Share your toys...and your teachers?

I’ll craft this in serial format as time allows.

Part One:
Theoretically, the teacher sharing is a good concept. Public school teachers who need a job can get one in a parochial and/or private school. The public school district uses its pay scale to pay the teacher’s salary and benefits. In return, the public school adds the parochial and/or private school’s enrollment to its total enrollment. Public school funding, based on a larger enrollment, allows public schools access to more money for its students. Shared teachers can be used in non-core classes like art, music, physical education, consumer science, honors and AP courses. The parochial and/or private school doesn’t pay one cent of the public school teacher’s salary.

Hmmmm, so far so good?

The Week Ahead

Life's been busy but two posts are in the hopper:

Now I know I'm old.

The not so silver lining of using shared time teachers from public schools in parochial schools.

Out of the hopper next week.

Micro Blogging at its Finest: North Star Tweets!

Lutheran North's newspaper is branching out by jumping into the Twitter hype. Beginning tomorrow, you can get your NStar tweets for free. Sterling journalism by sterling high school journalists.

September 1st: My first chapel

Lutheran North's theme for this year is from Hebrews 12:1-3:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

My first chapel is the second day of school. Any suggestions?

I'm leaning toward using some great insights by C.F.W. Walther, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod’s first president who wrote Law and Gospel a book that every LHN chapel speaker should read. I referenced Walther's passage in a previous post and it makes for good discussion and reveals the impotance of both Law and Gospel in our chapels, sermons and lives.

In his “Third Evening Lecture: on September 26, 1884” Walther quotes Luther,“These two points must be made: The Law creates a thirst and leads us to hell; the Gospel, however, satisfies the thirst and leads to heaven. The Law states what we must do, but that we have fallen short of doing it, no matter how holy we may be. Thus it produces uncertainty in me and arouses this thirst.”

Walther follows this Luther quote with, “Such a thirsty person must do only one thing: Drink, receive the comfort of the Gospel. How a truly thirsty person is refreshed by even one small glass of water! But if he is not thirsty, you may pour glass after glass down his throat, and it won’t do him any good, it won’t refresh him."

The quenching drink of the Gospel truly restores our souls. There is nothing more healing than the suave of Christ. Through His sacrifice our sins are forgiven, righteousness, salvation and mercy are ours.

Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. - John 1:29

Cash for Clunkers for Foreign Vehicles?

I guess when I was shopping for a car nearly ten years ago; I should have had more insight to buy an American chunk of auto crud. Had I done this, I could have been fortunate enough to experience escalating maintenance bills, diminishing resale value and the loss of time I would have spent trekking back and forth to Bob’s American Auto Repair, whose motto is “You bought it so we’ll have to fix it. You call it a rolling money pit. We call it job security.” Yeah, that motto might not fit on a business card or in the cramped confines of a classified, but it’s accurate nonetheless.

Had I purchased an American chunk of auto crud I could also be turning my clunker in for a potential $4,500 payout that I could plop down for another American chunk of auto crud. You see, neither my 2000 Honda Accord nor my 1998 Honda Civic qualifies for the Cash for Clunkers program. Stupid me. What was I thinking?

No, ten years ago, I simply did my homework, read Consumer Reports, evaluated resale values and maintenance costs, played two dealers against each other and drove off the lot in a 2000 Honda Accord. Nearly 160,000 miles later, I’m still driving the stylish vehicle that was made in Marysville, Ohio. A geographical location, by the way, that is not Canada or Mexico.
The money I’ve saved in repair costs brings a smile to my financial face. However, I still feel I’m missing something with this Cash for Clunkers deal. If Obama is going to use my federal taxes to fund another stimulus program, I’d like a li’l somethin’/somethin’ out of it.

Years ago when I rolled off the lot driving a car that had the highest resale value, was voted the best sedan purchase, bested all competition in buyer satisfaction and safety, I should have known it was too good to be true. I should have know that if I’d purchased an American chunk of auto crud, I could have poured money into that purchase during the ensuing ten years and then qualified for a $4,500 rebate that I’m paying for anyway.
Stupid me. What was I thinking?

Side note: It’s interesting to see that four of the five cars being purchased with this CforC program are foreign cars. What are they thinking?

LEFT FIELD

So far summer has been a bit cool in Michigan. Fear not, however, because the The Left Field staff is doing what it can to warm this place up. We may not be able to do anything about the actual weather but we can interview people who live in warmer climates and that's why our guest for this installment of Left Field is Assistant Pastor and youth director at St. Mark Lutheran Church in heat blistering Conroe, Texas.

There were over 800 young men and women who attended SOLA in Grand Rapids. Are you surprised by the turnout? We actually had 904 youth, pastors, and counsellors at SOLA Grand Rapids. We are always pleasantly surprised at what the Lord does. We had originally planned for the Grand Rapids conference to have over 1000 youth, but Calvin College had to take their main theater, which would’ve served as our chapel, offline for that week. This put us in the campus Chapel, which really was an unbelievable experience. While I'm sorry that we had to turn some groups away, I'm really really glad we were in the Chapel.

Does it seem a bit odd that this summer’s HT conference, SOLA was held on Calvin College’s campus? Nope. We've had conferences at Roman Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, and even non-denominational universities and chapels. When we arrive at a college, that campus becomes Lutheran for a week. And besides, at Calvin College, we were able to make all those predestination jokes!

The LCMS National Youth Gathering occurs once every three years. HT’s conferences occur every summer. Other than frequency, what differences exist between the two? I don't know about making comparisons with the NYG, I can only say that Higher Things serves a niche group of congregations that want to have the historic liturgy and substantial catechises for their youth. We challenge youth to “Dare to be Lutheran” and they never fail to amaze us!

My son came back from SOLA and has been telling stories about the conference since he returned. Why isn’t your HT fantasy baseball team dominating the league? First of all, I’d like to point out that I've won HT fantasy football two years in a row. Back to back! My fantasy baseball teams always fade during conferences when I seem to be a bit busy. There's still a bit of baseball left to play this season, but if I were a betting man, I'd bet on Pastor Zill to win this year.

Which disciple would have the most interesting tweets on Twitter? St. Matthias. I want to know what the Lord did through Him! Don't you?

You are the Assistant Pastor and youth director at St. Mark Lutheran Church in Conroe, Texas. For those interested in pursuing youth ministry as a vocation, what should they know? I didn't know a thing about youth ministry when I got here. Not a thing! The most important thing to do is to remember that it's the WORD that saves young people (James 1:21, 1 Tim. 4:16).

Next year’s HT’s conference, GIVEN will be in Logan, Utah and Memphis, Tennessee. How do you pick the locations for these conferences? We use a map, some darts, and a blindfold (grin). After we repair the holes in my wall, we try to spread the conferences throughout different regions of the United States to give more young people an opportunity to attend a Higher Things conference. I would expect that in a few years, we would start repeating sites again.

Excluding God’s Holy Word, what one book should be read by every student at some point during the high school years? Luther's Large Catechism.

What’s your favorite hymn? Why? I love teaching hymns to young people and to my congregation. After I became a Lutheran, my favorite hymn was “All Glory, Laud, and Honor” (LSB 442). Now, my favorite hymn changes based upon the season and the year! It would have to be between “Lo, He comes with Clouds Descending” (LSB 336) or “Of the Father's Love Begotten,” (LSB 384) or “Oh Love, How Deep,” (LSB 544) or “Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands” (LSB 458), and “Our Paschal Lamb” (LSB 473). Right now, I'm really jazzed about the Given conference hymn, “O God, O Lord of Heav'n and Earth” (LSB 834) by Martin Franzmann. I love any hymn that is supposedly too hard to sing!

As a high school English teacher, I want my students to treasure good literature: Hamlet, Huck Finn, Crime and Punishment, The Book Thief, “Once More to the Lake” et al. What literary treasure were you forced to read, in either high school, college or even the seminary, and just never enjoyed? Never enjoyed? I never enjoyed Count of Monte Cristo. I absolutely love Shakespeare.

Pop Flies:

LSU or UofM football? Geaux Tigers! I grew up five minutes from LSU. I used to do my older brother's chores to get his football tickets from him. I graduated from LSU in 1996.
LSU football or the CWS champions LSU baseball? I would trade six LSU baseball champions for another LSU football championship. Yet, I have all six of the LSU championship baseball and both football championship front pages from the Baton Rouge Newspaper framed in my study. There's hardly any room for Jesus pictures. Does that make me an idol worshiper? (grin)
The Spirituality of the Cross by Gene Veith or Why I am a Lutheran by Daniel Preus? The Spirituality of the Cross.
San Antonio or Grand Rapids? GRRRRRR! That's really not fair. I'm not Going to Reveal that to you! I'll Get in tRouble! I can only Give you a Really small hint.
Law or Gospel? The Gospel (after the Law has been properly preached)!
The Tour de France or the annual LSU/Florida grid-iron grudge match? LSU vs. anyone. A better question would be, “The Tour de France” or “LSU losing to Florida.” That would be a push.
Free-range chicken or the 6-piece McNugget meal? I've never had free-range chicken!
Star Wars or Star Trek? BOTH! That makes me a geek, right?
Windows or Linux? Linux so much that I finally bought a Mac. It was really sad when the most-read post on my blog was a how-to-guide on how to install Linux on my Dell!
Nolan Ryan or Stan Musial? “Stan the Man” was my father's favorite player.
Blogs or Twitter? Twitter! Micro-blogging is so much easier than actual blogging.

1984 Redux

This summer I revisited Orwell's 1984 and decided to add it back into the AP Lit. curriculum. It's a good companion piece for Crime and Punishment, Hamlet, and Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. I chuckled at the recent censoring story that involved a pirated copy of 1984 and Kindle.

Ahhh, technology, censorship and Big Brother...just another reason I will never own a GPS contraption.

Kentucky Bluegrass is not Arsenic

Dead leaf bits. Arsenic. Grass clippings. Ebola virus.

What do all these have in common with each other? Your knee jerk reaction might be nothing. Arsenic and grass clippings couldn’t possibly be related. However, based on the motorized, gas combustion noise makers in my neighborhood, you would think leaf bits possess the same toxic properties. Why else do people spend hours blowing nature’s refuse, grass clippings and dirt off the road or sidewalk?
It’s dirt.
I like a well-manicured lawn. Dark rows of freshly-edged lawns lining the sidewalk show owners care. Mowed lawns are fragrant and visually pleasing.

"We both looked at the grass—there was a sharp line where my ragged lawn ended and the darker, well-kept expanse of his began." -from Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, arguably my favorite novel.

While the strident cacophony of motorized lawn implements proves the industrial revolution was effective, it does nothing for a peaceful summer night. People need to heed Mary Shelly’s advice. She vilified Victor Frankenstein for transcending the moral boundaries of nature. Victor’s life and family were decimated because of his hubris. An August 1, 2009, translation is that just because Wal*Mart is offering the technologically superior edger/mower/trimmer/nose-wiper at a 30% discount in aisle 3, doesn’t mean you should ruin the auditory euphoria in your neighborhood.