whether or not I get to work here all the time! Yippee! We'll see how it goes.

As you can plainly see, I am a proud member of the cubicle club. I know, youth ministers shouldn't have to work in cubicles. They should be free to roam the streets and fields and play and frolic and never really do work. That's what everybody thinks. But in reality, youth ministers mainly stare at computers and type stuff like emails and blogs. Or so I'm told.

I have a word of the day calendar which is quite fun. Today's word is fortitude, which isn't all that obscure. I hope that I have fortitude though - it means 'strength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain or adversity with COURAGE.' I like that. What adversity am I facing right now, you say? Well, let me tell you:

- My bank decided it didn't want to let me have the 800 bucks from my savings which I deposited in my checking. Something about it being an out of state check. Um, right. I'm working on getting the money from them somehow. Anybody know anything about bank robbery?

- My car got hit by a dog, which is horribly sad in itself, but now my car is all denty and needs fixin - which costs money - which I don't have

- I began my campaign against the bears only to have the first bear I encounter tell me that he and other bears (and I quote) 'just don't care about me.' Stupid bears. I'll drive them to battle someday!

- My arm hurts.

Ok, enough complaining. On a good note:

+Radical relationships is happening after all (it threatened to fold due to lack of youth)
+ re:find is in an hour or two
+ I made cool prayer cards for r:f
+ my headphones are still awesome...

Rock, rock on.

From the car. Dangeresque!

My first car blog! Yahoo!!

Cool Blogs

The way of the warrior: My bro's blog

CUMC Youth Blog: email me and ask for permission to post. Everybody join in!

Ramblings of the Captain, and My Etchings: Hammer's and Marcus's thoughts. Funny and deep. or deep and funny. Can't decide on which

Just a thought: My girlfriend's cool sister's blog. Does that make sense?

Terry Storch: Really cool church technology guy. Good stuff, my friends.

Well, that's all for now. I've been immersing myself in Blogland. Good times.

Posting from a phone? Oh my!

Wow. I'm actually posting this from my phone. How awesome is that? I sure do love technology. I wanna marry it. one thing that isn't as cool is that i don't know how to make a new paragraph. Poopie. ... The ellipsis shall serve as my paragraph marker. ... I'm listening to the old 97's right now. Question is the song. It's nice. I love rhapsody too. Let's me find so much new music. ... So ends the first phone entry. This has mucho potential! peace out.

Hey, what the heck, i'm doing this!

LAYER ONE:
-- Name: Josh Masterson
-- Birth date: 6/8/80
-- Birthplace: Bryan, TX (whoop!)
-- Current Location: Stafford, TX
-- Eye Color: Hazel
-- Hair Color: Brown
-- Height: 5'10.5"
-- Righty or Lefty: Righty
-- Zodiac Sign: Gemini

LAYER TWO:
-- Your heritage: Italian/Cherokee/Scot
-- The shoes you wore today: Two pairs. Got a new pair of "N's" from J for (real) Graduation!
-- Your weakness: not being in control of something
-- Your fears: not being in control of something
-- Your perfect pizza: Margharita pizza at Alamo Drafthouse while watching Anchorman.
-- Goal you'd like to achieve: Make a big old mark on History.

LAYER THREE:
-- Your most overused phrase on AIM: cool
-- Your thoughts first waking up: NOOOOOO
-- Your best physical feature: My guns.
-- Your bedtime: meh, whenever.
-- Your most missed memory: Mojo.

LAYER FOUR:
-- Pepsi or Coke: Dr. Pepper.
-- McDonald's or Burger King: Read Fast food nation. Neither.
-- Single or group dates: either one, as long as J is there
-- Adidas or Nike: N
-- Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: Ice T. He's a rappper.
-- Chocolate or vanilla: Dr. Pepper
-- Cappuccino or coffee: Yes

LAYER FIVE:
-- Smoke: Cigars. awesome.
-- Cuss: only when needed
-- Sing: yes and yes.
-- Take a shower everyday: yes
-- Want to go to college: I, my good friend, am FINISHED with college.
-- Like high school: yes?
-- Want to get married: yuh huh.
-- Believe in yourself: nope
-- Get motion sickness: no
-- Get along with your parent(s): yeah
-- Like thunderstorms: i like being OUTSIDE in thunderstorms.
-- Play an instrument: Guitar, *used to play* French Horn

LAYER SIX:
In the past month...
-- Drank alcohol: at a wedding
-- Smoked: a cigar or two
-- Done a drug: other than coffee? not so much
-- Had Sex: no sir
-- Made Out: yes sir
-- Gone to the mall?: today, even!
-- Been dumped: not that I know of
-- Made homemade cookies: hahahaha
-- Gone skinny dipping: fortunately for the world, no
-- Dyed your hair: my hair lives.
-- Stolen anything: only the hearts of millions!

LAYER SEVEN:
Ever...
-- Been trashed or extremely intoxicated: nope. not that attractive of an idea to me
-- Been caught "doing something": umm... what?
-- Been called a tease: You're a tease!
-- Gotten beat up: no

LAYER EIGHT:
-- Age you hope to be married: 26
-- Numbers and Names of Children: I don't have any yet
-- Describe your Dream Wedding: J
-- How do you want to die: Fighting against immeasurable odds, breaking the back of the enemy as I stand in defiance! I go down slowly, wound by wound, blow by blow as I stem the torrent. I turn the tide. But I do not survive.... Preferably the enemy will be an army of bears. That would rock.
-- Where you want to go to college: I have a DEGREE from Texas A&M
-- What do you want to be when you grow up: bear fighter
-- What country would you most like to visit: Visit - New Zealand // Live - Italy

LAYER NINE:
In a guy/girl..
-- Best eye color? blue (J)
-- Best hair color? blonde (J)
-- Short or long hair: short right now (J)
-- Best weight: healthy (J)
-- Best first date location: Sweet Eugene's House of Java (J)
-- Best first kiss location: Dorm (J)

LAYER TEN:
-- Number of people I could trust with my life: J, Sam, Mom and Dad, Peter (one day)
-- Number of piercings: ouch, no
-- Number of tattoos: 1 someday
-- Number of scars on my body: on the outside, just a few.

Real Focus: Milo's Memories

Real Focus: Milo's Memories

Really awesome idea.

I'm not sure how this would work itself out exactly here at Christ UMC. or at any other church. But I really like it. The web is an obvious avenue for this sort of thing, but what about something very visual and tangible for visitors, members, and everybody to see when they enter the church.

Maybe have a table where people could write them down, then take handwritten notes, blow them up to poster size and foamboard them. place them in an area where they would be part of the actual atmosphere of the place.

Good stuff....

Crunch Time!

Crunch Time web Page

Well, its that time of the year again. Time for Crunch time. Five years ago (or something), a bunch of us had a great idea to start a retreat for high school students led by college students. It's a great idea, still is - problem is, those of us who started it are all long gone. The thing about college, you see, is it only lasts a few years. So there's really not too much in the area of continuity for things like retreats. Crunch Time international may never happen after all... Oh well.

I guess one of the reasons I got into youth ministry is because I really dig this sort of thing. Taking a very vague and misshapen idea and transforming it into an actual event that may or may not change someone's life.

I'm about to start prepping for this Radical Relationships weekend for the church I'm working for, and its a pretty neat idea. Only thing is, it's not my idea. So it's not as exciting. Not yet. I'm sure as I lay out all the puzzle pieces and start to try and put them together, I'll get more and more into it. There's nothing like the feeling of seeing something like that come together.

There's nothing worse than seeing it fall apart. I hope crunch time continues to grow. It just seems that every year, there's a new group of people learning from the same mistakes they learn from every year. Maybe I should quit my job and focus solely on making Crunch time really cool. Or maybe not.

Welcome to Flickr!

Welcome to Flickr!

This is a pretty nifty lil website. My brother and I have spent some time already swapping photos and tagging them. My new goal is to get as many youth as possible to take as many pictures as possible with my camera so that I can put them online to keep a better record of where we've been and where we're going ... visually...

that means... with pictures.

Anyways, it could be fun, could be boring. I'll probably give up on it pretty quickly, but you just never know these days. I might surprise ya! Or not.

First time

Well, here goes the whole blog thing. I'll give it a shot. Hope I can perservere and write more. I hope to use this like a journal, but I always sucked at those.

Life -

My life so far

Born in June of 1980

Lived in: Bryan, Kossee, Dallas, Plymouth, Beaumont, Fulshear, Houston, College Station, Pampa, and now Sugar Land.

reBorn somewhere along the way

Have been a coffeeshop barista and a minister. Those are my professions of choice.

God has a big plan for me.

No idea what it is yet.

Check back in later for more details.