Tag Archives: fun

For my mom…

Published in Nate's Blog on May 11, 2012
For my mom…

I wrote my mom this note a few years ago. It’s appropriate to share it with you for Mother’s Day….

Hey Mom,
I’m getting ready to throw a sweatshirt away, and I’m writing because I think you bought it for me many, many moons ago. It’s my old gray insulated hooded sweatshirt that’s been with me everywhere; from 14,000+ feet in Colorado to sea-level at Assateague; numerous wilderness weeks, campouts all over the Midwest, and campfires too numerous to count.

It’s going to that great closet in the sky, where I’m sure that God will sew up the tattered sleeves and other rips in the fabric, he’ll fix the busted zipper, replace the string in the hood, and then he will thicken the spots grown thin at the wrists over the years, and he’ll bleach out the red and yellow and blue paint from the RLCA playground equipment workday, and then he will put it on his “hooded sweatshirt stretcher” that fixes up sweatshirts that their owners have shrunk in the dryer :-) and eventually I will be wearing it again at that great campfire in the sky when we’ll sing “happy birthday” to everyone in 50 different ways and play the rhythm game and tool around on our guitars singing great hymns of the faith and “Afghan” on a cool autumn night with stars wheeling overhead and a full moon coming up late in the night and no one will be too tired to stay up to see it rise at 1:00 in the morning and it will be glorious beyond all compare.

I just wanted to say thanks. I’ve always thought that you were the best gift-giver that I’ve ever known, because your gifts always seem long-lasting, well-suited to the receiver, and “just what I needed.”

So, “Thanks.”

Much love,
Nate

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Quoting my preacher

Published in Nate's Blog on December 21, 2010
Quoting my preacher

It’s been a long time since I’ve highlighted some quotes from my preacher.  Heck it’s been a long time since I’ve posted on the blog, period!  Been busy with other endeavors, I guess.

Anyway, here’s a few good ones from some recent messages, starting with one that’s super-applicable at Christmas time…

“What if you lived as generously as possible while still meeting the needs of your family?”

And here’s one from the message yesterday entitled “Jesus is the Truth”…

“The religious leaders and Pharisees hated Jesus, but not because they caught him in a lie.  They hated him because he embodied the Truth.”

And here’s one for fun from several months ago…

“If you sit on the fence for too long, both cheeks get sore.”

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SummerSalt 2010 Craftmanship pics

Published in Nate's Blog on August 6, 2010
SummerSalt 2010 Craftmanship pics
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SummerSalt 2010 Water Day pics

Published in Nate's Blog on August 6, 2010
SummerSalt 2010 Water Day pics
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Ultimate Volunteers

Published in Nate's Blog on June 24, 2010
Ultimate Volunteers

This morning I am thinking back to our first SummerSalt event last night. SummerSalt is our summer event schedule for families, and last night featured Ultimate Air Inflatables. The threat of rain forced us to a change of location from the park down the street into our church building. You wouldn’t believe we could get four of those giant inflatable units, including the 80-foot long obstacle course, into our building, but we made it happen!

And “we” is the operative term. Awesome events like this don’t happen without “Ultimate Volunteers.” Some of them are behind the scenes. You never knew it, but Aaron North, Mitch and Grant Howard, and Reagan and Miles Hoezee were at the church hours before the event, moving hundreds of chairs out of the way to make room for giant air-filled fun. Some of those guys stayed late to help set things up again also, some 6 hours later.

And then we had more than 20 volunteers on hand during the event keeping kids safe, cheering them on, welcoming the unchurched and other first-time guests, and spending time relating to them. WOW! Thanks for all your time and energy devoted to building the Kingdom of God. I appreciate you! (Pictures to come soon….)

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SummerSalt Splash

Published in Nate's Blog on May 28, 2010
SummerSalt Splash

Summertime is here, school is finishing up, kids are ready to be home, and we are – busier than any other time during the year? Yes, it sometimes feels like that, doesn’t it?  We’ve got graduation open houses, baseball and softball games and practices, swimming lessons, driver’s education classes, family vacations, weekend jaunts to the cottage, picnics and side trips galore.

Our Christian Education team at Jenison Christian Church recognizes that your summer is a busy time.  We’ve responded by intentionally lowering the amount of church programming throughout the summer weeks – and at the same time, trying to raise the level of quality for what we do offer.   Beginning last summer, one way in which we’ve tried to do that is the creation of SummerSalt.

SummerSalt is designed to be an introduction to Jenison Christian Church through a fun activity for your whole family.  It is specifically intended to give you an opportunity to invite your friends, neighbors, and co-workers to a church activity that is “safe”. There won’t be any high pressure sales pitch given to the guests that you bring – just a high quality, fun, safe activity for everyone.  We WILL take a few minutes to explain who we are, and what some of the opportunities at Jenison are for your guests and their families.

We’ll let your guests know that we provide quality children’s programming in Sunday morning PromiseLand, fifty-two weeks a year.  It’s like having Vacation Bible School every Sunday!  We’ll let them know about our Wednesday night children’s activities and our youth group opportunities.  We’ll let them know about our small groups options.  We’ll let them know that we love them and we care about them, and that our purpose to help them to “become passionate followers of Jesus Christ.”

That is, after all, the vision of Jenison Christian Church!  It is a joy to be on this journey with you.  Thanks for coming along!

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Even the pros do it……..

Published in Nate's Blog on May 28, 2010
Even the pros do it……..

I have been here WAAAAAAY too many times to count, but it’s refreshing to know that it doesn’t always go right – even for the pros….

http://www.musicademy.com/2010/05/worship-trainwreck-from-martin-smith/

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Echo Valley

Published in Nate's Blog on February 23, 2010
Echo Valley

We took about half of our senior high youth group to Echo Valley near Kalamazoo MI on Sunday.  It’s a tobogganing/tubing hill.  To be frank – Echo Valley was about 90% lame except for the first 5 seconds on the toboggan run.  Otherwise, it was too warm, there wasn’t enough snow, the staff were so-so, and we spent more time throwing snowballs than we did going down the hills.

We had way more fun at McDonald’s on the way home.  Between 5 of us, we ate 170 chicken McNuggets.  I had just under 30.  That’s not something that I want to brag about though………..

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For no other reason than this….

Published in Nate's Blog on February 21, 2010
For no other reason than this….

…It’s my blog.  This post is dedicated to my brother, who decides to write a new blog post at nofencesinheaven.blogspot.com approximately every 6-8 weeks six years.

My top 10 facts about Chuck Norris.

  1. When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
  2. Chuck Norris can blow bubbles with beef jerky.
  3. Chuck Norris CAN believe it’s not butter.
  4. When Bruce Banner gets mad, he turns into the Hulk. When the Hulk gets mad, he turns into Chuck Norris.
  5. Chuck Norris counted to infinity – twice.
  6. Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding.
  7. Chuck Norris uses a night light. Not because Chuck Norris is afraid of the dark, but because the dark is afraid of Chuck Norris.
  8. Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.
  9. Chuck Norris can touch MC Hammer
  10. Some people wear Superman pajamas. Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas.
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camp report

Published in Nate's Blog on July 17, 2009
camp report

Well, my camera is busted, so I’ve been late in giving a report on how camp went.  It was spectacular.  We baptized 4 kids on Friday night, including one boy from our cabin. That was the highlight, the rest is just filler.

I was a cabin dad, played in the worship band, talked at campfire one night, led a small group twice a day, played the role of a human pinata on the water basketball court every day, bruised my entire body on the slip and slide, had egg in my face, went head first into the mud pit during tug-of-war, was entirely covered with shaving cream during the shaving cream battle, scored a record for the most straws ever collected as a “natural disaster” in the Foxes and Frogs game, played some vicious Pong with Joe from Minerva, Ohio, ate pretty well, whitewater rafted down the river about 7 or 8 times, learned a magician’s card trick, never got found during the faculty hunt, and helped take care of Samantha whenever I got the chance.

Michiana is a great camp and I look forward to going back next summer.  The dean, Rob Schwarz, is a great guy.  And the other faculty members were great also.  I made a few new friends, as always (what’s up Jerry?) and hopefully made a difference to a few kids during the week.  I did my best anyway.

I might be involved with their wilderness camping program in some aspect next year, though, instead of Jr. High 1.  We will see what the future holds!

If I ever get my camera fixed I’ll try to remember to come back and post some pics of the week here….

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