I saw at 37signals.com
more cool stuff here.
Archive | March, 2009
This Sunday
9 MarI have the honor of preaching again this Sunday Morning. Talking about 1 Thess 4:13-5:11.
Thinking about just playing this movie.
not really.
Forgiveness
9 MarToday I was reading from Mark and this verse struck me.
Mark 11:25 – “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”
Whenever you pray, forgive. Who do you need to forgive? I think we all have things that tweek us throughout our day, week, month, and when we let those things build up we can create a grudge. But I love this little verse because we need to be the first to forgive. We should not wait for people to apologize. I know I needed this verse today.
Great Presenters
5 MarGreat post from Seth Godin on what makes a great presenter.
Bottom line if you don’t love your audience, you’ll never be great. When it comes to preaching, if you don’t love the people you are speaking with then they won’t care.
Perry Noble, Mark Driscoll, Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Rick Warren . . . all of these guys are great preachers, and you know that in their heart there is a great amount of love for the people who are receiving their message. They preach because they love.
Too many sermons are preached because it’s sunday, or because they think the preacher thinks they are really smart. But if you don’t love your audience you will be found out.
“As the talk (pitch/presentation/interview) begins, don’t focus your energy or concern on yourself. It’s not about you. It’s about them. The presenter who loves his audience the most, wins.”
Thanks Seth.
Killing Cockroaches – Review
4 Mar
I just finished Killing Cockroaches: And Other Scattered Musings on Leadership
Reading Killing Cockroaches felt like reading a Seth Godin book. Quick sections, funny, precise, and honest. All of that helped reading the book go really quickly. So I commend that.
It did feel like the way Newspring does church is the way to do church, and that get’s annoying as we do church very different, but the heart to reach the lost is the same. And I think for churches context is key, once you learn the context your church ministers in you can develop methodology. But the most valuable thing in this book is probably overriding metaphor of Killing Cockroaches, which is really doing something you should not be doing, get a professional to do that. And in church there is a ton of stuff that I know that I should not be doing, it’s not the best use of my time, and there are others who would be way better at it than me. It’s a good reminder that I need to carefully guard what I say yes to, and what can I help others to do. That sentence was a bit rough, but I think you get my point.
Anyway, get Killing Cockroaches, you’ll enjoy it.
My Son Is Famous
3 MarI listen to a radio show podcast – TBTL, which is short for Too Beautiful To Live. Great show! Last monday Judah and I were bored and we were playing with Garage Band which was awesome. I had Judah says, “boom roasted”, “RAWR”, “Come On”, and “Awesome”. All of which are regular audio drops on TBTL. On a whim I emailed the recording to the TBTL host, Luke Burbank.
Like I said I listen to the TBTL on podcast so I’m a little behind. Today i was listening to last monday’s show and what do you know, I heard them playing our recording. How fun.
If you are not listening to TBTL, I would recommend it, it’s a great, fairly random podcast on 97.3 KIRO, weeknights from 7-10. or you can get the podcast on mynorthwest.com/tbtl. If you want to download the specific episode where Judah was “featured” you can download that here. You should listen to the whole thing, but you can hear Judah around the 23 minute mark. Enjoy.
“Just Be Blessin’”
3 MarGreat Post from Ben Arment. On the blessing of God on churches.
I think part of the problem is our understanding of what God’s blessing is really all about. Just my $.02
U2 and organizational greatness
3 Mar
U2 released No Line On The Horizon, which is growing on me. It’s quite a departure from How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, which I loved. I was reading an interview with the band on CNN.com, and I was struck by the last statement from drummer Larry Mullen, Jr.:
We were always labeled “big” — you know, “U2′s a big band.” And you want to be a great band, and I think that’s one of the reasons we stick at it. There’s still work to be done.
Wow. Some people might read this and think pretension. I thought just the opposite. For a guy who has spent most of his life in the biggest band in the world, he realized that big and great are not the same thing. You can be big and suck as a musician (I could name some examples, but that would be mean). Or you can strive to be great and your audience will find you.
Organizationally the desire to be big is a killer, for churches, business start-ups, whatever. If your desire is to be big you are simply a balloon, Balloon’s pop when they get to big. If your desire is to great, then you start with substance instead of air.
For the church, it is so easy to just want to grow, but I’ve been in enough big churches that were just that, big, they weren’t great. And I’ve been in some small churches that were really great. The small church knows that there is work to do. Sometimes it’s harder see where you can grow when your desire is just to be big.
To stretch the metaphor a little more, look at the human body. It’s easy to get big, just consume, consume, consume, and don’t strain yourself. You’ll get big. It’s a lot harder to get strong. You have to consume, and exercise, and you have to monitor your body, and make sure that you are on track. You set goals, and you work towards them. You can be big and strong, or you can be big and flabby.
If your goal is big, that’s easy. If your goal is strong (great) you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you. And it’s totally worth it.
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