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.

Nothing

I got nothing...no I really mean it...nothing...nada...zippo.

You ever feel like that. Sometimes you push so hard and you just hit a wall and go blank. So how can you keep that fire going? How can you stay on top of the game? How can you keep that creative edge?

TAKE A BREAK...that's my main tip...sometimes you just got to stop and recharge the braincells.

So since I got nothing...here goes...I'm taking my break from this.

Discouragement

I know that none of you have ever been discouraged in ministry. Working in a ministry career whether its as a senior or lead pastor or even if its a department head or staff pastor can be one of the greatest and joyous careers you can be involved in.

But to really be honest there are times that even as pastors we can be discouraged. In working at three different churches in 12 years of ministry I have found myself going through seasons of discouragement as well as discouragement in routine tasks or problems.

Often times this discouragement is from focusing on the wrong thing. Remember faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen. Often times we see or focus in on the source of that discouragement and when we do we get our eyes off of our true source.

There was a great post on Fast Company today on this very issue. The post, "Leading Ideas: Take the time to encourage others", explores this issue of discouragement and gives some great tips.

The next time you feel discouraged about a certain problem:
1. Recognize you're feeling discouraged (this is often the hardest step).
2. Physically move from where you are - take a walk.
3. Connect with someone who you know could use your help and lend an ear.
4. Help or encourage them.
5. Come back to your problem with a new perspective.

I would add one more to that. Shift your focus back to the "Source". Shift your focus to God and thank Him. Don't pray about the problem but focus on Him as your source. Sometimes we spend a lot of time praying about our problem that it stays in the forefront. I think God already knows about what we are going through and wants us to just respond in faith to Him.

This can also be refreshing and help us return with a new perspective.

Love-cast Episode 16

Price-cast...Podcast #16 for Elevate...Here we go...This week our host Juno Garcia, Shelly Stokes, and Rachel Cullers take over the podcast cause I'm not there. I do make a surprise call for a first on the podcast. They talk about the night without me.

This weeks message on the Podcast is by Juno Garcia called "The Greatness of God's Love" with a great message about God's Love.


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

-->> Listen online here <<--

Out of Commision

I've been off the scene for about two days because I came down with the flu. It hit me hard. Either that or I'm just older now and can't recover as fast. First time in 12 years that I missed preaching. You know it's that bad if I missed that.

My buddy Juno though stepped up to the plate and knocked it out of the park though. He ran our meeting last night and did a fabulous job with all our team.

That is the great thing about doing ministry as a team. If you work and develop your team in all aspects of what you do. If an emergency comes up they can step in with no problem and not miss a beat.

One of the things that I do is give them opportunities to shine on days that I am there and let our team run things so that they are already used to the pressure of the whole night. Then if I'm not there they don't totally freak out.

I mixed the podcast today and the meeting sounded like it went great.

Hats off and great job to the team at Elevate.

Help With Video Series

I need your help. With my first video series, Developing Yourself As A Leader, completed. I am working on the next series. The theme will be "Developing Your Team".

Here is where I need some help out there in the blogosphere.

• What do you feel would be some good topics for this five week series?
• What areas do you need help with in developing your team?
• What would you teach someone else?

I am really looking for a little open source development for this series and would love your input.

You can easily leave me a comment or email me at pastorjcurl@gmail.com

Burnout In Ministry

Tim at Life in Student Ministry wrote a great post this week about burnout. This post is one that could be applied to every department and pastor in church.

Below are a few highlights but make sure you go read his full post.

2. Accept responsibility for everything. Say “yes” to whatever is asked of you and your time. It doesn’t matter if it could easily be handled by a volunteer, take it on anyway because you’re the guy they pay to do it. Besides, there may be no one else willing or available to do it besides you, which obviously indicates how important it is to everyone else.

5. Attempt to control everything. Control all the planning, the results, the future, the people, the workplace, the weather and God. You are the sustainer of the ministry on whom it is all built. If you take your eyes off of any of anything it will collapse and fail miserably.

9. Dwell on all the problems. So it turns out that your ministry is the only one in the world that isn’t perfect. Let it consume your thoughts, your heart and your emotions. It’s important to focus on internal problems so there’s no time left to reach the lost souls that are dying all around.

Church Staff Employees Or Family

If you have read my blog for some time now you might know that I have a passion for wanting to create a church working environment that is more like a family than it is job.

Brand Autopsy had a great post called "Treat Employees Like Family". Here is a short excerpt:

Steve Bigari understood exactly what his mentor was saying:

TAKE CARE OF YOUR PEOPLE.

So instead of reducing employee benefits to curb costs, Bigari increased the benefits he offered to employees. He added services such as day care, transportation to/from work, and small loans to the mix of employee benefits. Bigari made the business case for adding such expensive benefits believing it would not only reduce employee turnover, but also keep employees more focused on daily customers at work than on their daily problems at home...

...Treating front-line employees as family not only changed the lives of his employees, it also changed his life. In June of 2006, Bigari sold his McDonald’s franchises and based off his experience treating employees like family, he created and now runs a non-profit group called America’s Family to offer similar services to low-wage employees at other companies.

Treating staff as though they were family vs. employees could go a very long way to staff retention as well, especially in the 21st century. When staff feels more ownership, as say a family member does, it will create the buy-in that so many pastors are wanting.

Buy-in is an important facet of building long-term for growth. And having a family model of ministry is a way to ensure a loyalty that brings that buy-in and growth.

A couple of other posts from me that talk about the church environment that I think should be created are:

A Collaboration of Great Minds or Be A Little Maverick

Google Is Top Employer

Bought For A Price

This past week as I as creating the first message for our Inked Series for our Elevate meeting I had an idea of putting some clips together from the Passion. The reason for the clips was for that message which was "Bought For A Price". Our big idea for that night was that Jesus paid the biggest price for our lives.

As I was creating it I remember using Third Day's Love Song once before for a similar try at this six years ago with the Matthew Movie so I used it as the song for the clips. The video came out great for that night and below is what we used.



Afterwards I had some more ideas on improving it and hopefully will do a remix of it in the future.

Message Prep Lost - The Arrival

As we continue looking at our Message Prep System which we use to design our messages I want to post the first message of our Lost Series. I posted our Series Synopsis for Lost which was created one month out. Four weeks out our children's pastor and I sit down in our team message meeting.

In an upcoming post I will post the outline of that meeting which I got out of Dave Ferguson's book "The BIG IDEA – Focus the Message and Multiply the Impact".

Here is the first outline that was created four weeks out for our Lost Series. The message is titled "The Arrival":

Sermon Title – Arrival
Scripture Reference – Philippians 4:13
Date – March 7, 2007
Speaker – Jason Curlee

Me - Introduction

CUE DVD Lost DVD Clip of Island Crash

Sometimes we arrive in a place where we feel all alone. This could be for many reasons. It is during these times we go through phases of feeling stranded and begin living in survival mode. We must begin to learn to go to a place where we can be rescued. When we feel “lost”, our trust in knowing we can do all things through Christ will help us survive the mystery of the unknown. It is by coming to a realization that we must have a complete and utter trust in God will our faith grow stronger.

We present to you tonight our new series LOST – Surviving the Mystery of the Unknown.

Sometimes life can be good to us and then all of the sudden we can arrive in a place where we feel all alone. These are times where we feel others and God are no where to be found. Leaping off the TV screen from the “Lost Series” this message called “Arrived” is about how in life, when we focus on “I”, we find ourselves “Lost”.

The beginning of the series starts off with the cast arriving on an island due to a plane crash. They were 1.000 miles off course and lost.

Being lost is a scary feeling in life.

STORY ILLUSTRATION - Story on James Kim Being Lost

How many remember the story of James Kim? The family was driving in a blizzard and got lost and they ended up finding how he had tried to walk for help to save them. Watch this.

Cue Video of James Kim News Clip

And so tonight we are talking about arriving at a place and realizing that we are lost and not knowing what to do.

You - Connection

Have any of you ever been lost?

Have many of you have ever felt lost in life? Felt like you don’t know where you are going in life.

Maybe some of you have found yourself asking the question “Where Am I?”

Maybe some of you have though that you live a pretty good life, but there is still something missing. Something you can’t figure out. Not satisfied with your life.

If you’re in a place where you are lost how are you going to think?

How should you feel if you are lost?

What is the proper way to act? Men often pretend that everything is ok…and that they don’t need help.

When the Israelites felt arrived to the Promised Land they doubted God and ended up wandering around lost in the wilderness for 40 years.

They faced the challenge of wanting to go back to Egypt where they felt it was good enough rather than into the land promised which was God enough.

We must come to realize that we must not stay where it is good enough but go where it is God enough.

Big Idea
Good Enough to God Enough

Let’s take a look at some Scriptures from the Bible as we talk about this Big Idea.

God – Biblical Foundation

All this series we are going to be looking at Philippians 4:13 and seeing how it is going to help us survive this mystery of not knowing.

Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (New King James)

As we start out looking at this Scripture I just want to focus on that first word…”I”

This is how most of us go through life especially when we first “Arrive” in a state of being lost. We first focus on “I”.

Our thought immediately is on ourselves. What we are going through.

We ask questions like:

What are we going to do? Why am “I” going through this? Why me?

In doing this we take our focus off God and we put it on our selves and on our problem.

In turn we make our problem worse. Our problem then becomes bigger than our God.

In fact the Israelites had this problem.

In Numbers 13 & 14 we find the story of them coming up to the Promised Land and they send out 12 spies to check it out. These spies went all over the land for 40 days looking at the land and what was there and the people who lived there.

I’m going to read you some and take some of it out.

Numbers 13:26-33

26 They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land.

27 They gave Moses this account: "We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit.

28 But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large…

30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it."

31 But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are."

32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.

33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."

Here they were going to a land that was God enough and they ran into a snag…and they started focusing on their problem.

A "God Enough" life sometimes looks harder and requires more from us.

That’s what Jesus talked about when He talked about the Wide Road and the Narrow Road.

I was thinking about that and realized something. The roads that are most traveled on often look the best.

How many of you have pot holes going to your house? Why cause it is not as traveled on so it is not taken care of as much.

But travel done Interstate 37 here…it is smooth and wide…

It’s easier to travel on. The road to my house is harder to travel on. I have to dodge this way and that way.

Often times in life we don’t want to go the God Enough way cause it’s harder…it requires more from us. So we choose the Good Enough.

Good Enough though appears better…there are more going that way so why not.

In fact these same Israelites were willing to trade this Promised Land at one point for what is in this bag…

ILLUSTRATION

Ask Questions to peak interest…

Open it up – Inside are Onions

Are you willing to give up a great life for God for a bag of onions?

That is what we do if we stop with that one word in Philippians 4:13…”I”

“I” is the Good Enough…”I” is the onions.

But to survive this mystery of the unknown we must move from “I”…from Good Enough to God Enough.

Philippians 4:13 Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. (The Message)

You - Application

STORY ILLUSTRATION - Lost Driving Bus To Galveston

I remember one basketball trip to state we were on and I missed my turn. It was late at night and even though I had gone that way before I missed it. I was knew I was off course and you know what I choose to do. I choose to ask for help. I knew I couldn’t trust myself to get us back on course so I stopped and asked someone who knew.

As we look to apply this Big Idea to our lives we have got to build our trust. And we do that my not settling for Second Best…when we can have FIRST.

Even though the God life will take more from us…we must stay focused on the fact that we must trust God in all the areas of our life.

Trust does not doubt when it doesn’t work out how we think it should.

Those Israelites thought they were going to stroll right into the Promised Land. But they were going to have to fight for it.

To get FIRST…to get the God Enough they were going to have to not settle for the onions the Good Enough.

We - Vision

Answer the connection questions.

When you come to a place in life and you find your self crashed…isn’t it going to awesome to know that because you have developed your trust in God and not settled for second best that you will now be able to stand during this time.

Now you know that you can feel a deeper trust that God is there because all along you have only settled for the God Enough life.

Isn’t it great to know that you can live a life that shows a trust in God.

Altar Call

Should We Reach The Lost

Have to say that I was a little disappointed about Marko's post christian smith comments on the 4% fear in youth ministry

Marko (Mark Oestreicher) is the President of Youth Specialties. He posted about a week ago and I have really been meditating on it for about a week.

It was surprising in light of the fact that he and the author have no statistics to the other. With a little figuring here in Corpus I estimate that with pretty much the largest youth ministries running about 30 to 50 with about 32,000 teens in the area about 5% would be a good estimate.

I'll agree that pushing a statistic for the sake of pushing a statistic as a means to an end is one thing. But as the president of Youth Specialties to not be alarmed or apparently apathetic to the state of today and to push a side that pretty much comes off as "hey everything is ok...no need to be alarmed." That is a little disheartening to me.

As I read his post I feel a lack of urgency to reach the lost. That same organization that he does not name, "Teen Mania" makes it their cause to inspire youth ministries to make a difference and reach the lost.

Is that not a main concern of Youth Specialties? You Tell Me.

Series Synopsis

As I have already laid out in a previous post called Message Prep System, one month out we lay out our series. This is not a hard and fast set-up and can change but gives us the direction we will be heading. There are a few blanks in there that will be filled in on the days that we create the message.

Here is the synopsis for our March Series called Lost:

LOST – “Surviving the Mystery of the Unknown”

Series Verse:

Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Subject:

Trust in God

Series Synopsis:

In life we sometimes arrive in a place where we feel all alone. During these times we go through phases of feeling stranded and begin living in survival mode. We must begin to learn to go to a place where we can be rescued. When we feel “lost”, our trust in knowing we can do all things through Christ will help us survive the mystery of the unknown. Coming to a realization that we must have a complete and utter trust in God will enable our faith to grow stronger.

Messages:

Date – March 7, 2007

Message Name – “Arrival”

Big Idea – Good Enough to God Enough

Scripture – Genesis 11:31 to Genesis 12:3

Application – Don’t Settle For Second Best When You Can Have First

Message Synopsis – Sometimes life can be good to us and we can arrive in a place where we feel all alone. Times where we feel others and God are no where to be found. Leaping off the TV screen from the “Lost Series” this message called “Arrived” is about how in life, when we focus on “I”, we find ourselves “Lost”. When the Israelites felt arrived to the Promised Land they doubted God and ended up wandering around lost in the wilderness for 40 years. They faced the challenge of wanting to go back to Egypt where they felt it was good enough rather than into the land promised which was God enough. We must come to realize that we must not stay where it is good enough but go where it is God enough.

Date – March 14, 2007

Message Name – “Stranded”

Big Idea – Turn Alone Time into God Times

Scripture –

Application – Stay Faithful

Message Synopsis – After we come to the realization of our arrival into a phase of life of being “lost”, we begin to believe that we have become stranded. Being stranded is a feeling of abandonment. It is feeling that we are alone. As our focus turns on us it is during this time that we believe the “I can do” emotions that accompany our life during this time. It is the focal point around which we can either remain alone or develop our dependency on God. We turn our alone time into God times as we stay faithful to our relationship with God.

Date – March 21, 2007

Message Name – “Survival”

Big Idea – Trust God in the Face of the Unknown

Scripture – Psalm 56:1-4

Application – Live A Life Of Praise

Message Synopsis – After being stranded our concentration then turns to “Survival”. It is during this stage that we begin to take stock of our resources. Our thinking turns to a focus of “I Can Do All Things”. It is at this time that we trust in ourselves and our resources instead of “Trusting God in the Face of the Unknown”.

Date – March 28, 2007

Message Name – “Rescued”

Big Idea – Letting Go of Everything

Scripture –

Application –

Message Synopsis – By design we do not like not knowing. When we face times of being “lost” we often come to an end of ourselves. This is almost a place of no hope. As we begin to grasp that all we can do does not get us anywhere we can then turn our attention to the only one that can rescue us. Our awareness goes from self to God as the true meaning of “I can do all things through Christ” comes into the forefront when we begin “Letting Go of Everything”.

Developing Yourself As A Leader Videos

This week I am taking a break from my Making Difference Makers Youtube video series that I began to help my leaders grow On a weekly basis. The first series was on "Developing Yourself As A Leader".

For those out there that got to join in and see some of the videos I hope you were able to learn and enjoy.

This is my first venture into any type of video lessons so I am really learning. It's amazing how many times you have to re-shoot a two to three minute video clip. For one of them I had 29 takes. WHEW...

I plan to start a new series on Developing Your Team beginning next week. In the mean time to get caught up you can go to any of the following posts:

1. Making Difference Makers Episode 1
2. Making Difference Makers Episode 2
3. Making Difference Makers Episode 3
4. Making Difference Makers Episode 4
5. Making Difference Makers Episode 5

Or you can view the whole series at the Develop Yourself As A Leader Youtube Video Series.

2007 Message Schedule

I thought in light of posting about our message prep system we have at Elevate I would give you our message schedule for the year.

It is as follows:

January
Pursuit - "The Greatest Chase of All"

• Chasing An Awesome God
• Running The Incredible Race
• The Bold Pursuit
• Quit Dating God

February
Inked - "Marked By God"

• Bought For A Price
• Marked By God
• Stories On Flesh
• It Is Finished

March
Lost - "Surviving The Mystery of the Unknown"

• Arrival
• Stranded
• Survival
• Rescued

April
Heroes - "Ordinary People...Extraordinary Power"

May
Decide - "Living Daily With Right Decision"

June/July/Part of August
Infect - "Becoming A Contagious Christian"

August/September
All Out War - "Investigating Spiritual Warfare

October
Re-Define - "Breaking The Way Culture Has Defined Us

November
Verdict - "Is Their Enough Evidence to Convict You"

• Caught
• The Trial
• The Verdict
• The Execution

December
No Series Planned

Price-cast Episode 15

Price-cast...Podcast #15 for Elevate...Here we go...This week our host Juno Garcia and I talk about the launch of our new series called Inked - "Marked By God". The message and night were great and the atmosphere got really intense during this message.

This weeks message on the Podcast is by Jason Curlee called "Bought For A Price" with a great message about how Jesus paid the ultimate price for our lives.


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

-->> Listen online here <<--

Message Prep System

As a department head or pastor in ministry, it is important that you develop a yearly message plan. The people you lead deserve your best as you pour into their lives.

The following is the system I use in preparing for our messages:

1. Every year I lay out a yearly preaching calendar. I preach one series per month. (This year we are doing one over a two month period due to holidays.) In future posts I will give you this years schedule.

2. Two months out I prepare a series synopsis that will lay out every message and includes the following elements. (Two months out I will also prepare the series graphic for promotions)

Series Verse:
Series Subject:
Series Synopsis:

Messages:

• Date –
• Message Name –
• Big Idea –
• Scripture –
• Application –
• Message Synopsis –

3. Four weeks out, as a team, we will prepare a first draft of the message that will include the following:

• Me - Introduction

Stories and/or movie clips to introduce the message and big idea.


• You - Connection


Ask questions about desired outcome wanted.

• How do we want people to think differently?
• How do we want people to feel differently?
• How do we want people to act differently?

Big Idea


• God – Biblical Foundation


Scriptures & Biblical Stories centering on Big Idea.


• You - Application


How we can apply the Big Idea into our lives.


• We - Vision


Answering the connection questions about the desired outcome we want.


• Altar Call

4. Week of the message teacher will review message for changes and additions to tighten it up.


Two books that have impacted my message prep are The BIG IDEA – Focus the Message and Multiply the Impact and Communicating For A Change.

Together these books are forming the basis of my prep this year.

Read the other posts related to the "Message Prep System"
-->> Series Synopsis
-->> Message Prep Lost - The Arrival

Top Commercials

Just got done voting on my favorite commercials from the Superbowl. I have to agree with Tony on the Snickers and Doritos.

Many of these could be used as inspiration for things you are doing in ministry. Check them out at Youtube.

As a side note I am still going on about 5 years of not watching a Superbowl even though I hosted a party. Was glad to see Payton Manning get him a ring and MVP though.

Life Plan Recap

At the beginning of the year we began a series of posts on "Developing A Life Plan". Developing a life plan is necessary to focus your energies towards the path you are taking. As you focus what you are doing it will ensure that you will achieve the highest level possible toward the purpose, vision and goals of your life.

As we have already laid out in the previous posts in this series, knowing your purpose and breaking your life down into the seven areas listed is going to help us bring proper focus and balance we will need.

In our next post on this series we will talk about setting values and the reason having values in these areas is going to help us in our development of our plan.

You can get caught up by reading the first four posts of the "Developing A Life Plan" series listed below. Just click on any of them to read.

1. Possess Your Land
2. Your Life Purpose
3. Personal Life Planning
4. Components of a Life Plan

Making Difference Makers Episode #5

This week concludes our first series for theMaking Difference Makers Video Series. This months topic was developing yourself as a leader and today's clip is on "Developing to Make A Difference." I got to shoot onsite at GSD & M in Austin, TX.



The purpose of these videos is to provide weekly training to my department heads and other leaders in our ministries as well as anyone else who could utilize this to further make a difference in their world.

Click here -->> Making Difference Makers <<-- for other posts in our video series.

Visit my youtube site for more videos and the series as well.

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.

New Blogs On The Web

I'm no longer alone out here. Not that I was anyway. I am talking about how our Children's Pastor and our Worship Department now have blogs. And they are even posting.

There is so much value in blogging in ministry. I believe that it is through this medium that our teams can really understand our heart. We can also be an inspiration to others as well.

If you got time go check those two sites. Our Children's Pastor, Dawn Givan posted to great articles on hers.

Dating God-cast Episode 14

Dating God-cast...Podcast #14 for Elevate...Here we go...This week our host Juno Garcia, Shelly, Rachel, Shelby and I talk about really nothing much. We just had so much fun and laughed a whole lot. This podcast is a little revamped with new music on the front side.

This weeks message on the Podcast is by Jason Curlee called "Stop Dating God" with a great message about how intimacy deepens our relationship with God.

To read all the posts on Elevate click here.

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

-->> Listen online here <<--