Still bouncing around Phoenix at the YSNYWC making observations:

Went to an insightful seminar today led by youth ministry guru Doug Fields' wife, Cathy. The topic was the unique and practical needs youth pastor wives have being married to strangely-wired husbands. To start the seminar she said, "Now that I've done this seminar a few times, I'm realizing that the people that would come to a seminar on how to serve their wives better are not the kind of people who need to come to a seminar on how to serve their wives better." So, she taught from that as her starting point, which made it time well-spent.

Cool moment of the day for me: For a mosaic of reasons, I admire the band Lost and Found. Our church hosted them once and I developed a working relationship with them since I was the contact person. Anyway, Tracy and I were walking back from the Hard Rock Cafe as the band was heading in that direction. As we pass on the sidewalk, Michael, the lead singer (on his cell phone) made eye contact with me, moved his phone away from his mouth and says, "Oh, 'hi' Brent!" I felt like a high-school freshman who'd just gotten a 'hello' from the cool senior. I have no idea why this excited me as much as it did.

Great quote from an Arizona Republic interview with actor Jack Black. When asked if he knew what he'd be doing in five years, he said this: "No, I don't know. Hopefully, I'll be doing some cool work with some cool people. That's all you can hope for in this business." Frankly, that's all you can hope for in any business.

The highlight of the day was unquestionably a special "late night" show featuring Lost and Found and improv comedy troupe
C.P.R. Here's a few reasons why:

After meeting someone from Indiana, Lost and Found noted that it was the Hoosier state. Michael then mimicked a rapper saying, "Hooz yer state?" He also said the university of Indiana should give bumper stickers to fathers that read, "Hooz yer Daddy."

The also mentioned that, for a nominal fee, you can register any business name you wanted to. So, they decided it would be good to name their business "The Christian Music Industry." Now all their promotional information can say things like "Lost and Found owns The Christian Music Industry" and they wouldn't be lying. They also wrote a song about Lutherans (similar to Adam Sandler's Hannukah Song) in which they mention everyone from "Ace Frehley from Kiss" to "Stormin' Norman Schwartzkoff" and another one about their stay at the Hyatt Hotel and five dollar phone calls.

C.P.R. gave me a headache from laughing so much. Since it's improvisational, not much will translate here, but I love the fact that they keep their comedy clean because, in Red Skelton's words, "The Bible says that laughter is like medicine and if you get in the gutter you are poisoning what's supposed to help you." They also invented this game called "Rug Ball" (which I purchased for my interns) because of all their time in airports.

The only downer is that my digital camera battery died before I could get any pictures...