Baptist Children's Home

Saturday, we took the kids back to the Baptist Children's Home. This time we worked with the Migrant kids who have been caught crossing the border. They were from Guatemala, Columbia, Honduras, and Ecuador. many have ridden trains to come here. Some are looking for family. Others are looking for work. But they were caught, and they are housed at the Baptist Children's Home until they can find family who will sponsor them or until they get deported. Their ages are anywhere from 13 to 17. I read a book called Enrique's Journey that talks a lot about these kids who are traveling to the US and what they go through. You can read about that here.

We go out there and play soccer and volleyball with them. We make a ton of hamburgers and hot dogs and eat with them. Some kids dance with them. Others make necklaces and bracelets with them. It's always a lot of fun.


We played some 7 on 7 soccer on a small field. These kids are amazing. It's like the soccer ball is attached to their foot. They make quick passes and hard shots. If they dribble, they rarely lose the ball. It was 7 of us against 7 of their guys. They pretty much could have scored any time they wanted. They took it a little easy on us. I scored the first goal for our team. I got a header. I was happy about that. I think we only scored like 4 or 5 all day. They probably scored about 20. In the end I got asked to play on their team. I thought that was cool. Maybe they just wanted to make it harder for their team.

Only 2 people got hurt. Luckily, it was adults. Mitch got kicked in the "woo hoo." I was the other one. I play hard. I was running for a ball and I tried to save it from going out, and when I kicked it, I turned around and started to fall back, and I rammed the wall of the house, right on the window. It has a brick window sill and I hit it hard with my arm and back. I got a cut on my arm. I'm surprised I didn't break the window as hard as I hit it.

We had a great time. Our kids did great with meeting the kids and hanging out with them. There is a big language barrier. But somehow it seems like we overcome it and can have a good time. I played soccer and cooked the entire time. But when I looked around, it seemed like all of their kids were talking or hanging out or playing with some of our kids. Here are some pictures from the day.

The Cutting Edge

Yesterday I was having lunch at Wendy's with some guys on the staff here, and we started talking about different things that are going on in our ministries. One got some complaints about music he was playing, and the complaint was that it was too loud and hard. It was David Crowder, who in my opinion is great, and kinda on the softer side to the stuff I listen to. We sing David Crowder songs during worship all the time, so it was weird that he got a complaint.
So, he was told to tone it down and play some older contemporary stuff, like Delirious and things like that.
I started thinking about this. One, you're never going to be able to please everybody. Somebody is always going to have a different opinion or a different preference to what they want to experience. Two, you are never going to be cutting edge if you continue to go back to where people are comfortable. If we stay in the 80's or 90's, we'll only attract people from that era. In my opinion, this is one of the things that has been hurting the church for several decades, that people get stuck in routine and traditions that remind them of times in their past. I think we need to be looking to the future. It's weird when you go into a church and it seems like you've hit a time warp back to 1985. We don't have to adapt to culture and let it impact us, but we can see the quality of things that people are listening to or watching and attempt to match it, or even attempt to set the bar for that quality. I think I could go on about this for a while, so...I'm going to stop. I am interested in what others think, even if you disagree with me, I would love to see it from another angle about what people want out of their church experience.