quotes of the week #9

OK 3rd week in a row of this 6 weeks of trying out "quotes of the week". You can read the disclaimer & explanation HERE. [& as always my personal thoughts are in brackets]

#1 Quote of the week:
"The concept of downsizing so that others [the poor] can upgrade is beautiful, biblical, & nearly unheard of." - Francis Chan, author & Pastor of Cornerstone... [I LOVE that! And I wanna DO that. And I wanna make this concept become HEARD OF instead of "unheard of."]

"If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited." – Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher [I am being very strategic about doing just that!]

“That’s the reason they don’t go to church – because they’ve been to church.” – Chris Brown, my pastor @ Ridge, + my mentor & boss [he said this in a staff meeting conversation a while back. It's so pimp & so true which makes it so sad. BUT we're a church that's trying to change that. We're changing the paradigm.]

[I read this tweet a few hours after Michael Jackson died...] "crazy thought... the 'king of pop' stands before the 'King of Glory' today... Fame redefined." - via @feeband (Steve Fee) [I just had to ReTweet that! (new awesome album coming 10/6! stoked.)]

“The church gets in trouble whenever it thinks it is in the church business rather than the Kingdom business... Church people often put church work above the concerns of justice, mercy, and truth.” – Howard Snyder, theology prof. [ouch. Is he talking to me?]

“Don’t defend what you’re doing, just DO what you’re doing.” – Perry Noble, pastor of NewSpring [I am starting to straight up love this guy!]

“The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.” – Mortimer J. Adler, author [from a great little book (ha, 600 pages) called How to Read a Book that I highly recommend if you read more than 1 book per year. Or, if you don't even read 1 per year then maybe YOU'RE the one who really needs it? Anyway, do you agree with that quote?]

“The Church is 1 place in the world where there should be equality.” – Rick McKinley, author & pastor @ Imago Dei. genuinely normal dude.

“The power of the Gospel lies not in the offer of a new spirituality or religious experience, not in the threat of hellfire…which can be removed if only the hearer checks this box, says this prayer, raises a hand, or whatever, but in the powerful announcement that God is God, that Jesus is Lord, that the powers of evil have been defeated, that God’s new world has begun.” – N.T. Wright, bishop & author [right on bishop Wright!]

“There are no U-Hauls behind hearses.” – John Piper, author, pastor, & one of my heroes. [right on Piper... my homeboy. WHY don't we live like we believe that?]

***And yes I put those last 2 peoples' quotes together on purpose... haha, not accidental. Hopefully you enjoy the irony.

Now - YOU'RE TURN. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE QUOTE? WHAT DO YOU THINK OF SOME OF THESE?

Clarify the Win

(As I said yesterday, I am going to be writing about what we have set up as our "guardrails" at Ridge Church. This is part 1 of 7 Practices for Effective Ministry. These are 7 practices that we follow ruthlessly at Ridge.)

Practice #1 (& the one that potentially jacked me up the most when I was confronted with this whole philosophy) is simply to CLARIFY THE WIN. This is HUGE! It might not sound like it at first but I believe it will make or break a ministry (or any organization period)!

I can remember reading this chapter & listening to the concept of this practice being discussed by Andy, Reggie, & Lane and I was blown away, because the ministry I was working in was FAR from practicing this and I could see that it was killing us! (btw - you can also listen to that conversation around these 7 Practices! Download the podcast on iTunes for free - it's called "Practically Speaking". & everything in "quotes" is either straight from the book or the podcast.) I asked a lot of tough questions and it will eventually drive any leader crazy when the WIN is not clarified. So, I totally know how is to be on both sides of this!

As a leader in ANY organization you MUST -> Clarify the Win! You must "define what is important at every level of the organization." I believe it is suicide not to do this.
This is probably easier for most companies to do, but churches straight up suck at it! The only thing that most churches can think of to prove they're winning (or losing) are money & numbers!
But, we've GOTTA do a better job than that!

Forget money & attendance numbers... at Ridge Church we're trying to ask questions like - “do peeps feel comfortable inviting their unchurched friends? Are our people recognizing the need to give a percentage of their income? How many individuals are successfully getting plugged in to small groups? Do our people understand how to apply the scriptural truths we’re teaching in their daily lives?”

& You can't praise the wrong things! But you need to praise the things that are WINS for you, because what you celebrate is what will be repeated! So, "clarifying the win simply means communicating to your team what is really important and what really matters."

Some of the most cutting statements that guys like Andy Stanley and Reggie Joiner constantly say about this practice is “As long as the ‘win’ is unclear, you force your team to guess what a win looks like.” & “if you don’t define winning for your ministry leaders, they will define it for themselves.” And you KNOW that is so true! Every volunteer in your church just makes up their own WINS when one is not clarified for them.
Even staff at a church have to make up their own wins... and it's usually based on what is celebrated. So if #s are all that's celebrated, then that is the main WIN for that staff member! Leaders communicate SO MUCH more than they realize by what they celebrate!

When you don't clarify the WIN for your team, you can't stay on the same page! And Reggie says that being on the SAME page is even more important than starting with a BLANK page as a staff team! You've got to continue to hold up a clear picture of what the WIN is for your team if you want to lead effectively!
And it is so true that when staff and volunteers know what the WINS are, they will fight to WIN & when people are winning they will "1) work harder, 2) be less negative, 3)trust the leadership, 4) give more generously, 5) stay involved." & obviously we all want those things.

Reggie Joiner gives 4 steps to helping you clarify the WIN for your team & volunteers:
1 Sum up the Win in a Simple Phrase
- Key Question = “What do we want people to walk away and do?” The answer to that can clear up a lot of confusion about the goal of an environment and force you to clarify the win!
2 Keep the Win as Specific as Possible
- “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Don’t be too general. *I think these wins have to be things we can actually DO/ACCOMPLISH. Obviously some stuff has to be left to the Holy Spirit.
3 Restate the Win Frequently and Creatively – constantly keep the WINS in front of your peeps. I must creatively keep the wins in my everyday language!!! [so, I think it’s gotta be something cool & easy because I’m gonna say it a lot.]
4 Meet to Clarify the Win at Every Level

For example - our Upstreet environment (Children) @ Ridge Church we have 3 overall WINS = Excellent, Helpful, & Fun. Hopefully every volunteer knows these wins because they have heard us say it a million times! So as we go home on Sundays we can know if we won by simply asking the question "Was it excellent, helpful, & fun?" And for our Small Group Leaders in Upstreet we add 1 more Q = "Did our small group build better and deeper relationships today?"

And another example is our Student Ministry at Ridge. A win for us is NOT how many students showed up to something, but instead it's our goal to see 3 things = Students SERVING STRATEGICALLY, CONNECTING RELATIONALLY (with peers and small group leades), and INVITING THEIR FRIENDS! When we see students engaged in those 3 things we know we are WINNING in student ministry! Pretty simple!

The process of writing these WINS is time consuming and hard, but it's so worth it because "the payoff is HUGE!" as Andy says.

So, what are WINS for YOU? If you don't have any then just remember that your peeps are defining wins for themselves!

finished 3 books last week... + what's coming

Last week I finished reading 3 books. I'm a "readaholic" as I've mentioned before. I'm never reading just one book at a time. In fact, if you look to the right of this page you can see where I constantly update what books I am currently reading and then the ones I have recently finished reading.

So, last week I finished a book I have been reading for a long time. I read a whole book in 1 day. And I finished a book I started a couple weeks ago. So, a little bit of everything. One day I hope to post full reviews & takeaways from these books, but for now here is a line about each.

I have been working on Good to Great for a month or 2. Mainly in my car on my way to and from work. Jim Collins, the best-selling author, was kind enough to read it to me from my iPod. It is an AMAZING book. I took about 13 pages of notes on it! So relevant for us at Ridge Church! If you work in any kind of business or organization and have a leadership role, you have no doubt heard of it. Now I'm telling you to pick it up and read it!

At 1 of my side jobs I can listen to my iPod the whole time. I was thankful to download Francis Chan's book Crazy Love for FREE - HERE! I popped it on my iPod (actually on Crystal's iPod because mine has been full for a year or so) and listened to the WHOLE book in 1 day. (I also took 3 & a half pages of notes on it.) Pretty awesome. Francis is one of the rawest guys I follow. He has some awesome stuff to say in this book (& you can buy by clicking the pic of it to the right if you prefer the print version).

And last but not least I finished the latest from Rob Bell - Jesus Wants to Save Christians. I listened to the sermon series by the same title a while back, but then my friend Brian let me borrow it to read. So I couldn't write in it which is my normal practice, which meant I could only read it when my laptop was handy so I could type up my notes! Awesome awesome book. I hear this guy is going to start writing more and I'm all for that because I could read him every day. Stoked he's coming back to Catalyst again this year too!

And now for what's coming the next several posts here on renown...
I'm going to be posting my thoughts & commentary from a book that's in my top 5 of all time (as you can see to the right). I read it roughly 3 years ago. It's by Andy Stanley, Reggie Joiner, & Lane Jones -> part of the original leadership team at North Point (our planting/sending/father/partner/whateveryouwannacallthem church). It completely jacked me up the 1st time I read it. It caused me to HAVE to leave my former job at another church. I had to be a part of a ministry that implemented the practices in this book. Once I knew this stuff I couldn't operate any other way!
I jokingly call this book our "Bible" at Ridge Church. These practices in the book truly are our guardrails for ministry. They are the practices we follow no matter what!

So, it's not JUST a book. There's a podcast conversation between the 3 authors you can download for free on iTunes & it's a constant conversation with us. So, my commentary will be just that - commentary, not just notes straight from a book.

The book is called 7 Practices of Effective Ministry. I'm taking some Ridge Church leaders through it right now & probably will always be taking leaders through it... over & over. It's an awesome book that YOU should read, but in case you don't have time, I'll be posting my thoughts & commentary & applications.

There are 7 practices, so I'll try to talk about 1 practice in each post. Just to let you in on what's coming, here are the 7 practices:
1) Clarify the Win, 2) Think Steps, Not Programs, 3) Narrow the Focus, 4) Teach Less for More, 5) Listen to Outsiders, 6) Replace Yourself, 7) Work On It

Ahh... I'm all worked up now just typing them! here are a couple other thoughts from Andy to get you thinking...
"These practices have FORCED US to let go of some comfortable yet ineffective approaches to ministry."
And before somebody starts jumping up and down about how the church shouldn't follow a system or model or something about the Holy Spirit... he also writes in the introduction - "these strategies are not nearly as important to your success as being in sync with what God desires to do in your church."

I would love to get some feedback and have some conversations around these next 7 posts about our 7 practices!

HILARIOUS (yet REAL) motions!

I figured we would all need a good laugh on this Saturday, July 4th. You may not think these are funny but I think the WHOLE IDEA of this is HILARIOUS! I laughed out loud!

I stole these from my friend Ryan's blog. I hope he doesn't mind. He posted these about a week ago HERE.
These are REAL motions from the Southern Baptist Convention Conference that I guess was held recently. I promise these aren't made up! Reading this makes me SO THANKFUL that I have nothing to do with the denomination. Satan's probably crazy happy that these motions stole air time away from the denomination being focused on spreading God's fame to the nations!

OK, here we go... [my thoughts are in these brackets]
A couple motions regarding Mark Driscoll [& btw, no links to Driscoll's blog or Mars Hill yet because their server crashed this week & all the websites are down! That's gotta be a nightmare for them! I saw it in Driscoll's Twitter]

-- that "all SBC entities should monitor" funds spent in "activities related to or cooperative efforts with Mark Driscoll and/or the Acts 29 organization" and entity heads should submit a report of expenditures to appear in the 2010 Book of Reports

[*That's VERY interesting because watching the SBC from a distance, all the pastors & seminary students who are part of the SBC and under 30 are firmly in Driscoll's Acts 29 camp 1st & foremost over the SBC! If the SBC makes them choose, I think it's OBVIOUS what their choice will be & this would probably kill the SBC's last hope to become relevant by chasing off their next generation leaders!]

-- that SBC entities avoid "inviting event speakers" who "are known for publicly exhibiting unregenerate behavior ... such as cursing and sexual vulgarity, immorality, or who publicly state their support for the consumption or production of alcohol

[I can't remember where in the Bible I saw the list of "unregenerate behavior" that included "support for cosumpion/production of alcohol" & "cursing". & the cursing & sexual vulgarity they are referring to in regards to Driscoll is LAUGHABLE if you knew exactly what they were referring to.]

-- that author Mark Driscoll's books be removed from LifeWay Christian Bookstores because of his "reputation for abusive and ungodly language and ... promotions of sex toys on his church web site

[WOW. This would be CRAZY for them as he is writing like 6-10 books per year now and I'm sure they are probably selling like HOTCAKES among 20 & 30something southern baptists! They would lose a TON of money simply because they don't like the way the guy talks. & the sex toys on his blog were like promoting a Christian sex toy company! HAHA, pretty G rated!]

A Classic Boycott Motion - remember the Disney Boycott?:

-- that Southern Baptists call "on the Pepsi-Cola Company to remain neutral in the cultural war by refraining from promoting the gay/lesbian lifestyle and agenda" through its advertising and that a boycott be undertaken if the company fails to "halt its current direction

[OK, please don't stop drinking Pepsi, because I've got stock in Pepsi! haha. If you want to boycott something I am SURE there are tons of WORSE organizations you can choose to boycott.]

Here's one about the Christian Flag:

-- that the SBC adopt the "United States Christian Flag ... as our banner flag of encouragement
[freaks me out a little bit. seems like it leads to Dominion Theology.]

One on secular music:

-- that SBC entities avoid "the use of secular music in their promotional materials
[is there any such thing as "secular music"? I don't think so...]

*The ones on Driscoll were defnitely my FAV! I can't WAIT to hear what he has to say... it will be so sarcastic and funny.
**OH, & BTW, when I was at my overprotective & controlling college (even more so than the SBC) and they told me about an author or a certain book I should stay away from... I IMMEDIATELY WENT AND GOT IT FROM THE LIBRARY! I'm guessing that the SBC is going to have this effect on lots of young southern baptists. I'm just sayin'...

Do you have any thoughts or commentary you want to add?

quotes of the week #8

Just like I said... I'm gonna try to post "Quotes of the Week" once a week for at least 6 weeks. We'll see how this goes. Tell me if you like it. You can read the disclaimer & explanation of "Quotes of the Week" HERE. [& my thoughts are in brackets]
There are some stellar quotes, and as always we lead off with the #1 quote of the week...

“There exists in every church something that sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence. So we must strive very hard, by the grace of God, to keep the church focused on the mission that Christ originally gave to it.” – C.S. Lewis, c'mon... he needs no intro right? [we talk about this so much at Ridge Church. Just look around at all the jacked churches you see or have been in. They used to be more focused on the Mission! something internally took their focus off mission.]

“Which is more messed up? The fact that we have so much more than everyone else or the fact that we don’t think we’re rich?” – Francis Chan, author & Pastor of Cornerstone... [I think they're equally messed up. We need to even things out a little more. This guy is a pimp when it comes to talking about living like Jesus wants us to in regard to $]

"Be who you are and say what you feel,
because those who mind don't matter
and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss, masterful author [awesome. I love it from the Doc!]

“If you’re going to make it your goal to please church people you will lose every time. They’re the ones that killed Jesus.” – Perry Noble, pastor of NewSpring (@ orange 09) [I've been following him more lately because he has a LOT of good stuff to say.]

“God does not prosper a man’s business so he can move from a Ford to a BMW. God prospers a business so that thousands of unreached peoples can be reached with the gospel. He prospers a business so that 20% of the world’s population can move a step back from the precipice of starvation.” – John Piper, author & pastor [we're blessed to be a blessing! it's hard to get too much of this guy. Gold just rolls off his lips.]

“My goal is to speak the truth in love. There are a lot of people speaking the truth with no love, and there are a lot of people talking about love without much truth.” – Shane Claiborne, ordinary radical & author [he's so right. & he seems to strike a balance on many things people are off on similar to this.]

“The church was birthed out of the mission of God, and not the other way around.” – Mike Erre, author & teaching Pastor @ Rock Harbor [man, this is SO right on. I think that many in the church have got it TOTALLY backwards!]

“Give your mental time to solve problems that you can actually solve. Then draw a line & give the rest of the stuff to God.” – Chris Brown, my pastor, mentor & boss @ Ridge Church [easier said than done for most of us! This is basically a spiritual discipline & I have to work at it! (he drops stuff like this all the time... no telling when he said it.)]

“If you have the power, it can be hard to understand the voice of those who have no power.” – Rob Bell, author & Pastor @ Mars Hill [speaking to us Americans & our probably skewed thinking of the poor in the 2/3 world.]

"Preach like there's one 18 year old kid in the crowd who is giving this one last shot. That will fuel your passion." Andy Stanley, author & pastor @ North Point (@ orange 09) [oh yeah, gold drops from this guy's lips too... just like Piper above.]

"Theological fitness is useless without the affections." – Scott Grace, friend and fellow bro on the journey of pursuing Jesus [from a private email to me, so I hope it’s ok that it makes quotes of the week. I had to because it is SO RIGHT ON & needs to be realized in many avenues of the Church! Scott is an awesome thinker & you should totally read his blog. He's way more articulate & eloquent than me!]

“Your life and my life are, each of them, one-of-a-kind. No one has lived your life or my life before, and no one will ever live them again. Our lives are unique stones in the mosaic of human existence—priceless and irreplaceable.” – Henri J.M. Nouwen, late author & priest [awesome thought from Life of the Beloved]

Hope you were diggin' these.
Which quote is your favorite? What do you think about some of these?

#1 Caddy Memory... so far

You can catch up on this whole "blog party" thing commemorating the moment my Caddy passed from 199k to 200k miles & turning 20 this year HERE. You can read the 1st 9 of the top 10 memories in the Caddy HERE and HERE.

Actually an old guy stopped me yesterday morning at Starbucks and talked to me for 20 minutes about my Caddy. He was lovin' it. Everybody loves the Caddy! (well, senior citizens at Starbucks anyway)

OK, drumroll... I now give you my #1 Memory so far in the 1st 200k miles of the Caddy...

#1 - 12 guys in the Caddy. I feel like you have to know something going into this memory. The college I went to was not normal. It was crazy. not an understatement... I promise. They would kick you out for ANYTHING! I mean ANYTHING. If you were a person like me... a little on the fun side & like to do some spontaneous, crazy stuff just for fun... there's no way you can go through 4 years & not get kicked out at least once. (I only officially got kicked out once, so I did pretty good.) They just didn't like people who had too much fun. This was the most "dignified" and "straight-laced" place I have ever been in my life! So if you got caught by someone in leadership doing something fun that is kind of different... the upholder of dignification would see to it you never did that again. (They might even add what you were doing to the rule book & it could get named after you!)
Now that you know that, I can go on with my story. We were in these things that were sort of like fraternities. They were mainly for intramural sports & stuff. They did some new thing my senior year in the ice rink = they held a broom hockey tournament with all the "fraternity" teams (like 20). It was just an all day thing. Sounded kind of fun on a Saturday, so me and like 11 guys signed up to represent Beta Psi Delta. (haha, crazy memories just writing that.)

[side note alert: speaking of crazy memories & the ice rink - I've gotta at least mention the sweetest game ever played & I am proud to say that I actually invented it! Soccer on Ice baby!!! Our sophomore year we rented the ice rink out and our fraternity played Soccer on Ice ALL NIGHT LONG!!! It was crazy. Just like it sounds -> You throw a soccer ball out on the ice, run out there in your tennis shoes & play soccer. Craziest thing you've ever seen. Nothing like it. it became a tradition the next 2 years too. (they outlawed it after we graduated!) The very 1st year I invented it, 10 minutes into the game I went straight down on my face & bit it HARD on the ice. Fell straight on my 2 front teeth. blood all over. I couldn't feel my mouth or teeth for 3 days. I was back out there in the game after a 5 minute clean up session though! played the rest of the night. AWESOME memories! (Couldn't eat for a long time & my 2 front teeth started turning black and I almost lost them... got a root canal instead & they bleached them back white for me.)]

We had these broom hockey tourney games all day and when we kept winning we would have about an hour off until the next game. Definitely too long to just sit there and watch a bunch of other fools play hockey with these crazy weird sticks. So we would go back to our dorm. Our dorm was the furthest dorm from the ice rink. I'm really bad at judging distances, but maybe 3/4 of a mile? We were feeling too lazy to walk that far after every game in the Florida heat so we all piled into my Caddy after our 1st game. Everyone knew about the Caddy, of course. they were privileged to get to ride in it back to our dorm.
12 guys on the team though. 1 Caddy. It seats 5 people like a regular car.
Not on this day. We put 12 college guys in the Caddy! I'm not making this up. 4 in the front seat. 4 in the back seat. 4 sitting in the trunk with the trunk lid open! (I wanna say my boys Ethan & Scott were definitely 2 of the ones sitting up front with me. I think. & I don't think Jim was because he had been kicked out a week or 2 before. haha, sorry Jim. had to throw that in.) It was crazy driving across campus like this. I know we were idiots but we felt like pimps. It was a lot of fun for real. Just picture it... 12 dudes in an old blue Caddy. haha.

Anyway, we're driving across campus with 12 guys crammed in my car & 4 of them are sitting in the trunk with their legs hanging out the back resting on the bumper and the trunk lid straight up in the air. All the windows are rolled down with guys shouting stuff to pedestrians on the campus streets.
(I also failed to mention that I had been "almost" kicked out 2-3 weeks before this incident... got pulled out of class to the dean's office which is a very bad sign, pulled out of my room after midnight & moved to another dorm and into the "on deck" room to be kicked out. Anyway, I got out of it, but was on THIN ICE. like the ice that's not even really ice... more like a slushy from 7/11.)

So, again, we're cruising across campus with guys hanging out of the back of my car and we start to meet a new white sedan on the street. It looks eerily familiar. As the car gets closer to meeting us it rolls down it's window and a hand reaches out the window and starts flagging us down to stop the car. As we roll up next to this car, all 12 of us passengers realize that this car belongs to the freaking President of our college. Dr. Horton! oh crap. this guy is like 104 years old and never talks. No one has ever talked to him & you only ever saw him on graduation day. & based on the college he was president of, you assume that he doesn't put up with any crap.
[side note alert #2: Actually I had talked to him once. My 1st day ever as a freshman! 4 years before. how ironic that I would talk to him on my 1st & last days, I thought. As a freshman I walked into the Academic building for my 1st class ever at like 9am or something. I went to the 1st elevator I saw because my class was on the 6th floor. President Horton was standing there in the elevator! What are the chances? I said "hi" and got on & pushed the button for 6th floor. He looked at me, knew I was a freshman, smiled and said "son, I think you're on the wrong elevator." I was thinking to myself "Even the president here is trying to play me & haze me because I'm a Freshman by tricking me into getting off this elevator!" I just laughed and hit the "close door" button. He put his hand in the elevator to stop it and said "No seriously, this is the staff elevator. The student elevators are down there. You need to use one of those." Haha, what a story for my 1st day. Before my 1st ever class even.]

He motioned for me to roll my window down & all sorts of stuff was going through my head... like gunning it with my 4.9 liter Caddy engine... or switching seats with the freshman sitting beside me...
I'll never forget what he said = "Do you know you've got people in your trunk?" After he said that I caught a glimpse of his wife (Beka) in the passenger seat (who is very famous with homeschoolers, btw) and she was laughing like she was at a comedy show. When I saw that I had to assume that everything was gonna be cool. The sarcastic jerk in me took over and it took all the self-control I could muster (which wasn't much) to keep from saying = "People in my trunk? Are you serious? Where did they come from?" But I didn't say that. I can't remember what I said actually. He turned to the guys in my trunk and said something like "Why don't you guys just get out and walk where you're going. That would probably be a lot better idea, don't you think?" I heard a lot of "Yes sir"s... He started laughing too by the end of it & I know I cracked a few jokes, but can't remember what.

The ride back to the dorm with the remaining 8 guys in the car was priceless as we all described how our life flashed before our eyes, etc... and everyone was talking at the same time.
I dropped them all off and was parking my car in my spot... Which just happened to be NEXT to President Horton's parking spot. (I think I mentioned HERE how I got the unbelievable hookups on parking spots each year.) He was actually living on campus because his home got wiped out in Hurricane Ivan. The campus house he was living in was connected to the parking lot where I parked and we parked 10 feet from each other. He was getting groceries out of his trunk when he saw me getting out of my caddy. I swear to you I thought this fragile 104 year old man was gonna drop over dead when he tried to close his trunk! He went to grab the trunk and missed. He started swaying. I was fearing for his life. He walked over to me and said "Starting a little taxi service, huh?" I said "Something like that." He went on to explain how much he didn't want to ruin our fun but just didn't want anyone getting hurt. He was totally genuine about it. We actually had a pretty cool conversation in which he told me if he ever needed a ride anywhere, he knew who to call.


So, that's my #1 all time fav memory. I just wrote these on the fly & there's really probably many more that are better than some of these that I'll remember next week. But the point was just to show how much fun can be had in a junky paid for car!

Again, I'm praying that God would let my Caddy go past 300K and I'll have another party for her. A big one that time & you're all invited. And I hope God allows me to give & give & give so much money over the next 100k miles to further His kingdom & fame & to help those in poverty and suffering... instead of wasting that same $ on a dumb car payment.

top caddy memories... so far (#2-5)

You can read join the whole Caddy party & catch up on what's going down and the #6-10 of my top 10 memories HERE and HERE. This is a "blog party" honoring my caddy that is 20 years old and passed 200,000 miles!
*(& This picture to the left is NOT how many miles are suddenly on my car... that's just 200,000 miles exactly converted to kilometers. 321,868. Pretty cool! Can YOUR $300 a month car do that?)
Here are my top 5 memories in the Caddy over the last 200k...

#5 - Hurricane Ivan Trip to the Beach. [I think there were actually many hurricane/tropical storm trips to the beach in the caddy while I was in college. Those were the biggest waves for surfing of course.] This story wasn't actually during the hurricane, but a few days AFTER Hurricane Ivan! The pretty famous hurricane that you may remember. The beaches had been "shut down" and even the bridge and roads to the beach... we were dying to go though and determined to find a way to get there. My crazy roommate, Jeff and crazy next door neighbor (and later roommate), Andrew piled into the Caddy with all their beach stuff, stoked to spend a day at the beach... finally. But it took FOREVER! It was usually a 15 minute drive to the beach from campus, but this day it took a couple hours because of all the roads that were closed down + a big wreck. We sat in traffic FOREVER! [Pictured to the left are Jeff, Andrew, and I - the 3 in the middle.]
Of course we got bored. There were COUNTLESS Chinese fire drills that took place while we were inching along... but we put our own twist on them! We would actually leave the car in drive and let it keep rolling!!! the guy driving would hop out to run around the car and complete his Chinese Fire Drill by getting in the back seat... while the other guy who had just been in the back seat would hop in the passenger side, jump across and take the wheel & drive the car for a second until he jumped out... and this same scenario kept going & going... & going. haha. [If you haven't tried this, it's a lot of fun! I wonder if anyone else thought of it 1st? Maybe we should patent it?]
I think Jeff wanted a tan so bad that he got out & started walking beside the car with his shirt off. We made A LOT of fun of him! Then he found something like an OLD reel of video tape. He decided it would be fun to unravel it out the window of my Caddy as we inched along. Then we finally started driving fast as we passed the wreck and there was like a mile of video tape reel out my window flying in the wind like a kite at 60mph. good times for sure.
We made it to the beach and had a great time. We walked right in the back door of some beach houses that were wide open with 8 inches of sand in the living room and no doors or windows. Crazy.

#4 - almost arrested on... "Robert E. Lee Day"? I was driving back to college after Christmas break of our sophomore year. Crystal was already there because she had to be there a week or two early to take a class. But I had ALL her stuff in my Caddy AND all my stuff. (That is 1 cool think I haven't mentioned about the beloved caddy... It has the capacity to fit the entirety of 4 peoples' earthly belongings inside it! It has corners and crevices that would blow your mind where I can fit an inordinate amount of stuff!) Anyway... the car was LOADED with suitcases and bags and boxes of ramen noodles.
At about 2am I got off the exit for Flomaton, Alabama (More people lived in my dorm than in that whole town!) Every student from north of Florida knew this exit... It meant you were ALMOST THERE! It was only 1 hour from the college. The Caddy was tired and so was I. I was ready to get to my dorm room and sleep. As I was getting off the exit to go through Flomaton (Redneckville, USA) apparently I didn't fully stop at the red light when I made my right turn. A cop came speeding up behind me sounding his siren and flashing his lights like he was chasing down OJ. There was road construction on both sides of the road with big orange barrels totally blocking both sides so there was OBVIOUSLY no place for me to pull over. Literally, the only thing I could have done was to stop in the middle of the road. That seemed like a dumb option. So I turned on my turn signal to let the cop know I was pulling over as soon as I could and I slowed down to about 20 mph. About a half mile later I finally was able to pull into a Hardees parking lot.
That redneck cop came out of his car like a big dog chasing a wheelbarrow full of steak... he was cussing at me and yelling something about "don't city boys in blankity cadillacs know what blue blankity flashing lights mean" or something? I told him I did know what blue flashing lights mean, but thought it best to wait until I could actually pull over. Apparently me talking made him even more upset. He yelled something more about "avoiding arrest" being a major crime and not a joking matter... [avoiding arrest?]
He asked for my license and I simply reached into my pocket and handed him the card in the spot in my wallet right where my license always is (without looking at it). He threw it back at me & with a few more expletives about this not being a driver's license... as my student ID card was hitting me in the chest. My driver's license was NOT in my wallet. Then a whole crazy middle of the night ordeal ensued in which he accused me of driving without a valid driver's license (which technically I was, but he accused me of never even having one). He said I had to go to jail for that. He called in the Sheriff of the whole town and a few other cops (probably their whole station) for "backup". They grilled me about all kinds of stuff - like if I was bringing drugs into their town and on and on. The Sheriff was a jerk and really got on my nerves (so much so that a certain Bob Marley song was totally stuck in my head. jk... sort of) and actually believed that I was trying to run away from this cop when he was pulling me over. I said "Like my Caddy could even outrun you." And the cop said "You better believe you woulda been toast boy... this here cop car's got a 454 super sport in it... I coulda whooped your..." and on and on.
The Sheriff insisted on taking me to jail so they could sort all this out in the morning. I was not so into that (I've heard the stories about what goes down in these crazy off the map redneck towns... which was confirmed about these guys later) so I think I told them my license must be in one of the suitcases in the car. They looked in the bulging trunk and backseat full of suitcases and said they didn't feel like watching me going through them all night long. Still trying to make my case I pleaded "I can't go to jail, I have to register for classes tomorrow." And they thought I was lying since the next day was a holiday. I said "A holiday? Oh yeah, Martin Luther King Day." And the Sheriff said, "Nope. Robert E. Lee day!!!" oh wow. My heart started beating crazy fast and my knees shaking a little bit. I told myself "Just get out of here alive before these crazy rednecks pull out their white sheets and lynch you up or something." End of the story is they let me go, but I still had to go to court for driving without a license, "resisting arrest", & running the stupid red light. I did convince the judge that I wasn't resisting arrest in spite of what this fine deputy sheriff thought...
Good times.

#3 - Shake my Moneymaker. The Caddy has honestly been a straight up moneymaker for me! Let me shake it down for ya... A couple weeks before I turned 16 I bought my 1st car - actually it went down like this = My dad went out and found a sweet deal at an auction or something and brought home a pimp Honda Civic si with a sunroof, sweet rims, etc... He was like "What do you think about this for your 1st car?" & I was like "I LOVE it!" & he was like "Great. You owe me $1,100." Pretty good deal. I think I put about $900 more into it fixing it up. (So, $2k total.) I drove it for a year or so and traded straight up for a SHO (which I JUST heard they're bringing back!) & then another year later traded straight up for my beautiful Caddy. So really, I've got about $0 in the Caddy. that's not bad.
Here's the "moneymaker" part = It 1st started in college. There was a colossal hailstorm down there in Florida & I remember seeing some the size of baseballs!!! Crazy. I was telling my dad about it a month or so later on the phone & he was like "You've probably got hail damage on your car." I didn't think so... hadn't noticed any. But he made me go look at it at a certain angle and in the sunlight... sure enough, you could barely see tiny little bumps on the roof and stuff. To this day they're still invisible to the "naked eye." I took it to the insurance place and they cut me a $1,500 check! pocketed that. About a year or 1 & a 1/2 years ago somebody jacked my trunk! Straight nailed it. Still don't know who it was because my car was just in a parking lot and I was worshipping & serving Jesus at Ridge Church... Got paid $850 for that one. & then most recently some joker backed into the front of my car at a gas station next to my seminary. crazy hole in the front of my caddy now! He handed me $700 cash money. word. So my math says that all equals over $3,000 my Caddy has made me!!! I'm $3,000 net profit because I paid nothing for it! That's what I'm talkin' about!! How much $ has your car made you? Oh... that's right... you have a car payment. (haha, just joking, not trying to be mean. Just enjoying the party here.)

#2 - Longest Trip of our Lives. Crystal and I had just finished our freshman year of college. Understatement of the century = "we were READY to get back home to Charlotte!" We planned to leave on that Wednesday of graduation & be OUT at like noon which would put us home around 10pm after the trip & time difference. Because of some stupid things about our college I don't think we got out of there until like 4pm. Already behind. And I was playing that game in my head like most men "OK, we can still make it home by 2am." About an hour out of Pensacola, in a tiny hick town called Century (1 stop light & 1 Burger King in the whole town! same size as Flomaton.) we broke down. The Car just cut off or something and I couldn't even turn the wheel. Thankfully the ONLY mechanic shop in town was about 200 yards down the street. We rolled in & possibly the most redneck guy I've ever met came out and started talking with us. He said our radiator had busted & we needed a new one. Through a miraculous string of events we actually got a radiator! He pulled some strings with the car parts place (back in Pensacola) & a friend of mine picked up the radiator after closing time and drove it an hour all the way out to Century to this little podunk redneck place! This was like the craziest day ever! At some point while we were waiting for 2 hours on the new radiator the mechanic's wife (fully pregnant) came out... oh yeah... forgot to mention - they lived there too! This was like his shop that he owned/house! She came out saying she was in labor and was going to the hospital. She got in the car and drove off. I said to the guy... "don't you need to go to the hospital to see your baby born?!? or be with your wife??" He said, I kid you not, "nah, she'll be alright... I want to get you guys back on the road tonight." WHAT? Are you kidding me? (Later on Crystal informed me that if we ever got married - just fyi - no husband of hers would ever do something like that.)
Anyway, the lady finally showed up with our radiator. A minute or two after she left, the redneck mechanic said (ok, you have to imagine the redneck voice in your head). "You got that lady's phone number?" (me) - "Uh... why?" (him) - "Because it looks like somebody beat this radiator with a baseball bat." oh crap.
He tried to order another one from somewhere, but everything was closed for the night. Our friend (who worked for my "boss" I had worked with during the semester) came back and picked me and Crystal up. She gave us a ride back to Pensacola to my friend/boss' house. He was awesome enough to let us sleep there for the night while our car stayed at the shop in Century. He gave us a ride back to the shop the next morning. Our buddy the mechanic had the new radiator in and we were off by noon I think.
Everything was rolling great until some time later that night (can't remember what time) when we were all the way to Anderson, South Carolina on I-85... less than 2 hours from home! The car broke down again! Same thing happened. I managed to make it off the exit and ALL the lights were out in the area. Everything was closed. We rolled up into a Fireworks place with a HUGE picture of Satan or something on it. Crystal was pretty freaked... haha it was like straight out of a movie or something. SERIOUSLY... you can't make this stuff up!
I called a tow truck and we rode all the way home... the last 100 miles... in a tow truck. It was technically Friday morning when we finally made it back to Charlotte. Longest trip ever. 3 days.
(The radiator busted twice because my original mechanic screwed up my air conditioner thing so that the bolts popped off or something and busted the radiator. not cool.)


If all these memories weren't good enough, there is still 1 more to go! check out my #1 memory TOMORROW!

& If these memories inspire you, just remember that you don't need a phat nice car to have lots of fun and awesome memories! I hope you can feel that at this "blog party"... So, if you're really inspired - sell your car & drop the car payments, buy a clunker, and join the Junky Car Club & use your $ for better things than a car with a butt warmer!

the blog party continues... TOP 10 MEMORIES IN THE CADDY

The "blog party" is continuing today. Rolling on in honor of my 20 year old beautiful Caddy that just passed 200,000 miles & has too many nicknames to include in this post.

If you need to catch up on the party you can read yesterday's post HERE. Now we're going to get right to my top 10 memories of all time in my caddy!

#10 - The Day I Got It. Who knew it would be such a momentous occasion? Who knew that it would be a day that would go down in history? Who knew that day was the start of something so amazing? If I would have known, I would have taken a picture and I could have posted it here for you!
I remember when my dad brought it home and showed it to me - he was a car dealer and was always bringing home a different car every day, so I thought nothing of it. He told me he thought it would be a good car for me. I was like "huh?" "WHAT?" You see, I was 18 and my current car was "sexy." It was a midnight blue SHO. It was the shiznit! 0-100 faster than a passenger could say "Slow down!" Leather racing seats that held you in when going around curves at over 60mph. It even had back massagers in the seats! But it wasn't "practical" I was told. We were having to drop $50 on it every week it seemed for little things & I was about to leave for college, so I needed something more dependable.
I couldn't figure out if it looked like a granny car or a ghetto drug dealer's ride? But I traded my SHO straight up for it that day. I wasn't so sure then, but now I am so happy my dad brought her home that day. and now I have all these memories...

#9 - Emergency Room Breakdown. My roommate at the time (and one of my best friends) Ethan broke his toe or dislocated it or something (whatever it was it was nasty) in our soccer game during our senior year of college. The game ended at 10pm or so & he obviously needed to get to an emergency room. It would take TOO LONG to explain now but our college was crazy sketch about being off campus after 11pm (among like a million other things) so it was a great win that they even let the 5 or 6 of us leave campus for the night... because of course it took 5 or 6 of us to take him to the hospital.
The first option was to all ride in the Caddy - no doubt! Plus I think I had the closest parking spot to our dorm... somehow this ALWAYS worked out, every semester. This could be a whole blog in itself about the way I pulled off some hookups for parking spaces. Anyway, we pulled in the Caddy and got like half a mile down the road... and... it broke down! haha! It was crazy. We couldn't believe it. What timing. We ended up making it back & driving my buddy (& other roommate) Scott's car. It got us to the hospital & they broke his toe back or something in like an hour. Then we went out and "partied" all night at the Steak & Shake. good times.

#8 - Bouncing Balls. I think we did it many times & really this #8 is more of an example to represent what went down with, in, around, on, and in the presence of my car all the time. But I can vividly remember Ethan and me driving somwhere in my Caddy... down Brent Lane in Pensacola, Florida. Maybe we were driving to the beach? I really can't remember where the pimp mobile was taking us this time? Anyway - he grabs a tennis ball, rolls down the passenger window and starts bouncing the ball out the window as I'm driving. This is a 4 lane pretty major highway. Like we were driving 45mph! I think we did it a lot after that because it was pretty fun. I remember us losing a lot of tennis balls playing this game! & we tried it with a basketball too.

#7 - Spinout on 485. I was engaged to my now wife, Crystal. I think we had just graduated from college? Like still in May just 1 week after graduation. It was the 1st night of a sort of internship thing I was doing leading a middle school student ministry at the church I eventually became the children's pastor at a couple months later. We were on our way there from Crystal's house. We were on 485 & getting off the exit to hit 85 South. If you have taken that exit before then you can imagine what happened because it is a NASTY NASTY super curve. It had just rained too. There are big signs that say "SLOW DOWN AROUND THIS CURVE YOU FOOL!" But I didn't slow down enough... obviously. Because we spun around and around... It seems like a bunch of times, but it was probably only once. We spun straight off the road and straight into the tall grass field IN BETWEEN the oncoming traffic of 2 major interstates on both sides of us! Straight up miraculous & God's hand completely protecting us. Oh wow! My heart still beats out of control right now just thinking about that day as I write. Crystal was all cool & chill... I was a little shook up. She still married me. & I vowed to be a safe & cautious driver. (You can ask her how that's going.)

#6 - Wedding Breakdown. The night before our wedding. The rehearsal dinner was over. All the stuff that needed to be done was done. All us guys and girls were heading out from the wedding spot to go have a good time. I had like 6 guys riding with me (maybe more? there were tons of peeps in town staying with me from all over the U.S.). We all got in and I started my car. The thing died right there in the parking lot! It straight up died! Just shut off. It was something bad & I honestly can't remember what it was - something with the engine? It was a big weekend for me... I can't remember all those details. Anyway, like 6 of us guys all hopped in the back of my best friend from high school & groomsman, Chris' truck. (BIG truck). He gave us a lift to the party spot which was like 30 minutes away down major roads. Several more guys who had legitimate rides all thought it looked like fun, so they jumped in the bed of the truck too! Haha, it was a crazy fun night & fun riding all the way across Charlotte in the back of the truck with some of my favorite peeps. All because the Caddy broke down. Kind of odd that my caddy died right before we got married. It was running again by the time we got home from the honeymoon though. Wow... to think that she almost didn't make it into our marriage! That would have been awful.

OK, that's #s 6-10. Stay tuned for my top 5 memories of all time in the caddy!

my caddy hit 200k!!! (top 10 memories & JCC)

This is a BIG BIG celebration!

My car hit 200,000 miles this past Saturday!!! wow. what a momentous occasion.

So, basically the rest of the week here on renown is PARTY WEEK because of my car passing this milestone. I'm really proud of her that she made it this far! that's a lot of miles to drive with 1 car. (I would be interested to know if any of you are driving cars with over 200k on them?)

I mentioned before that she also turned 20 this year. She hit 200k & turned 20 all in the same year, so it's a big year for the Caddy! (Maybe this is kind of like a graduation party?) I bought the car back in 2000 from the original owner who took beautiful care of it. It had 80something thousand miles on it then. It's been an awesome car for me for the past 9 years!

Me & my Caddy are also PROUD MEMBERS of the Junky Car Club! "We live with less so we can give more" (JCC motto). [You can read more about that HERE.] We are "politely" rebelling against our culture that says "I can't give my money to take care of orphans (like Jesus said to do) because I have to pay my car payment!" REALLY? You know you would look silly saying that to Jesus right?
I guess I just think that a car is to get me from here to there, and past that why waste money on it? I am very very proud to drive my junky car that is paid for. My wife and I will never have a car payment. And I am pretty excited to use that money (that would be used to pay for a phat ride) for God’s kingdom purposes in this world. I’m positive that I will never regret this!
For this reason I’m praying that God lets my car keep going past 300,000 miles! How awesome would that be!?! I will keep driving it the rest of my life if it keeps running. I hope God will let the caddy keep running, but if it dies tomorrow I will go pay cash for another junky car for hopefully less than $1,000.

I hope this whole way of life becomes cool in our world! I hope things like the Junky Car Club becomes more popular than owning Hummers and Beamers. Because I think if God’s people rebelled against our crazy culture of consumerism that says you’ve gotta have all this unfulfilling crap – then the Kingdom would start to rock in this world, social justice would win over poverty, and God would become even more famous!
I hope lots of people throw parties when their paid for cars hit 100K, 200K, etc… and that we will all pray that our cars will last so we can use our $ for God’s kingdom.

Along those lines and in honor of this awesome celebration I am going to post my TOP 10 MEMORIES with the Caddy… so far. There is gonna be some funny stuff you will want to read! Some of you might have some memories of the Caddy over the last 9 years – if you do, send them to me ASAP! Maybe they’ll crack into the top 10?
Anyway, WELCOME TO THE BLOG PARTY & LET THE CELEBRATION BEGIN!!!
(You're all invited to check the blog tomorrow for #6-10 of my top 10 memories in the Caddy!)

quotes of the week #7

I'm bringing "quotes of the week" back with a vengeance! Remember, this isn't stuff I necessarily read or heard this week... these are just the quotes I choose to share this week. Also read the disclaimer HERE!

*I read & learn so much good stuff that I am making it my goal to try & post "quotes of the week" once a week for at least the next 6 weeks. Let me know if you like that idea or not.

[any of my thoughts & commentary on the quotes are in these bracket things]
As always, I start off with the #1 quote of the week:
“God is not glorified when we keep for ourselves (no matter how thankfully) what we ought to be using to alleviate the misery of unevangelized, uneduacated, unmedicated, and unfed millions. The evidence that many professing Christians have been deceived by Western commercialism and materialism is how little we give and how much we own.” – John Piper, pastor & author [some of my thoughts on him HERE. One of the most influential voices in my life over the past 5 years. These words that he speaks with so much passion move me deeply!]

"If you cannot celebrate the success of others it's probably because you are more about you than you are about God." – Mark Batterson, lead pastor of National Community Church & author [I love following this guy on Twitter. he brings quotes like this nonstop! His blog is full of awesome stuff too!]

“We’ve allowed the way transitions look from the outside to drive our perception of what they must feel like to those going through them on the inside.” – Jim Collins, from Good to Great [I'm almost finished with this book. It's amazing. Can't believe I haven't already read it! This quote comes from the chapter on the Flywheel & is in the context of the media causing great organizations to look like "Overnight success stories"! So relevant for me to hear this. his website has awesome & endless free resources]

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein (via Jeff Henderson @ Drive 09) [think about that one... pretty awesome thought!]

“Every 7 seconds, somewhere in the world a child under age 5 dies of hunger, while Americans throw away 14% of the food we purchase.” / “If you have always had enough food, it can be hard to understand the shouts of those whose stomachs are grumbling from hunger.” – Rob Bell, pastor @ Mars Hill & author [wow.]

“Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.” ~ Charles Spurgeon, old school pastor & author... dead for over 100 years. [I like having "dead mentors." I can't really talk back to them. This quote is hard core!]

**"To Lead Tomorrow, Learn Today"** - John Maxwell, the leadership guru & author [& I desperately want God to use me to be a great leader... therefore I'm learning everyday as much as I can.]

“New prophets are rising up who try to change the FUTURE, not just predict it. There is a movement bubbling up that goes beyond cynicism and celebrates a new way of living, a generation that stops complaining about the church it sees and becomes the church it dreams of.” – Shane Claiborne, author & pimp revolutionary! [we are this generation. let's become the church we're dreaming of!]

“America is simultaneously the most professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its behavior.” – Bill McKibben, author & educator [DANG! that's indicting, but I agree.]

“Your vision has not truly captured your heart until it captures your wallet.” – Andy Stanley, lead pastor @ NPCC & author of some of the greatest books [This is so right on! It seems like Jesus said something similar?...]

“Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die.” - Bono, activist & frontman for the amazing U2 [obviously speaking of the atrocities in Africa. Millions dying simply because they don't have access to clean water. Let's do something about that!]


As always - which quotes do you like & not like?
Which is your favorite quote & why?

hangin' with an old/new friend...

A couple weekends ago I got to hang out with kind of an old friend who has recently become a better friend. So, he's kind of an old/new friend... I'll explain in a minute
Anyway, a couple Fridays ago, Ryan was coming from Dallas to the Charlotte airport. He hung around Charlotte for the day before driving to his next destination.

I actually wrote about him/his blog HERE too if you care to read it.
We have had very similar spiritual journeys but in different ways. We went to the same crazy college and found our ways out of that movement despite a lot of opposition. At the end of our college careers we were both labeled "liberals" by our peers. (he is older than me)
We were "friends" in college but definitely never really hung out a lot. Honestly, we are way better friends now through the awesome world of social media (blogging, twitter, facebook, etc...) Pretty crazy how that works out. We reconnected maybe 1-2 years ago? & now we keep up with each other often.

Anyway, it was definitely cool to hang out & talk live with this old/new friend. We hit up some Cabo Fish Taco in NoDa (one of me & Crystal's fav places to eat) - greatest fish tacos on the planet, even if you don't like fish tacos. & definitely a cool vibe. Later we shot some pool and swapped stories. I think I wasted him in pool. (I can't really remember. Neither of us were really on our game.) & then we hung out at the Starbucks uptown & just talked for a few hours.

It was good times. We have similar stories/journeys & both came from the same place.
*So, the coolest part is that there is no explanation of our past/background that has to go before conversations! It's a given. We both already know exactly what the other's experience was like. Therefore we could jump right to the good stuff. (Unless you went to the same college as us you really have no idea what I'm talking about & have no context for what I'm saying.)
We talked about some pretty intense life stuff. There was a cool honesty & authenticity for sure. He recommended a book that I actually picked up & read a week later by Henri Nouwen -> The Life of the Beloved. Not exactly what I was thinking it would be, but definitely a good read and a spiritually emotional one. (Maybe I'll post some takeaways at some point... along with like 50 other books if I ever get around to it.)

& now I would send you to Ryan's blog, but he has stopped blogging. he's "hibernating" as he calls it. but then of course he jumped back in with another blog post. So... not sure if he's back or hibernating again? Anyway, lots of good stuff on there if you want to scroll back through his past posts. You can see his blog HERE.

as nice as it is to live in a world now where no one knows where I went to college (and even if I tell them they've never heard of it...) - it's always pretty cool to hang out with similar-passioned guys who are from the same place as me... like Ryan (& these guys too).

you really don't want to miss Ridge tomorrow!

I'm just sayin'... I seriously think you will be sorry if you miss out on this!

We're doing On Location Part 4 - ROAD TRIP!!! It's seriously going to be SO AWESOME! You can listen to the 1st 3 talks HERE in case you missed them.

Our Lead Pastor, Chris Brown, is wrapping up this series tomorrow. Actually, here's what he said about it on his blog: "**I'm making a prediction: This Sunday will be one of the best services we've ever experienced at Ridge Church. You can just hear about it later or experience it first hand. I hope you will choose the latter. See you Sunday.**"

I'm pretty sure that's worth getting up for! I know it's going to be an amazing day as we celebrate God changing peoples' lives through baptism. You'll see some awesome videos and hear the stories of how when people go "on location" in their workplace, God uses them to spread His fame and change lives! And we're celebrating this whole full circle thing tomorrow. You really really want to be there if you can!

(11am @ the Levine Center in Matthews...)

social media is changing the world!

You have to watch this video. It's a TED talk. I wrote a little about TED on Monday & you can read it HERE because I'm not gonna talk more about it now. (There are SO MANY awesome TED talks that I've committed to watching at least 1 every week.)
This is the TED talk I watched this week and I think it's so huge that you have to watch it too! So the video is below. WATCH IT! & then I have my notes, thoughts, & commentary below the video. Let me know your thoughts too.

**Before you watch I'm going to share this final line from the talk that is possibly world-shaking. Especially for all of us with passions similar to mine. This line at the end of the talk seriously made me have butterflies in my stomach and get nervous like before a big game (in a good way!) Like we are on the precipice of something major... something revolutionary.

"ANYBODY who has a message they want to have heard ANYWHERE in the world... the question we all face now is 'How can we make best use of this media? Even though it means changing the way we've always done it.'" [whoa. pretty sure I'm in that category of anybody with a message I want heard anywhere in the world!]


(btw - that talk was from Clay Shirky.)
Here are the best quotes & my thoughts from the talk:

"These tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring." [so it takes a while after they "come out" before they can actually become revolutionary socially.]

"The moment our generation is living through is the largest increase in expressive capability in human history." = wow! big claim!

regarding our historical media landscape (up until end of 20th century) there was a weird asymmetry = "The media that's good at creating conversation is no good at creating groups. And the media that's good at creating groups is no good at creating conversation." [examples like phone (conversation) & TV (groups) -> but neither can really create BOTH.
***UNTIL the internet came along = the perfect medium

PLUS the internet becomes the medium for all the other media!!! (phone, movies, pictures, etc...)

I love this = consumers of this media can also become producers! That's a beautiful thing & an endless discussion right there...

Twitter has become faster than any other news medium! This is changing the way news sources deal with stuff.
[*Maybe me following Twitter so closely gets me off the hook for not watching the news or reading the newspaper?]
& Wow! China shutting down access to Twitter? r u serious?

*** "As recently as last decade most of the media that was available for public consumption was produced by professionals. Those days are over never to return."

Mature use of this social media = "convening not controlling."

**So, I really wanna hear some feedback from you on this talk. I'm jazzed about it. It's got my head spinning in all directions...
WHAT DO YOU THINK?

I designed the new bud light bottle!

About 1 month ago Crystal and I were strolling through the grocery store and my eyes got BIG as I stopped in the beer section. I know she thought this was weird because she knows I hate beer. I think it tastes like battery acid. In fact, since I was 14 I haven't even had soft drinks... just water... for 12 years! Almost half my life. So, of course beer tastes nasty to me.

But what caught my eye was the new Bud Light bottle. I just stared at it in amazement. I turned to my wife and said "I DESIGNED THAT NEW BUD LIGHT BOTTLE!!!"

Yep, I designed the new Bud Light bottle that just came out recently (pic above). Well, I guess it would be more accurate to say that I "helped" design it. Or maybe even better that I told the Bud Light execs that they should go with this particular bottle. However you word it, I'm pretty confident that I'm a big reason this specific bottle is on the shelf. haha, I'm just sayin'...

Here's how it went down. I do some "consulting" for several market research companies. Anyone can do it really. They pay me "big bucks" to tell them what I think about stuff for 1-2 hours. They called me once about a beer research study. The guy was like "do you like beer?" & I was like "not really." He really needed to meet his quota for 25 year old males and I had already met all the other criteria to qualify for this research study, so he started asking stuff like "do you think you could ever like beer?" & I really wanted the $200 or whatever they were paying, so I was like "yeah... maybe?" (thinking in my head "yeah, whenever you stop making it taste like crap.")

Anyway, turns out they picked me & 5 other 25 year old males from Charlotte. They wanted to get inside a 25 year old guy's head. I still didn't know what the study was about, so I was just hoping I didn't have to drink a bunch of beer because my poker face isn't that good when there's "battery acid" in my mouth.

It turned out that the big guns from Bud Light were watching and listening to our little consulting table through one of those fancy 1 way mirror/windows. A guy talked with us for 2 hours about re-branding the Bud Light bottle. They must have brought in over 30 prototype bottles.

I was by far the most vocal. It was pretty fun actually. I told them which ideas sucked and what they should and shouldn't do. I felt pretty important actually that they were paying me to tell them what they should do. And they were loving it because they were all in their 40s & 50s and wanted to get inside a 25 year old guy's head. I told them that this one stream of designs screams "I'm 25 but wanna be 35 and I will only drink this beer if I'm a banker and wearing a suit at some posh party uptown." They threw that bottle away I think.

Anyway, I feel like my fingerprints are ALL OVER this new bottle! Which, btw, is WAY better than the former BL bottle that you see pictured above.
Here are my specific contributions:
I definitely pushed for the splash of water on the bottle. They pushed against me but I was like "that's so refreshing! & fun." I was in the minority around the table on this, BUT it made it on the final bottle (as you can see), so I guess I won!
I pushed for the "BL" at top on the neck of the bottle, instead of the full "Bud Light." You can see that idea won too.
I told them to go with the lighter blue throughout instead of these deep purples and crazy reds like they were toying with.
I voted for the the swoosh/swerve on the left side.
& I pushed for them to get rid of all the words on the bottle like on the old one. I was like "some dude isn't gonna stand there and read your bottle & decide whether or not to buy it based on what he reads! are you serious? He's just gonna buy what looks cool. LOSE ALL THE WORDS." so, they did.

Anyway, I guess I was a part of something pretty significant that's on the shelves all over the country (& world maybe?) The funny part is that I've never even had a Bud Light, haha. I bet it tastes nasty though.

It was fun & I made $200. Not a bad day's work. And I have a brand new bottle that "I designed" to show for it. Well... that I "helped" design.

What do YOU think of it? What would you have done differently?
you know, so that when the CEO calls me up I can give him some ideas on future design! :)

thoughts on sabbath & furious rest

I love sabbath! (sabbath = basically a day of rest each week.) I have only truly understood it for the past 4 years or so. Louie Giglio and Rob Bell, 2 of my "mentors" helped me to "get" sabbath & dive into the awesome world of practicing it.
Thankfully those 2 men helped me understand and start practicing sabbath just a few months into my marriage. I think it was divine timing! (I had never done it before.)

[*Side note story warning] In fact, I can still vividly remember the exact time when I decided to practice sabbath rest each week. I was driving in my caddy listening to a Rob Bell talk back in '05 after we had just been married. I was in the drive thru line at the McDonald's near our house picking up dinner & his whole thing had been about sabbath & I was like "you know what... I'm gonna do it." One of the best decisions I ever made.

Basically 1 day a week I try to NOT do ANY work. (Like no work for my job). I just chill. I've done that for almost 4 years. Pretty much every Friday is my "sabbath." And it also doubles as date night with my wife, Crystal. I've written about that before HERE.

Because of a super busy schedule & some extra jobs I've taken, I haven't had a sabbath in about 2 weeks. UNTIL TODAY. a Tuesday. And WOW did I need it! (That was the 1st time I've ever gone this long without one since I started.) I can tell that life gets jacked up when I don't get a day of rest each week.
[Today I just went to a late breakfast with my wife @ Sunrise... my fav breakfast joint in Charlotte where I used to go with my dad once a week when I was a kid. Then we did a little grocery shopping. Had some fun at the house. Watched a chick flick she wanted to see & now we're going to sleep. Very spiritual day.]

When I was a little kid I thought sabbath was just a Sunday thing & we weren't supposed to mow the grass or God might strike us dead with a lightning bolt. haha... but the cool part is that God started sabbath as a favor to us.

**Take the whole "God side" out of it even... it's just common sense. You will simply work better, feel better, be happier, function better, be nicer, and enjoy life more! Seriously, try it for like 4 weeks in a row. You will be amazed. You probably won't stop.

Here's some things Louie helped me understand about sabbath:
(the parts below in "quotes" are from him...)
Sabbath is “a day to remember that He is God and we are not. Without Sabbath, we forget who we are and lose sight of who He is.” That's really the heart of it.
I committed to NOT let myself “get to the place where I truly believe the outcome of the story fully depends on me.” Because that would be laughable.

*I don't know about you, but my job NEVER ends. I could work 24/7. Literally ALL the time... and there would still be more to do. I can't leave my work at the office. So when it comes to this sabbath thing for me - there's so much pressure to work on Sabbath because there's SO MUCH to do!

BUT, Louie taught me that sabbath IS RESTING in knowing that "Everything doesn’t hinge on me. If I stop doing my part, the whole world will not fall apart. I am not in control. God made the whole world in six days without any input from me, or my assistance. God doesn’t need me to accomplish His work. I am little. God is huge. I trust Him.” I love it! Sabbath is me getting to heap glory on God through proving/showing my trust in His power & sovereignty.

*When I wake up everyday (after I stumble out of bed) I seriously try to remind myself that I’ve been invited “into an already-in-progress Story in which God was doing just fine long before my little feet ever hit the floor.”
- “Sabbath happens anywhere and everywhere we let go of the controls and lay the cares of our lives at His feet." = that's a pretty simple definition for you.
[most of those quotes are from Louie's pimp book i am not but i know I AM which you can click on to the right & buy it.]

Basically we are all (myself included) arrogant. I guess it can only be our own pride that tricks us into thinking that what happens is pretty much all up to ME. How freaking arrogant is that!??? but we totally act that way don't we!? "I can't take a day off because there's TOO MUCH TO DO!" haha... there's always gonna be too much to do, SO you may as well have a nice relaxing day of rest. :)

Sabbath. It's furious rest. It's a very spiritual thing. And I refuse to trade it for any amount of $ or extra production.

TED Commandments - rules every speaker needs to know

Today I wanted to share with all of you the "TED Commandments" - similar to the TEN Commandments in that there are 10. But not really similar in any other way.

I LOVE checking out what's going down at TED ("TED" = technology, entertainment, design, but is also SO SO much more). I bet you are gonna wanna check them out too if you haven't already. Go HERE to see all the awesome talks!
Rusty actually introduced TED to me a while back with a talk that I posted way back HERE (over a year ago but still way worth watching).

They have some really really good stuff. This isn't just some little thing either... these peeps at TED are LEGIT! no doubt. they're making waves in the world and getting MANY peeps' attention. I first saw this list on Carlos' blog yesterday & went to check it out.

Here's the list... in case you ever get to speak at a TED conference (or just for you to apply elsewhere)...
[Oh and it probably is worth mentioning that I think it's kind of funny that anyone who makes a 10 commandments list thinks it has to be written in king james english... haha]

Ok, for real this time - the list:
1. Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick
2. Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before
3. Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion
4. Thou Shalt Tell a Story
5. Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy
6. Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success
7. Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desparate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness
8. Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good
9. Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech
10. Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee

*great great stuff. love to hear some of you interact with it!
obviously I don't think it's all stuff we've gotta follow like certain other commandments, BUT I think following many of these will make me and all of us better communicators. I'm diggin the list.
I'd love to hear what you think of the TED commandments! share your thoughts...

I've got so much I want to write/blog about in the next days & weeks... honestly TOO much. I just need to figure out what to write about 1st & then figure out how in the world I can find the time to sit down and write!?

Drive 09 highlight video

I just saw this Drive '09 highlight video. I thought you all might like to see it.

you can read my takeaways from the AWESOME Drive Conference HERE & HERE & HERE...
+ I'll probably have more takeaways from this conference coming in the days ahead...

my baby hitting 200k

It's coming soon. My car (affectionately known by many different names) is about to hit 200,000 miles! I think right now it's at like 199,617! pretty close.

She turned 20 this year. Almost as old as me! She's been awesome. Paid cash for her when I bought it. Awesome to have never had a car payment. You can read a little about my car philosophy and the amazing Junky Car Club in one of my 1st posts ever = HERE.

**This is just the post to get you ready... the invitation to the party, really. Because there is gonna be a BIG celebration when she hits 200k! It's like someone's 100th birthday party or something.
I'll definitely be writing a blog (or a few even) sharing my top 10 memories in the caddy... I know you can't wait.

gotta run, my wife just made an amazing dinner & some friends are coming in now to enjoy it with us. hope you all have a great weekend. Feel free to share some stories about YOUR car!

advance 09 quotes from Driscoll - What is the Church?

I talked about Advance 09 and posted some Driscoll takeaways in yesterday's post HERE.
Actually, you can listen to every single talk from Advance 09 HERE! pretty cool. Piper is the man & is so awesome to give away basically everything he's involved with for FREE! (books, talks, content, etc...)
Lots of good stuff at this conference (as you could guess from the guys you see in the pic below). Actually in this post I simply wanted to share some of my favorite quotes from the conference. BUT, as I started typing just Driscoll's quotes from his 1st talk... there's too many to include everyone else's stuff in this post. (More stuff on Driscoll in yesterday's post HERE.) So, this will just be the best quotes from the very 1st talk of the conference = "What is the Church?" - Mark Driscoll
Here we go...
- “Ecclesiology is being redefined by technology.” This is a very cool & good thing – internet, video campuses, etc… This technology has completely changed what our conversations are in regards to the Church.

- He was saying we've gotta be sure about stuff, not just "think" we know... “Some people say 'I think Jesus is God'.” “Well, I think teams shouldn’t have a designated hitter.” haha, so sarcastic but really funny. He's a great communicator.

- Talking about planting a church he said peeps will say “It’ll never work.” Driscoll responds, “Sure it will. Jesus is alive, the Holy Spirit is poured out. The heavy lifting is already done.” I love it!

- His 8th mark of a true church (too many if you ask me... but that's for another day) = "The Church exists to reach the nations. God’s people are supposed to be a going peole/missional people." Right on!

- Too many church people think “information leads to transformation.” but they couldn't be more wrong.

- This was awesome & fits in perfectly with our small groups philosophy at Ridge Church = “You don’t need people who can teach inductive Bible study and fill in blanks for Jesus to lead your groups! Just someone who can cook a meal and ask some questions.” That's Pimp. Great summary of all you need to set up a small group for some authentic community.

- “Preaching is prominent & preeminent. It is the first & most important thing a church does.” He said it’s more important than anything else in the church. Everything in the church comes from this & flows out from this. *holy crap. That’s pretty intense! As much as I love Driscoll and think he's a great communicator & we're definitely on the same team... sometimes he says stuff like this. Where does this come from? he doesn't really back it up. I don't think you can make a statement like this. Why does he feel the need to say this? I've got to disagree with him on this. what do you think?

- This was probably the funniest (& harshest) moment of the conference. “People aren’t inviting people to your church? Probably because you still have Sunday School. Kill your Sunday School." A guy in the crowd said ‘what?’ Driscoll called him out - "Some Baptist guy didn't like that. Hey, I’m sure all 7 people who come to your church love it.” - whoa... ouch. Driscoll made his point and the place erupted in laughter because it was hilarious (but I bet that guy never listens to another word Driscoll says again).

- *“Always learn to distinguish between the Biblical principle and the cultural method!”
“when principles and methods get confused that’s how cults get started. You don’t even know it’s a cult until you’re drinking some koolaid.” LOL

- “Be careful that you don’t get so creative that you become a heretic. If you can be cool and faithful that’s the best! But if you have to choose, be faithful." great word. [Just for the record I don't think you have to choose.]

- "People will want to change the mission of your church. Those missions may not even be bad, but they’re not primary. And then church becomes something else." Man, sounds identical to many of our staff conversations at Ridge. You gotta fight for the mission!

“When I get more $ [a raise], don’t raise my standard of living, but my standard of giving.” - that's freaking pimp. I love it. a little cliche & "cutesy" but I want to commit to live by it and hope everyone else will too.

So, that's all there is from Driscoll. A LOT of good stuff packed in there! I hope you enjoyed it & I hope it made you think! More quotes & takeaways from all the other speakers in the days ahead.

For now, WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE QUOTE? What are YOUR thoughts about some of these quotes from Driscoll?

Driscoll's talk @ Advance 09 (takeaways)

I was with some great friends last week @ the DPAC in Durham for the Advance 09 conference. I posted a little about our time together on Monday... you can read that HERE.
Now for some actual takeaways from the conference. It was basically a typical Acts 29 gig. + Piper who is like their "daddy" anyway. I love Piper too though as you can read about HERE.

So, Piper was there + Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, & Ed Stetzer were probably the biggest guns on the docket. + my friend's pastor from Durham = J.D. Greear & another guy from Vintage 21 in Raleigh (the Jesus video guys) & Eric Mason (crazy funny) + a couple seminary presidents (who I'm sure are great people but were less than impressive).

Today I'm just going to post some takeaways from Driscoll's 2nd talk (better than his 1st one in my opinion). (He & Piper were the only ones to get 2.) & then I'll post some more takeaways later in the week from the rest of the good stuff there @ Advance 09.
I first heard about Driscoll when I read Blue Like Jazz back in '05 & he was mentioned as that title he HATES to be known by... "the cussing pastor." I started following him in '06 when I listened to the whole Vintage Jesus series (12 weeks). It was pimp & probably his best series ever! I personally like to listen to him for my own sake even though he makes a lot of people mad. Anyway, he's the pastor @ Mars Hill Church in Seattle... least churched city in America! Pretty cool since the church now has like 6K peeps coming to 4 or 5 campuses like 15 services per weekend! God's hand is on that place!

Driscoll's 2nd talk was great & convicting for me and I think EVERYONE there! It wasn't typical Driscoll style at all though! No yelling & screaming or many crazy one-liners or cynical comedy or anything like that. It was all about Idolatry. We all know from Louie that EVERYONE is a worshipper. We all worship something. Hopefully it's God, but even if it's not... we're still worshipping. Driscoll agreed & then took it a step further to say that if we're giving the worship that belongs to God to anything else then we are IDOLATERS. agreed.
He said Worship = "Living for the glory of the Creator." Idolatry = "Living for the glory of the creation." any creation.
* "You worship your way into sin and you worship your way out." - think about that one. so true.

Funniest moment of this talk was when he was talkin about some young guys making other people (pastors) their idol... Driscoll said = "It's weird when a 20 year old guy is trying to talk like Piper. & it's even weirder when they try to dress like him." HAHA... that would definitely be messed up. (but I've definitely seen churches who make 20 year old guys do that!)

So, here was the really convicting part. He gave all of us thousands of pastors in the room 11 questions to ask ourselves about 11 different types of idolatry we might be into right now:
1 - Attendance idolatry -> Does your joy change when your attendance does? (or giving?) = "That's idolatry." WOW. ouch.
2 - Gift idolatry -> Do you feel God needs and loves you because you are so smart?
3 - Truth idolatry -> Do you consider yourself BETTER because you have more knowledge? Don't worship truth, worship Jesus! There are lots of peeps today who worship Theology and Jesus is an afterthought. That's freakin' jacked up!
4 - Fruit idolatry -> Do you point to your success as evidence that God loves you?
5 - Tradition idolatry -> Which of your traditions is stopping the progress of the gospel?
6 - Method idolatry -> Do you worship a method as your mediator instead of Jesus?
7 - Office idolatry -> Are you motivated by God's glory or YOUR title/position? Some people want to be called "Pastor" so bad. = "It matters way too much to that guy."
8 - Success idolatry -> Is winning what motivates you at the deepest level? More than God's glory?
9 - Ministry idolatry -> Do you walk with God just so you'll have a good ministry?
10 - Innovative idolatry -> Does it have to be unique? Why do you want to be unique? For your glory or God's?
11 - Leader idolatry -> Who other than Jesus am I imaging? Who do I try to be like?

Obviously many of us need to "repent" after hearing that! "Repentance is not what we preach, it's what we practice." "If you don't repent you're a heretic." & then he said "& some of you are heretics." & then he just walked off the stage! crazy moment.
[Piper actually mocked him in his talk like 30 minutes later... it was HILARIOUS! He said "Now what would Driscoll say here? IDOLATERS!... & then I walk off the stage." & then he pretended to leave, but of course came back. the place was rolling.]

Ok, so wow... crazy list of 11 questions to ask ourselves!
WHICH ONE OF THOSE HAS BEEN YOUR IDOL? WHICH ONE HAS GOT YOU THINKING RIGHT NOW!???

weekend with the Revolutionaries

This weekend was pretty awesome (beginning Thursday actually).

I got to spend a few days with 2 of my best friends in the world = Ethan & Jim. We've been tight for I guess 8 years now... like 1/3 of our lives. I'm privileged to be Ethan's best man this summer... in about 7 weeks actually. (We were together because of a conference we were all at in Durham... which you know I'll be posting my takeaways later this week here on the blog.)The 3 of us are passionate for God to be famous in our world. We have that very similar passion and are bent on changing the world in revolutionary ways. The 3 of us are striving to be revolutionaries in every sense of the word.
SO... this past weekend we had our very 1st "REVOLUTIONARY ROUNDTABLE". That's the pic you see above. We met at James Joyce Irish Pub in downtown Durham. VERY classic place for a revolutionary roundtable... (as you can see from the pic above). I mean seriously, that old time Irish pub is just the epitome of where revolutionary meetings like this must go down! it couldn't be any other way!

A girl at my seminary tonight saw the above pic & said we're like "The Inklings" (Their pub pictured to the right). haha, I don't know about that, but hopefully we will put our own mark on the world before we leave it.

What goes down at one of these Revolutionary Roundtables you ask? Gotta be some good wings 1st of all as we are all hot wing lovers. (both these guys were some of the original "Kooter Browns clan" that I mentioned in an earlier post HERE.) & we definitely had some great talks - about God, doubts, ministry, fears, changing the world, wives, the future for each of us and LIFE. good times!

But we were together for the weekend so it was really a Revolutionary weekend, not just a one night thing.
Oh, and there's ALWAYS lots of laughs when we get together. & lots of crazy stories with wild details. Unfortunately we don't get to hang out as much as we did back in the day or as much as we want to since life has led us to different parts of the country... but when we do get together it's just like old times and we don't miss a beat. From now on when we get to be together for a few days, we'll be strategic about having a little Revolutionary Roundtable.

I think these will continue for years & years. I can seriously see us in like 50 years at an old Irish Pub talking about how God has used us in crazy ways in His Kingdom and to spread His renown. That's what we're all about & I know that's what we'll be all about when our white hair is flowing & we're walking with canes.
Eventually we'll have to come from different continents to hook up for these roundtables... That'll be sweet. I bet the stories we tell then will be even crazier.

*I'm thankful for friends like these guys with identical hearts... Looking forward to revolutionizing this planet along with them. I have a feeling that this first "official" Revolutionary Roundtable might be something that turns out to be quite historic (in our lives anyway)... Looking back 50 years from now I pray that our world will be a different place because of the 3 guys sitting around that table and the God they love.

cool way to celebrate life change @ Ridge Church

I am so thankful & stoked & privileged to be a part of a church that is celebrating the right things!!! And not only celebrating them but REALLY celebrating them in awesome ways.
Just one simple example of this is our Family Birthday Celebration we had this past Sunday. (Some links to my posts about our previous Family Bday Celebration = HERE, & HERE.) It is simply like a HUGE blowout Birthday Party for kids who have become followers of Jesus. They were baptized at the party & they get to say some funny and serious spiritual stuff on video + there was birthday cake & ice cream & presents!

Probably one of the coolest times of the night was after the kids were baptized and came back in the big room with all the peeps. The audience stood up and went crazy cheering for what they had just done = making a statement to everyone that they believe in Jesus & are followers of Him. Definitely something worthy to cheer for. Everyone stood up and kept cheering for what seemed like a few minutes! Pretty awesome. Definitely a moment these kids will never forget.

*I also loved seeing the big circle of family & friends ("prayer partners") around each kid to pray for the future of their spiritual journey... it was a really powerful time for sure.

These kids' baptism - their spiritual birthday party - was a big deal & we treated it like a big deal by really celebrating it right.

I get pretty choked up & jacked up thinking about what we get to be a part of. God is doing some awesome things in lives in our city! He gets all the glory for it... we get to celebrate it!

Below are some random pics from the night. I'll also be posting some cool videos from the event - so be looking out for those! For some of my Pastor's thoughts on the night, click HERE.

party people or religious people? (quote of the day)

I just wanted to share with you the coolest sentence (pretty crazy run on sentence though) that I've heard all day. I heard it while mowing my grass tonight listening to Rob Bell's series = Jesus Wants to Save Christians. This was Part 7 (I've only got 1 more talk to go in the 8 part series).

It's from a series back in the day but now there is a book of the same title (Jesus Wants to Save Christians = buy it HERE) & same content. I actually have it borrowed from a friend. [thanks Brian! I need to get that back to you buddy! haha, just remind me!]

Anyway, here's what he said...
"By the way, a general rule of thumb - If people who want nothing to do with God and are hostile to church and are considered kind of on the margins... if they love being around you; and very wound up religious people who think that they're right and everybody else is wrong find you deeply disturbing and offensive... then you're being like Jesus."

Pretty awesome. My prayer is for Jesus to help me live this way, help me live like He did! So that the "party people"... the people who the other church peeps don't like... wanna be around me.

That's our prayer at Ridge Church. That people who don't like church would come to our church and really like it... and that God would change their world!

family birthday celebration tomorrow!

It's gonna be a PARTY & I am STOKED!

I'll probably post some pics, videos, & thoughts later. I can't wait to celebrate the life change that's happening @ Ridge Church!

Family Birthday Celebration = tomorrow night. 6pm. Levine Center. Bring your party hat and be ready to do some dancin'...

last weekend in uptown Charlotte

Last weekend here in Charlotte was a lot of fun.

I am pretty much the opposite of a Nascar fan. In fact I hate it. Just don't get it at all. BUT, 2 big races were here in Charlotte the past 2 weekends. The All-Star Race and then the Coca Cola 600 this past weekend. So uptown all the time was "Speed Street". Constant concerts and giveaways and FOOD and thousands and thousands of people EVERYWHERE.

I don't think I have ever seen the streets of Charlotte SOOOO crazy crowded. There was no room to walk. I was actually uptown hanging out and having fun 4 days in a row last week = Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
I saw concerts all the way from some Hip Hop groups out on the Tryon Street stage to an up and coming Country act named Jason Aldeen (not my choice, but April was a big fan!) And of course Life House & Gavin DeGraw were both there with free concerts on the big stage outside!

On Thursday, Crystal and I went with our friends Ryan & April. We went to the Epicentre for "Alive after 5" that is EVERY Thursday. That place was hoppin'! It's the 1st time Crystal and I have been since the Epicentre has been completed. It's a 3 story outdoor/indoor party hub. Tons of restaurants and always fun. Every Thursday night after 5pm there are live concerts on the 3rd story out in the open beautiful Charlotte air looking out at the city. It's just across the street from the Bank of America Building.

Two cover bands were lighting up the Epicentre this Thursday. A Rolling Stones cover band & a Lynyrd Skynyrd cover band. Always fun. We hung out on the 1st floor for a while & then moved up to the 3rd open floor and jammed with the Skynyrd band. Ryan and me chilled while the girls yacked. We kept checking the score to the Canes/Penguins game on the widescreen up there.

The place was PACKED. People were constantly bumping into us. You couldn't even think about walking anywhere in a hurry. There had to be several thousand people just in the Epicentre. Me & Ryan talked about how ironic it is that most of us "well off" peeps hanging out up here have no idea about the homeless peeps that hang out at Fuel Pizza just a few blocks over and eat lunch every Wednesday courtesy of our mutual friend Todd. (I've written about this before HERE & HERE & lots more times...)

Then these 4 girls, 20somethings, came up and the "talky" girl came up & started talking to me. She said I looked... I can't even remember the phrase she used... but something compimentary I guess? She wanted me to take a pic of her & her friends. I took a couple. Then they came back again. She started getting all up on me. She told me how cute I was or something? I took another pic & said "bye." Ryan was just smiling. I was wondering when my wife was gonna jump out from behind me & kung fu kick her in the teeth?
Then the girl gave me a big hug & I wasn't really sure what to do. She just kind of draped herself on me & stayed a little longer than I was prepared for... I think she finally got the idea that I wasn't interested when I turned around and started talking to Ryan again.

I can't remember the last time a good looking girl hit on me with my wife standing right beside me? It was fairly uncomfortable & awkward & I think the girl may have been drunk, but I'll be honest = it's secretly good to know that I'm still "hit-on-able" by girls other than my wife. Might not ever happen again.
I'm Curious = What do YOU do when a girl is hitting on you and leans all up on you, hugs you, puts her hands on you?

Anyway, we went on our way to the "main stage" at Speed Street to see this guy Jason Aldean...

**On our way there were these guys on the street corner. oh wow. these guys were CRAZY. I'm posting some pics I snapped from my phone so you can see. They were shouting about how "everyone at Speed Street tonight is going to hell!" I thought about telling them a few things, but just decided to just take a pic of them with my phone & keep walking.
These guys are doing so much harm & damage & really no good. I'm wondering what Jesus would do if He were walking down the street in uptown Charlotte and saw them doing this crap? What would He do? Tell them to shut up? Yell at them like the Pharisees?

One of the craziest things is that they had that little kid with them wearing the hard hat.
We weren't sure why they were wearing the hard hats, but my best guess is so that it would protect them from the rocks thrown at their head by all the "fornicators" they were yelling at.

ah... crazy night. lotsa fun though.

it's coming tomorrow

ok, for real. enough is enough. I'm back in the game tomorrow with a new post & I'll be posting regularly again. I can't believe I've taken this long of a break. Pretty much the longest silence ever on renown.

Tomorrow I meet with one of the directors of Living Water International, an awesome organization that builds wells for villages in poverty. I'm sure I'll post some thoughts from that some time.

Tomorrow I might share some pics and thoughts from our fun weekend mainly spent in uptown Charlotte.
Some words about the fun times, me getting hit on by a chick on the 3rd story of the epicentre, and the "Christian" guys yelling at everyone with their HUGE condemning signs and bullhorns...

oh, it's gonna be fun... Be back tomorrow.

I'm not dead.

I'm not dead.

& neither is this blog. It's just been a while because I've been really busy this week.

*But I'll be back soon (hopefully tomorrow)! Lots of good stuff comin' here on renown very soon!

TEXT - flashback

We did part 2 of "TEXT" yesterday @ Ridge. It was awesome. some pics from yesterday are scattered throughout this post. I might be posting again this week about some of the "texts" my wife and I are reading together along with the rest of the peeps from Ridge. You can catch up on my thoughts on last weeks' texts HERE & HERE. Or you can check out Chris' blog (our lead pastor) HERE. He was a lot better at blogging his thoughts every day on the different texts.

Anyway, the last text from last week was Proverbs 2:1-6. & reading that with my wife gave me a major flashback.
I have actually done a talk on that passage many times, but the 1st time ever was to a group of about 100 college guys when I was actually in college. My "WIN" for the talk was similar to Andy's unhidden agenda for this TEXT series = get peeps to read their Bible. (Mine was more specific in trying to get these guys to read Proverbs & get wisdom by doing that.)

I started out NOT by reading the text = Proverbs 2:1-6 (which you can read HERE), but by telling them I was going to give someone $10.
***Now, I don't know if you remember what it was like to be in college or not, but I do (wasn't that long ago)... & 10 bones was A LOT of money! We were BROKE college guys. These guys would do ANYTHING for $10. seriously. I mean, at the least that's laundry money for the rest of the semester. You know you're broke when you don't have a couple quarters for laundry! = which happened to my roommate on several occasions & he would wear board shorts in place of boxers & then soccer shorts & then turn his boxers inside out... not cool. That's pretty broke. [also, we all knew $10 was enough to enjoy a little piece of heaven on earth on Monday & Thursday nights at Kooter Browns! all you can eat Best Wings on earth. These are probably stories for another blog but I remember us downing 40 & 50 in a night & then not eating for 3 days. We would vow to NEVER go back again... but the next week = "anybody up for Kooter Browns?"]

Knowing $10 was on the line they were all ears. I told them there were just 4 things they had to do to win the 10 bucks. (I'll link to the text & maybe you'll catch on...)
step 1 = just accept my explanation (words) about how to win the $
step 2 = I made every single one of them YELL at the top of their lungs "I WANT $10!!!" If anyone didn't they couldn't get the dough.
step 3 = they had to all cup their ears, lean in towards me & listen super close for me to say "go"... I just barely whispered it.
step 4 = tear the room apart searching for the $10 hidden somewhere in the room!

It took them a while to find it so it was CRAZY chaotic. They were killing each other & ransacking the room to find this cash. After a kid finally found the $ I tied it all together.
Basically we saw in both Proverbs 3:15 & 8:11 that wisdom is better than ANYTHING we could want. Definitely better than money... and they definitely agreed better than $10. The question it made everyone ask & beg for an answer was "HOW DO I GET IT?"
"well I'm glad you asked", I said...

Our "TEXT" on Friday was the answer. (Proverbs 2:1-6) ->
verse 1 = accept God's Word (step 1),
verse 2 = listen intently to it & "turn your ear" to it (step 3),
verse 3 ="call out" for it [maybe like yelling "I want it"] (step 2),
verse 4 = "and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure" (step 4)
... "THEN you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding." (verses 5-6)

*SO, if a bunch of college guys did ALL THAT for $10... surely we can spend a couple minutes a day doing that stuff & getting some wisdom from God's Word. After all "nothing you desire can compare."

what do you think?

(Let me preface with this: I try not to dog people. Especially our president. I'm not one of "those" kind of peeps... at least I hope not. I don't hate anyone... I might just be ticked about what someone does. So, I don't post this in order to hate on the president.)

I've honestly gone back and forth for a few months now on whether or not to post this. Obviously now I'm posting it. I wanted to see what some other peeps think.

I don't really like to talk politics, but I don't consider this so much to be "politics". I will lay this statement out there for all to see (that some may consider to be a political statement) = I strive to be consistently pro life... just like I believe Jesus was/is.

OK, here's this video with a clip from Piper's sermon back in January. (You can see my thoughts on Piper HERE.)



What were your thoughts?

***Please read this very transparent email conversation between 2 friends of mine = Ryan & Scott. You can read their thoughts in conversation on this video HERE. I would love to hear you interact with their thoughts on this. Here is the fuller video of this portion of Piper's talk below. Maybe the ending of this video will stir up different emotions in you?




Ok. I'm not going to say much. Obviously, I wholeheartedly AGREE with what Piper is saying. But I seem to go back and forth on whether or not I agree with how he declares it... & MOST importantly, what should we (I) as believers be DOING ABOUT ABORTION???
I want to know what YOU think!!!

TEXT #2

To read about the TEXT series at Ridge Church click HERE.
We are all reading same "texts" this week.

Tonight my wife and I read Psalm 119:9-16. You can read it HERE.

My big takeaway was from verse 14 = "I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches."(David used tons of words as synonyms for Scripture such as "statutes".)

That comes from one of the greatest men ever! He is so stoked about following God's Word that it's like he just won the lottery or found a pile of cash! That's pretty intense.

Do we treat following God's Word that way? Do we even read it to figure out how to follow it? My guess is that most of us are more concerned right now with "great riches." I hope I'm a man like David who is pumped about following God's Word above getting $ and stuff.

What's YOUR takeaway from this "TEXT"?

TEXT

We started an awesome new series @ Ridge this past Sunday... simply called "TEXT". The stage set looks phat (as always).

I loved being in there & worshipping with my wife! For 3 weeks in a row now we've been able to worship together at our brand new 9:30 service. It's been AWESOME! I love it & yesterday was really awesome for me.

Andy's talk was really good for me to here. It flew by. And our other Andy was our lead worshipper for the morning - rockin' some Hillsong United -> "The Time Has Come" & "The Stand" + Charlie Hall's "Closer". It was an awesome set list (put together by none other than Rusty himself).

If you missed Andy's talk - Part 1 of TEXT - go listen to it HERE. It's awesome. + plan to be @ Ridge for Part 2 next week! And we're still TEXTING our friends to invite them to TEXT.

*One of the coolest things about the end of Andy's talk is that he put together 5 passages for everyone to read together during the week. So we passed out TEXT bookmarks with the 5 passages on them to everyone @ Ridge. My wife and I started today and read the 1st passage together. I'm really looking forward to doing this together with her (along with the rest of our church) for the next few weeks of TEXT!

Today's "text" was Psalm 1. You can read it HERE. Crystal and I summed it up together like this = "For the righteous things are GOOD. For the wicked... not so much."
God says that the people who DELIGHT in His Word and think on it all the time are BLESSED. I'm pretty sure we all wanna be one of those people!

Definitely my biggest takeaway that is still sticking with me was this line at the end of the chapter = "the LORD watches over the way of the righteous..." How awesome is that? I beg God to help me be a righteous man... It's amazing to walk through what comes our "way" and know that God is totally watching over us. Deep breaths can commence.

Tomorrow we're jumping to Psalm 119, so check back tomorrow because I think I'll post my thoughts from each day's text here on renown.

the problem & andy's 2 solutions (Drive 09 takeaways part 3)

ok, here's part 3 of my Drive 09 takeaways. This is the 2nd half of Andy's 2nd main session. It was pimp. I wish you coulda been there when he started with the flip chart walking us through his org. chart...
**You can catch up on Part 1 HERE & Part 2 HERE. (Yesterday I told you I would finish up this 2nd session with the problem & Andy's 2 solutions... here you go.)

*Here's the PROBLEM = "Most organizations allow seniority to determine structure." -> Stop it! Andy says this "impedes the flow of ideas"... no doubt!
- it's great to say you want good ideas from people in your org., but until you CHANGE THE ORG. CHART, you really can't apply it! [and you don't truly believe it]
- In this kind of seniority structure "title & position, rather than insight or creativity, determine who sits at the decision-making table." [& that's no good!]
- "Eventually a seniority structure leaves the SENIORS in charge!"

*Bottom Line = a lot of you MUST change your structure BECAUSE = "Good information and good ideas are MORE IMPORTANT than your structure!" [and the success of the mission is more important than anyone's feelings or the way we're used to doing things!]

Solution #1 = "Create a system that allows you to get the brightest and most strategic-minded peeps to the decision-making table."
- here's a great question Andy asked = "Why would you not want to leverage the next generation of leaders and ideas?"

Solution #2 = "Create systems that allow you to listen DEEP into your organization." = listen all the way down the org. chart!
- Duh = "You can't learn unless you're willing to listen."
- *So cool what Andy said next = Just because your church is BIG (lotsa #s) or because you're in charge does NOT mean you are smart!!! I love it!

*All this talk about the necessity of wise counsel had a huge impact on me, especially coming from one of the greatest leaders in America. He even said = "We've never had any train wrecks with decisions because I don't make the decisions." Whoa. How many leaders of large organizations (or even small ones...) can say that? probably none!

Conclusion:
- "You have some really smart people in your organization. Figure out how to leverage their smarts."
- REMEMBER = "Leaders who refuse to listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing important to say."

More to come for sure, but
what do you all think so far?

Listening, Learning, & Leading (Drive takeaways part 2)

Andy's 2nd main session with us @ Drive 09 was awesome. So much great stuff. (You can catch up on part 1 of my raw & unfiltered takeaways HERE.)
Hope you love this stuff...

- "As Leaders, we gravitate toward the voices that tell us what we want to hear." THEREFORE it's just natural for leaders to "become insulated and isolated. And the dirty little secret is that most of us LIKE it that way!" ouch...
- Andy must have said this 10 times in the talk = "Leadership is not about making decisions on your own. It's about OWNING decisions once they're made."
** But I love this one even better & I think every leader needs to live by this! = "The responsibility of the leader is not to make all the decisions, but to ensure that all the decisions made are GOOD ones." oh man, so many implications for so many bad leaders.
& the bottom line for all this = in order to make those GOOD decisions "a leader must be surrounded by and be willing to listen to the right people."

(so, WHY is this important & HOW do I do it?) -> here you go...
*Great Leaders are Great LISTENERS!
- "You are probably NOT the smartest person in your org. You are just the leader." Oh wow... I was lovin' it when he said this. I think I tweeted it! we all need someone to say this to us.
- "What and who you listen to will determine what you do" SO, you MUST create a SYSTEM where you're surrounded by the right peeps! & Andy is a genius at doing this. He has created systems for listening to all the smart peeps in the org. no matter how new, young, or old they are!
- as a young/next generation leader I know this statement by Andy is SO true! = "Leaders are attracted to environments where their ideas & opinions are HEARD." So you gotta create this system. Most lead pastors DON'T do this! & the younger leaders LEAVE & go somewhere where they will be heard & can make a difference. CRAZY thankful to work with an awesome leader/lead pastor where I always feel heard!
1 - leaders wanna know they have a chance to "influence their own destinites."
2 - "Leaders who refuse to listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing important to say." = Because all the GOOD peeps with good stuff to say will LEAVE & only the dumb peeps will come work for you! I'm just sayin... well, actually, Andy said it!

*You gotta read = Proverbs 1:5/ 12:15/ 13:10/ 19:20/ 15:22 = don't be a freakin' fool & not surround yourself with advice & counsel when making your decisions!

OK, I feel like that's overload for now... TOMORROW, you can read about the rest of Andy's talk -> THE PROBLEM with all this & 2 solutions! make sure to check it out!!!

[God, make me a godly & awesome leader like these peeps I'm learning from!]

drive day 3 - here we go!

WOW. this conference has been straight pimp. You can catch up a little HERE and HERE.

Some really amazing stuff yesterday (Tuesday) here @ Drive. PIMP session with Andy + Teaching that Sticks with the "Scrog Dog" (Clay Scroggins) + Memorable Experiences with Joel Thomas. *I'll be sharing takeaways from it all very soon.

& Last night was such a cool time with our whole staff and volunteer team from Ridge - sharing our takeaways with each other, growing, learning from each other, getting better, & dreaming about the future of Ridge.

More coming really soon...

Drive '09 - raw & unfiltered

Here we go. My takeaways from session 1 of Drive '09 as fast as I can type them. I hope they are helpful to you and provoke you to think!

Andy Stanley was bringin' it tonight. Pimp as always.
He talked about Leading in Uncertain Times... & I'm pretty sure those are the kind of times we're in right now! *But actually, the cool thing Andy pointed out is that = "UNCERTAINTY IS PERMANENT." No doubt it will always be around!

**"Uncertainty is why we need leaders. If things were certain, we'd just need peeps to manage the certainty." - haha, great quote. so true.
- Good reminder = the higher up i go in an org. the uncertainty grows exponentially.
- Great leaders step out into the uncertainty & then peeps follow them.

2 things we need in Uncertainty = CLARITY & FLEXIBIITY
1 Clarity - "As leaders we can be uncertain, but we can't afford to be unclear!" (i just need to remember & go back to the vision God gave me & rest there.)
*Be CLEAR about all I know... I can be uncertain about the rest (the how, where, when, etc...) = just say "I don't know, but I am CLEAR on this thing God called us to do in the first place."
- at this point Andy told a few stories that got everyone laughing... about Joshua leading the peeps to cross the Jordan. funny little reenactment. and another thing that got our row of staff & leaders laughing because it was specific to the world of load-in church, but I'll spare you...
**So the Q YOU gotta answer is "what is this vision for YOU?"

2 Flexibility - "Plans change. Visions stay the same." [that quote is straight out of Visioneering that I read a while back and have blogged about MANY times.]
- BUT peeps connect the vision to the plan! they don't separate the 2, so I have to remind them = we might have to abandon the plan, but NOT the vision!
- "It's very dangerous to attach God's name to YOUR plan." oooooh. because if GOD told you to do the plan & then the plan changes... what's up now? But, I have no problem attaching God's name to my God-ordained vision... never the plan though. The crazy successful leader, Sam Walton said, "no decision was ever sacred."
- "Only die on the hill of my vision, not my plans!" - man! every freakin' church leader needs to hear that one... & live by it.
- EVERYBODY is simply more flexible during uncertainty. it's just natural. this took Andy into a pretty hilarious exchange about NOW is the time to cut all the stupid programs your church is doing & then just blame it on the economy... haha. nice. I'd love to see if it works. Because you seriously CAN blame EVERYTHING on the economy.
- "Figure out how to leverage uncertainty for the vision."

- This was so right on for me = "prayer recenters me." it was in context of something bigger & so huge for me to be reminded of tonight.
- Andy is so awesome and really knows how to connect with each individual in the audience. He reminded us all of when we were 1st called to this gig. we signed on when we had NOTHING. so remember that! when we lose ground now, we're still so far ahead of where we were originally. it's all good. don't lose the vision. "Extraordinary clarity comes from letting God take me back to those early days when He 1st gave me the vision." yup.
(Drive '09 rehearsal pic)

*We celebrated communion together at the end. crazy powerful moments... celebrating Jesus dying & coming back to life. pimp.
**I met one of the Global X (cross cultural missions) directors @ North Point tonight. We're hooking up for lunch tomorrow and chillin' in his office. Gonna talk about some of my future in spreading God's fame in the unreached parts of Africa. pretty freakin' stoked about that.

tomorrow is gonna be a good day.

OH! & i almost forgot the QUOTE OF THE NIGHT = "All God's leaders are MAC people!" - Andy Stanley :)

Drive '09 baby!

That's right, it's time for Drive again! so stoked. (you can check out my posts from Drive last year HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.)

We're headed to North Point for Drive '09 tomorrow. Only like one of the pimpest conferences in the land! It's gonna be crazy! Really stoked that our staff (minus melissa bailing on us... jk) plus a big group of our volunteer team are going!

There's gonna be TONS of takeaways from the Andy Stanley - so that's what will be on this blog for the next week or so - my takeaways from Drive. You're gonna wanna come back and see them!
I'll probably be tweeting about the conference too if you follow me on twitter.

If you're at Drive too hit me up and let me know. I'll be back home on Thursday a MUCH MUCH better and more energized leader.

the QC (nobody sent me the memo)

I'll start off by saying that I never watch the news or read the Charlotte Observer (our newspaper here in Charlotte).
*In fact [side note story warning] my wife and I used to subscribe to the Observer back when we 1st got married. This kid came by our condo selling subscriptions for like $20 a year to get the paper 7 days a week! & I was like "OK" & handed him a 20. The manager called me the next week saying the kid make a mistake on the price and it should have been like $100 for a year. He wanted to know if I wanted to pay the other $80 & I was like "no." So they let us keep that crazy cheap price for a few years. Then one day I cancelled it. They called me once a week or about a month trying to get me to sign back up offering me cheap prices like only $60 or $70 a year and every time I kept saying "no." Finally one dude asked me "WHY would you turn this down?" I simply replied - "you wanna know why? Here's why, because the ONLY time I touched the paper was when I picked the stack of 10 off the ground to throw them in the trash. Then 1o days later I would do the same thing. We DON'T need it because we DON'T read it!"
They haven't called back.

Anyway, back to the whole point of this post. Because we don't read the paper, watch the news, or listen to the radio really (why would I with 30 gig worth of awesome stuff on my iPod?) we miss a lot of stuff. Like big stories - we have no clue. Seriously. It's pretty crazy how out of it we are on stuff.

That is the preface you need before I ask this question = When did the official name for Charlotte switch from "Charlotte" to "the QC"???
I mean, I know it has always been called the Queen City, but recently no one calls it Charlotte anymore. Everyone is calling it "The QC".

*So, how far behind am I? When did this start? Did YOU get a memo and I missed it?
For the record I do think it's pretty cool. Does this mean we've finally arrived as a big top 10 city or something?

Rich... (& what i'm thinking)

This is the what I've been thinking on all week so far...

"Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life."
(from Paul's first letter to his boy Timothy... <6:17-19>)

& these are some of my thoughts so far...
- 1st thing I noticed was that Paul is definitely making a distinction on purpose with the phrase "in this present world." i.e. - that's the only time being rich really counts! it's just for now... just for a few years...
- & MAYBE for not as long as you think because it is "SO UNCERTAIN" WOW! is that not so crazy relevant for TODAY with all the economic uncertainty? man, for being so old this letter is right on for right now. who would've guessed it?
- I would put EVERYONE reading this blog in the category of RICH! no doubt & you probably shouldn't argue. If you have internet access you are freaking rich! if you have a car, a roof, clothes, and clean water you are richer than the majority of the world. so, the commands for the rich are for YOU and ME!
- looks like 7 commands to the rich = you & me...
1 - don't be arrogant
2 - don't put your hope in wealth
3 - put your hope in God
4 - do good
5 - be rich in good deeds
6 - be generous
7 - be willing to share

Obviously some of these are synonyms & could probably be combined into like 4 things, but I like to see them all separate.

We're talking about it at community group tonight along with Rob Bell's "Rich"... so more thoughts really soon...

invisible.

I saw this advertisement this morning.
It's in Australia and advertising for the Australian Childhood Foundation... obviously against child neglect and abuse.
This is some pimp advertising!

TOMS on AT&T commercial!

I was so excited when I saw this! TOMS (which we celebrated "barefoot day" with last week) got picked up for the new AT&T spot. It's all over the TV. Pretty sweet exposure. Here it is below in case you haven't seen it.

my wife is a bracket GURU!

Well, March Madness is over and the NCAA tourney is done. Carolina has been crowned the champions (as we all knew they would). And my wife WON the 2nd annual renown bracket tournament challenge!!! WOW! She beat everyone.

And she not only won our little bracket challenge, she finished in the top 99.3 percentile in the whole nation!!! That's out of over 6 million entries! She beat President Obama and everybody! She seriously only missed a few games.

we should have made some serious bank off her entries by entering her in tons of contests! But, oh well. next year I'll know better. My wife is a GENIUS when it comes to doing these NCAA tourney brackets!

**Next year I'm gonna copy my wife's bracket!

I am barefoot today...

Why am I walking around barefoot today? It's very simple = today is April 16th which is "One Day Without Shoes" sponsored by TOMS shoes. It's just meant to raise awareness for all the kids around the world who don't even have 1 pair of shoes. Read all about it HERE.

If you have no idea what TOMS is just click HERE and/or HERE and read a little about them!



Bottom Line = TOMS is all about helping kids in poverty have a pair of shoes. So, for every pair of TOMS you buy, they give one away! Here is what TOMS is asking us to do today = On April 16th, go barefoot on the way to the water cooler, walking to the mailbox, in an afternoon meeting or on your lunch break; go barefoot for the entire day or long enough to raise awareness.

I've got a lunch meeting @ Qdoba today... you think they'll let me in without my shoes?
Tell me some of your barefoot stories.

happy tax day!

congrats to you all! - probably most of you reading this post have sent your taxes in! They are all done until next year!
WHOOOO! & congrats to me (mine were done a few weeks ago). I finished them early & sent them in. SUCH a relief.

I HATE doing taxes. it's possibly what i hate MOST in life. haha...
To borrow a phrase from Jeff Foxworthy, "I'd rather take a beating with a brick stick" than have to do my taxes. Or even think about doing them.

Does anyone else hate it as much as me?

oh well. at least it's over with... until next year.

mentored by Bill Hybels (part 3)

(You can read Part 1 HERE & Part 2 (from yesterday) HERE.)

Basically I took advantage of an awesome resource called Axiom (which you can & should buy HERE) & I got to be mentored by Bill Hybels for 76 days.
Each of the titles below are basically the "axiom" or the leadership proverb that was coined by Bill over the years. That's the phrase to remember. The rest is commentary about it. I picked out my fav 7 from the 2nd half of the book... (I loved a couple others, but I included quotes from them in THIS POST.) enjoy...

A Blue-Sky Day - God gives peeps the ability to think creatively… therefore when things are stale at a church, “it’s a fair bet to say that God is not to blame… it’s that church leaders don’t carve out the time to establish the right environment, and rally the requisite energy to think new thoughts.” [wow. that is really calling us out. But i think it's so true.]
Here's a Great Q to ask = “What would we do to advance the kingdom of God if there was nothing to stop us from doing it?”
Essentially a “Blue Sky Day” = unlimited visibility & unlimited ceilings (Bill says these days off site are usually better – somewhere that contributes to free thinking, etc…)
I though this statement he made was really interesting = “Ministry people are so well trained to spot roadblocks and ‘reasons why not’ that it may take more time than you think to get your team to play by the new rules." [of no limits] *“any group that is conducting any sort of ongoing activity runs the risk of operating from a rut over time.”

The Bias Toward Action - “do you screen for action-orientation when you want someone to join you near the center of your cause? Are you intentional about seeking out the ones who by virtue of sheer wiring patterns will say, ‘Your dilemma is my dilemma too?’” I think a lot of times we do NOT do this. We just look for warm bodies.
I agree wholeheartedly with Bill on this =*** “I’d rather rein in a hyperactivist once ina while than have to wake him up from a long afternoon nap.” & “I believe God is looking to pour out his favor on those who are hopping out of bed each morning ready to further the cause for his glory.” Yeah, me too. I'm trying to be that guy.

Find the Critic’s Kernel of Truth - Bill was directly mentoring me on this one. It's so good for me to hear because I'm learning to deal better with criticism. I hear dwelling on it too long is my "leadership lid" & I don't want it to be.
*Here is the axiom summed up in Hybels' words = “A very wise man once told me that tucked deep inside every critic’s attack is usually at least a tiny kernel of truth. And rather than reflexively lashing back at a critic, he advised, I should spend my energy figuring out what it is.” & Then my bottom line is to GROW FROM IT!!! (not get defensive) I will keep insisting on learning from my critics!
**The beautiful part of all this is that after I apply this axiom for years -> then there’ll be less criticism! “You’ll have kept learning to walk straighter, discern better, and operate wiser and thus will be attracting fewer bullets.” haha, so cool. You're a genius, Bill.

Brain Breaks - Now this one was truly fascinating to me! World-class performance coach Jack Groppel says it’s all about leveraging bursts of energy and then giving yourself a break from stressors when necessary. *Typically the glazed eyes/mushy brains happens at the 60-90 minute mark… you just need a 15 minute time out. (I've started practicing this!)
“Your mind works according to rhythms of concentration that are beyond your control. It is your responsibility to know how long your bursts of brain power will last and how to recover.” [the book Bill recommends on this is The Corporate Athlete, Jack Groppel. All about energy management & physiology.]

Create Your Own Finish Lines - ***This one is SO TRUE in my life! & quite possibly the advice I needed most from Bill in our mentoring sessions! He said, “There is no end to the amount of work we could do”.../ There are always more appointments, calls, notes, encouragement, planning, prayers to do, etc…" Whoa... ALL of us in ministry (& tons of other professions) KNOW firsthand that this is THE TRUTH! it never ends... (& never will) SO, we have to be the ones to cut it off... to make an end.
The Big Q is = When is enough enough? “When is my workday ‘officially’ over?” -> If I don’t know then my “sustainability demands a different approach.”
*** “Most long-term efficiency studies show that if you work more than 10 hours a day, you begin to live in a diminishing-return dynamic, and your effectiveness and results will actually go down.” [Wow. that is fascinating to me! I've gotta protect my finish line vigorously!]
& @ that finish line give “a heartfelt thanks to God for accepting my best efforts throughout a day that is now over.” - man, that is so cool. I'm going to make this a practice too! Having this daily finish line means work stays at work & that's something I've NEVER been able to do.
A few more ideas = take a Sabbath every week/ get alone with God and relish a little solitude at least once every 30 days/ take time to be around peeps who can build into me & challenge me to lead at higher levels at least a couple times per year.
As Bill was mentoring me in this axiom he said “you’ll never regret it.”

Pay Now, Play Later - high-capacity leaders KNOW to be successful they must “discipline themselves to do the critical tasks first.” ah... this is like eating your veggies before dessert!
***Tell myself "these are the things you absolutely must get done. You’ll feel so much better at the end of the day if you will forge ahead with these critical tasks and move them up the field.”
And then after a full day of "paying" (doing these critical & maybe less enjoyable tasks), the “play” that follows is so much sweeter! I can definitely vouche for this one.

Read All You Can - Bill shared a story about how one of his staffers asked him about a leadership dilemma & he fired back & asked her the names of the last 3 leadership books she had read!!! Oooh… put her on the spot. she couldn't answer even !
- “far too many leaders in high positions of responsibility neglect their need to read.”
- “Leaders have a responsibility before God to constantly get better, and one of the most reliable ways to do so is to read. Great leaders read frequently. They read voraciously.” sweet! I love it.

Man, this was some good stuff! I am honored to have been mentored by Hybels for 10 minutes a day for 76 days. Thanks for putting this into print, Bill!
If you don't own Axiom yet - you NEED to go get it and READ IT! You can buy it HERE. Make it your pot book like I did.

For now - What do you think of the Axioms in this post?
& again WHO IS MENTORING YOU RIGHT NOW?

mentored by Bill Hybels (part 2)

You can read part 1 & all about how I was mentored by Bill Hybels for 76 days by clicking HERE.
Today I just want to share some of my favorite axioms from Bill's book called Axiom. You can (& should) buy it HERE.
The book is conveniently divided into 4 sections & each axiom in that section falls under the main topic of that section. The 4 main topics are = Vision/Strategy, Teamwork/Communication, Activity/Assessment, & Personal Integrity.
Because You get SO MUCH when you are mentored by Bill Hybels, I'm going to just share some of my favorite takeaways from the 1st half of the book.

Language Matters - my bottom line takeaway is that word choice is HUGE to start an epidemic… for a movement to catch on & spread. This is something I overlook way too much as a leader. I need to remember that **my effectiveness as a leader often hinges on something as "inconsequential" as word choice…
Hybels says that “leaders rise and fall by the language they use.” *** “Sometimes whole visions live or die on the basis of the words the leader chooses for articulating that vision.” Wow! This is major advice coming from a great visionary.
He also says “The very best leaders I know wrestle with words until they are able to communicate their big ideas in a way that captures the imagination, catalyzes action, and lifts spirits.”
this process of word choice is VERY difficult & time consuming, but it seems like it is AS rewarding as actually choosing the general content! WOW!
*I think that as communicators we might tend to "wing it" when it comes to communicating vision! Since we're "pretty good" at communicating we don't put time into it, we just do it. We don't spend any time crafting our words. BUT, I have learned from Bill that LANGUAGE MATTERS, so I am going to be intentional about crafting my words before every communicating venue...
I've gotta remember Hybels' advice = “The right words can make vision talks soar.”

Make the Ask - “Leadership is a lot about asking. I realized long ago that ‘asking’ would always be a significant part of my leadership role.” (Hybels) & it seems like the longer I lead the bigger my asks will get!
This was some very interesting advice from Bill = “when handled properly people are actually quite flattered to be asked to do significant things for God.” -> “they’re almost always honored by a wise and well-timed ask.” This is so interesting to. Is this really true? I guess I can take it from Bill, eh? He said each time a big ask came in to him he was quite honored, not offended in the least. I think he's probably right = when the asks are done well, there is rarely a downside. [He goes on to give some very practical steps as to HOW to "ask well".]
I love the way he looks at this! = “If you’re chasing a bold vision, one of the greatest GIFTS you can give the people around you is to get in front of them… ask them to step up and do something great for God.” that's such an awesome way to think of it! It's a gift... to THEM.

Vision: Paint the Picture Passionately - Here is an example of why the whole book felt like I was sitting at a coffee shop with Hybels and he was mentoring me personally... “Leaders [Patrick], don’t ever apologize for the strength of feeling you have for the vision that God has put in your life. Don’t hide your feelings about it. God meant for you to feel as deeply about His vision for you as you do about anything.”

The Three Cs - a lot of great lessons in here. the 3 Cs are Character, Competence, & Chemistry. This should be our guage for hiring peeps. in that order. “Good character is tough to discern in a 15 minute interview.” very true. We've got to get creative then.
Great advice = “Never apologize for looking for maximum competence in your new teammates, gifts and talents and capabilities that will take your ministry to the next level of effectiveness.” On the other side, if you get negative vibes the first 2-3 times you're with a potential hire… that’s a bad sign that you won’t ever get along with them!!!*** that’s big. Bill learned this painful lesson the hard way too many times.

Never Say Someone’s No for Them - Bill says this is an odd tendency in even the best leaders… they ask God who would be the very best person on planet earth for the role… then they come up with the reasons why the person prolly won’t want to do it & they go after lesser qualified peeps who they can get easier! This is INSANE & we've gotta remember never to fall into this tendency.

Get the Right People Around the Table - “resolve to get the right people around the table. I figured if the right people were around the table, surely God would speak through them or through me or through our collective conversation and show us which direction to head.” I think there is good wisdom in that statement.
This is a BIG & interesting quote = “I really do believe that every serious problem known to humankind is addressable and solvable when the right people are invited into the dialogue.” This is CRAZY intriguing to me. I'm still not sure that I totally agree yet. I think I want to though. What do you think of that above statement? I know what Bill thinks of it because he said “I believe in this principle like I believe in gravity.” Wow. He believes it pretty strongly... or else he falls down a lot.

Pay Attention to Greetings and Goodbyes - the "problem" = Leaders are wired to have a HUGE bias toward action = “most of them [leaders] get up every morning with freshly stirred, God-given passion for moving every player in their organization one step closer to mission achievement.” VERY true and if you are a leader you can vouch for that. "Therefore, leaders are usually ¾ steamroller & ¼ compassionate colleage."
[this is interesting to me… is this a cop out or just fact of life I should let go? Should I struggle with it or no?] Example = when leader walks into a meeting they have “only one thing on the brain: mission advancement.” - so, because a leader’s mind is singularly focused on “task,” the other people in room can be easily overlooked. SO...
***“The most important part of every meeting is your greeting and goodbye.”
Hybels cheats this tendency by = “I make it a habit to do a personal, enthusiastic, genuine, warm, highly relational, look-you-in-the-eye greeting to every single person sitting around the table before I even think about starting the meeting.”

Deliver the Bad News First - “what you leave with someone at the end of any given communiqué…sets the tone for how they feel about the future of the organization or endeavor.” This is a big idea & fascinating & really BRILLIANT!
The KEY = “The difference between great communication and not-so-great communication often comes down to where you place the bad news.” I’ve gotta DO this & learn to master this!

What are your thoughts? Which axiom was your fav? What thoughts do these axioms provoke in you?

Happy Easter! - Common Threads @ Ridge

If you live in the Charlotte area I hope you'll come check out "Common Threads" tomorrow @ Ridge Church. It's going to be amazing!

**Make sure you're not late. I mean you seriously need to be in your seat by 11AM! The opener is AWESOME & will blow you away. It's seriously going to be powerful. Don't miss it.
+ At the end of Chris' talk you'll see something you won't forget for a long time! I promise!

It's our 1st ever Easter worship service @ Ridge Church. (HERE's what we were doing last Easter). I'm pretty stoked about celebrating the greatest day in history with this awesome church.

mentored by Bill Hybels for 76 days!

Earlier this week I wrote about being "mentored" by Andy Stanley HERE. But I was also mentored by Bill Hybels for 76 days! That's not too bad either! People would pay big $ to spend time each day being mentored by one of the greatest leaders in the church of our generation - Bill Hybels, the visionary behind Willow Creek and the spark for much of the local church revolution we continue to enjoy.

It only cost me $14.99 and I talked about the book back when I bought it HERE. The book is called Axiom & you can buy it (for even cheaper) HERE.
It is basically a book of all Hybels' leadership advice/wisdom for the past 30+ years! That's pure GOLD my friends! PURE GOLD. So, I snagged it.

The thing I liked best about this book is that it is simply 76 "axioms" straight from Bill. Each one is only 2-3 pages. For me it's the perfect "pot book." I literally spent 5 minutes per day soaking in Bill Hybels' leadership coaching and in 76 days I had finished the entire book. I had accumulated all this advice he has been learning and compiling for decades.
*talk about "redeeming the time!" I was able to be mentored by one of the greatest leaders of this generation EVERY SINGLE DAY for over 2 months while... sitting on the pot! I think that is AWESOME use of my time!
**And really it took NO extra time out of my day... I would have been sitting there anyway, I just picked up the book while sitting there. Such an awesome use of time/way to "multitask!"

I'm sill stoked about having had Bill Hybels as a mentor for 76 days! wow! thanks Bill for writing this and giving me the ability to take advantage of it...

In the next post (on this topic) I'll pick out my favorite of the 76 axioms and break them down, but today here are some of my fav quotes from the book. [my added thoughts are simply in brackets.] Enjoy...


“Leaders must never expect from others anything more than they’re willing to deliver themselves.”
“The most important part of every meeting is your greeting and goodbye.” [This was a whole chapter & a lot of great wisdom about meetings! great stuff!]
“People who work in Christian settings often feel obligated to present opinions with a level of politeness that can often dilute the point they are making to where it is barely recognizable. The other people in the room respond with blank stares, wondering what in the world this person has just said.” [haha - this makes me laugh because it's so true! I think the mission is worth being a little more direct!]
“When high-capacity people work in close proximity to each other, there will be friction.” [that's a great thing to remember. We may not be able to avoid it, just manage it!]
***“The healthiest organizations I see are not conflict-free. They are just ridiculously committed to keeping short accounts.” [That quote & the axiom chapter that went with it is worth the price of the book! imho]
[Since God gives peeps the ability to think creatively… therefore when things are stale at a church] “it’s a fair bet to say that God is not to blame… it’s that church leaders don’t carve out the time to establish the right environment, and rally the requisite energy to think new thoughts.” [ooooh... you know he's right... but it hurts a little, doesn't it?]
“What would we do to advance the kingdom of God if there was nothing to stop us from doing it?” [just ask yourself that Q & run with it!]
“any group that is conducting any sort of ongoing activity runs the risk of operating from a rut over time.”
“I’d rather rein in a hyperactivist once in a while than have to wake him up from a long afternoon nap.”
“I believe God is looking to pour out his favor on those who are hopping out of bed each morning ready to further the cause for his glory.”
“The way I am doing the work of God is destroying God’s work in me.” [said about his unsustainable pace in ministry at one point.]
“far too many leaders in high positions of responsibility neglect their need to read.” [haha - I threw that one in because I feel like that's at least 1 I'm "safe" on... haha, just 75 others to work on.]
“Leaders have a responsibility before God to constantly get better, and one of the most reliable ways to do so is to read. Great leaders read frequently. They read voraciously.” [That's so encouraging for me to hear. Thanks Bill.]
“If you don’t get that [family leadership] right, then you probably won’t get your responsibilities in leadership right either.” [us ministry leaders GOTTA remember that.]
***“Show me a leader who can cast a white-hot vision and who builds great teams and who does great things for God but who has a bitter spouse and disillusioned, cynical children, and I’ll show you trouble waiting to happen.”
“I very slowly woke up to the fact that nobody in my organization was going to fight for my family but me.”


What thoughts did these quotes produce in you?
Who is "mentoring" YOU right now?

Congratulations Carolina Tarheels! The greatest team in the country...

WHOOOO!!! national champions baby!

I can remember sitting on the couch in my friend's house in Florida 4 years ago during my senior year of college - watching my boys, the Tarheels, win the national championship. That was an awesome night = Felton, May, McCants, Williams & co. brought home the title where it belongs!

Last night was an awesome night too! This team is special. They are sick... & unbelievable.

I told you all at the beginning of the season that there's really no one who can hang with Coach Williams' team this year! Nobody was in the same league. You can read what I wrote HERE. looks like I was right.

Congratulations boys! National Champions again!!!

vision has its price (mentored by Andy Stanley)

I feel very very lucky. I get to be mentored by so many amazing leaders, scholars, visionaries, and great men. Not in person on a weekly basis or anything. But I take full advantage of everything these men are putting out there (books, podcasts, blogs, conferences, etc...) I treat it as though they are mentoring me 1 on 1. I learn everything I can from what they are saying.

One of my favorite "mentors" is Andy Stanley. I'm going to talk much more about the book later, and I mainly want to just share some awesome quotes from a particular chapter... but let me at least say this = Throughout Andy's entire book - Visioneering - It was as though Andy was sitting with me in a coffee shop speaking every single word directly to me! Seriously. I don't know if a book has ever been as personal as this one. EVERY word was specifically for me. Amazing. Like Andy wrote it just for me. (of course I'm sure it has affected thousands this way, which is awesome...)

This stuff is all from Chapter 10 that I recently went back & jotted some notes from = Vision has its Price

This 1st thought hit me right off...
**“Any vision worth pursuing will demand sacrifice and risk. You will be called on to give up the actual good for the potential best. You will find it necessary to leave what is comfortable and familiar in order to embrace that which is uncomfortable and unfamiliar. And all the while, you will be haunted by the fear that this thing you are investing so much of yourself in may not work out at all.”
[This is so crazy because that spot is exactly where I’m at right now! exactly what I needed to hear!]

“Vision requires courage and confidence. It requires launching out as if you were absolutely assured of the outcome.” [Thanks for speaking this into me, Andy! I value it big time!]

“The difference between those with a burden for something and those who actually do something is not resources. It is a willingness to take risks and make sacrifices.
The people who make a difference in the world commit to what could be before they know where the money is coming from. Their vision is enough to cause them to jump in. Money usually follows vision. It rarely happens the other way around.”
*** [Man! that is what I'm talkin' about. I SOOOOO needed to hear that! I'm all in... This is some crazy valuable mentoring stuff!]

– Great Quote to keep in front of me!!! ** “Is this what I am going to do? Or is this one of those things that I am just going to talk about until I am forty or fifty years old?”
[That's what someone with a vision asked their team. I am freaking going to do this thing... it's not just something I'm gonna be talking about when I hit 40 or 50! It's gonna be reality!]

Building Block #9 – Don’t expect others to take greater risks or make greater sacrifices than you have. [great stuff for all of us leaders to remember!]

“put my money where my vision is.” = [I love it!]

[this seemed straight from Andy's lips to my soul. Like advice for me in the upcoming years. Like God used Andy to give me counsel & wisdom about what's coming up in my near future.]
“If God has birthed a vision in you, it is only a matter of time until you will come upon the precipice of sacrifice. What you do at that juncture will in all likelihood determine the future success or failure of your vision.”

* “God has chosen to work through men and women who are willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the ‘thing’ He has placed in their hearts to do.”
He most loves to work through peeps who “are courageously laying the things that represent safety and security at His feet for the sake of what could be and should be.” [oh yeah! I am totally on board to be that guy that God can bless because I am laying it all down!]

*This was an interesting challenege from Andy to me (and all of us). I'm gonna take him up on it... = “Search the Scriptures. Search the pages of church history. You won’t find an example of anyone God used in even a small way who did not make some kind of sacrifice in order to pursue the vision. Sacrifice and risk are always part of the equation.”
“One thing I do know. When a man is willing to give up something valuable for a God-ordained vision, God looks upon it as worship.”

[now, this is big time. Andy's not pulling any punches here!]
*** “Your vision has not truly captured your heart until it captures your wallet.”

WOW. I just unpacked all that really really quickly. This is just 1 random chapter in the middle of this almost 300 page book that spoke to me every single sentence... every word.
Now you can see I've got a lot to unpack! way more to come.

Like I said. It was like being mentored intensely by Andy himself. So personal. So practical. So awesome...

I've got a vision to do something about this! (Africa)

God's given me a vision & I've got to do something about these atrocities taking place in Africa that you'll read below.
& when I say "I've got to" I MEAN "I've got to!" I really don't think you can stop me. You can try... but there is an unstoppable and unquenchable passion in me to glorify God's awesome Name by FIXING THESE PROBLEMS!!!

In Africa...

• Every 14 seconds a child is orphaned by AIDS
• 50,000 children will die of AIDS this year
• 1,400 newborn Africans are infected with AIDS every day
• There are 900,000 orphans in Nairobi, Kenya alone today, mainly due to AIDS
• More than 300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live on less than $1 a day
• Every 3 seconds a child dies of nutrition deprivation/starvation
• More than 300 million people in Africa do not have access to clean water
• 1 million children die of malaria each year (that's death by mosquito bite!)
  
• millions of unreached people don't know how awesome Jesus is. They don't even know His name...

My vision is to see those stats go away. AIDS, poverty, disease, ALL OF IT to end! My vision is for a Revolutionary Jesus Movement (RJM I might call it, haha) to spring up across the region and in people groups. My vision is for an Unstoppable Church planting movement to spread across Africa until we can truly say there are no more unreached people groups in all of Sub-Saharan Africa! What a cool day that will be. God will be famous. I will probably be dead, but maybe not. Doesn't matter because it's not about me.

I'm going for the rest of my life to do something about this. Not sure when exactly it will be. Some days I feel like I can't wait another second. God put a vision and a passion in me to let Him use me to change that continent... & sometimes I just can't help but talk about it.