Impact 1996 Major League
1996 Major League: Well this was my first year as a full fledged youth minister. I brought a whopping two teens form my church in Russellville, KY. I did not know how I was going to get teens into this thing, especially since our churches biggest event of the year Logan County Christian Camp was a mere two weeks prior. The year was good. Mike Shepard and I taught a class together we will never forget, "The X-Files" we had kids looking for hidden X's all over campus in 100 degree weather. Not the best idea so we scrapped it and totally changed the class. I was really down about how bad the first class went and thankfully Mike was like "hey lets do this then" and totally changed the class for the better. That was the first year Mike and worked together on something and we became friends. He is a missionary in Australia now, but was a major influence on my life. I was really in limbo this year I was not sure what to do. I mean I was not a counselor, all I had to do was teach the class with Mike, and watch after my two teens. I remember getting my room in Johnson and getting my stuff put in. A couple of hours passed and then Dudley Chancey came over to me and said "move your stuff Todd, Jeff Walling's kids need this room". Now I knew that Walling was the man, but come on, a little respect here huh? For his kids? Am I not an original Impact counselor? The creator of the Impact skit? I was an "adult" now, a full time youth minister, a teacher? Now of course I was totally willing to move, but my ego took a little bit of a shot that day. I am glad it did you know, we all need little reality checks from time to time. I think this was the year Dudley and I became friends. This was the year Mark Hayes took another job outside of youth ministry, so the board had not really planned on having anything in between the two classes. This was back when we did both classes before lunch which made activity period seem eternal. Mark Hayes the MC for the last two years, had always taken this time to mull around the crowd and do interviews, he was great at this. I don't think anyone has ever matched his charisma. Mark is a big imposing figure but as lovable as a teddy bear, I prey that he is doing well. He would just come up with stuff and Lee Milam would play music and I guess that was the original Morning Impact. The year before we had done the Super Christian skit, which was really popular. The Board at that time decided to go with Sports Blooper videos (which was the standard time killer in the 80'-90's), and a brief concert between the classes instead of the type of stuff we did the previous year. It was not a big hit as Mark departure was leaving a "mark" if you will, excuse the bad humor. The teens just missed Mark’s mingling in the crowd and did not care to see another concert. They wanted something more unique to the camp. So that night the board asked Jon to do something. Jon in turn asked me to help. I think they were hesitant to ask me because I was still kind of looked at as an arrogant kid by a lot of the old school board members. They were correct, I was an arrogant kid, but I was defiantly trying to grow up. I could not begrudge them the fact that they were leery of me having any official responsibility.
Pause for a soapbox moment. There is this fine line in youth ministry that all the guys know. A lot of us youth ministers want to help "be in charge so to speak" most of the time not in an arrogant way but because that is part of who we are. We all start as young 20 something year olds who are in charge of their own group. Being "in charge" of something big or even better on a "board" is something a lot of the younger guys crave. I remember feeling like I had to justify being young and being on stage while older youth ministers who had “paid their dues” were in the crowd. It is debatable whether this is right or wrong. I mean we all want to help, but there is a fine line. A line that says ....ask to help too much and you will be perceived right or wrong as a "ladder climber", a "hand shaker," someone who wants to be in charge for the glory or career advancement. I am not sure how this became so weird in a profession that should not have all this political crud. It has gotten allot better lately and I could tell you why I think it has, but that’s for another time and place. Anyways, off the soap box for now.
That year we did a skit with Jon as Paul McGroin (I still cannot believe we did that) Mission Impossible style. The movie with Tom Cruise was a major hit that year. The skits were mostly on video and were the first chase style things we did. This was followed by Jeff Fincher and I hosting this game on stage usually involving dating, we did not know any better. The whole dating at Impact idea had been exploited for years as good natured. I think a couple of years later some counselors brought this to our attention. I remember thinking "what is wrong with that?" but now as I look back I respect those counselors and we have not gone with the dating thing on stage in a long time. It's funny just how many bands Impact has hosted with little idea as to how big they would become. 3rd Day was one of the bands that year and no one knew who they were. Switchfoot, and Jars of Clay are two more of those bands. Lee Milam booked so many bands that year, we had like three concerts a night......whew. We even had a Lady's night with Out of Eden, Sierra, and someone else I have forgotten. Oh and this was also the final year for the dreaded group picture. Every year they would take us out to do this thing on the steps. The first couple of years it made perfect sense. You could actually see yourself in the pictures. I remember in 92, the first year there were only 250 of us, and I could see myself clearly standing with the counselors by the banner. By now Impact was well over 1000 teens, so that would not work. You could not fit 1,000 campers on the Alumni steps. You needed a microscope to see yourself in the last couple of pics. It became a source of debate in the board meetings and they went with it mainly because we advertised the kids would get one. This year they marched us out to the brand new baseball field "Duggan Field" and set us up in the bleachers. All the while Lee Milam had this Lemon gun and he was firing lemons to "entertain us". Of course he shot them so high no one could see the lemons. The gun was so powerful most of them evaporated after being fired. Really no one found it interesting at all, except for the "alpha male" attention craving guy counselors who were on the field acting like they were actually going to catch the lemons when they fell. Chaos ensued as no one was paying attention to Greg Anderson on the bull horn, especially Lee and the lemon gun groupies. I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall at that night’s board meeting. I am convinced Lincoln Smith (whom we will talk about later) a Huntsville youth minister at Twikenham (kind of the "enforcer" of the group) said something like" if we decide to have another group picture I will personally smash the camera to bits." This was also the first year the stage decorations were really professional as Lee set up the afore mentioned bleachers and put a chain link backstop on the stage with large cutouts of ball players hanging around the auditorium.
Pause for a soapbox moment. There is this fine line in youth ministry that all the guys know. A lot of us youth ministers want to help "be in charge so to speak" most of the time not in an arrogant way but because that is part of who we are. We all start as young 20 something year olds who are in charge of their own group. Being "in charge" of something big or even better on a "board" is something a lot of the younger guys crave. I remember feeling like I had to justify being young and being on stage while older youth ministers who had “paid their dues” were in the crowd. It is debatable whether this is right or wrong. I mean we all want to help, but there is a fine line. A line that says ....ask to help too much and you will be perceived right or wrong as a "ladder climber", a "hand shaker," someone who wants to be in charge for the glory or career advancement. I am not sure how this became so weird in a profession that should not have all this political crud. It has gotten allot better lately and I could tell you why I think it has, but that’s for another time and place. Anyways, off the soap box for now.
That year we did a skit with Jon as Paul McGroin (I still cannot believe we did that) Mission Impossible style. The movie with Tom Cruise was a major hit that year. The skits were mostly on video and were the first chase style things we did. This was followed by Jeff Fincher and I hosting this game on stage usually involving dating, we did not know any better. The whole dating at Impact idea had been exploited for years as good natured. I think a couple of years later some counselors brought this to our attention. I remember thinking "what is wrong with that?" but now as I look back I respect those counselors and we have not gone with the dating thing on stage in a long time. It's funny just how many bands Impact has hosted with little idea as to how big they would become. 3rd Day was one of the bands that year and no one knew who they were. Switchfoot, and Jars of Clay are two more of those bands. Lee Milam booked so many bands that year, we had like three concerts a night......whew. We even had a Lady's night with Out of Eden, Sierra, and someone else I have forgotten. Oh and this was also the final year for the dreaded group picture. Every year they would take us out to do this thing on the steps. The first couple of years it made perfect sense. You could actually see yourself in the pictures. I remember in 92, the first year there were only 250 of us, and I could see myself clearly standing with the counselors by the banner. By now Impact was well over 1000 teens, so that would not work. You could not fit 1,000 campers on the Alumni steps. You needed a microscope to see yourself in the last couple of pics. It became a source of debate in the board meetings and they went with it mainly because we advertised the kids would get one. This year they marched us out to the brand new baseball field "Duggan Field" and set us up in the bleachers. All the while Lee Milam had this Lemon gun and he was firing lemons to "entertain us". Of course he shot them so high no one could see the lemons. The gun was so powerful most of them evaporated after being fired. Really no one found it interesting at all, except for the "alpha male" attention craving guy counselors who were on the field acting like they were actually going to catch the lemons when they fell. Chaos ensued as no one was paying attention to Greg Anderson on the bull horn, especially Lee and the lemon gun groupies. I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall at that night’s board meeting. I am convinced Lincoln Smith (whom we will talk about later) a Huntsville youth minister at Twikenham (kind of the "enforcer" of the group) said something like" if we decide to have another group picture I will personally smash the camera to bits." This was also the first year the stage decorations were really professional as Lee set up the afore mentioned bleachers and put a chain link backstop on the stage with large cutouts of ball players hanging around the auditorium.
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