renown strikes back (Proverbs is Pimp)

(side note: the main title is partially borrowed from the title of the 1997 sophomore album of the greatest band of all time.)

(side note #2: no, the parenthetical title is not bad grammar. it would be "proverbs are pimp" if i were speaking of proverbs in general, or even of the Chinese variety, but since we're talking about the specific book of Proverbs it's "Proverbs is pimp".)

(side note #3: That's right, renown is back with a vengeance. I was gone from blogging for over a week in the Caribbean, but now I'm back and ready to hit it hard.)

(side note #4: it's this author's opinion that this author has used way too many side notes!)

When I was in college, a well-respected leader told us of a spiritual discipline he had practiced for a long time and it had changed his life. He read 1 chapter of Proverbs every day - # of the chapter corresponding to the day of the month. He said "after years... even a few months of this you'll be amazed at how the wisdom in this book becomes a part of you."

I had read Proverbs enough to know that it was all about wisdom and God said to "get it!"

So, I was like "I would love to be wise, I'll give it a shot." and I did. the cool thing was that I loved it and it stuck. Proverbs is like an Andy Stanley talk... practical & to the point. it's got stuff in it that will change your life today. After a few months all those passages were sticking in my head. They were becoming a part of me. They were helping me make decisions. It's stuck for about 6 years now. Still lovin' it.

It's probably my 3rd favorite book behind the Gospels (i put them together because just like the Die Hard quadruple, it's hard to pick just 1) & the Psalms. I could probably write at least 1,000 blogs about all I've learned from Proverbs over the years... it is literally an amazing book. I don't claim to be wise by any stretch of the imagination, but I must be further from being a fool than I was 6 years ago.

So, with all that background I plan to be able to blog on any random day about a buttload of stuff I learned from Proverbs on that day.

Yesterday was the 15th, so of course I read Proverbs 15 (at Starbucks). And there was SO MUCH good stuff in there, but i have to stick with just one phrase from verse 7...

"The lips of the wise spread knowledge"

now, let me say this again. I don't claim to be a wise man at all (maybe a "wise guy" or a wise something else, but that's totally different of course), but every time Proverbs mentions something that wise people do... I'm gonna go try to do it!

1 thing that Proverbs says wise people do is "get knowledge." I attempt to do that by reading books like a crazy fool (no pun intended). I always type out what I learn from the books and how they'll change how I live, think, act, do ministry, treat my wife, friends, etc... And this phrase just confirmed something that I've been wanting to do on this blog for a while - spread the knowledge I'm getting. This was actually a major reason I started this blog - to give me an outlet for all the knowledge I'm trying to stuff into my tiny brain. So, yeah, I wanna be wise & spread the knowledge I get, not just keep it to myself. I want to share it with all of you because it's benefited me & I hope it benefits you.

I've read a flippin' insane amount of books lately (last 6 months) and learned A LOT! I'm constantly telling people that they gotta read these books too! But then it seems like they'll always say, "but patrick, i just don't read as much as you." So, I'm going to try to flesh out the best stuff I learn right here at renown with the goal being for peeps to learn all the good stuff from a book in 10 minutes instead of 10 hours.

So, tomorrow will be my 1st one of these "knowledge downloads" from a book. & of course we start with a fun one (but also extremely potent & important)! It's a book by Mike Foster & Jud Wilhite called Deadly Viper: Character Assassins. It's awesome and should be read by every pastor, husband, father, and leader in the world. Jud's a pastor in Las Vegas and wrote a cool book that I have called Stripped. Mike is the man! He started the Junky Car Club that I told you all about here. If you haven't joined yet, what are you waiting for? Read this post & go join (after you sponsor a child through Compassion)! He also started XXXchurch which has some great accountability software that every guys should have on his computer for his integrity's sake (and maybe for his marriage's sake & ministry's sake). Now he's started something called Ethur that is straight up pimp & helps start other projects like the JCC & Deadly Viper (which also has it's own website & blog & tons of resources for staffs, teams, etc...)

Here's one of the coolest things about Mike (& Jud too I'm sure)...
I've been using the XXXchurch software for over a year for FREE.
At Catalyst I received their book Deadly Viper for FREE (along with 11,000 other peeps)
About a month ago I read one of his blogs and clicked a link to download the book... FREE
- hopefully you see the theme by now. Mike's all about helping people for FREE. Probably why he started a whole organization (JCC) with one of it's goals being to see kids rescued from poverty through compassion international & I can't imagine that it's turned out very lucrative for you Mike.

So, I dropped him a quick message yesterday to make sure he was cool with me putting that link to the audio version of the book here on renown for all the many (3) readers to see and get an audio copy of his book for FREE. he said "absolutely" like i figured he would. it's only about 2 hours long & is read by Mike & Jud & is really fun to listen to. NOT quite as fun as the actual book though, which reminds me more of a really cool comic book with glossy pages & lots of cool colorful pictures. So, buy the book here. OR download the audio version here.

And, make sure you come back tomorrow and check out the good stuff from the book.