Groove On Promo

Here is my new promo picture...

Wanna vs. Gotta

Great post by Mark Waltz "Wanna vs. Gotta". Here is an excerpt:

How do you help volunteers move from I "gotta" serve, to I "wanna" serve? Here are some brief thoughts:

• Talk "opportunity to make a difference" rather than "we need to do this".
  • Sometimes our own communication to our team reveals an urgent pressure we feel to get it right. We end up saying, "we gotta do this" without realizing it.
• Cast vision through genuine acknowledgment of "job well done".
  • Rather than just say "thank you", remind people of the great difference they are making, the kingdom impact they're having because of their sacrificial serving.
• Create new "norms" for serving by inviting new people to your team.
  • Invite them to new paradigms of serving. New people who hear fresh vision have no former frame of reference. They won't be comparing what "used to be" to "what is". They'll not be used to some other schedule or set of expectations.
  • These new people create the new norm as more and more new people redefine the culture and climate of the team and ministry.
• Work with your leadership/pastoral team to develop a message series or journey, inviting the entire church to see serving as a lifestyle, as a privilege - a norm for every Christ-follower.
  • When you want to take your team from task to heart - where team members show up on time, serve with gratitude, and understand the "why" behind the "what", you need to approach it globally as an entire church. If folks are struggling to grasp vision, it's likely not limited to one area or team. The whole body has room to grow with a kingdom mindset that sees beyond themselves to others who matter to God.

Great stuff Mark.

C3 Buzz

Here are some C3 posts...Great reading from the C3 Conference at Fellowship Church with Ed Young.

http://www.tonymorganlive.com/tony_morgan_one_of_the_si/2007/02/c3_ed_young.html
http://www.tonymorganlive.com/tony_morgan_one_of_the_si/2007/02/c3_craig_groesc.html
http://www.tonymorganlive.com/tony_morgan_one_of_the_si/2007/02/c3_mark_driscol.html
http://www.tonymorganlive.com/tony_morgan_one_of_the_si/2007/02/c3_dr_ed_young.html
http://www.tonymorganlive.com/tony_morgan_one_of_the_si/2007/02/c3_bishop_td_ja.html
http://www.tonymorganlive.com/tony_morgan_one_of_the_si/2007/02/c3_ed_youngagai.html
http://www.perrynoble.com/2007/02/23/c3-update/
http://mattcard.blogspot.com/2007/02/mark-driscoll-on-functional-saviors.html

Great Reading...ENJOY

Create An Experience Part 2

In light of my previous post "Create An Experience", Matt Card had a great post called, "So how valuable is the experience, anyway?"

Matt discusses how Universal Studios invests millions of dollars to create the experience they want their visitors to get. They spend it to get every detail right.

Here is a little excerpt from the article that I thought was a great point:

What about you? What is the return you are looking for with your audience? Knowing many of my readers - that return isn't financial - it's something far more valuable.

How important to you is it to get that return? How important is it to create environments that let people connect? To connect in a way that encourages them to invest something far more precious than money?

So, I pose the question again: How valuable is the experience, anyway?

Now the return Universal is looking for is the billions of dollars that consumers will invest in their product.

What is the return that we are looking for? I believe that return is in changed lives. Creating an experience in our ministry is an essential part of creating a memorable experience that brings change. We are tying to connect in a way that encourages them to invest their lives in a God who died to rescue them.

***Side Note: In his post he talks about how Disney has to weigh their money. WOW!!! They make so much they have to weigh it because it is to much to count. INSANE!!!! It is amazing that we pay that much for the Disney experience.

Create An Experience

Great thought today about creating an experience. One of the things I have been thinking about most in our ministry is the thought of making our meeting an experience.

The things that stands out most in my life were great experiences. What is the thing you are doing this week that is going to make going to church an experience for someone?

I hear what your saying. Church should be about the basics. Coming and singing and hearing the word. And you know I agree. But what are you doing to create a memorable experience that correlates with your message. Something that will create a memory.

For example this past week I bashed this decorative block while I had a great looking vase next to it. I talked about how in life we often are marking our lives with junk creating a broken life and then asking God to fix it when we get older. But that instead we should be working on marking our lives with God encounters that create a work of beauty.

This is creating the experience versus just delivering a message. It is enacting the other senses to create a more memorable experience.

Think about how you can create an experience out of your meeting.

Marked-cast Episode 17

Marked-cast...Podcast #17 for Elevate...Here we go...This week our host Juno Garcia and I get back on track on the podcast with our guest Matt Bearden as we talk about our message for the night.

This weeks message on the Podcast continues our Inked Series and is by Jason Curlee called "Marked By God" in which our big idea is how we need to mark our lives with God encounters.

New to the Podcast this week is our Nugget-time in which you will hear this weeks nugget by Juno Garcia during our offering time.

-->> Download the MP3 directly here <<--

-->> Listen online here <<--

I Can Do It

As I continue to work on our March series called "Lost - Surviving the Mystery of the Unknown" I am realizing that this is the most unique view of Philippians 4:13 that I have ever presented.

Today as we outlined the second message, here were some of the notes I wrote down:

The Main Text is going to be Exodus 32 where the Israelites made the golden calf. The ideas we wrote down were that when they realized they were alone…that God was not there…they said “I CAN DO”...And they made something to take God’s place…we do that with people and things as well. Their situation was telling them one thing and so they felt they had to fix it. Isn’t that what we do? We try to fix our situation when it doesn’t need fixing. This is what happens if you stop at “I CAN DO”. Most people do this when they feel stranded. We are taught this by our parents, our teachers, our coaches, that we shouldn’t say I can’t and that we should say I can…and it is partially true.

So tonight I was thinking more about that and realized that all our lives we are taught that we can do it. And I have been one of the major players and do believe it as well. I have even taught to never say I can't. Oftentimes in our life though when we are in a phase of feeling stranded we try to do it. This is where I believe we mess up. It is at that very moment that we must realize that it is Christ who will give us the strength to survive and we must not try to fix it.

Good stuff.

Baby Got Book

Need a laugh...this was funny...Not for the religious at heart.

Plan Your Day

In Brian Tracy's weekly Time Management Success Email Newsletter he had a great article today on Planning Every Day In Advance

Here are some of the points from the article:

Your ability to plan well, in advance of beginning, is a measure of your overall competence. The better the plan you have, the easier it is for you to overcome procrastination, to get started , and then to keep going.

Make A List
Always work from a list. When something new comes up, add it to the list before you do it. You can increase your productivity and output by 25% or more from the first day that you begin working consistently from a list.

Plan the Night Before
Make out your list the night before, at the end of the workday. Move everything that you have not yet accomplished onto your list for the coming day and then add everything that you have to do the next day. When you make out your list the evening or the night before, your subconscious mind works on your list all night long during sleep. Often you will wake up with great ideas and insights that you can use to get your job done faster and better than you had initially thought.

When you plan each day in advance, you find it much easier to get going and to keep going. The work goes faster and smoother than ever before. You feel more powerful and competent. You eventually become unstoppable.

A Goals Update

Just a little update on some of my goals.

Going into this year I had two main goals. The first was to lose some weight. I was up to 265. Now I don't feel like that is a lot since I used to weigh 275 in the offseason as a bodybuilder. But since I hadn't lifted like that in over 10 years the 265 was a little heavy. Well I am now hovering at the 250 mark. Course it's tough cause all those goodies are calling my name. But I am making progress.

The second goal is to read through the Message Bible this year. I've fallen a little behind on that one. Once you get behind it is hard to catch up so I am purposing to stay consistent.

My third obscure one was to cut down on the blogs I read. I found it hard to cut down to 25 blogs and keep up with all the things going on out there. But I have kept it under 45.