lead like Jesus (repost)

(this is a repost from January 19, 2008.)

andy is one of my favorite leaders, speakers, and authors in the world. as i mentioned in an earlier post, he is also extremely humble. He kicked off Catalyst this year with this pimp talk about leadership - Jesus style. EVERY leader needs to hear this... especially those of us who are "next generation leaders." It seems that many leaders today abuse their power and leverage it for their own gain. That's the opposite of what Jesus did. Weak leaders leverage power for their own sake... strong leaders leverage it for others in humility. Go check out John 13 & then watch this 2 minute clip of andy communicating to us all what Jesus wants us to do with the power that comes along with leadership!

so, when YOU have the power... follow Jesus' example. leverage that power for others to leave a mark on the world for generations after you're gone. that's reverb.

halfway through

we are officially halfway through 2010. 6 months down and 6 months to go.

WOW. it went FAST! and i can pretty much guarantee that this next 6 months will go by twice as fast. at least for me. (feels like i'll be gone for half of it.)

So, how was your 1st 6 months? set any New Year's Resolutions that you're still disciplined at keeping?

i set some goals for 2010 and posted them HERE at the beginning of the year. i haven't looked at them yet, but i'm posting this as an accountability to force me to check up on myself within the next week. i'll maybe post about how i'm doing. unless i'm just really sucking.
i also had some reading goals and a reading list i posted HERE. i think i'm slightly behind.

i'll post soon about where i'm doing ok and where i need to crank it up.

What about YOU? what were your 2010 goals and how are they looking now that we're halfway through?

fire

today i read The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer. it was the 1st book i had ever read by Tozer. I put a Tozer book on my list to read this year because he was a "mentor" of one of my "mentors" (using "mentor" loosely - via influence at a distance) - Louie Giglio. He has influenced me as much as anyone and he says the same about Tozer. In fact, i even asked Louie which Tozer book he would recommend that i start off with. The Pursuit of God was 1 of the 3 he said to start with.

i read the whole thing today. well, some dude read it to me as i worked all morning at my side job. i was digging it and took several pages of notes.

Here was the 1st statement i loved. it's from Tozer's preface to the book.

"If my fire is not large, it is real. And there may be those who can light their candle at its flame."

That is beautiful to me. that is what's in my heart too. there's a burning fire in my heart and it just keeps burning. it's all for God's fame. My heart is pursuing Him relentlessly.
Now, i don't know how big my fire is. it's probably not pretty or cool or current or well-worded or the best fire around... but it is real.

And one of my prayers and aims with writing this blog is that my fire might just allow someone to "light their candle at its flame."
right on A-Dub.

thirsty?

These 2 people live in Bulgeta, Ethiopia. i don't know their names. They are getting water to drink. Every single person in the town drinks the water from this pond.

I showed this picture to my wife and she had no idea it was even water. She said she thought the people were playing in a sand box. that made me want to cry.

NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO DRINK THIS WATER!

There is no reason anyone in our world should still be dying from unclean water... but several died from unclean water since you've been reading this. that's messed up.

Thankfully some other people thought it was messed up too. They gave to Charity:Water (an awesome org. that i love) and they built a clean water well in Bulgeta! These 2 people never have to visit this pond again. People from this town won't die from unclean water anymore.
*Because some people were generous. They thought the future for this town should be different so they did something about it.

you can read more about this town and water project HERE and there are even links that will take you to the google earth coordinates to see these villages who have been helped in Ethiopia!

Would you be willing to be generous so that an entire town would have clean water instead of drinking from that "sand box"?

iPhone fever

do you know anyone with iPhone fever? i know some people who have come down with a severe case of it. the iPhone 4 is pretty awesome and i understand the "fever". there was the same craze for the 3GS & the iPhone before that, etc...

There is a "fever" that breaks out for all the latest and greatest new stuff in our culture. The "fever" is this overwhelming desire and perceived "need" to HAVE THAT THING. that thing that is so awesome and that thing that everyone else has.

i was thinking about this tonight. is this "fever" that comes on us something we were created with? did God make us that way? i know God made us with strong desires and He put in us an insatiable desire for satisfaction.

but where did this all out "fever" come from to have the latest and greatest thing?... whatever that thing may be this week. (because next week it will be something else new.)

i don't think we were created this way. i think it's from our culture. i think our culture tricks us and dupes us into this fever.

tonight i was asking myself if other cultures... non Western cultures experience the "fever" in their context? i don't think so. (i may very well be wrong though.) it doesn't seem like a cross-cultural fever to me. i think we have created "the fever" with our consumeristic, materialistic, gotta have it now, society here in Western culture.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

thoughts from Josh

i am going to share some reflections and thoughts on the awesomeness that was Summer Camp X that Ridge linked up with Next Level to do this past week. Some thoughts probably coming this week.

But for now i wanted to direct you all to some thoughts of our worship leader for the week. Josh Via has an awesome website HERE. He is pretty much my favorite worship leader and has the most amazing heart for God. i love that guy. he did such a stellar job.

He posted some great reflections on an awesome moment from Tuesday night HERE. you can also read his words below.

Summer Camp X with Next Level Church and Ridge Church is well underway.  The room is electric every session and kids are showing up expecting to hear from the Lord.  Last night, Jon Rouleau, the student pastor at Ridge, brought the Word strong from Genesis 1 and 3 about how we lost our identity and how it’s found in Christ. I know of at least three students last night who committed their lives to Christ, two of whom were brothers and were sitting across the room from each other, completely unaware that the other was simultaneously making the same decision. They met in the middle of the room to tell each other and embraced for each other in tears for at least a minute. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what it’s all about. Thank You, Jesus.  And thank you guys for your prayers for us this week.

world cup + student camp = less blogging

i have blogged less this month than any other month here on renown.
The World Cup began on June 11th and that has been the major cause of my lack of blogging as i've been trying to watch every single World Cup match.
Now it's the round of 16. 48 games down and only 16 to go. so, i'll be back to writing like normal.

**And how about the heart stopping USA! oh man... ulcer city. but jubilation in the end. I say we beat Ghana tomorrow in the Round of 16 and then go on to beat Uruguay in the Quarterfinals (or South Korea) to move on to the semifinals! That would be unbelievable!

We just returned from our very own Student camp at Myrtle Beach for our middle school and high school students. 1st time of trying to pull off our own camp.
It really wasn't on our own though at all. Huge thanks to Robbie & Jared at Next Level for pulling it off for real and letting us partner with them. Rusty from Ridge killed it when it came to the production for the sessions... and Josh Via led our kids in a week full of awesome times of worship of our amazing God. Kudos all around.
"Great is Your Name and greatly to be praised forever, God of our hope and our strength..."

off to camp

We're leaving 1st thing in the morning for MYRTLE BEACH!
We're going for student camp with our Middle School & High School students from Ridge Church.

We hooked up with Next Level Church (wrote about them HERE) and running our own camp this year. We still love Big Stuf (where we've been the past 3 summers) but just trying to keep cost down so more kids can go and experience a life changing week.

it's gonna be awesome and we're really excited about what God is going to do in lives this week! A few of us from Ridge are speaking throughout the week and our awesome friend Josh Via is leading worship for camp.
i'm speaking Wednesday morning and bringing a little Bobby Mcferrin in my talk (hint hint).

looking forward to what God is going to do. very expectant.

worst call ever?

what an intense game to watch. i was going crazy.
to play so crappy and go down 2-0 in a game we were supposed to own.

*Then it was so awesome to see us wake up in the 2nd half! i couldn't believe Donovan took that shot... and then i couldn't believe he actually put it in the top shelf. we owned that 2nd half.
the whole buildup to Bradley's goal was brilliant! = Donavan's cross, Altidore's header down, Hercules' run to bring the defender forward, and then Michael Bradley's finish. awesome.

then came the game winner! so i thought for a few seconds as i celebrated... a 3-2 win after being down 2-0 is pretty much as good as it gets. but inexplicably, the goal didn't count. we still don't know what the ref called.
(i do know i see 3 of our guys getting fouled in the box! especially Bradley getting bear hugged and Bocanegra basically getting body slammed.)

if you haven't seen what i'm talking about yet (where have you been?) check it out below.


wow. that was a brilliant game winner and it was taken away from us. Now, i'm not going to blame the whole game on the ref. we played like crap in the 1st half. it's our fault we lost... he's also a human and i don't hate him or anything. he just made a mistake. he's probably a great guy. but c'mon ref... you took away a win & 3 points & probably winning the group.

*i'm also encouraged to hear our U.S. players not dwelling on it and looking forward to beating Algeria.

so, what do YOU think? worst call ever?

the dilemma

(this dilemma has really been created by what i've written in several of the latest posts. you can read sort of a summary of our financial plan HERE and then my last post on what i think money is for HERE. you should really read that to catch up.) Thanks in advance for taking time to read this dilemma below...

so here's my dilemma.
(first, a preface) - I DON'T NEED ANY MONEY. seriously. there is not an ounce of desire in me to be "rich" and have a lot of money to spend on myself. comforts, pleasures, etc...

i am completely content to sleep on the ground somewhere eating rice with nothing. just me, my wife, and God. no transportation, no furniture... whatever. i'm content.

on the flip side - I AM ON TRACK TO HAVE A TON OF MONEY. and really i'm already rich just because i'm an American. then even by American standards i'm probably rich just from following Dave's plan. (You can read about our journey through that plan HERE and HERE.) this is hard to believe because our income isn't as high as most, but Dave says we're in the top 3% of Americans as far as our net worth right now. crazy. (again, no credit to me, i'm just thankful God led us into this plan.)

but the reason we're on track to have so much money is because we are putting most of it somewhere! getting out of debt, then building the emergency fund, & now we're putting a ton into retirement & eventually we'll be investing a lot more!
So, as I wrote in the last post, just in retirement we're on track to have $13 million at 65, and then with investments who knows how much more it will be?

Bottom Line = i want to give most of my money away (like i wrote HERE). now and/or later.

***i have learned (from Dave & now experience) that money is most powerful when it is focused. that pushes me into the dilemma:
-  i feel like i could give away most of my money now and focus it all toward the Kingdom - the poor, missions, etc... and do a lot of good! it would be powerful!
-  Or i feel like i could focus a majority of my money toward retirement accounts, and investments and maybe end up with $30 million + investments...

Some days i want to ABANDON THE PLAN! (don't tell Dave.) not abandon it so i can buy stuff, but so i can give away all my money. maybe 70% or 80%? + everything in the emergency fund, etc...

but then other days i think it almost might be better to stop giving now, put 70% - 80% into these long term investments and then be able to give $100 million at 65!

*i have a real ongoing dilemma between these scenarios:
1 - i did some really rough estimating and let's say i could give $1.6 million over the next 40 years of my life. that would be very "sacrificial" giving. i would be happy. i would have no retirement... but i'd be ok with that & content. i think it would do a lot of good.

2 - OR if i gave very little now... like 10% or something... i could maybe have $30 million in 40 years to give away. that's a lot more for sure. that seems like it would be way better for the Kingdom, but that's not as much where my heart's at.

Sometimes it feels like i need to pick one of those 2 lanes and run with it.

3 - OR... i could keep up what i'm doing now. which is focused on giving AND the plan (which makes money less powerful because of less focus). maybe i could give away as much as i can along the way but we'd still have $13 million + investments in 40 years. then i could give all of that away. 

pretty awesome chunk to give away. way more than the $1.6 million i could give away in #1, but a lot less than in #2.
*AM I BEING TO RIDICULOUS AND RADICAL ABOUT THIS? maybe i should just live comfortably, have some fun, give some, save some like in #3 and be done with this whole dilemma?

So, i am saying openly that i don't know what to think about all this. my head and heart spin round and round.
the business side of me knows $30 million would be the "best" and i could do a lot of awesome stuff for God's Kingdom with that.
the raw and passionate side of me knows what giving thousands right now could do! the lives it could help save TODAY (physically and spiritually). i have a big problem with this many days. knowing i have the money that could SAVE LIVES, but i'm putting it into a ROTH IRA... ooohhh... that feels revolutionary.

Ultimately i know all the money is going to the same place. it's just a matter of when and how much.

And then my head and heart spin round and round more and more because i know that God doesn't NEED my money. He's gonna do what He wants to do know matter what. What He really wants is my heart. well, He has that... and that makes me want to give away all my money now!
& then the business side of me says...

and round and round i go much like this post has been. i probably haven't made much sense and i've given myself a headache like i do every day as i wrestle with this.

i'll be honest with all of you. i can't think of anything else i wrestle with more than this. this keeps me awake at night and bothers me deep in my soul. i really don't know what God would want me to do. i ask Him for wisdom & i'm just not sure.

**i think there are some principles in Scripture and a lot of wisdom in godly people out there that could help me. i've been searching for the principles in Scripture (big time). [although that's when i want to empty my emergency fund and give away every penny when i read what God has to say...]

i know i probably just sound crazy to all of you and you think i'm a few bricks short...
but i would really really love to hear from YOU! what am i missing? is my thinking all jacked up? what Biblical principle could you share with me to help? did this post even make sense? what would you do in my situation.
help. before my brain and heart explode from this ongoing wrestling match!

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

what is money for anyway?

i'm going to try to let my heart leak out a little bit in this post. just some raw thoughts.

i've written a lot about money the past few posts. i think the ultimate and greatest purpose of money is the Glory of God and to Bless others. i think those are 1 and the same... not 2 different purposes.

i think God has blessed me with money so that i can be a blessing to others... so that i use HIS money (ultimately it's His) for His name's sake... not for my own sake.
i think God has blessed all of us with money for that same purpose. i think He makes it deafeningly clear in the Bible that He wants us to GIVE to the poor/to His Kingdom!

i think most of us Americans are ridiculous. it's freaking apalling that most of us are living paycheck to paycheck barely paying our car payments and for our fancy dinners and for our fancy bottled water when a lot of the world doesn't even have an option of having any of these things.

i really can't comprehend how we spend our money. my pulse and blood pressure are all jacked up right now and i have a headache thinking about how stupidly we use our money. i can't fathom how we spend $19 billion every year playing golf and $16 billion each year on ice cream in America and it would only take $10 billion to give everyone in the world clean water for the rest of their lives.
unclean water is the biggest killer in the world. and that's what around 1 billion people are drinking every day.

Around 10 children died from a lack of clean water since you have been reading this post! 

that should bother you. & that's just 1 example. it should bother us and make us think when we go to buy a new pair of shoes. if we ever even flirt with buying a new car we should think about that first. all the crap we buy should make us think - "is this really the way i should be spending this money?"

i think we're all insane to justify how we spend our money. lots of purchases i have made bother me... and i don't really spend money. i certainly don't spend money on expensive stuff very often! Our 2nd day after Thanksgiving together we bought a big fancy TV for like a fourth of what it usually costs... but it was probably still enough to help lift 8 families out of poverty. did i really need an iPhone? do i need 3 pairs of shoes? do i need more than 7 shirts (1 for each day of the week)? 

we're so freaking rich and we give so freaking little.

1 of our goals is to be able to give away half of everything we make to God's Kingdom - missions, the poor, etc... we're definitely not there yet, but everything in me wants to be there soon... and then move beyond it.

but that sounds radical doesn't it? that sounds weird doesn't it? downsizing. doing without "necessities". 10% is all we need to give right?

but if i'm being honest from my heart... giving away half of what we make is pretty sad. why can't we live on a lot less than half?

we are blinded and ruined by our crazy consumeristic culture. we have to "keep up". everyone has 2 cars and a house payment and cable and an iPhone right?

Everyone drops $200 or $400 or $600 a month on a car payment right?

this makes me so angry and i know God is FURIOUS. not that we have nice things but that we spend all our money on ourselves! that's ludicrous and... i'm going to go ahead and say it... sinful.

& i'm guilty. i spend way too much money on me. i get sucked into my own culture and i'm selfish.

I WANT OUT!
i want God to use the money He has blessed me with for His glory... to radically change lives among the millions of unreached people who have never even heard His name... to save lives of people who would otherwise be dead because of the poverty they were born into.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

(thinking through this "dilemma" i have created in my next post.)

$13 million and our new money experiment

i have been writing about our financial "plan" from Dave Ramsey & then i wrote a couple posts on our story walking through that plan so far HERE and HERE if you care to read about it.

i'm really thankful that God guided us to jump onto this plan and for the patience and discipline we've had to stick with it!

*Crystal was on Dave's website about 1 year ago and there was a retirement portion that would figure what you will retire with. She plugged in all our numbers (income, bills, home mortgage, etc...) Basically, if we NEVER make more income and everything stays exactly the same and we just stay on pace... when we hit 65 we will have a fully funded (6 month) emergency fund, a home mortgage that is paid for (by the time we're 31 or so), college paid for for 2 kids (which we don't have yet, and $13 MILLION DOLLARS!!!

yeah. that's what i said. $13 million. insane... and that's just in our retirement accounts. and that is an extremely conservative estimate. i'm pretty sure there's a lot i could do with $13 million.

*That's what Dave is talking about when he says "live like no one else, so later you can live like no one else." Maybe we don't go out to eat as much as other peeps and we have a tight budget and all, but $13 million... that's pretty cool.

& i also mentioned our latest little money experiment. Back in April Crystal and i talked and felt like this experiment was something we should do. i felt like it was a "God thing."
We decided that ALL the "unexpected" money we get - which fyi, we don't really get much of that. Unexpected money is like stuff that just shows up out of nowhere. stuff we didn't budget, stuff we didn't work for, gifts, money that turns up.
For example = the $20 bill i literally FOUND on the sidewalk, the $100 i made selling an old foosball table, the $400 that showed up in my account from my real estate company... just extra.

Anyway, we're GIVING HALF of all that unexpected money we get to missions and to the poor (social justice projects). not for everyone, just what we felt like we should do. we're always trying to give MORE and figure out how to budget it... but we're like why don't we just give away 1/2 of unelxpected money we get.

so, we started that in April. we've been doing it for about 2 months now and we have gotten OVER $1,000 that was completely unexpected. that's pretty crazy! $500 per month average so far. i don't remember ever getting that much unexpected money!

i wonder if there's a connection? could be a coincidence? beats me really. we are just really excited to be giving away a ton of extra money + getting the extra money isn't bad either.

(We're excited to be funding some entrepreneurs living in poverty through Hope International and helping some peeps go on mission trips. looking forward to what we can do with any more unexpected money God blesses us with.)

1-1

That was an awesome game. i still can't believe we tied England. the only thing that could have made it better is if Jozy's shot would have bounced in off the post.

When Green let in the worst goal of all time off Dempsey's foot the place i was at went crazy. we were like transported to an alternate universe. within a split second i had like 8 grown men jumping up and down with me and on top of me. we were on the edge of a balcony over the bar and i seriously thought we were all going to go over. it was pandemonium.

great start to the tourney boys. finish off the group with 2 more wins and we're golden.

our journey with the plan (part 2)

This is the rest of the story on how we became debt free and in a ridiculously good financial spot without making much money. (You can read part 1 HERE.)

Continuing from yesterday... we had paid off a lot of debt in 08, but Dave says that if your 2^nd mortgage is under a certain percentage of your household income then you should include it in your debt snowball. Ours was basically right on the border and probably could have gone either way.

It was tempting to just shout “We’re debt free!” after paying off Crystal’s car, but I was like “Ya know what, let’s just knock this mortgage out, be done with it & REALLY have something to celebrate.”

By the time we had paid all the other debts off we really had a CHUNK of change every month that used to be dedicated to payments that was now a massive SNOWMAN size snowball! It all went straight to principal to pay off this $20K mortgage. Every month we were throwing well over a grand at that thing. (we got out of paying over $2K in interest that half of the year!)

A couple days before Christmas of 2008 Crystal and I sat down together and PAID the final payoff online to BB&T for our mortgage. We were debt free! I shouted and had a little party right there on the couch. (That Christmas just felt different too by the way.)

That's the final piece of paper on our mortgage showing it was PAID IN FULL. that was awesome!

We started in December 07 and were debt free in December 08. It took us about 13 months to pay off around $31,000! That’s what I’m talkin’ about.

And trust me… we weren’t making very much coin either. It was just focused intensity.

All glory to God. Definitely not our power… just His favor. I believe He hates debt, so we just got after it.

Next step = January 09 we began Baby Step #3 -> Finish the Emergency Fund (and kick Murphy all the way out!) Dave says to put 3-6 months of expenses away into a readily accessible account. The more “unstable” your income is, the closer to 6 months you should save. We went with the 6 months & it’s an amount that wouldn’t force us to change our lives much in those 6 months. it would probably last us more like 9 months.

We finished that off in November of 09. Then in December my wife got a little "reward" for being such a great sport with a phat shopping spree because of all the freed up money.

*Then the realization hit = We could both lose our jobs and not change a thing or have a worry for 6 months! That is what i call security! That's 6 months to hit the job trail hard, getting PT work & not having to go back into debt! Plus it's enough money to cover us if a major disaster hit.

So, January 2010 we started the next phase. Baby Steps #4, 5, & 6 all come at the same time! 

#4 = 15% of our total income now goes straight into retirement. Crystal has a matching 401k which we max out & that is so awesome (it's straight up free money!)

Then we hooked up with a Dave Ramsey ELP here in Charlotte who is gonna help us up & hook us up with Roth IRAs to max out & then a little more in the 401k to finish off the 15%

*It feels so good to get started on this! My whole life i've heard about how important it is to get started investing early! just because of this monthly 15% we will literally retire with many many millions. dang. crazy.

#5 = saving for our kids' college tuitions. Dave's got a sweet way to figure out what it will cost when our kids are off to college. we have none yet so we technically can't open ESAs for them, but we went ahead and started putting away a lot per month. they can go to Harvard or Princeton if they want (& if they're smart like their mom.)

#6 = PAYING OFF OUR MORTGAGE! this one will take a bit longer, but worst case scenario we should have it paid off by the time we're 31 or so. not too much longer. just trying to pay as much extra as we can toward the principal! (In this economy i'm actually trying to cheat the system & sell our house & just rent something or buy a foreclosure at half price and be totally out of debt including the house! if the right opportunity rolls along i am all over it!)

that's our story & where we're at now. it's been a blessing. the crazy part is we still don't make much money, but we've been able to GIVE way more than we ever have in our lives - to our Church, to God's Mission globally, to the poor, etc... crazy how that works.

& God has been the only reason this has all gone down this way. amazing.

BOTTOM LINE = i am an idiot and this worked out for us... therefore ANYBODY can work this plan, get out of debt & be financially secure.
we get none of the credit. we only tried to screw it up.

*i'll share some more thoughts on our journey this weekend.

our journey with the plan (part 1)

(You can read about "the plan" HERE and HERE. Today i'm just telling our story of how we've walked through this plan together & how it's changed our lives.)

In 2007 Crystal and I saw Dave Ramsey for the 1st time at Catalyst. We heard him talk about how dumb debt is and how easy it really is to control your money. It sounded like it was even easier if you start when you're 1st beginning life (i guess we were still "newlyweds" = married for just over 2 years).

We kind of looked at each other and nonchalantly said "you wanna try it?" & we were both like "sure" with a shoulder shrug, "why not?"... little did we know how dramatically our lives would change.

within a couple weeks i went out and got Dave's book The Total Money Makeover (TMM) and read it in 2 days. i was absolutely blown away! This was the greatest plan i had ever seen. even a financial dummy like me could follow it. i couldn't even screw it up!
So, December 2007 was our 1st month to give our TMM a shot. Crystal and i set up a budget before the month began. We told every penny where to go. And that month we put our 1st $1K emergency fund in place. (Baby Step #1)

The next month (January 2008) we hit the debt snowball trail hard! (Baby Step #2) We went hard core paying off our debts 1 at a time. i still remember the 1st one we paid off. $592 on the Lowe's credit card for our whole gas fireplace setup. What a dumb thing to buy on credit! the "no payments, no interest" sucked us in. never again. it felt great to pay that off in the store because i knew where this plan was taking us!

We started having more and more money to throw at debt the more debt we paid off! It really was like a snowball! (We stopped using our other credit cards, btw)
We mowed down our debts - Home Depot credit card, a big one (like $3,500) to Wells Fargo for our whole King Sized bed & bedroom furniture we bought at Mattress Firm, etc...

I was pretty hard core about this whole plan because i could see the end game (the plan i wrote about on Monday.) i knew that we could be debt free pretty soon and that we could even be done with all 7 steps in around 7 years!!! 
Crystal, on the other, hand started started having her doubts. i was so hard core that i cut out all spending from the budget. we were literally spending no money for about the first 3-4 months.

that's when i got my 1st big lesson... my hard core approach had caused Crystal to jump ship! Around month 3 or 4 she was ready to go on a shopping spree and put it all on a credit card. i made it so bad for her that within a couple weeks i heard comments like "I don't really care if we have the money, i just want to buy something." and  

"Dave Ramsey ruined my life" 

and the most famous quote of all =  

"If I ever see Dave Ramsey I am going to kick him in the balls!" 

wow. i had created a monster!
so, i wised up and loosened up for the sake of a lot of things (you can thank me later Dave! In fact, another time we saw Dave speak Crystal leaned over and said "now is my chance." haha, totally joking of course. i think.)

When she worked one Friday after that i went to the mall and bought her a ridiculously expensive outfit i knew that she wanted from White House/ Black Market. it was a total surprise. i had them gift wrap it. (She hadn't bought clothes in months.)
She also hadn't even bought Starbucks in months, so i timed it perfectly and bought her a Venti of her fav drink + a Starbucks gift card and laid it all out on the table. i also grabbed a card and wrote her a note just thanking her for being an awesome wife and for sticking with this plan with me.
That was a good night.

*And i learned a very important lesson. You can get out of debt wtih gazelle intensity but still have fun along the way. In fact you have to or else you will give up. we started a new budget item of "spending money" that she could spend on whatever she wanted to.

Some time in 08 is when i started grabbing extra jobs and ended up with 5 for a little while. that obviously helped get out of debt faster!
i also went for over 1 year without buying a thing. literally. i didn't spend a dime. like i may have bought groceries so we could eat or a light bulb so we could see, but i bought nothing "for me" for over 12 months. my choice. i honestly kind of just wanted to try it. a 1 year boycott of spending money and materialism. you can call me weird. that's fine with me. i just call it focused.

Later we paid off Crystal's car. Her beloved 2003 Ford Focus that she bought brand new with her dad as a junior in college. that was a good day when we paid that off. it definitely drives different when you own it.

*believe me when i say this = when you go after something like this with "gazelle intensity" (as Dave calls it) it seems like you get crazy momentum and the wind is at your back. it feels like God is behind you helping push and money comes from everywhere. 
We got a crazy huge tax return that summer and because we were so disciplined by that point, we didn't touch a dime of it and dumped the whole thing into paying off our debt!
Several other things happened like that! chunks of money from unexpected places... all straight to debt because we were focused and had a plan.

the only debt left (besides our mortgage) was actually our 20% mortgage from our 80/20 loan when we bought our house. it was the last and biggest on our debt snowball list of victims. a little over $20,000!

tomorrow i'll write about that and the rest of our journey so far.

the plan

HERE i talked about how Crystal and i are following a plan and following it to a "T". Then i wrote a little prequel to this plan HERE.

I promised to drop this plan on you guys. It's from a guy named Dave Ramsey. I think he's a genius and his plan (below) has changed our lives. i pretty much think everyone should follow it. You can read it from Dave in The Total Money Makeover.
Here's my attempt to lay it on you as simply & SHORT as possible...

1  Save $1,000 FAST. like this month. seriously.
sell something if you have to, but save $1K in cash as an emergency fund NOW. see, the 1st step was easy right?

2  GET OUT OF DEBT! via the "debt snowball". basically start with your smallest debt or credit card & pay that bad boy off ASAP. then take the money you were paying on it and roll it over to the next smallest debt... repeat over and over & by the time you get to your biggest debt you will be putting a BIG chunk of money toward paying it off every month. pretty soon you'll be DEBT FREE!

3  Finish your EMERGENCY FUND. Obviously $1K is not enough for major emergencies (& YOU WILL have one). You need 3-6 months of expenses in the bank readily available. Imagine the freedom when you know you could live for 3-6 months if everyone in your house lost their jobs! pretty reassuring in this economy.

4  RETIREMENT! As soon as you have your emergency fund in place you have a TON of money freed up each month, so immediately start putting away 15% of your income into retirement accounts! Start with fully funding a Roth IRA (up to $6K for a couple) and matching 401Ks... START YOUNG! you'll end up with millions!

5  Save up for your kids' college tuition. Pretty much all college students go into crazy debt when they go to school! not cool. you can do something about that though! change your family tree. At this step start investing NOW for your kids into an ESA (Educational Savings Account). $200 a month will pretty much send your kids to any college they wanna go to.

6  PAY OFF YOUR HOME! Oh yeah. As Dave says "The paid off home mortgage has replaced the BMW as the status symbol of choice." seriously. OWN your home. straight up. totally possible.

7  Build Wealth like CRAZY! invest all this crazy ton of money you've got now because you don't owe anything! All your income is yours. Growth Stock Mutual Funds all the way... maybe even buying some real estate. you'll be a millionaire in no time.

*For me personally, this was brilliant because it was EASY. 1 step at a time. a dummy like me can follow this thing and be a millionaire. i think i'll tell our story with this plan tomorrow.

the prequel to the plan

I mentioned in my post on Sunday that my wife and i might live a little "different" when it comes to finances, but it's all because we're sticking with a plan. I'm going to write a little more about that in the next week or so.

it's simply a "Total Money Makeover" and we learned about it from Dave Ramsey. We had never heard of the guy until we heard him speak back in '07... now peeps call me a "Ramseyite".

I was not a genius and I am not very organized at all and I didn't know jack about money (other than that i didn't have any!)... I had tried a couple different money systems, but i wasn't smart enough i guess.

But, Dave's plan feels to me like "money for dummies". it's the simplest thing ever. We just have to follow the plan and we're golden. & the plan only has 7 steps. you just take 1 step at a time. that's my kind of $ plan. perfect for a dummy like me!

I'll write about those 7 steps tomorrow, but for now here's all you really need to know and do before starting the 7 steps.
1) no credit cards - ever! cut them up. NEVER be in debt or use debt again.
2) budget every dollar! we started doing a budget where we spent every single penny on paper before the month began. we're still doing that.

Like Dave says, if you want to be normal (spelled BROKE) just live like everyone else. But this plan is about "living like no one else so later you can live like no one else."

"yes He does"

I was driving home from my soccer game last night and near my neighborhood i got behind a car with a bumper sticker on the back that said = "God doesn't believe in atheists."

it looked something like this:

it's supposed to be a "cute" phrase that makes Christians chuckle, but i just said to myself "yes He does."

God absolutely believes in atheists. He made them. HE LOVES THEM. HE DIED FOR THEM. no different people who aren't atheists. He loves us all the same.
Maybe we should remember that next time we put a bumper sticker on our car.

*i had an urge to ask the person in the car what their purpose was in having that bumper sticker? Like, when an atheist rolls up behind you are you thinking that it helps them feel loved and like  you are their friend?
Honestly, in my opinion, it would probably be best if "Christians" didn't even put bumper stickers on their cars. seriously. Most of them are ridiculous like this one

Or maybe if we all just remembered the spirit behind the bumper sticker on my caddy:

seems like a much better bumper sticker to me. i'm just sayin'.

not a typical date night

my wife and i have a "date night" every Friday night. That's just what we do and what we'll always do. (i've written about it many times before... like HERE.) Actually, we believe it's so important that it's a major budget item for us. "Date Nights" gets it's own line item in our household budget every month. it gets a pretty good wad of cash too.

Earlier this spring here is a picture of our "date night".

 

yeah, we went on a nice romantic date to Subway and split a $5 foot long! i think we split a bag of cheetos too and each had a free cup of water. i think total it was like $5.77 or something?

Why? well, it was the end of the month (the last Friday of March i think) and we were out of date night money. the budget was empty. the envelope that said "date night" on it that at one point was full of cash was now completely empty. 

But - my wife found an old Subway gift card with a little bit left on it... just enough to pay for our nice dinner there. it was awesome. seriously. a cool night.

*Dave would say we're "living like no one else so that later we can live like no one else." 

it would have been easy to whip out the credit card and go to Outback and a movie and drop $60 or $70, but we chose to do the whole night for free with a Subway gift card. that's just the way we roll. it's all part of the plan.

we think the plan is pretty awesome. i'm hard core about the budget. we do not go over or spend money we don't have.

but i'm also hard core about a weekly date night. we're gonna go out together no matter what.

so, in order to stick to our financial plan that might mean we rock some $5 foot longs every once in a while...

that's cool with me.

*I think i'll write over the next 1-2 weeks about our "Total Money Makeover" and how it's changed our lives.

Bono's top 10 for this decade

i've written a lot about Bono in the past here on renown.

Recently i read his top 10 list for the next 10 years. you can read his 10 for the next 10 years HERE. he talks about everything from cars to intellectual property; from pollution to nonviolent revolution...

and here is his #1!

The World Cup Kicks Off the African Decade

"It’s getting easier to describe to Americans the impact of the World Cup — especially the impact it will have in Africa, where the tournament is to be held this summer. A few years ago, Ivory Coast was splitting apart and in the midst of civil war when its national team qualified for the 2006 jamboree. The response was so ecstatic that the war was largely put on hold as something more important than deathly combat took place, i.e. a soccer match. The team became a symbol of how the different tribes could — and did — get on after the tournament was over.
This time round, for the 2010 World Cup, naysayers thought South Africa could not build the stadiums in time. Those critics should be red-faced now. South Africa’s impressive preparations underline the changes on the continent, where over the last few years, 5 percent economic growth was the average. Signs point to a further decade of growth to come. Canny investors will put more capital there. This in turn has the potential to shore up fragile young democracies across the continent.
It would be fitting if Nelson Mandela, who has done more than anyone for Africa’s rising, would kick off the opening ceremonies. If he shows up, the world will weep with joy."

did any of you go read his whole top 10 list?

another must see World Cup commercial

The World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world!
(yes, way bigger than the Olympics or most stuff many of us Americans get into.)

it begins in only 15 days, 16 hours, 30 minutes and 17 seconds (and yes I have a countdown on my phone).
I feel like a little kid again. i am so unexplainably excited. *This is the greatest month every 4 years! nothing rivals it.

There has already been one amazing commercial for this World Cup and i posted about it HERE. but this one that just released about a week ago is possibly just as good. it's a must see!

wow - Drogba, Cannavaro, Rooney, Ribery, (was that Roger Federer and Kobe Bryant in there?), Cesc Fabregas, Ronaldinho, and of course Ronaldo all in the same commercial!? wow. that's like 9 different countries represented right there. (not to mention America's only hopes = Howard and Donavan.)

The Rooney part is my favorite because it's so true. Rooney is a pimp. i love that guy. i want him with me if i'm ever in a bar fight. (which i hope i'm not... i'm just sayin.)

This is a short and simple but GREAT example of how BIG soccer really is and how entire countries hang their hopes on their team at the World Cup. Huge chunks of the globe stop for a month this summer. It's bigger than a game. It changes economies and statues are erected! Soccer is one of the greatest pictures of globalism and it is supracultural. i love it.

*What's your favorite part?

thoughts on my 1st radio interview today

i just wanted to take a few minutes to download my thoughts after my 1st ever radio interview earlier today about some social justice organizations.

*i think it went well overall. thanks to all of you who were able to tune in online or on the radio. i hope in some small way i was able to lift up the name of Jesus and push forward His kingdom.

- it felt a little bit weird that they were playing that "My Humps" song right before i started talking about Jesus and serving the poor. it was just awkward to transition from Fergie belting out her famous question = "whatcha gonna do with all that junk" and then talk about serving Jesus and the poor...

- it was interesting but really cool having an unbeliever interviewing me + 2 others in the room producing who probably weren't believers. the girl interviewer made all kinds of interesting comments like "i thought you were going to be this really weird spiritual guy but you're really cool." ha... i laughed.

- innocent question and i thought it was a great question that she asked = "does serving the poor have anything to do with your faith?" uh... yeah... everything. they are 1 and the same. they can't be separated. faith and action always go together. you cannot have 1 without the other.

- it was great to have my boy Brian in the room also doing the interviewing of me. he "gets" it, so it was cool to have a friend that was "for" all these causes we talked about.

- i could tell i struck a nerve with the unbelievers in the room several times. that was awesome. they were moved by stories via sponsoring kids through Compassion International and building clean water wells through Advent Conspiracy and Living Water International.

- there was always more i wanted to say after some questions... next time i'll know i just gotta be ready to say it. :)

- it takes a little while to get comfortable in that chair and with the mic in my face, etc... i didn't really feel "at home" in the conversation until about 5 minutes in.

overall good times. thanks Brian for inviting me. great experience.

i'll be on the radio tomorrow

Tomorrow, (Tuesday, May 25th) from 2:30PM-3:30PM I'll be on the radio for 2 straight shows (2:30 & 3). just wanted all you guys to know in case you're bored and wanted to listen?
(When i was a little kid i was on the radio a couple times, but just as a caller. This will be my 1st time actually being interviewed. pretty exciting.)

If you really want to listen, i'll be on 89.3 The Storm. They'll be interviewing me on the 2:30PM show and the 3PM show back to back.
(i'll be honest, i have never actually listened to 89.3 here in Charlotte. anybody out there listen to this station?)

The topic for both shows will be Social Justice. That's what i was asked to talk about in this radio interview.

i think specifically the hosts will be asking me about some cool stuff like:  
- Advent Conspiracy and building some clean water wells through Living Water International,
- Compassion International and specifically the Upstreet kids sponsoring a child in Kenya through Project Generosity at Ridge Church.
- the Junky Car Club!
- and the Now Project at Ridge Church.

(i have probably written 50 blogs posts on all these things, but instead of linking them - if you really want to know what i have to say about this stuff just use the "SEARCH" option up in the top left hand corner of renown. example - type in "Advent Conspiracy" and all my posts will come up for you.)

So, if you want to listen to these 2 shows with me on the radio you can simply tune into 89.3 here in the Charlotte, North Carolina area at 2:30PM.

But, if you don't live in Charlotte, here are a few links for you to listen live online!
-  For live streaming audio click HERE.
-  it looks like (unfortunately) you must listen to the streaming radio show with Windows Media Player. (so, if you have a MAC like me the links won't work and you will have to download WMP for MAC HERE.
-  on your iPhone, download the "Pocket Tunes" app to listen to 89.3.
-  on any other phone you can download an App called "Moodio" HERE.

*Hopefully the interviews will go well. my prayer is to represent Jesus well and somehow bring Him glory and make His name famous to people who may not think much about God. i'm excited to talk about "social justice" = helping the poor and those who live in poverty. for me it's a God thing. it is the gospel. it's not separate.

Any expert radio peeps out there have any advice for a 1st timer like me?

anyone else have any thoughts?

who is this shawty?

the other day i turned to my wife and said "i'd like to meet this Shawty."

Seriously, who is this guy? EVERYBODY is talking about her/him.

He's the guy with "fire burnin on the dance floor." i know she's an "eeny, meeny, miny, mo lover" and she definitely gets "low low low low"

but, who is she? definitely from the ATL i'm pretty sure. what's he look like? what's her last name?

(hopefully you can sense my sarcasm)

Thoughts?

outback or bologna sandwiches?

(This article is reposted from July 2, 2008.)

Peter is the young boy that Crystal and I have the awesome privilege to support through Compassion International. Make sure you go read a little more about Peter & Compassion here. That's where I wrote about him on one of my very 1st blogs.

He's our "adopted orphan" - the only kind we can afford for now. We'd love to "really" adopt an orphan in Africa one day, but for now we send support to him each month and Compassion makes sure he has plenty of food, clean water, health care, education, AIDS prevention and help for his brothers & sisters, a place to sleep, and they also make sure he hears the amazing stories about Jesus.

So, I went to the mailbox this past weekend and pulled out a letter from Peter. (He writes to us every 2-3 months.) It's always really exciting when we get a letter from him. I was stoked, but I had to wait on Crystal to get back because we always read them together. As soon as we opened it we could tell that he wrote it himself! This is the 1st letter from him that he actually wrote with his own hands. He is only 5, so a translator had to write it for him up until now! Looks like that $ is paying off as he has already learned to write REALLY well! Really well for a 5 year old anyway as there were a few backwards letters and misspellings, but not too bad. I thought I would share some of the letter with you guys:

How are you. I hope you are fine. I am also doing great because of the Lord. How was your Easter? Mine was great. I went to church and learnt about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Thank you very much for your continued support and the gift you sent to me. I bought a goat worth 972 kshs and 50 kilos of maize worth 500 kshs.

Please pray for me that may do well in my studies. Is there any special prayer you would like me to pray for you? Bye til next time.

Love, Peter

Oh man, totally jacked me up a little when I read that. Definitely choked up a little. Pumped that he learned the coolest story ever - Jesus dying and coming back to life for us.

And then I read the next part. Crystal and I sent him a little extra $ for a Christmas gift. I think it was only like $50. We figured he could buy like a soccer ball and some toys or something. NOPE, he bought a GOAT! I read that and I just busted out laughing!!! So, I guess we got Peter a goat & some maize for Christmas. Actually I had some goat & maize together for a meal when I was in Africa. It's not bad when you're really hungry. Any of you ever got a goat for Christmas?It's just really funny to me.

Anyway, reading that letter makes it worth it all right there guys. When I think about there being 30,000 children dying every day from poverty, disease, and unclean water - it's crazy. But when I realize that for a little bit of my $ every month, Peter won't have to worry about it... what's a little bit of extra $? What's $40 a month going to do for me? 1 extra night out at a restaurant. But for Peter it guarantees he doesn't become a statistic! It gives him clean water, food, an education, medical care, etc... And it guarantees that he gets to be loved by a community of believers near his village who tell him the greatest stories ever told! His life is absolutely changed because of that money.

So, what do you think is more worth it? The night out at Outback or Peter? Get with it & sponsor a child! Go to compassion.com right now and make Jesus really happy.

As for me, I'm cool with the bologna sandwich for almost free at my house.

porn unavailable on Macs!

i am a Mac/Apple man for life. there's no going back. i hate Windows. BUT, even if i weren't already sold for life this would go a long way to win me over.

i am hoping this is true and have no reason to believe it's not. Check this Tweet i just saw from Apple CEO - Steve Jobs:

"Starting this summer, porn will be blocked from all Mac browsers. If you want smut, use Windows."

WOW! that is huge. Steve Jobs, you are the man! i guess that means i won't even need to use XXX Church anymore?

big props to Steve Jobs & Apple. Windows sucks anyway. Here is yet another reason to switch to MAC!

a friend of a friend

Have you ever thought about all the stories you hear that start with "a friend of a friend" or "my friend's friend"?
(i'm not just talking about the fact that the stories that follow are probably urban legends either...)

**But seriously, have you ever noticed that our friends' friends have way more crazy, fun, and interesting lives than our friends themselves? and certainly much more interesting lives than we do.

maybe the further we move out in the 6 degrees of separation the more crazy these people get?!  So, if we ever hear stories about "a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend" - then that is going to be one freaking crazy story!

you know what i'm sayin'?

a song i'm loving...

i'm not really a big Eminem fan. honestly never listened to his stuff much.

i'm actually more of a Jay-Z fan when it comes to hip hop.
but Eminem's newest single "Not Afraid" is my favorite song right now. i'm just loving it. singing it all day long, it's always in my head, always playing in my iPod...

i think i'm even digging his heart behind it. here's the hook... or the chorus...
"I'm not afraid to take a stand
Everybody come take my hand
We'll walk this road together, through the storm
Whatever weather, cold or warm
Just let you know that, you're not alone
Holla if you feel that you've been down the same road"

& a crazy catchy hook it is.

There really aren't many parts of the song i can post because i try to keep this blog PG-13. BUT, i think this bridge gets even deeper at the heart of his song (and it's all clean)
"And I just can't keep living this way
So starting today, I'm breaking out of this cage
I'm standing up, Imma face my demons
I'm manning up, Imma hold my ground
I've had enough, now I'm so fed up
Time to put my life back together right now"

i think these lyrics and Eminem's heart behind this song is legit. Plus i straight up love the sound!
Jay-Z & Eminem are actually teaming up for 2 concerts together = 1 at Yankee Stadium in NYC and 1 in Comerica Park in Detroit. i think that would be pretty sweet.

So, what do you think of Eminem's latest joint?

what's your outlet?

what is your outlet? you know, what you do to blow off steam and forget all your cares. that thing you do that you just lose yourself in. that thing that when you're doing it you can forget everything else - all your frustrations and cares and just get away from it all. almost to another world.

i heard some pastors talking about this over the weekend. their outlet was running marathons and that kind of crap and i was just like "you're crazy." but it was a good reminder to me that we all need our own outlets. something that works for each of us.

usually when i'm so frustrated or depressed or life is so crazy that i just need to "get away"... i can get away with just me and God. maybe just to a quiet room, to my porch swing, to some beautiful spot... and i can just pour my heart out to Him! it's beautiful. it's amazing. i can "cast all my cares on Him."

that's also what a good date night is for sometimes. i have an amazing wife. she lets me dump all my frustrations on her and she listens and comforts me and attempts to cheer me back up.

but neither one of those are really an "outlet". they are people. (which are honestly probably better long term solutions.)
Sometimes nothing is really wrong, we just need to blow off some steam. just get away from it all - to an outlet.

For me it's definitely soccer. as a kid and even a high schooler (and beyond) soccer was my "god". Not so much after i lost both my knees (cartilage). but i definitely still love the game. can't play it very well anymore but i love to play it so much. i can still lose myself in a soccer game. it's a beautiful thing. i get wrapped up in every facet of the game and lose myself in it.

So, i'm thankful to recognize it as a healthy outlet for me. i'm heading to my soccer game tonight in about 10 minutes. great timing too because i really need to blow off some steam and take out some frustrations. (i'm thankful i can do this instead of beating my dog... jk)

whoever woulda thought soccer can be so spiritual? but so can fishing or hunting or video games or reading or even running... or whatever your outlet is.

**So, what is YOUR outlet? 

(PS - beautiful night of soccer. i really took out my frustration... with a Hat Trick.) 

inside a colon

This is NOT a joke! This is an extremely large COLON.

A few weeks ago my wife and I went to visit some friends who just had a baby at Presbyterian hospital. This colon is what greeted us in the main lobby!

Upon closer inspection i found that it was not a joke but really supposed to be educational. you see, they had all the parts of the inside of the colon labeled. they even labeled them for us like this internal hemorrhoid!

wow. "this is crazy," i thought to myself.
I mean, they set it up like an exhibit at Discovery Place or an attraction at an amusement park... like for little kids to crawl through and explore! i'm speechless.

so, i thought i would crawl through myself! (& notice the strategically placed "Exit Only" sign at the end of the colon!)

Have YOU ever seen a huge colon like this? Do you think they put the "exit only" sign there on purpose?