The Fundamental State

I've been reading Holy Discontent: Fueling the Fire That Ignites Personal Vision by Bill Hybels this month. This passage stuck out to me powerfully this morning. I wanted to share it with everyone. It comes on page 118.

Professor Quinn puts it this way in his book, Building the Bridge as You Walk On It: "When we accept the world as it is [by living in the normal state], we deny our ability to see something better, and hence our ability to be something better. We become what we behold."

Accepting the world as it is.
Denying our ability to see something better.
Denying our ability to be something better.

This is life in the normal state.
What's not normal, Professor Quinn says, is embracing the fact that another state exists.

"To remain in the normal state is ultimately to choose slow death," asserts Quinn. The normal state is so self-seeking that you can spin your wheels for a lifetime and never once impact the world around you. In the fundamental state, however, people care so much about getting results that they begin to move and breathe in a totally different realm. They operate with intentionality. They act with massive doses of enthusiasm and persistence. They surrender their ego because the cause simply can't afford their pride. They open themselves up to any and all new ideas and forms of input--regardless where those suggestions come from.

People who operate in a "fundamental" state of mind concentrate at higher levels and focus more intensely because the goal they're pursuing demands it. They take risks they wouldn't normally take ... because they have to--there's to much at stake not to! Their creativity kicks up a notch. Their energy soars. Their passion swells.

What a picture of what can happen to a church if we accept or don't accept the state we are in. I hope that can be an inspiration to someone.

New Reads

Some people like getting new dud's, others like getting new do's...I like getting new reads. Got two new reads this week:

First one is Creating Community: Five Keys to Building a Small Group Culture by Andy Stanley and Bill Willits.



As we set out to build our small group culture at Journey Church, I am looking at how various churches are doing it successfully. Creating Community is about how North Point Community Church has created their small group culture.

The second book I bought is Holy Discontent: Fueling the Fire That Ignites Personal Vision by Bill Hybels. Hybels pastors Willow Creek Community Church. This book looks to be very inspiring which is why I want to read it.

Discover Your Strengths

One book I'm reading right now is Now, Discover Your Strengths. I have put this on my list of books that every pastor or ministry leader should read.

I'm about half-way through and took my strengths finder test. I have to admit...it pretty much nailed it.

Top five:

Focus
Learner
Achiever
Self-assurance
Maximizer

This is going to be some useful information for me as with a better understanding of my strengths I can explain to my wife all the faults in me. LOL...J/K honey.

The Center of It All

I am still reading Off-Road Disciplines: Spiritual Adventures of Missional Leaders by Earl Creps. After about reading eight chapters the one thing that really stood out to me is that today's church is really set up with the pastor being the center of everything.

And the truth is from a lot of churches I see across America I really feel a lot of Pastor's like it that way or they don't know how to break that trend. I'm sure it can be quite an ego feed for them.

This is probably why I work so hard at it not being that way in our ministry. I don't want our teens or young adults to have this super-reliance on me and I don't want to feed into that type of system.

Two things I strive for are:

1) Push them to be responsible for their own growth and relationship with God.

2) Get our team involved in every way possible to put them in the spotlight.

A third way which we are implementing in small ways is to:

3) Have small groups led by team members.

The E-Myth Revisited

I picked up a copy of The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It.

This is a book I had been picking through a little each time I went to the book store. Michael Gerber is the author and it gives many principles that churches and ministries could use to better themselves.

It has moved up to the top of my reading list right now.

Off-Road Disciplines

I read the first two chapters of Off-Road Disciplines: Spiritual Adventures of Missional Leaders by Earl Creps.

This book is one that will grow on you as you read it. Earl reveals a very transparent look at his journey though church. This book will inspire you to view our current culture not through the lens of the current church filter, but to view it from a missional viewpoint.

I hope to give some tid-bits from it over the coming weeks.

Great People.

In the last chapter of Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win it asks the question, "Why should great people join your organization?"

This is a great question any department head or even pastor could ask.

Why should great people join your department?

William Taylor & Polly LaBarre go on to answer that question as follows:

"The best leaders understand that the best rank-and-file performers aren't motivated primarily by money. Great people want to work on exciting projects. Great people want to feel like impact players inside their organizations. Great people want to be surrounded with and challenged by other great people. Put simply, great people want to feel like they're part of something greater than themselves."

People With Impact

Great quote by Mike McCue I found on p. 203 in the book Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win:

"We don't want people who just want to be pat of an outfit that's fun and cool. We don't want people who are going to complain about processes or the pressures of scale. We want people who want to build something big and have an impact on the world."

Off Track But Now On

So I realized that in my quest to post more often. I often let my originalty and some of my series that I said I was starting get away. This month we will get back on track.

Part of it was me devouring the book, "The BIG IDEA – Focus the Message and Multiply the Impact" over the past two weeks. That book was awesome and has already begun to revolutionize how we are going to do this year. The other reason was my goal to post twice a day. I'm not going to be doing that anytime soon.

This month I am going to be focusing on the bookMavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win in some of my posts. I started reading it last weekend when I was in Austin. It is all about innovation and cutting edge. This book is slammin'. It is going to bring a lot to the table for us here.

I would highly recommend you reading these two books and maybe even picking up Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win as we read through it this month.

Obedience

I'm still reading through "The BIG IDEA – Focus the Message and Multiply the Impact" by Dave Ferguson. This book has so challenged the way I think and are approaching ministry. It has made me look at all aspects of what we do on the night we meet and how all elements are being put together to laser focus what we are doing.

I like what Dave says in the book on page 22, "when we contribute to the bombardment of little ideas, we are implicitly telling our people that not all of god's truth has to be accompanied by obedient action."

This ties in to a quote from Juan Carlos Ortiz that he heard in Bible College, "the average Christian is educated to at least three years beyond their level of obedience."

Mavericks At Work And Austin

This weekend I was in Austin, TX and one of the books I took with me was Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win. As I completely devoured the first chapter I read about this innovative company named GSD & M that was located there. So "blink, blink" the idea (funny cause they call their building "Idea City") popped in my head to go by and shoot a video there. And so we did.

Here are the pics of me there.




Look for my latest video coming out this Friday with a great quote by their president and co-founder Roy Spence.

You can check out last weeks episode -->> HERE <<--

Reading the Big Idea in the ER

So what is there to do when you are stuck in an emergency room from 10 pm to 1 am? Well I don't know about you but for me its reading. Last night my daughter had an asthma attack and we had to rush her in to the e.r.

So I grabbed my book, "The BIG IDEA – Focus the Message and Multiply the Impact", and got a little reading done.

Here are a couple of Chapter One highlights:

1. "...the last thing the mission of Jesus Christ needs is more Christians." (That's right he said it and you are going to have to read to see why.)

2. "when the Barna Research Group did a survey involving 152 separate items comparing the general population with those who called themselves Christians, they found virtually no difference between the two groups." (Say it isn't so)

3. "We have bombarded our people with too many competing little ideas, and the result is a church with more information and less clarity than perhaps ever before." (Thought about this one all through today.)

4. "The effective teacher is like a person who takes a strong rope, ties one end around the big ideas of Scripture, ties the other end around the major themes of life, and then through the power of the Spirit struggles to pull the two together." (My biggest take-away from the chapter.)

The Big Idea

Today I received my book "The BIG IDEA – Focus the Message and Multiply the Impact" from and by Dave Ferguson. Dave is the lead pastor at Community Christian Church in Naperville, Illinois. You can read his blog at daveferguson.com.

Dave sent me an email last week asking me to review the book and of course I totally said yes. Go read "The Big Idea Book Review" to find out about that.

This book already has me thinking about the possibility of implementing the concept throughout the ministry we lead. I have been thinking of how focusing on one main idea for the week throughout our ministry would bring a lot of stability and focus.

Stay tuned as I begin my journey through the book dropping you a couple of nuggets along the way.

The Big Idea Book Review

I was totally excited today when I saw an email from Dave Ferguson. Dave is the lead pastor at Community Christian Church in Naperville, Illinois. You can read his blog at daveferguson.com.

Dave is wanting me to preview his new book, "The BIG IDEA – Focus the Message and Multiply the Impact". I can tell you this. I had already been excited about this book for a couple of weeks because I just went to implementing one big idea in all my messages. So when I saw that Dave had been writing a book on how to implement this in order to laser focus your ministry effectiveness, I was so thrilled. And now the email...oh man am I more pumped about this book.

Here is a brief synopsis:

Nothing is more dangerous than a single compelling idea that is lived out and nothing is more harmless than lots of little ideas never applied. By creatively communicating one BIG IDEA every week, your church will transform people into genuine Christ followers who live out the mission of Jesus. Less is more! Community Christian Church embraced the BIG IDEA and everything changed. They decided to avoid the common mistake of bombarding people with so many “little ideas” that they suffered overload. They also recognized that leaders often don’t insist that the truth be lived out to accomplish Jesus’ mission. Why? Because people’s heads are swimming with too many little ideas, far more than they can ever apply.

Go to -->> Amazon <<-- to pre-order the book and save.

My Best Books of 2006

Thought I would join in on some of the top thoughts of 2006 as it comes to a close.

This post will be dedicated to the top books I read:

1. In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day

This book was exciting, thought provoking, challenging and all around excellent. I loved how Mark Batterson writes in such, to me, down to earth speak write at ya language.

2. Communicating For A Change

This book has stretched me to the max. It has challenged my approach to communicating totally. Needless to say I will never be the same communicator that I was. I can't now that I read it. Andy Stanley and his team have some great principles of communication that can help any communicator go from good to great.

3. Revolution YM

Ron Luce has written an excellent book that I believe can transcend youth ministry and be applied to all areas and departments in ministry. Covering areas such as leadership and planning this book can be an excellent resource to take your department to a higher level.

Grab Life By The Mane - 2

Of course by now I am deep into the book "In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day" by Mark Batterson. As I go back and review I notice that on the second page of Chapter 1 I underlined, "Normal people run away from lions...But lion chasers are wired differently."

What is it about Christians that makes us so timid at times? I know a lot of people that acted so crazy when the weren't saved and now that they are it's like "lame". You know what I'm talking about? It's like all of the sudden they get life...and then they let life suck it right out of them.

God has wired us different and we should be chasing lions. Last week we were talking about decisions in our meeting and I love that topic. Decisions will determine our destiny. What you decide today will determine what your future is like. Sometimes though I think we need to quit thinking it out. You know if you sit down long enough you will rationize yourself out of chasing that lion. You will start to think about just how big that lion is. All of the sudden when that happens we make our lion bigger than our God.

I imagine Benaiah did rationize it at all...cause what "sane" person does when they are faced with a lion. What "sane" person sits down and looks at the doctors report and just trashes it and goes to God in thanksgiving. What "sane" person looks at where they are going to get their next meal if they tithe and goes ahead and gives it. Lion chasers are so different. They grab life by the mane and they take it before God. They go ahead and put their foot on the enemies neck and give God the glory before they ever "think" about it. So go ahead...grab that obstacle...stomp down on it...and see if God doesn't come through for you. Grab Life By The Mane.

Grab Life By The Mane - 1

Yum, Yum, Yum…today I just got my four books I ordered from Amazon…they are going to be the latest books to add for my bookshelf…I am so excited and have been especially waiting for “In a Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day”, by Mark Batterson of National Community Church. You can find out more about the book at the Chase the Lion website.

I have already begun reading it and it has already go me thinking and I’m only on page 12. Here are some of the things I’ve underlined:

“There was also Benaiah son of Jehoida, a valiant warrior from Kabzeel. He did many heroic deeds…” p.9

Now I know that was just the Scripture text on the first page of Chapter One….but this got me thinking about being valiant.

Valiant means 1) boldly courageous; brave; stout-hearted, 2) marked by or showing bravery or valor; heroic:, 3) worthy; excellent.

So I’m reading this and thinking does this describe me. To my kids am I marked by bravery…am I their hero… Sometimes putting aside the things I want to do to spend time with them is a heroic act. It is easy in life to run and do the things that “I” want to do but I only have one shot at their childhood. I only have one chance to truly make an impact on their life. Am I going to make that impact at work, or in the gym, or on the golf course? No, I will make that impact walking my life out in front of them. Being a hero to them is sometimes being home when the get home, cooking them dinner…jumping on the trampoline with them. (Getting off the computer sometime…LOL…that one’s mine)

So Benaiah was a valiant warrior…he did many heroic deeds. Make it your purpose to begin your start at being valiant…start at home…start at work…start at church…start in your relationships…just start… GRAB LIFE BY THE MANE!

What other books did I get today???

Would I Live With My Mom For That

I was at the mall today and I saw this book called Freakonomics.




It had some pretty interesting chapters in it. The chapter I read while I was there was called "Why do drug dealers live with their Moms?" It was about a sociology study a guy did on a gang that in the end showed how the gang was economically structured like a business.

I thought it was a great chapter and one thing stuck out to me...the lower level drug dealers that were structured in the gangs made roughly $3.30 per hour. (That was the reason they lived with mom...how much they were paid.) My thought was that these kids line up with the thought they are going to get rich and are so passionate about what they do especially in light of the study that there was a 1 in 4 chance they would die.

I wonder what the world would be like if we had that much passion about what we believe in.

Book of the Week

I've been reading a great book this week.

This book is so relevant and has me thinking about synergy. If all the people in the church would utilize their gifts in what they are passionate about calling on their attributes, personality, and experiences, we would create a synergy unlike any other. I would recommend this book to anyone.

I am using it as the main inspiration for our S.H.A.P.E. conference which we will be holding at our church Nov. 11th.

Great Reading!