Mental Musings

This past week the boys and I went to Royal Ambassadors (RA) Camp. Ashton served as a Counselor in Training (CIT) for the first time. This was a big step for him (and us). For those who do not know, both of our boys have Asperger's Syndrome (a mild form of autism) and ADHD. The RA director for our church spoke with me prior to the camp and made arrangements to have him stay in the cabin with me even though the CITs usually sleep in a separate cabin from the rest of the campers. My main concern, since Ashton cannot take his meds on his own, was that he would have to wait until breakfast to get his meds several hours after he was supposed to be up doing his work. We actually ended up with three CITs from our church who slept in the regular cabins in order to help the counselors as needed. Ashton's main job was to help with archery. He helped set-up the targets, brought out the bows and arrows, handed out arrows to archers, gave instructions (bows up, fire at will, bows down, retr...

Twitter’s down, what can I do I cannot share updates with you I hope it is a simple glitch And it returns without a hitch With Twitter down, facebook lags but they don’t use cool #hashtags Guess my thoughts will stay my own No, wait, I still have my cell phone.

We have all heard this saying at least once in our life. We may have used it ourselves at some point in desperation. But does it ever work? Of course not. Telling your child not to drink alcohol while you are sipping on a Margaretta is ridiculous. Even young children are able to see the hypocrisy involved in such a statement. Now understand that the Bible only tells us that drunkenness, not drinking, is a sin, but the issue here is what we are teaching our children. Children learn from an early age that there are different rules for adults and children. Most children understand that they are not allowed to cross the road without permission, or that they cannot have coffee, or that they must go to bed earlier than we do. They often look forward to the day when they will be old enough to stray further from home, drink coffee and stay up all night if they want. But think of the other things you do that may be influencing them as well. Statistically children who smoke or drink underage had...

Posted for Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set List I really enjoyed our worship time today. It was a more intimate worship time. We had only about half of our band present (drums, piano, bass and acoustic) present. We normally have some woodwinds, keyboard and lead guitar as well. We also had only 3 singers, normally we use 5. Not sure that all of the songs went with the sermon on faith (our senior pastor was out this week), but "Jesus Messiah" was mentioned during the sermon as the pastor shared the main theme of his study in Romans: "Jesus is Best." Beautiful One in C Everlasting God in B flat Lord, I Lift Your Name on High in G major (fast version) Jesus Messiah in B (our first time to sing this one) Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) in E flat (quite a difference in keys, but I separated by a short prayer before we started) Shout to the Lord we do this about 6-7 times a year and I cannot remember what key we used--it does change keys near end. Children’s Sermo...

This is my first post for Fred McKinnon's Sunday Set List . We had a guest pastor (actually one of our own members who is in Bible College preparing to be a pastor), so we took a step away from our series on Strange Stories From the Bible. This series has actually been very difficult for worship planning, so it was nice to just plan something basic for a change. Believe it or not, we fit this much into one hour. Prelude: Band plays Mighty to Save Prayer by me Songs I Could Sing of Your Love Forever in F by Martin Smith (we did this much faster than the YouTube demo and it leads in nicely for the next) Forever in G by Chris Tomlin Holy Is the Lord in F by Chris Tomlin Mighty to Save in G by Rueben Morgan Here I Am to Worship in F by Tim Hughes How Great Is Our God in Bb by Chris Tomlin (we add chorus of "How Great Thou Art" a cappella after final chorus and then come back in full one more time for chorus) Children's Sermon VBS Commissioning Sermon Decision: Here...

Have you noticed the ads on facebook that show one of your friends pictures and tell you that they like or buy some product. Want to prevent these advertisers from using your pictures and name this way. Follow these steps to opt out of allowing third party advertisers from using your information. I did this because all it would take is for something like a beer company or a dating service to use my information and create a real problem for my job. Facebook has agreed to let third party advertisers use your posted pictures unless you opt out. Click on SETTINGS up at the top where you see the log out link. Select PRIVACY. Then select NEWS FEEDS AND WALL. Next select the tab that reads FACEBOOK ADS. There is a drop down box, select NO ONE. Then SAVE your changes.

I have been to camp with my boys each year since we moved to Maryland, but this is my first time to attend a youth camp with one of them. Since both of our boys are autistic, we do our best to help them understand proper responses for social situations. Sometimes it is much harder for them to grasp. Ashton went to his first youth camp last year. Wendy went also, but he had freedom because she was not staying in his cabin, obviously. He had some problems when one of the boys from his group told him to leave them alone because nobody liked him. Although it really hurt his feelings, he made other friends during that week and simply hung out with these boys. Since Ashton does not quite get the social aspects of making friends, for example he never learned their names, we were very happy that he was able to make some friends and enjoy the rest of his camp experience. This year I was glad to find out that a couple of his friends would be at camp, but both of these boys have discovered girls ...