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...)