This is the first of a series on our Kid U 2008 Celebration Conference.
The greatest highlight of Kid U is the PEOPLE who come. As one of our feedback forms said:
Coming to the Kidology University was like coming to a family reunion even though it was my first time attending. I will be back! - Heather Marshall
There is just something unique about the feel of a Kid U, and it’s hard to describe - you have to experience it. One example would be how Josh Kornberg became a highlight of the conference.
Who is Josh? Well, according to children’s pastor Kenny Conley who Twittered me that the following:
Karl, I’m sending an ambassador in my name to meet you at Kidology U. His name is Josh Kornberg. He’s 18 and he was a summer intern for me this summer, was a kid in my ministry many moons ago. And believe me, he WILL be making a mark in this world in the area of Children’s Ministry… someone to keep an eye on. Do me a favor though. When he introduces himself (Josh Kornberg) can you make a big deal out of it? You and Kidology are a big deal to him. Thanks!
Kidology is all about encouraging those who are just beginning to minister to kids and who are passionate about it! So when I met Josh, I announced to the entire lunch and exhibit hall, “Ladies and Gentleman, this is Josh Kornberg, and I have it on good authority that he is a young man to keep an eye on, one who is going to make a difference in the world for kids!”
Then, every time I saw him, I had everyone clap for him! I even started chants, “Give me a J! Give me an O!” etc. It was fun to see his reaction. He was one of the stars of Kid U, and even got some special attention during the Kidz Blitz event when he accidently let a donut fall on the floor. This is how he was punished:
We were excited to have people from all over the United States at this event - more than ever before as we marketed nationwide for this 10th annual event. But we were especially excited to have a few international attendees as well who came for the entire event, Wednesday Celebration Banquet through Saturday!
Here I am with Scheila Avellar from Brazil!
and Michelle Strasser from Switzerland! She even brought me some Swiss Chocolate and the first few chapters of The Order of the Ancient which she is translating into German for me!
While I was disappointed that former CP Team member Frank Tan was unable to come to Kid U, I was excited to meet his team that he sent all the way from Oregon in his place! Hey, if you can’t come to Kid U, the next best thing is to send your team! In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever known a CP to send the team even when they couldn’t come themself. What a gift!
Another person that added a wonderful spirit to Kid U was Alan Root. Alan is a guy I’ve seen around children’s ministry conferences for years but never had the chance to get to know. Boy, have I been missing out! Here is a guy who loves the Lord, loves kids, and his positive and fun outlook on life just rubs off on everyone who comes near. We will definitely be having him back at future Kidology events! I think I finally met someone as good at puns as my dad… almost.
I can’t even share all the snap shots that I’m enjoying going through now that Kid U is over. And while I’ll be blogging more pictures and more details from this historic Kid U event, I had to START by telling you about some of the PEOPLE who attended. No matter how great the trainers are, no matter how exciting the performers are, no matter how helpful the exhibitors are, it is the PEOPLE WHO ATTEND Kid U that make it such a wonderful event. If you have never been to a Kid U, you truly are missing out!
Well, I decided to bless my wife by cooking the Kid U Post-Conference Pizza Outing Left Overs last night… it was good stuff, Gino’s East if you’re curious. Deep dish pepperoni pizza to be exact, and there was some left over to take home to my wife who missed the late night dinner due to getting our little boy to bed.
I could swear (though I don’t) that she said, “Just put it in the oven at 350, it will heat up better than in the microwave.” I was a little surprised, thinking she meant just put the box in, so I answered, “Really? Just put it in the oven?” She replied, “Yes.”
So I did. I set the timer for 20 minutes but about 15 into it the kitchen smelled of smoke. I was on the phone with my dad giving Kid U highlights when my wife comes in crying, “Did you put the BOX in the oven?!?!?”
I said “Yes, just like you told me too.” Turns out it was on fire!
The fire was quickly put out, and after all the excitement, the pizza was fine, though it definitely had that “smoked” flavor! Please tell me we aren’t the only couple with communication problems.
The lesson learned? Best to just let the wife prepare the food and I’ll stick to clean up duty!
WEDNESDAY EVENING, October 1st, 2008 is the Kidology Celebration Banquet as the Kick Off Event to Kid U Celebration Conference. YES! We are celebrating 10 YEARS of KID U! Actually, we’ve done FIFTEEN of these large conferences (in different states same year) and I’ve literally lost track of how many of the smaller Kidology To Go events we’ve done, including their predecessor, “Science of Kidology.” We are takin the opportunity of this 10th anniversary event to celebration, look back, and vision cast for the future of Kidology!
We have many family, friends and fans who were not able to make it to Chicago for the banquet so I’m excited to announce that we are planning to broadcast the event LIVE via Ustream.com.
GO TO: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-with-the-kidologist or just visit the home page of Kidology.org. You not only will be able to watch the event, but chat with others who are watching as well. I recommend you register on the site for a free account so your chat name will be your username. I did a test braodcast last night and got to chat with four members from virginia, florida and oregon all at once and they got to see my Star Wars museum in my basement. What a perk for being the first! I will send out a reminder via Twitter if you follow me there or on facebook.
I HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE - well, you’ll be able to see me, I’ll be able to say hi at the camera and occasionally in the chat room! Now you can attend the banquet no matter where you are! (Isn’t technology fun?)
September 20, 2008 at 8:29 pm · Filed under Family, Luke
Today was the day we finally gave Luke another haircut. We love his curly hair, but when it starts getting in his eyes we know we have to cut it again. It’s a bummer because he always seems to age three months with a hair cut. We know, “It’ll grow back” - but he’s so stinkin’ cute with those curls! Too bad, today was hair cutting day! And for the past two years Sara has been cutting both boys hair to save money. (haircut prices have gotten ridiculous if you ask me!)
Here he is, all smiles and read to go under the knife,
er, scissors anyway.
That’s one curly head!
Our personal hair stylist at work!
Bye, Bye Bangs! (my wife would like to ask you not look at the
messy counters in the background)
Oops, was that an ear lobe?
Elmo helps the time go by as mommy sculpts the head.
It’s a brand new boy!
Is this the same boy!?!? Amazing how different he looks.
September 20, 2008 at 8:05 pm · Filed under Family, Luke
First off, I have to say, my sister is the ultimate party planner. She puts together the most amazing themed parties for her kids (sample). Today was no exception. It was an overnight camping Indiana Jones theme where they went geo-caching for treasure and every kid got an archeologist bag, brown fedora and a whip! Due to having a two year old, we came for the morning fun. It was a beautiful forest preserve I’ll be returning to for hiking! Luke took to the trails immediately…
It is right along the Fox River in Cary, so there were many water views on the hike.
One funny sight (that I couldn’t take a picture of) was three guys fishing with beer bottles. A poor man’s technique perhaps. They tied fishing line to the neck of their beer, threw the line out, drank while waiting, and when then got a bite, wound the line around the beer bottle to reel it in. Yes, we saw them catch one!
One of the kids caught a craw fish. Going with the theme, we just pretended it was a scorpion!
I showed my son how to intimidate a small creature by returning its taunts right back at it!
While he wasn’t given one, due to his age, Luke found a whip and quickly was giving the bigger kids an amazing demonstration on how to do it!
Which is how he earned the title, “Illinois Luke.” Yup, that’s my boy!
A few weeks ago, our pastor gave a wonderful salvation message - it was so good, I wanted to get saved all over again. I was kinda bummed that I already was, since he made the invitation to be a part of God’s Kingdom so inviting… it got me thinking… what if I DID get saved today, in fact, everyday…
Below is what I wrote in my journey the next morning, and I was thinking perhaps others who are already saved might want to consider getting saved again.*
I dare you to PAUSE and reflect on each of the questions below… it’s not easy, I know.
WHAT IF I GOT SAVED TODAY?
What would change?
What would I do differently
What would I give up?
What would I stop doing?
What would I start doing?
Who would I ask forgiveness of?
Who would I choose to forgive?
What would I give away?
How would I spend my time?
How would I spend my money?
How would I arrange my life?
How would my relationships be impacted?
Where would I go?
Where wouldn’t I go?
What would others notice about me?
How would I start my day?
How would I end my day?
What would be different throughout my day?
If Jesus was LORD of my life TODAY?
Go for it - get saved TODAY - see what happens!
* Please don’t comment or e-mail me about theology of the saved getting saved again - if you do, you’ve missed the point. The point is to ask, how is your salvation impacting TODAY? Theology is only valuable when it intersects with real life. That is the point.
September 16, 2008 at 12:59 pm · Filed under Family
It was 1986. There were hardly any computers. To figure out the first Friday night of September four years in the future required some manual scratching on paper trying to remember leap year! (a PDA would have been wonderful then!) But I finally figured out what the first Friday Night of September 1990 would be… why? That would be the first Friday Night of my Philippine Missionary Kid Pen Pal’s first eligible date when she finally came to the USA for college!
Perhaps she thought it was a joke, or was just being nice, but she accepted the rambling invitation to her first date with me, granted four years in the future, and I began counting the days!
Finally, the date arrived, and we had our first official date in the United States! September 7th, 1990 finally arrived! I could only afford a one way limo ride to the shore where we went for a dinner cruise at Navy Pier in Chicago - however, it was not the place it is today. It was an empty freight yard with only one ship! (I’ve had to work closely with Mayor Daley to get many much needed improvements though for my annual date!)
The Spirit of Chicago, now completely remodeled and relaunched a few years ago tends to be our boat of choice, though we like the Odessey too. The Anita Dee II was a HUGE disappointment… unless you want to be the only sober people on board. (Tip: The Entertainment Book has a buy one get one free for Spirit of Chicago, worth twice the entire book cost!)
A few years ago McDonald’s added a pretty cool Ferris Wheel, that for years was only $2, but eventually they got greedy and realized the same number of people would probably pay $6 to ride it, so they trippled their income. But it goes slow and the view is pretty nice. (the picture of the boat above was taken from the ride, as was this view of the Shakespeare Theater w/ shadow of the Ferris Wheel)
The cruise is usually around three hours and has the best view of Chicago! One year the weather was so bad we never left the dock and another year the waves were so high the huge roast fell and rolled across the floor. Oh, and there was the year a small boat got crushed during docking…. ooops. But hey, out of 19 years you gotta have some excitement!
We now head down early to enjoy Navy Pier before heading out to sea… er, out to lake.
Then the sunset comes and the sky starts to glow. (I didn’t edit this picture at all)
We often make some new friends. (like the Phillipinos last year) This year we happened to sit next to a pastor and his wife, celebrating 30 years of marriage, Larry and Michele Mosher of Tinley Park. We were enjoying some nice quiet conversation when suddenly the DJ picked Michele and I for a little “skit” we had to act out!
She was told that she was now a showgirl named “Lola” and I was her lover. Another guy got a gun… which was bad news for me…
I wound up dead and she unhappy for the rest of her life. I’d never heard the song before, but perhaps you’ve heard it, “Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl…” It sounded familiar but I’d never heard the words before until we had to act out what we heard. I was dying to get out of it. Turns out, I did!
It was a fun evening, hard to believe it was our 19th cruise! (or that next year will be 20!) At least it didn’t rain like last year!
One of the highlights is that every year they take a picture as you board, so this is our 19th boarding photo! Next year we will put all 20 together and make a flip book of us getting older! First, we have to FIND them all! Hopefully we can get them all in order! But it’s been a really neat tradition.
Here’s to 19 more! Though maybe it will be a levitating hover boat by then!
For the first time in his little life my son woke up crying because of a nightmare. We awoke to his tears and like a good father I ran upstairs to see what my little boy needed. Did he climb out of the climb and fall? Did he get an arm or leg stuck through the railings? Did he drop a toy or binkey that he can’t sleep without?
Nope. He saw a cow. (don’t laugh)
I came in the room, “Daddy’s here, everything’s O.K.” to see his fear filled eyes looking to me for salvation. He reached out to me like someone drowning reaching for the life guard. I scooped him up, and seeing that nothing was physically wrong, asked, “What’s the matter, Lukie?”
“Cow!” he whispered in my ear as he pointed up toward the ceiling. “Cow up in the sky.” I put his head on my shoulder so he wouldn’t see the smile I couldn’t resist. My voice remained deeply concerned but my face couldn’t hide the silent laughter at such a cute fear. I was so happy the scariest thing in his little world is a cow in the sky! He clung to me as I tried to gather more info through simple questions. I learned that the cow was in the sky, that he had a white nose and was black. That’s about all he could tell me with his limited language skills. What seemed cute and silly to me was terrifying to him.
I’m not sure where the evil cow image came from. We haven’t watched any slasher cow movies lately and I’m not sure we have even exposed him to the cow that jumped over the moon. (I was just glad he didn’t say Darth Vader or I’d have been in big trouble!)
I held him for awhile and then put him back to bed but 30 minutes later the scary cow returned as did the tears. So I spent the night in the guest room holding my boy close so he could finally sleep assured that no cows were going to get him as long as he was snuggled up to daddy. Daddy slept fine. He knew there was no danger from cows in the sky, but to my boy the threat was real until he was in his daddy’s arms.
It makes me wonder…
How silly do my fears look to God? What things do I worry about that God has to hide his smile, how silly and cute they are from His perspective? But how loving and patient and caring my Abba Father, my Daddy is, who will come to me at any time, running even, when He hears my cries, and he will hold me. And listen to me, and wrap His loving arms around me and say, “It’s O.K. I’m here.” And if I need it, He’ll even spend the night with me. He has nothing to fear, and when He is close, neither do I.
The 5th installment of Kidology Online Training is now available. This Leadership Lab, titled Define, Refine, and Shine, is priced at only $9.99 for Kidology Members so that everyone can afford this valuable resource. We think it’s that important!
Are you exhausted? Stress robbing you of the joy of ministry? Overloaded with more to do than time and resources allow? Then now is the time to evaluate your life and ministry. Yes, life and ministry. In this Leadership Lab, Karl Bastian will walk you through a thoughtful process that will bring definition, margin, and joy back into these areas.
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