Pastor Josh Waggoner's Blog

6/7/2007 "Want To See Something That Makes Your Youth Pastor Cry?" Tears of joy.... tears of joy :)

5/30/2007 "What Lies Beyond World's End?" Well we're back from a successful trip to the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood. Sunday afternoon was absolutely awesome! We had tons of youth dressed in pirate outfits and costumes - everthing from eyepatches and bandanas to full pirate regalia... to uh, tentacles :) The costume contest was won by Josh Garcia for his Hector Barbossa outfit. Awesome job. Second place went to Brian Howland for a very cool pirate get-up that was improved upon even further with the 2nd place prize of the tri-cor hat and pirate sword. The winners of the trivia contest will be revealed at the next Area 51 and Underground meetings and prizes will be awarded accordingly. Finally, I want to congratulate Katherine Seibert for finding the web cipher, decoding it and then answering the riddle. She was the only one to do so. Katherine, the FBI called... something about a job offer. At any rate - the answers were as follows: 1) Find the cipher under the Area 51 page, archived photo section, under the Chris in an eye-patch picture labeled "Ye come seeking treasure" 2) The cipher was actually the game by game win loss record of the NHL Western Conference Finals between the Anaheim Ducks and the Detroit Redwings, and whether or not they went into overtime. 3) The riddle "I am a man, and not a man. I am a man of the sea, though I've never left dry land. There is only one of me, yet there are many of me, and if you visit me I can make you a pirate. Who am I? What am I? Where am I?" - I heard a lot of creative answers, including Josh the youth pastor, SeaCoast and something with me being a fisher of men. Cute, but incorrect. The answer is "Long John Silver" - being that he is both a pirate character and a fast food chain. And Long John made characters pirates in "Treasure Island" and you can grab a pirate hat and an eyepatch at the fast food restaurant and become a pirate of the fish and chips. Again, I'd like to thank everybody who participated in the challenges, the voyage, the costuming and the fun. A great time was had by all. If you didn't join us this time, then please don't miss out on the fun at our next event - June 8th. Mulligan Night. Be there :) -Josh

5/23/2007 "Ye be seeking buried treasure? Then ye've come to the right place" This is it folks. This is the place to get THE LAST TICKET AVAILABLE for the Pirates of the Caribbean trip to the El Capitan on Sunday, May 27th @ 4:00pm. What do you need to do to win? Very simply. Hidden on either the Area 51 website or The Underground website, there is a code - a cipher. Rearrange the numbers and letters in the cipher and put them in the correct order. Then tell me what the numbers and letters pertain to. Hint: Think JOSH and what Josh likes. Hey, it's my blog - I can do that :) After you have arranged the cipher and can tell me what the numbers and letters pertain to, email me the correct answer at PastorJosh@SeaCoastRedondo.com - when you do, you'll get the last question to answer. The first person to answer that question via email will win the ticket. The winner will be posted on the website. If you have any questions, email me. -Josh

5/16/2007 "Dead Youth Tell No Tales..." Hello and happy summer to everybody! I love the summer months. Summer is often filled with great weather, fun in the sun, action, adventure, and blockbuster movies! It's one of my favorite times of the year. And while certainly some parents dread their little gremlins being home solid for 3 months, I love it. I don't have to compete with school activities to get people in to youth group and they're free to go on youth group activities during the week and at more random hours than during the school year. (I just always feel sorry for the kids who go away on vacation and miss a lot of the fun stuff.) Well all of those things that I mentioned above, summer, fun in the sun, action and adventure and blockbuster movies collide in the youth's next outing. On May 27th, our middle and high schoolers will be setting sail aboard the good ship SeaCoast bus (and van and other vehicles) to navigate the treacherous waters of the 110 and the 101 freeways, all the way to World's End... or more specifically, The El Capitan Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. There they will be enjoying "Pirates of the Carribbean 3: At World's End" on opening weekend. They'll be able to see a stage show prior to the movie, wander around the world famous Hollywood and Highland complex, and even see props and costumes from the movie up close. We went down to the El Capitan for Pirates 2 last year and it was a rip-roaring success. This year looks to be no different. We had reserved 50 tickets and they're already sold-out 2 weeks before the trip. This year, we're upping the ante, though. ARRRRRRRRGGGGH! This year we're encouraging our youth (and youth leaders) to dress up in pirate garb and costumes to enjoy the movie. I can't wait to see what some of our regulars have cooked up. As for me, well you can refer to me as CAPTAIN Josh Sparrow :) I have to admit, I love Pirates of the Caribbean, though I have a rather dubious history with it. Not so much the movie, but the ride. The following is a 100% true story. West Torrance High School seniors got to go to Disneyland for Grad Night the year that I was a Senior. This was a privilege, and one that could be revoked. (Just ask South High who could not attend Disney Grad Night for years thanks to the infamous 'Dwarf Stealing' incident...that too is a true story) My group treated the privilege as such, and were thoroughly enjoying our time in the park, flying high, having already done the whole cap and gown ceremony earlier in the day. About mid way through the night, we decided to ride Pirates of the Caribbean. Well they always have ride attendants dressed as pirates and pirate wenches to help people on the ride. Actually, do they still call them pirate wenches? Is that still an accepted term? Or have we moved to something a little more PC like Female Pirate Companion, or perhaps 'Piress'... but I digress (only to go off on another tangent if I may - I always felt sorry for the guy attendants on the Pirates ride. The pirate wenches costumes are pretty cool, and the animatronic Pirates are totally decked out in awesome pirate garb, but the poor ride attendants have costumes that make them look more like Mr. Smee than Captain Hook. You halfway expect them to be swabbing the decks between passenger loads) So maybe I had one too many Mountain Dews that night. And certainly I was feeling cocky, having just graduated High School. And I was in a silly, raucous mood... and that's when I saw HER - she was the most beautiful pirate wench I'd ever seen. (granted, I'd seen a total of maybe about 5 in my lifetime, but hey - she was the most beautiful.) The ride attendant was really cute. So I put on my best pirate voice and said "Arrrgh. What's a beautiful wench like you doing in a swamp like this?" Bold? Yes. Smooth? Not so much. Now the pirate wench was probably a good 4 or 5 years older than me, most likely a local college student. I doubt she really wanted to give the time of day to a cocky West High Senior, but she smiled. That was all I needed. I then spent the next few mintues yelling at her from the line and trying to get he to do everything from board the boat and ride with our group to meet me in Main Street when her shift ended. Now, I was just having fun. I wasn't being offensive, but remember those Mr. Smee guys I told you about earlier? Yeah, well apparently her deck-swabbing male counterpart at the other end of the dock was the pirate wench's boyfriend. Oops. He yelled back at me "Leave her alone." To which I believe I said (and I quote) "Arrrrgh. You lily-livered land-lubber nobody tells Joshbeard the pirate what to do!" And then I turned my attention back to the piress. Mr. Smee then said "Turn around and knock it off or I'll kick you out of line" Now that probably would've been the place to cool my jets, but I couldn't lose my one chance with this lovely, blonde-haired, shapely pirate lass... and they don't call me Captain Motormouth for nothing. I turned to the attendant and with fist raised into the air (jokingly, mind you) I said "Arrrgh. One more word out of you, you jealous scurvy-scum, and I'll give ye the hook!" "That's it!" Mr. Smee said, storming over to me. "Out of line." "What?!" "You heard me. You're not riding this ride." "For what?!?!" A Joke?!" "For harrassing employees." Apparently there's a fine line between harassment and good-natured teasing in the Caribbean. So in order for my friends to be able to ride, and not have wasted 45 minutes of their time in line, I had to step out of line and wait while they rode the ride, with not even a parrot to keep me company. Oh sure, it was funny at the time, but truthfully I should've thought before I spoke. But that was several years ago. And those days are behind me. Forutnately now, I can use it as a teaching moment of what NOT to do, and how NOT to behave. Even though I thought it was funny, and meant no harm, it was still insensitive and a tad bit rude. (But come on, you'd be hyper-sensitive too if you had to work all day in a Mr. Smee costume) :) So is the journey to World's End fraught with danger? Aye, tis choppy waters we sail into. But tis not maurading pirates on the Harbor Freeway, nor the Fort of Hubbard on Hollywood Blvd. that we need worry about the most, it's the sharp two-edged sword of Captain Josh Sparrow. Fortunately, should I start to even think about getting out of line with costumed ticket-takers, I've got Erin, my first-mate, and a crew of 50 Junior Pirates to keep me from runnin' ashore. Saavy?

5/3/2007 "Been a long time since we rock n' rolled" Wow. Seriously. Like a month since my last blog. Folks, believe it or not it's not cause I didn't have anything to say. (I ALWAYS have an opinion on something, whether it's particularly informed or not) It's not like I didn't want to sit down and blog. I can't tell you the number of times I said to myself 'That would make an excellent blog' and then the napkin that I wrote the 'note to self' on gets covered in Wienerscnitzel mustard and becomes unusable. Truthfully, it's been that I've been incredibly busy with youth stuff, church stuff, and personal stuff. Between Area 51, The Underground, Defenders, 11th Hour, and prepping for each of those meetings each week, counseling students, meetings, editing videos for the Sunday morning service, swing lessons, hockey playoffs, work days, basketball, birthdays to celebrate, family stuff and just day to day chores, it's been a while since I've been able to sit in one place and collect my breath, thoughts and wit. And truth be told, while I could sit down and blog late at night when all of that is finished at 1AM or 2AM, looking at a computer screen is just about the LAST thing I want to do at that time (especially if I spent the whole day staring at a computer screen editing.) It may sound like I'm complaining, but I'm really not. I like having full days, and for the most part, they're pretty fun. The only problem is, I wish I had more than 14 hours in a day. Seriously, if we could work up to like, 40, I'd be great! It's important during all of our busyness though, to remember to take time out to focus on God, spend time in prayer and in His word and 'recharge our afterburners' as my Dad is fond of saying. :) I truly think that while a lot of Christians get busy for the right reason, it's a situation that the enemy can use to throw a wrench into our walk. We get so busy that we let our time with our Savior slide, thinking "Well, Jesus will understand." Either that or we become walking stress balls, and the 'love of Christ' is expressed through yelling, screaming, wild gesticulating and sign language when we're running late and stuck in traffic. You know, even Jesus took some time for Himself every once in a while. Seriously. If you don't believe me, check out Matthew chapter 8 and Matthew chapter 14. So in that spirit, I'm gonna be taking a couple days off and going to the 'other side of the lake' so to speak. I'll be vacationing starting on Sunday night and returning late Wednesday night. I'll miss Defenders, but it'll be good to be refreshed. I'll see you all when I get back, and hopefully I'll have more time to update this blog puppy. Oh and by the way... GO DUCKS!

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