Category Archives: Unchained from my Desk

Collecting Experiences, Ethos, Experience, Guilty Pleasure, Ministry, Resources, Spilling Personal Secrets, Study, Unchained from my Desk, Youth Ministry

The Batcave, aka The Nerdery

Much like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, the Batcave serves as a place of privacy and tranquility where Batman can be himself. – Wikipedia

When I need to get away and do some focused hard-core study for a class or a lesson I pack up all my gear – my notebook, Bible(s), book(s), iPod, pens, and highlighters – and head straight for my new, secret getaway. This place serves my needs because it is away from my desk, it is always quiet, and I avoid distraction from email or phone calls. I call this place of privacy and tranquility…

The Batcave
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This top-secret photo was snapped during my last visit and smuggled off the premises on my iPhone.

So where is the Batcave? I’ll never tell. However, I will spill the beans on what the Batcave is.

The Batcave is an annexed room next to my local comic book shop. The room is often used by groups of people play fantasy games like D&D, Warhammer 40K, and World of Darkness. It’s official name is The Gamers Guild.

That’s right I study at The Nerdery. But as you can see from my picture, in the middle of the afternoon no one is playing anything. The room is almost always completely empty. The people at the comic shop are so cool and so kind to let me use this area to study. I am so thankful to them. Every employee there has teated me so kindly. I love my new study-home.

It is so quiet there that I feel like my productivity quadruples. I just throw on my iPod (or don’t) whip out my pen and notebook and go to town crafting lessons. Very awesome.

Sure, there is no supercomputer or trophy room filled with the spoils of past lessons or retreats and there definitely is no Batmobile waiting in the wings (I do have a black car though) but this Batcave suits me just fine.

Until next time readers. Same Bat-channel. Same nerdy writer.

Ministry, Unchained from my Desk, Youth Ministry

Come On Ride that Train

I had a good day today. I find that I can get a whole lot more studying and planning done when I get away from my desk and break up my normal routine.

Today was anything but normal.

I met up with a couple of area ministers for an extended lunch date. We left about mid-morning and boarded the east bound train (TRE) into downtown Dallas. We spent the 45 min. trip studying and listening to our iPods while high above the railroad tracks in a double decker train. I used that initial part of our journey to read through the first big section in Job. (BTW, Job… now there’s a whole group of posts right there) When we arrived downtown we walked to the West End and although we had a not-so-great lunch we did have some great conversations.

After eating, we hopped back on the train and road it into Ft. Worth then back to Dallas and then back to our starting point (Richland Hills). All in all, we were on the tracks from about 1:30 until 5:30. We studied, bounced ideas off one another, got to know each other better, laughed together, and had a wonderful time. And it only cost $4.50.

I was a little concerned that I wouldn’t get a lot done but I was wrong. Most of the day the trains were pretty empty. The other passengers were friendly and the passenger cars were clean. I found that reading on the train came naturally and, at times, I forgot that we were moving. There is just something about unchaining from my desk that breathes new life into me. My creativity was flowing today.

Scripture tells us that “As iron sharpens iron, a friend sharpens a friend.” Those words were etched into my heart today. Yes, today was a good day.

Ministry, Sabbath, Unchained from my Desk

My Day Off

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While my friend Zac likes to believe that ministers only work on Sundays, my week can fill up at a moment’s notice and very quickly get out of hand. That’s why I love my Tuesdays.

Most ministers will choose one of two days for their day off: Mondays or Fridays. Usually senior ministers choose Mondays and youth ministers chose Fridays. This is understandable. Most youth ministers want to rest going into the weekend which is often times filled with lock-ins, serice projects, evening devotionals, and all manner of things that tend to go later than planned. Fridays can seem like the calm before the storm. It’s best to rest before tahn play catch up afterward. Senior ministers often take some breathing room on Mondays because “it’s the longest possible time before more church.”

I take off on Tuesdays. I like coming in on Mondays to evaluate the weekend and to make plans for the coming week. Fridays are out of the question because some much of my ministry to students happens on Fridays. Tuesdays are perfect!

So, what do I do on my days off? Whatever I want! (I’m kidding)

Sadly that isn’t quite true. I usually do a couple of things that just need to get done. Today I spent some time with my financial planner changing some things around in my IRA. It doesn’t get more fun than that, huh? Fortunately today, that was the most boring thing I did.

I don’t check out on my days off. I usually eat out for lunch and spend a good deal of time reading or doing some sort of personal development. Today I did both. I continued reading in The Forgotten Ways and I spent some time listening to some great teaching on some podcasts that I’ve been saving. Today was a good day.

Onther thing I like to do on Tuesdays is walk the bookstores and dip my toes into some of my hobbies. Today my hobby of choice was Photoshop. I love design and I really want to get a better handle on Photoshop so that I don’t have to rely on other companies to create and design posters, t-shirts and banners for my ministry. I loke doing stuff “in house.” With that in mind I’m hoping to roll out a new blog for my youth ministry this summer. My desire is that it will be highly functional and “really, really good looking.” So today I worked on creating a web logo. I used my last name for the image and I think it turned out pretty cool. It is pretty basic but I learned a ton about how things like gradiant overlays work. I have thankfully moved beyond “Drop Shadow!” Hopefully, I’ll be able to use what I learned today to churn out a cool looking design that my teenagers will be proud of. What do you think of the Felker logo? felkerlogosm.jpg

Tomorrow it’s back to the grindstone but today is my day off.