Sleepy head

Here's a few catch-up pictures from the end of our week in Lafayette. More descriptive post to come. I easily chose sleep over you again...deal with it.

For those who know them, find the Anani.







"There's this little Asian dude in the back making these fortune cookies! REALLY!"


I DID!

I Release You

Faithful blog followers, I release you from your responsibility to check the blog tonight. Do something productive for once. This was the only way I could think of to get myself to sleep on time. Great day so far. Chinese buffet with the group tonight (hopefully).

Third full day started off with the long anticipated discussion on patient meds from, who else, a doctor. For those who worry about counselors meddling with meds let me tell you the first and last statements this doc had to say. Never start or stop a counselee's meds. Pretty simple. This was a great session. As usual, too tired to explain why.
Not to leave you with the impression that everyone who who comes here is just a sponge taking whatever answer is spilled out or that our church simply mimics everything our leaders see here (you'd be really surprised at the similarities though). There have been plenty of examples to the contrary. After our track 1 lesson on "Forgiveness", almost everyone from our group in that track formed a blockade around Pastor Daniel wanting answers about something FBC mentioned about forgiveness being "conditional". I also had a brief convo with one of our pastors tonight about some possibly large differences in how (and how often) our churches carry out the exact same biblical steps regarding church (member) discipline. And let me tell you, review sessions were not going late just because of a long meal :-)

Finally got Lisa in a picture!

Spent some time checking out the other tracks during breaks. The speakers rotate alot. Many of them are speaking all day and simply go from one session to another. Most of the guys who speak with us have also been heard in other tracks

This is a session in track three where the guys and gals split up.

Before lunch was a session on Husbands. After, Pastor Viars had the session on Wives.
Linda, being the attentive, submissive wife she is, found it to be the appropriate time to doodle in her notebook. ;-)

Tonight's option session for me was a session on Jeremiah 2 by Stuart Scott, the fellow who is coming to my church this weekend to speak at a half-day marriage seminar. He's getting quite popular after the previous night's session (which I should have gone to). The room was packed. I find it amusing that since he's going straight from this conference to our seminar, he's just hitching a ride back with one of our pastors.

It is becoming very clear to me after posting all of these pictures of lecturers that no one looks happy when they are teaching in my pictures. I assure you, not only are these all people who thoroughly enjoy what they are doing, nearly all of them have had us, at some point, falling out of our chair laughing.

Dinner tonight was a little less organized as the weather turned nasty with heavy rain, winds and plummeting (but not bad) temps. Most people ate in at the hotel, but Josh and I headed out with Pastor Joey and his wife Kari to a new place (for me). Charley's

Where apparently

We had a session today on depression, and I find myself probing scripture for the verses we studied on that because of something weighing very heavy on my heart.

This pie, which Joan will NOT be happy about if it is still here when I leave, is the closest thing I have ever found to my wonderful mother's mint chocolate pie that she can no longer make now that the mix is no longer available. I'm sad because not only is this not a homemade pie with a recipe I can obtain (it's store bought). It is also clearly seasonal (was recently thawed) and will not be found again at the local Meijer (which we don't have) until next year...if that.

:-( Good night

Wait, I Actually Gotta LEARN This?

Another great conference day which seemed to go by MUCH faster. Indicating that this stuff is AWESOME, but also that it's going to be over and I'll be faced with actually LEARNING this awesome stuff much sooner than my lack of discipline would like.

Today we started by "unpacking" (a term counselors seem to use alot) a very brief (pin prick in size) overview of non-biblical counseling philosophies. Yes, this is where we heard the names Freud, Skinner and Rogers. What might surprise you is this is not when we heard the term "integrationalism". That was the first day. What may also surprise you is that I'm not going to rant about it...yet. I had plenty of time to learn about it and read up about it before coming, and that's actually not why I'm here. It's becoming clear, however, that I'm not going to have time to go over the "Why I'm here" post until I get back.

Every time I see a new Veggie Tales video, it astonishes me what sort of solid biblical theology is hidden in the jokes and details. Turns out that one veggie music video, "I Love My Lips" was actually a parody about two of the three psychologists I listed up there. Cracks me up.


Another terrific lunch served. Hi Mike!



During lunch, a couple of our more health conscious crew put in some time at the community center's impressive gym.

Pastor Daniel was somewhere around rep 311 when his face started showing fatigue.

"You call that spiritual sweat? I've seen Presbyterian seminary students who could pump iron with more dedication than this!!"

Pastor Chris gets his 10 seconds of fame here...

...since his pose and straight face didn't even last half that long. :-)

I'm still letting you down on getting a good picture of the church, but here's better ones of the community center and skate park.



I joked earlier about having to "suffer" through the awkwardness of a session on sex, but it was actually a privilege to be able to learn from Dr. Wickert, a great teacher of the Bible with a terrific sense of humor (like most of these guys), and an OB-GYN to boot.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (sorta) we have some options for the last hour of instruction. There are several sessions to choose from in all kinds of various topics. From marriage topics to cutting to deep theological stuff. I made the wrong choice. This guy would be one of my favorite teachers if he was going to be around more of the track 1 stuff. However, he covered mostly stuff I had already heard this week, and that's not what I was looking for.


The group made a bit of a quicker dinner stop tonight since dinner a bit long last night and the review session was unbearably late after that for many. Ted, that's Lisa's head. I haven't asked if she'd like to be in a picture yet, so that's the best I got.

Oh Joy.

Josh and I got to sit down with Mark and Linda for our Chick-fil-A feast.

You Have Your Revenge

Alright guys. Member that ONE TIME when I got called away for a completely legitimate, out of my control, reason during the most "awkward" Song Of Solomon session last year in Men's Bible study? Well, you just had your revenge in today's 1:30pm session.

I may one day yet have my counter revenge...

We Still Get Three More Days Of This Stuff!!

Wow. The teaching and passion here are wonderful. Today I found out that it is possible to get excited about going to a church that is not my own. I know too many people who have struggled to find a church in their new hometown which compares to Bethany after spending so much time there. I know that if I had to move here, there would be a great place to go.

Well, starting with breakfast, it was a good day. Joan had everything we could want ready for us. Cereal, milk, OJ, fruit, bagels and snacks to go.

The head Pastor here is Steve Viars (below). The dude is amazing. He has the constant rabbit tail qualities of Mr. Fay, the depth, over-time and real life applications of Pastor Ritch, and the sense of humor of Pastor Daniel. Speaking of Daniel, he better not be getting credit for this after catching him on his laptop during the third session! Pastor Viars shared with us about Why the church should counsel and what makes Biblical counseling Biblical. Definitely my favorite speaker. Just hearing about what the ministries of this church are doing in this community is worth the visit.
The conference provided a wonderful snack break after a couple of sessions. It was at today's session that Josh and I met Beth. Beth is here with her husband from Virginia. She is normally busy setting up college students. So while she's here, she will be trying to set up Josh and I with a couple of lovely ladies. Am I wearing a "hook me up" sign on my forehead or something?

After Pastor Viars, we heard from Dr. Smith, the father of Bethany's very own Pastor Joel Smith. Dr. Smith is not only an elder at this church, but a founding member of NANC. Dr. Smith took us through the first few Key elements in the Counseling process, my favorite one being GETTING INVOLVED!

Just before lunch, it occurred to me that this church has the same light fixtures as ours. I was a little zoned out on Sudafed and caffeine ok! Back off.

Next was boxed lunches. We could definitely use a Lyall touch to the organization of that, but it went well all things considered.

My boss would KILL to have a professional fitted gym floor covering like this at school.

Lunch was all over in the Community Center which is just like what it sounds, built by the church for the community. It has a sweet gym, and I'll get you pictures of the skate ramps later.

We had more speakers and great topics but I'll not spend time explaining because it's stinkin' late.



Back at home, Joan cooked up for us an AWESOME pork roast meal! Oh, I can't tell you how cool our hosts are. Joan was slightly disappointed in my progress on the female front though. I didn't get a single girl's name today.

Hosting couples are only expected to provide a breakfast, but Joan had us over for dinner tonight and has plenty of leftovers for another time. Tomorrow, however, I believe Josh and I will join the Bethany crew for some Chick-fil-A!

JoshF would be proud of me. He uses me as his sous-chef all the time, and so did Joan. JoshG and I did not get out of the house for review time without first browining 15lbs. of meet for a church meal tomorrow night.

With a long and late night review session with the group, it's way past my bed time. Folks in other more advanced sessions had gone through some pretty deep topics like specific situations in counseling divorced parents and medication use, and had some serious questions for Joel. It was great listening in on the discussion...but seriously...I gotta go.

Good Night

Lafayette, We Have Arrived

On the move again. By now about half of you already found out that I am leaving Peoria alone this week. Don't go nuts or anything while I'm away.

Almost a year ago, our counseling pastor at church told me of a annual conference/seminar held at a church and that a group from our church goes to it every year for training. I was charged with thinking about it for a year, and I have. We'll go into why I've been thinking about counseling training later on as it's getting late and even the blog prep work I did last night for that post isn't enough.

The training is being held at Faith Baptist Church in Lafayette Indiana. FBC's counseling ministry hosts this counseling conference every year. It's main goal is to equip lay and pastoral church members for reaching out in love with the gospel through counseling and discipleship. The training, which continues to expand and improve, is also geared towards prepping folks for NANC certification, if they so choose. NANC stands for the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors.

Captain Tyler - "Goooood morning everybody this is your captain speaking. On behalf of Bethany Baptist church let me welcome you to our non-stop rocket service toooo Lafayette Indiana." He never missed an opportunity to get a cheap chuckle out of all of us. We've got about 30 folks on the trip. If you look at the Conference website you'll see six tracks. The first few seem to be mostly informative, like classroom stuff, though I believe we have break-out time. The fourth one, I'm too lazy to look at it again and tell you so read it yourself. The fifth has to do with prep for the NANC certification exam. Quite an ordeal from what I've heard. Track six is all about observation of counseling, which works toward your certification. Of our 30ish people, we have someone in every track. It's pretty exciting. I am in track one with about 15 other newbies.

FBC isn't that much larger than my church. Probably about 2000 attending from my guess and some information they gave About 1800 attending. BBC is around 1400. The size and an abundance of funds definitely shows with this being one of three book stores on campus. Ya, I know. Shoulda gotten a picture of the entire church. I'll work on it.

Track one spends all of their time in the main auditorium/sanctuary of the church. Other tracks are spread throughout the church and the church's huge community center on the other end of the campus.

Several folks have been to this training multiple years, and they are quite serious about having their Sunday night DQ run. It was a must for Janna and Christine since DQ has treats worth zero points. I wasn't going to get anything until I saw mint oreos. Worth it.




No clues found on the Huse baby name front, but I'll keep checking.

At the end of each night, we will enjoy a rap session with the team in order to help assimilate the information from the day and share knowledge. We have an awesome budding counseling ministry at church headed up by Pastor Joel, who is as usual putting in alot of time and energy to help us to grow and get the most out of the week.

Roxanne in the house!! We were both hanging around the back doors of the church this morning waiting for the buss to leave when we realized each other was going. I've already blogged about her fam plenty in the past. What I may not have mentioned was Roxanne's New York craziness a few years ago on my first trip with NYC ministries. Twas a blast. Word Jasmine!

The opportunities never cease as I have also been able to meet plenty of new people already. Josh (on the left) is a fellow who goes to our sister church in Washington. He's the only other single guy on the trip, and we will be living under the same roof with a seriously awesome couple who are hosting us this week, Bob and Joan. The guy on the right, who wasn't quite ready for the picture, is Ralph from Philadelphia and is also being hosted by Bob and Joan.


Bob and Joan have been involved in ministry with the church for 30 years as the school principal and secretary, and continue to serve in various ways during sudo-retirement. Good news Mom. Joan promises to have a wife picked out for me by the end of the week.

Good night!