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| Mark Watkins |
| Pastor of Youth and Family Ministries |
Trying to describe myself is kind of like going on vacation. No matter how much time I spend at it, it’s never long enough to make me satisfied. Nevertheless, let me give 5 of the more significant ways I would describe myself, not in any particular order. First, I am an emotional person and love to express all the facets of my passions and moods. I don’t get embarrassed or ashamed of being emotional although there are times I want to control my tears, exuberance, laughter, etc. more so it isn’t distracting. Second, I love athletics. I enjoy spectating as well as participating, however, being involved in the game is far more enjoyable to me. I am not as agile and flexible as I used to be, and can’t keep up with the speed of younger players like I used to, but I can still hang in there pretty good with the skills. From football to ultimate Frisbee, volleyball to golf – you ask and I will play! Third, I am adventuresome. I may not be able to do much in terms of “extreme sports,” but I love to push my personal limits. Let’s go whitewater rafting, rappelling, hang gliding, scuba diving, backpacking through the Rockies, etc. The more adventuresome we can get, the more enthusiastic I will be. Fourth, I hunger for God’s truth. And the older I get, the more I find that I don’t know, especially when it comes to applying the principles of God’s Word to daily life. It is like a quest that never has a conclusion; there is always something fresh to learn or more to dig out of God’s treasures or many more things to clarify about appropriating it into the routines of life. Fifth, I am very relationally wired. I find that the times I am least satisfied with myself are the times when I am on my own because that’s when I tend to get lazy. When I am around people or at least preparing to be around people, I am driven and enthusiastic and anxious to keep moving forward. I love to be with others, and it’s when I am in a group that I am most comfortable. And when I am in a group, I have a hard time talking with just one or two people. I want to move around, talking with as many as possible, involving everybody that I can. That pumps me up; that gets my juices flowing. I love people, and all the different “varieties” of people. What privilege and joy to be created by God for relationship!
Lots of things make me cry: A movie with an emotional ending; a child telling their mom or day why they love them; a person explaining the moment they recognized God’s love was poured out for them; the story of a person breaking out of a bad addiction through the power of Christ; the video of my son proposing to the amazing lady he married; my boys standing up for the Lord without shame before their friends; Nebraska losing a football game; etc., etc. Honestly, I am unafraid of being an emotional person. I believe God created us to be expressive and responsive from a heart level. And the deeper that we can allow our emotions to reach into our hearts, the more I believe we know the passions of God.
So many things make me laugh. How would a person ever start to explain what makes them laugh? Well, instead, let me share one moment in my personal history that is among the most hysterical I can recall. It was on the very first Wilderness Trip I ever took with my youth group. This particular trip was with just 4 of the guys in our Senior High. We were at Baxter State Park in northern Maine. Even before we had pitched our tents and set up camp we were greeted by visitors who would stop by many more times during the week . . . raccoons. I could tell you so many stories about those raccoons, but this one was hilarious. The final night we were there I decided to sleep outside under the stars (at night you could watch hundreds – literally – of shooting stars). Well, the guys decided to join me outside, of course, so we were all laying there watching the stars when one of them suddenly sits up, grabs his flashlight and starts looking all around us. He said he was sure he heard something near us. Not seeing anything, he turned his light off and lay back down. But just a little while later it happened again. And this time to our amazement we saw that we were encircled by raccoons! There must have been 12 – 15 of them! They weren’t aggressive, just inquisitive - and hungry for anything we could give them. Foolishly, we started to feed them some of our “gorp” (a type of trail mix we made at the beginning of the week). Then one of them grabbed the shoulder strap of the camera case that belonged to one of the guys. And that guy grabbed the other end of the shoulder strap. For what seemed like at least 2 or 3 minutes these two played the most unusual game of tug-o-war that I have ever seen! It was unbelievable - a strong, athletic teenage guy trying to beat a little, wilderness-savvy raccoon at a tug-o-war for his camera. I don’t remember anything in my life ever causing me to laugh any harder. What an amazing sight and what an unusual competition! All too soon the game was over and the raccoon went running off back into the woods. And of course everybody reading this is wondering who the victor was. It was the raccoon! He went traipsing off into the thicket with the camera case in tow. On his heels was that teenage guy with his flashlight, unafraid to race into the dark undercover of the woods in order to rescue his camera. I was still cracking up (so were the other guys). He didn’t find his camera until sometime the next morning. Fortunately, it was not damaged. And just think about this: the images we all have in our minds of that unique tug-o-war will last much longer than any images he got on that camera during the week.
I LOVE MY WIFE & FOUR SONS! Oh, man! They are amazing gifts from God. But let me tell you about something else that I love. I love being a kid at heart. And people who really know me would tell you that I often act like a little kid. But I do so with a sense of adult maturity. However, what I call adult maturity is not what most of our society would call adult maturity. I believe too many adults have lost touch with childlike creativity, playfulness, inquisitiveness and curiosity. I absolutely love those qualities and believe that we should keep them active in our lives as long as we are respectful of others. So I love to laugh and do silly things and play practical jokes (within reason – that’s adult maturity). I enjoy a great Nerf gun war with friends. Hide-n-Seek is still one of my favorite games – although Freeball (a type of Dodgeball) is quickly moving ahead of it on my list. I can play table games like Rail Baron and Settlers of Catan for hours and hours. Some of those shows on the Discovery Channel absolutely captivate me; the more amazing and incredible, the better. I am always trying to think of something to create or design that hasn’t already been thought of. And I like to see people and situations through “rose-colored glasses” because I believe in looking for the positive things and accenting them. That’s just part of my childlike grid. And if anybody would like to explore more of it with me, meet out on the foursquare arena.
There are a few things that I believe are pet peeves of mine. They include the following: 1. Chewing gum being thrown on the ground. (Don’t you hate stepping on a glob of it only to have to scrape it off of your shoes?!) 2. Shopping carts being left out in the parking lot. (It only takes a few seconds to walk it over to the return area so the next person doesn’t have to park around it.) 3. Cigarette butts getting tossed out on the ground. (I don’t want our world to become a huge ashtray.) 4. Turn signals on cars not being used. (It just takes a flick of the finger.) 5. Toilets that don’t get flushed. (Enough said.)
My four sons inspire me. My oldest, Justin, is a youth pastor here in the Lancaster area. My second, Luke, is in Virginia and is searching for God’s direction to a youth pastor position. My third, Clint, is a sophomore at Muhlenberg College; is a starter on their lacrosse team and expects God to lead him into full-time ministry after college. My fourth, Tyler, is a freshman in high school and plays for his school’s lacrosse team. It remains to be seen if he also will be called by God into full-time ministry some day. I could brag about things each one of them is involved in or has accomplished but most importantly every one of them loves the Lord and is passionate about living for Him and being used by Him to serve others. They have a deep heart of love and compassion for other people, and they long to know more of what God wants them to know of Him and share with others. I can’t think of anything that is personally more inspiring to me! What a joy! What a privilege! What an honor! What a challenge!
I have helped design, construct, stuff and drive multiple floats. I’m talking about full-sized, “build-on-top-of-a-car” type of floats. My interest probably started with my older brothers and sisters offering our house (and my dad – a mechanical engineer) as the host location for building the floats for homecoming. We had a 3-car garage, a good-sized patio, and fairly large basement which helped a lot on those nights several weeks before homecoming for everyone to gather and work on the float. So by the time I was a teenager, I had the “bug.” Not only did I continue the tradition of building homecoming floats at our house; I added floats that our youth group built to enter into local parades. Understand that I’m not talking about just using a flatbed truck for people to stand on and throw candy off of. I’m talking about building significant, creative structures and elements. One year we built an 8-foot tall dragon whose head rotated side-to-side and whose mouth breathed out smoke. We made incredible, impressive floats. But it was particularly fun to be the person who drove the floats! I don’t know why; maybe because it was a challenge. And I love a good challenge. But it was also kind of a special privilege. After all, how many people do you know that can say they drove half a dozen floats in parades?
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