sermon – Veterans’ Weekend

November 2023 Blog No comments
BSA Camp Constantin dining hall — displaying service flags for Veterans Weekend 2023

This weekend’s service first thanks and looks closer into the calling of those who serve in our military, concluding with the poem “It is the Soldier” by Charles Province. The message then explores an interfaith view on Ephesians 6 “the Armor of God’ that we are called to ‘suit up’ with in order to be on active duty as people of faith within the world.

Devotional message (10-12 minutes)

Worship Handout (total program 20-25 minutes)

To all the veterans out there and their loved ones — thank you for your service.

Sermon — What if we’re wrong?

June 2023 Sermons and Devotionals Comments Off on Sermon — What if we’re wrong?

(and the World is right — there is no God)

First delivered at Protestant Service at H.Roe Bartle in 2023
  • Examples of Rules and how rules evolve with context
  • What does the World say?
  • What if the World is right? What if there is no God?
  • What if the World is NOT right?
  • What to do about it

DOWNLOAD: Sermon – What if we’re wrong and the World is right?

Sermon — Fathers Day 2022

June 2022 Sermons and Devotionals No comments

This weekend is “Father’s Day Weekend” – for many it’s a weekend with sales at Home Depot, there will be lots of BBQ, and for many adult men, their main goal for the weekend will be a nap. For some dads, there might be some kind of gift:

  • When the kids are little, Mom buys a gift, hands it to the kid for ten seconds who has no idea what is in it, who hands it to Dad
  • Later, older kids might buy or make their own (those are the best!!!)
  • In adult hood, sometimes that turns into a “Let’s have lunch”
  • But for some, it’s an obligatory phone call – “Hey! Am calling for Father’s Day. How are you? I’m good too. Ok, well, Happy Father’s Day” (click)

Seems kind of sad, doesn’t it? It is sad. As a Father, let me share a little with you from a few different perspectives. Most men may receive up to five different names over their lifetime: Son … Father … Daddy … Dad … and Pops … let’s talk about each and the progression between them.

DOWNLOAD : Sermon – Fatherhood.pdf

Archery Stuff for “Fun Shoots” for Crews and Troops

January 2021 Awards and Programs, Boy Scouts, Venturing No comments

Archery is awesome.  There is something very cool about lining up like Robin Hood, hearing the soft twang of the string and the very rewarding THUMP of the arrow hitting the target.  It’s just rocks.

If you want the bling to go with the memories, here are the combined “fun parts” of both the Scout Merit Badge and the Venturing Ranger Shooting Sports Elective (archery option) activity, as well as the complete requirements.  If you do the fun parts first, then its up to you do self-study, google classroom, or virtual/zoom meeting to knock out the rest with a counselor or instructor.

This PDF has 3 sections

Page 2 – The Fun Parts (combined) for both the Merit Badge and the Venturing Elective.

Print this page Archery-MB-notesand take it with you when you go on a fun shoot.

Page 3 – Ranger Elective 24 Shooting Sports, including Option III Archery

Page 456 – Scouts BSA Archery Merit Badge Requirements, including blue card

 

The information herein is believed current and complete as of January 2021 — Click HERE to download the PDF

Eagle Mentors and Eagle Coaches

August 2020 Boy Scouts No comments

If you are a new Life Scout … or a Star Scout about to earn Life … or a parent of one of those … or an adult leader interested in possibly serving as an Eagle Mentor or Coach, here is a short video (6m) and its source PPT.   The material is how I explain the process of becoming an Eagle Scout and the role of Eagle Mentors and Coaches.

If you’d like to adapt or present the PPT yourself, it is in Dropbox.  If you share your adaptation, please acknowledge ScoutingForGod.org as the source material.

Overview of Commissioner Recognitions

September 2017 Circle Ten Council, Commisioners 2 comments

The best reason for Commissioner Recognitions isn’t for the bling or vanity — it’s to model and measure what good Commissioner service looks like.  BSA has done a great job of refreshing and clarifying each of the many recognitions that can be used to incentivize and recognize great Commissioner service to our units and our youth.

In Circle Ten Council, we are starting up a very intentional focus to explain and enhance our use of recognitions, as part of bolstering our Commissioner Corps and their service.  Here’s a short video explaining all of the progressions.

Also, if you want to use the PPT for your own recognitions discussion, perhaps at a monthly Commissioners’ meeting or a Commissioner College course, here it is as well.  All we ask is that you don’t re-post the PPT elsewhere — just link to this post, so that we can update it as needed.

Thanks for all you do in Scouting.

A Must Have Book for Reverent Scouts – Scouting Our Way

April 2015 Interfaith No comments

Every Scout and Scouter promises to do their Duty to God, but very little is written to help them accomplish that since the BSA recognizes many different faith traditions.

My favorite single resource related to this subject has been In Our Own Way: Living a Scouting Life Through Faith, by Dr. Robert Lee Edmonds. Between mentoring Chaplains Aides and serving on Wood Badge courses, I’ve given away over 100 copies and it’s the only paper book in my camping gear, other than the Boy Scout Handbook. Click here to check out my previous blog on In Our Own Way.

Dr. Edmonds and his wife Linda just published a new book, Scouting Our Way: A Guide to Faith, Duty, and Fellowship.

According to the publisher:

Scouting Our Way includes an extraordinary selection of traditional and favorite Scout prayers and devotions arranged by program and activity suitable for personal reflection and group gatherings. There is also a prayer journal inside the book for Scouts to record their personal and favorite prayers.

At the end of each chapter are Set My Compass interactive, theme-based adventures where the reader can engage with unique chapter topics through faith-building activities. Each Set My Compass exercise is an enlightening, personal, and sharing experience for Scouts to appreciate the blessings and value of reverence, duty, and fellowship. These chapter tasks are readily adaptable for age and program and are an ideal complement to earning advancement, service or religious honors requiring an understanding and the role of a Scout’s duty to God.

Dr. Edmonds was kind enough to let me read it before it became generally available, and provide me the opportunity to contribute some ideas during the book’s production – so it will absolutely find a place on my book shelf and another copy in my camping gear. Every reverent scout should consider having one! It includes:

  • Prayers from over 30 faiths each on various Scout topics such as Reverence, Character, Being Prepared
  • Prayers and wisdom from past presidents and leaders
  • A variety of Cub Scout, Boy Scout, Leader, Wood Badge and other Scouting benedictions and prayers
  • And some introspective guides and a prayer journal for each readers’ journey in their understanding of their Creator

If you are a reverent Scout or Scouter (or have someone in your family who is), this is a great resource – especially for Chaplains Aides and those who help Scouts with their Duty to God.

For more information, click here for Scouting Our Way on Amazon (yes, it is available on Kindle). And also check out the write-up on Dr. and Mrs. Edmonds from BSA’s ScoutWire.

How active is your Council in Religious Awards?

January 2015 Awards and Programs, Circle Ten Council No comments

Each year, PrayPub (the outside agency that develops most of the religious education materials and awards) publishes the lists of BSA councils and awards presented:

http://www.praypub.org/god_country/pray_usage.htm

 

For those in Circle Ten, my council, with 57,000 youth … here are our numbers for the protestant programs:

  • 122 God & Me – 1st thru 3rd grade
  • 116 God & Family – 4th & 5th
  • 20 God & Church – 6th thru 8th
  • 10 God & Life – 9th thru 12th
  • 3 Four Star (all of the above)
  • 17 Adult Awards

 

Of course, this doesn’t tell the whole story.  These numbers are only of the Christian-Protestant awards, not the Catholic, Jewish or other recognized faiths.  Still, there are a lot of protestants in Texas and only 288 recognitions for Scouts and Scouters.

Here are a few other observations:

  • It is gratifying to see relatively flat numbers in the first two programs, implying perhaps folks continuing in the program as their Cub Scout progresses.
  • It is equally disappointing to see the fall-off for Boy Scouts with the latter two programs.
  • Only three Scouts received the “Four Star,” meaning all four awards, presumably three of the ten God & Life recipients.
  • Only 17 Adults were recognized, which begs the question … who is teaching the Scouts? Teaching a course certainly doesn’t merit the award, but one would presume that there are far more than seventeen Christian-minded and actively-serving adults. But the adult award is only by nomination and the requirements are relatively steep in most of the faith traditions, usually 5+ years of active service in both the BSA and their home church or ministry.  Still, seventeen seems low.

 

What do you think?  Please leave your comments below.

Connect with Today’s Scouting Movement

January 2015 Blog No comments

Today’s Scouting Movement isn’t just monthly campouts from yesteryear – sure, our Boy Scout Troops camp almost every month, but they do it to help young leaders learn to lead: planning meals, organizing tasks, encouraging teamwork, and teaching new skills (to each other).

Scouting today also has full programs around STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). And Scouting is co-ed starting at 14 through its Venturing program. Some of the methods have adapted with the times, but the goal remains the same: character development of youth.

  • If you regularly read this blog, thanks!
  • If you found this blog through one of my reach outs via email / twitter, thanks!

Here are some ways that you can help:

If you have any skill, hobby or vocational aptitude, there is likely a merit badge that you could teach in your local area for a half-day, even once per year. With over 130 merit badges, its almost guaranteed that you know a good bit about at least one. Tomorrow’s leaders need mentors today, so please help.

Or maybe you work at a venue that Scouts would want to come and visit – or your organization would consider to hosting a Pack, Troop, Crew, or Explorer Post?  Please let us know.

Additionally, Scouting is a volunteer-led movement … with many parents being supplemented by local volunteers (for merit badges, but also activities or venues). Every Pack/Troop/Crew needs a helper, called a Commissioner, as well as just other adults to help with background tasks, so that the youth can have a great experience. Every city or “district” needs extra volunteers to help on even a small committee or activity team. These are just a few ways that you might plug in.

Easy ways that you can plug-in:

  • Many schools and churches host a Scouting program – as your youth minister or PTO/PTA representative.
  • Or put in your zip code at http://BeAScout.org to find a unit near you.
  • Or Bing/Google search for “Boy Scouts of America council” and the name of the large city closest to you, to find out how Scouting is serving your local community. Look for a webpage talking about your local “Council” and they can help you plug in.

If none of those work for you, leave me a comment (private) on this post, and I’ll personally help you figure out how you can connect/reconnect with Scouting.  And hey, if you don’t have any time but perhaps you can help financially, that’d be great too. Most Councils have a way to receive one-time or recurring donations. Here is a link where I serve.

No More YPT Hassles

December 2014 Blog, Unit Functions and Guidance 4 comments

Like most other things in adult life, paperwork always seems to be what ‘gets in the way’ – and when it comes to recharter or wring-out, encouraging well-intentioned and actively serving adults to renew their YPT training used to be arduous.

But in 2015, YPT management is much easier due to the new Scouting Tools:

1) REPORTING: Unit Leaders (Key-3 and their Commissioner) can now run a report that shows when everyone’s YPT will expire. Check out my earlier blog on exactly how to run the report.

But there are two other big advancements (pun intended) worth noting:

2) NOTIFICATIONS: Any adult whose my.Scouting.org account has their email address registered will be notified when their YPT is about to expire. So the easiest thing that a leader can do is print out the email roster for their unit from Scouting.org and ensure that everyone has an email address registered in the system.

So, now both the unit leaders and the adults have multiple ways to find out if their YPT is ready to expire. And if the adult takes the online YPT training, it will automatically update in the system. But what about those who take YPT in-person? You folks get good news too!

3) TRAINING UPDATES can now be done by your unit key 3 – they can add training to any of their adults’ records, if the adults bring proof of participation.

How to Update Someone’s Training Record

– Log in in http://my.scouting.org as one of the Unit Key-3 or as a Unit Commissioner

– Go to Training Manager on the upper-left corner’s pull down list of Scouting Tools

– Look on the top of the right-pane of the screen and click on the small certificate with a green add symbol (the leftist most icon of the three).

– On the Add Training screen are three pull-down options:

  • Program – Cub Scouting, Boy Scouting, Venturing and Other (e.g. YPT)
  • Course – pull down and search for the course that the adult showed proof of attending
  • Date – what was the completion date of the course

– With the class information entered, you can add one or more adults.

  • For YPT, you’ll likely only have one adult to enter
  • If you are an instructor, you can enter several participants at one time

– And click [SUBMIT]

You’re done!!  Note, even as a Key-3 leader or Commissioner, you cannot enter information about your own training. A Scout is trustworthy, but … 🙂

Hope this was helpful,

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