The Middle School Retreat

Before I talk a little about the Middle School Retreat. I have to hold true to my word and update all of you on our 'Office' Fantasy Football League. I lost again this week. Dixie Hazelbaker beat me which is bad enough, but her team name is the Tinkerbells. Yeah that makes it hurt even worse. Anyways she has 2 wide recievers combine for 60 points. That makes it kind of difficult. Now I have gone from 2nd place all the way down to 5th. Yeah not a good week in Fantasy Football for me. Oh Well.

Now to talk about something I am really excited about. This year's Middle School Retreat is going to be special. We are going to Butler Springs Camp with 3 other Youth Groups October 23-25. This is the last week to register for it too. I am not trying to make a blog advertisement about the Retreat. I just want to communicate the passion all of the churches have put into it and our hopes for the impact it will have.

The focus of the retreat is pretty simple. The idea is that your direction determines your destination. We kind of stole the idea from Andy Stanley and a book he wrote recently. In Middle School identity and autonomy are a big deal for students. They are really deciding who they are, and what groups of people they feel connected to. That is a stressful and turbulent process. As we planned the retreat we felt like the circumstances of Daniel were a great example of that truth. Daniel and his friends were taken captive by the Babylonians as youths. Their circumstances determined where they lived, their jobs, and they were even given new names. The thing that was exceptional about Daniel and his friends, was the way they didn't allow those circumstances to seperate them from their faith or from God. They stayed focused, kept their faith in God.

Besides digging into some awesome Biblical truth we have some awesome things planned for the students. The late night games we will be playing on Friday night will be memorable. Saturday promises to bring even more fun during the afternoon sessions. The closing session on Saturday night will be an awesome time where each student gets to take all the knowledge and truth they have heard and get involved. I am pretty excited to see what that will look like.

I am going to go try and make my fantasy football team better so we don't lose to a Disney Character again. If you have any thoughts or questions about the Middle School Retreat let me know. Don't forget to be praying about the retreat too. We need to spend a lot of time praying that it will be relevant to our guys and gals.

Fantasy Football Update: I Got Schooled

Chad Johnson would say that my fantasy football team, "Kissed the Baby" this weekend. Frankly we just got outplayed. Here is the scoop:

I went up against Brian Bruemmer this week our graphics/website guy. I was favored by 10 points but ended up losing by ten. My players consistently underperformed and his consistently overperformed. Hopefully I fair better this week (I am playing a team named Tinkerbells. If I lose to them, there is no coming back). Well, congrats Brian.

Here is how the rest of the league did:

Jim Wood def. Andy Sims
Todd Hazelbaker def. Dixie Hazelbaker
John Reeves def. Matt Beighle
Gregg Maloney def. Randy Shivers

Here are the current standings

1. Todd Hazelbaker 2-1
2. Matt Robinson 2-1
3. Andy Sims 2-1
4. Gregg Maloney 2-1
5. Jim Wood 2-1
6. Dixie Hazelbaker 2-1
7. Matt Beighle 1-2
8. John Reeves 1-2
9. Brian Bruemmer 1-2
10. Randy Shivers 0-3

Free Chick-Fil-A

I have the perfect place for all of you to eat as a family this Labor Day... That's right free food from Chick-fil-a! If you wear any sports logo into any location after 10:30am on this coming Monday, and you will get a free Chicken Sandwhich.

I'll definitely be going there for at least one meal that day.. who knows maybe too. Take advantage of this awesome FREE FOOD MOMENT!

Are You Read for Some Parkside Fantasy Football!

Ok so Brian Bruemmer (Website/Graphics Guy) and I were talking around the water cooler a week ago (ok so we don't have a water cooler, but we were really talking). We decided that it was time that Parkside Christian Church had a Staff Fantasy Football League. Ok so if you think that Fantasy Football is dumb just stop reading this post right now. All we are trying to do is bring the office closer together and have a chance to trash talk in the office (thats a spiritual gift right?). Well our draft was today during lunch. I thought some of you might be interested to see how things turned out for my team so here is the 411.

I was slotted with the number 2 overall pick and was lucky enough to get Adrian Peterson with that pick. Here was how the rest of my draft went.

The Home Schoolers (That's my team name. Yeah, I was Home Schooled)
1.(2)Adrian Peterson RB
2.(19)Andre JohnsonWR
3.(22)Randy MossWR
4.(39)Ryan GrantRB
5.(42)Philip RiversQB
6.(59)Thomas JonesRB
7.(62)Anthony GonzalezWR
8.(79)DeSean JacksonWR
9.(82)Matt RyanQB
10.(99)Willie ParkerRB
11.(102)Lance MooreWR
12.(119)Robbie GouldK
13.(122)Visanthe ShiancoeTE
14.(139)Kevin BossTE
15.(142)CarolinaDEF

I think I did pretty well. Andy, Bart and Randy had a good draft too though. I won't play them for a few weeks though. Every Monday I'll try to give you an update on how the Home Schoolers did in Fantasy Football over the weekend. I think it will be fun.