EATERIES

One of the great things about traveling to the midwest or anywhere for that matter is getting to go to some different eateries. There are several that are very midwest centered. We like Steak-n-Shake and stopped at one in Indiana and also ate at a Bob Evans on the way home in Chillicothe, Ohio. But my favorites that we managed to get to this vacation:

We had Giordano's Pizza with my sister Becky and her family (Thanks Joe for buying!)

My mouth is watering just looking at this pic. Go to www.giordanos.com for more info.

We went to a Rockford only favorite after church on Sunday called Beef-a-Roo. Beef, Ham and Turkey sandwiches, cheese fries and great shakes! Plus free after dinner mints! Try www.beefaroo.com We went to the train themed one in Roscoe.

Patsy's parent's took us to Happy Joes we tried to take them to Culvers (www.culvers.com) but they wouldn't let us pay. These are both great midwest restaurants that will never be in Roanoke during my lifetime! I had the best pumpkin spice frozen custard shake at Culvers. To die for my friends!

My dad bought some of the famous broasted chicken from a supermarket chain called Logli's and he did let us buy him a great gyro dinner at Tom and Jerry's. All this plus Thanksgiving it's a miracle I only gained 5 pounds! Maybe I lost it going our Black Friday with my brother-in-law Bill to the great midwestern man store Menards!

Thanksgiving trip

We had a great trip to Illinois for Thanksgiving. A visual narrative follows:

Blake in a box

Boys with my mom and Grandma March

Boys and their Papa

My kids with my sister's kids

Will's eye

Blake and Levi at Parade

Uncle Bill and Tanner

Hannitized

OK I know some people may like me less after this post but as Popeye said "I yam what I yam".

Now that I have finished King Me, which was really good btw, I am reading Sean Hannity's book Deliver us From Evil. I hate to admit it by I have had a bit of an election hangover and I thought a good conservative book would help me out. Even though I am a pastor I am a big fan of talk raido. I usually listen to Mike and Mike on my morning commute and Sean Hannity during my evening commute home. So far the book it is quite good. After all Hannity is a great American! I have also been reading a great book about the Revolutionary War with my family. It's about a boy who joins up as a fifer and what life was like for soldiers during this time. You really have to wodner if we would have the will to fight that fight today. Sad - but probably not. Next I am going to read Rediscovering God in America by Newt Gingrich. what a right wing nut!

Soccer officially over

Since Homeschool Soccer is officially over I thought I'd post a couple of photos of our big season.

More trophies

Here are those photos we promised. Blake had the wedge car and won third place for T and T. Tanner had the shark car and won second place for design in Sparks. Pretty cool day as we had over 50 kids race cars!

Famous?

Wow, the post I wrote about why we don't do a fall festival made it to the premier children's ministry website as a link. http://www.kidology.org linked it under their children's minsitry blog watch. Too cool.

GRAND PRIX

It's that time of the year again! Time to carve out the cars and make sure they are exactly 5 ounces! We are ready to defend the Martin pride and take the design trophies again! Awana Grand Prix will be held at the church on November 11th! Watch for photos of our cars coming soon!

October 31st pictures

Why we don't do a Fall Festival

I have had about 30 requests to do a Fall Festival this year and here are the top 10 reasons KidZone does not sponsor a Fall Festival or Trunk or Treat.

1. There about 100 churches in the valley doing something.
2. Being on top of the mountain it could be a very chilly and windy night.
3. The vast majority of our events are geared towards bringing the parents and children back together in some positive ways.
4. As a staff we have been discussing moving towards a more simple church, less event-driven model. We are looking to trim down not add on more events.
5. We do a Christmas choir, an Easter egg hunt, a father-daughter banquet, a lock-in, a mother-son event, a grand-prix, children's basketball league and summer camp along with VBS. Enough!
6. It's one holiday I can just be dad and not Pastor Marty to my own children.
7. We do a huge carnival and spend buckoo bucks every summer as a climax to VBS. We would have to take money away from that and try to do two. Why?
8. Some people like to do an outreach in their own neighborhoods.
9. We do a fall festival for our preschool - don't want to plan two.
10. Because I don't want too!

Patsy at a fall fair we did in 1995

All Hallow's Eve

What to do about Halloween? What to do when good people disagree? These two questions go together like peanut butter and jelly. I grew up in a conservative Pentecostal church and thank God for my upbringing. About this time of the year there was plenty of teachings going around about the history of Halloween and evils of participating. As children we did not trick or treat or anything of the nature. I totally respect each parent's decision on what to do during this event. For my family we have decided to try and redeem the holiday. Martin Luther and others tried to do this by celebrating Reformation Day and All Hallow's Day on November 1st. For awhile this worked but at some point Christians such as the Puritans in America pulled out all together of all holidays and this left the void to a complete reversal into paganism. Our society has completely embraced this holiday and we have chosen to be part of a growing movement to redeem the holiday. To take what Satan meant for evil and turn it to good. The book Redeeming Halloween by Kim Weir and Pam McCure has lots of ideas on how to do this.
There are certain aspects of the holiday that are just cultural and for the most part are harmless in my view. Here is what we do or have done:

1. The Pumpkin devotional (see below)
2. Visit a nursing home/shut-ins for trick or treat
3. Only dress in positive good costumes
4. Give Christian comic books
5. Trunk or treat at a church
6. We have hosted a fall festival at church before (I will post why we don't now later)
7. Talk about Reformation Day and who Martin Luther was
8. Roast pumpkin seeds and eat them!!!

My goal here is to be a positive impact on the culture and teach my kids how to be a light on a dark night.
This is an example of the pumpkin devotional:

Halloween devotion. Get a large pumpkin and recruit six group members to help. As yourkids carve the pumpkin, have them use the following devotion to help remind the children what it means to have Jesus in their hearts:
Group Member #1-(Cut out the stem part and pull out the gooey insides.) *Say: Yuck! This is what we look like inside when Jesus doesn't live in our hearts. All the bad things we do and all the mean and grumpy things we say are rotten and slimy just like the inside of this pumpkin. Just like our pumpkin couldn't clean itself out, we can't clean ourselves up without Jesus' help.
Group Member #2-(Show the inside of the pumpkin all cleaned out.) *Say: When we decide we want to love and follow Jesus, he comes into our hearts and cleans up all the nasty stuff sin causes. And Jesus gives us all a very important job.
Group Member #3-(Carve the eyes.) *Say: Jesus wants our eyes to look at everyone with love.
Group Member #4-(Carve the nose.) *Say: Jesus wants our noses to sniff all around and find all the kind and wonderful people we know: teachers who help us to learn, parents who cook us our meals, and the mail carrier who brings us our mail. Jesus wants us to be sure to thank all the special people we know.
Group Member #5-(Carve the mouth in a smile.) *Say: Jesus wants us to use our mouths to tell everyone we know about him. So be sure to tell someone about Jesus' love this week.
Group Member #6-(Put a candle in the jack-o'-lantern and light it.) *Say: When Jesus lives in our hearts, he cleans out the mess inside. Even better, he lights up our lives so that everyone who looks at us can see his love shine out, just like this pumpkin shines right now. Close with a song such as "This Little Light of Mine.
Author: Lana Mclaughlin

You can buy some great gifts to hand out at this website http://www.ctainc.com/

Other great ideas for an an outreach at your home can be found here http://www.lightthenightpa.com/