Month: August 2009

Many of you know that for the last year I have been working on a writing project for Zondervan/Youth Specialties with my friend Jack Crabtree. As a team we have been writing a complete lesson including ice-breaker, overview, media ideas, teaching, and discussion questions for each chapter of the New Testament. Youth Specialties now has Volume 1 listed in their online catalogue. We are hoping to be done with Volume 2 soon, but it is exciting to see this one listed. I am also very honored that my dad, Kevin Mahaffy, Sr. also contributed several lessons to the project. So cool to share this experience as father and son!

A classic youth ministry video that my daughters wanted to watch tonight, so you all get to enjoy it as well!

While I absolutely cannot stand country music, the message in this video speaks to why I am passionate about breaking the stereotype of pastors. This video assumes pastors functioning in a traditional, Western, modern way. One of my former pastors used to preach “family first” and, using a play on the words of Jesus, said: “What good will it be if we gain the whole world but lose our families?” I battle against these temptations regularly, and I am far from perfect, but by God’s grace I hope that I am moving toward and modeling a different, more healthy kind of pastorship. Selah.

Last week I happened upon a link to the Center for Action & Contemplation. I signed up for the free daily meditations by Fr. Richard Rohr, and have been blessed and challenged by his reflections each day. If you would like to sign up to receive these great little devotionals, you can do so here.

Dad just sent me this picture – the first one ever taken of me. Sleep is still one of my favorite things to do. lol! April 21, 1976

My friend Dennis King is the bassist. Good stuff!

Tonight was our final Serve & Swim of the month. We broke up into 8 different groups picking up garbage on the streets of downtown Smithtown and prayer walking as we went along. It was really great and we had probably 20 bags of trash in just one hour. Afterward we went to the Jainarine’s house where we swam, ate, and laughed a lot. It’s been an awesome month!

On Sunday the London team attended our second service. Pastor Brian greeted the congregation with team mascot Busby Bear in hand. It was a riot! During the afternoon we had a fun time playing and relaxing at a pool party at the Fenimore home.

On Monday we went to the home of a 91-year old woman just around the corner to clean her yard which was overgrown. I had discovered that she was recently put into a nursing home, so no one had really been keeping up with the yard work. For two hours we removed tree branches, vines, etc. and cut the grass. About an hour in her son came by the house to do some work inside and his jaw dropped as he saw our team working. All he could say was thank you and that he was just blown away. Before we left, we circled around Joe and I prayed for him and his family. He was extremely grateful for our kindness. After a much welcome stop at 7-11, we went to Hobbs Farm in Centereach and worked the rest of the day clearing two fields of weeds so that the watermelons and squash that were hidden below could grow. Hobbs Farm grows and gives food to the poor of Long Island. To date this year they have given away over 5,500 lbs. of food and could give away even more if they had more volunteers to work the land. We were happy to have helped and know that our service was a great blessing and encouragement to Ann who volunteers full-time to run the farm. When we finished our work we prayed for Ann and headed home to clean up. That evening we took the kids to the mall and then enjoyed a nice final meal together at the Cheesecake Factory.