Little Rock Christmas Parade

Today we went to the Little Rock Christmas Parade, lighting of the capitol building and fireworks.

So it's not the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building (inside joke), but it's all we got... the Metropolitan Bank Building.




Susie was pretty serious about getting candy.


A few good floats... this one was spewing lots of nice fake snow...




The inside of the state capitol building was decorated beautifully.




JOY is her middle name.


My camera battery ran out before the lighting of the capitol and fireworks.

Fun day!

The leadership of Jesus - Mark 5

I continue to look at the Biblical book of Mark for clues into how Jesus led his organization. Today I'm struck by how Jesus seems to be able to do anything. Well duh... he is God. One minute he is teaching his disciples, the next he is healing people, the next... who knows!!

But, the point I take today is this. He can do everything, but only because he is God. People so often set up organizations with all kinds of roles whose "job descriptions" are to do everything for the people under them. To some degree we are asking them to be little gods who can do everything. We ask them to hire, to train, to inspire, to organize, to develop, to manage, to care, to report, to administrate, to... to... to.

The model of Jesus' organization is that everyone is good at and gifted for only a thing or two. All together they work as a body, not as an endless leadership hierarchy.

I'm going to explore this here for the next few days. Join in the conversation!

Tomorrow: Short order cooks, French restaurants, and the leadership of Jesus

Later in the week: Urgent vs important, hierarchy vs body

Fall family photos

We took a drive a couple of weekends ago up to northwest Arkansas to see all the fall leaves.

Here are some family photos:



Elenita's is our favorite Mexican place up there!




Alex LOVES dogs... here's a dog we saw when we made a stop on the trip...

Memorizing 1 Peter 1:3-9

I'm leading our LifeGroups at Mosaic to memorize 1 Peter 1:3-9. If you want in on it, go here for details.

What is God up to?

I love how I've gotten to do some very different things.

Worship leading
Master's degree in Electrical Engineering
Implanting ions into silicon
Technical production team leadership
Hurricane relief
LifeGroup ministry leadership
Video production for a restaurant chain
and now adding some development and operational leadership in children's ministry (of all things!...I never thought I'd spend a morning reading preschool curriculum!)

God just keeps moving me around and adding new experiences. Some people would be driven crazy by that. Not me... I love digging into new areas and helping to develop them.

It does make me wonder what is in my future. Will I continue to move around to different areas to help develop them? That would be fine for me. Or... is all of this going to play together in some way? Either way, I'm having fun.

How did You do that?

The other day at sunset it was raining with overcast skies, but somehow You made a smooth, seamless, not jagged, gradient transition from overcast gray through pinks and ending in a fiery orange horizon. The sun, just descending out of view, cast a rainbow opposite the blazing horizon. How did you do it? It was amazing to see. Alex was amazed as well. Your creativity is beyond words. Your beauty is beyond description. You are God. You are living and moving and leading and speaking. Thank you for sharing your creativity and beauty with such lowly, sinful people as my son and me the other day.

DNA of an organization

This week someone said something to me that struck me as odd. This person said that she needed to inform people in her organization that a particular practice is part of the organization's DNA.

It seems to me that if you have to inform people of that, then it is really not in the DNA.

So how do you put something into the DNA of an existing organization? I think it takes a lot of hard work, strategic thinking, and also prayer.

We can't just tell people they should participate in a certain practice of the organization (in my case a church). I think we must draw them in and inspire them by doing things like:

-- Vision Casting
-- Teaching
-- Modeling
-- Storytelling
-- Logistical tweaks to give that practice a better chance of taking off
-- Changes in programming to lead people by the hand into the practice or value that you are trying to instill


How successful have you been at embedding new things (or strengthening the presence of old things) in the DNA of your organization? How have you done it? What are some tactics to add to my list above?

Interesting post I read today...

I'm not sure what to do with this, but I found this a very interesting post.

What do you think of the unschedule?

Building community at our church

Each month on the third Sunday at our church we have a "community meal" after morning worship. This month we arranged the tables in a new way to cause people to more likely sit with those they don't know instead of just with their usual circles of friends. We also had cards at the tables with some questions aimed at spurring conversation.

I thought the changes helped a lot. I saw people mingled in diversity even more than usual.

My favorite thing from the day was seeing my tiny, smiling 4-year-old daughter and a really big older African-American gentleman sitting right next to each other as our family sat adjacent to theirs. Wish I had a photo...

I'm so glad that my kids are in an environment that fosters comfort with people different from them.

Thanks Mom, Dad, and Rob for helping us with the rearrangement of the table and chairs.

Sticky Teaching - Mark 4

Painting a word picture conveys an idea so much better, stronger, stickier than an explanation.

I continue to look in the Bible book of Mark to study what Jesus did in leading and building his organization. The parable of the sower is a great example of "sticky" teaching. The book "Made to Stick" talks about six characteristics of a sticky concept.

Simple
Concrete
Credible
Unexpected
Emotional
Story

The parable of the sower, at least in some ways, meets all six of these.

Paint! Don't explain.
Paint! Don't explain.
Paint! Don't explain.

Significance tank

I find that I can endure anything when my significance tank is full. I can work on Saturday in the garage, do laundry, clean the kitchen, all kinds of mundane things if I've already had a good week of making an impact at work and home. If I haven't made enough impact yet in the week though, watch out! I won't give time to anything else until that significance tank is full.

I'm not sure if everyone tends to be like this, if it is men that tend to be like this, or if it is just me.

I like making a significant difference; I just need to watch out that I'm not addicted to significance.

More on the Organization of Jesus

I'm looking in the Bible specifically for how Jesus built his "organization".

I continue today in Mark 3

A leader assesses the situation for potential problems and directs that wise provision be made. (Mark 3:9)

Mark 3:13-19 Forming the core team
Observations:
1) Jesus knew who he wanted and called them to himself
2) He appointed 12 that they might be with him (he was confident that these 12 spending time with him would be good for them)
3) He appointed 12 that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to cast out demons

Punishment that fits the crine

I was talking with a friend recently who said that it must've been a lot easier to get kids to do chores back in the old days on a farm when not doing chores had serious consequences. If you didn't take care of the chickens or cows, you wouldn't have food to eat.

That got me thinking. We'd have to force it a little, but maybe we could create stronger connections between chores and the consequences for undone chores. (I'm sure this has been done by millions of parents... but it's a new thought to me!)

Here are a few I thought of for my kids...
- If you don't hang your towel back on the hook in the bathroom, you don't get a towel the next evening for your bath. You have to put PJ's on your wet body.
- If you don't put your dinner dishes in the sink, those dirty dishes will be the ones you have at your place at the table for the first five minutes of the next meal.
- If you don't make your bed, you sleep on the floor the next night.

What are some more?

My friend said that if you whine about cleaning the bathroom you should have to go outside for the next day. That might be a little much!

I love meetings

Many people talk about hating meetings. Not me! I love meetings. Sure there are some unproductive, boring meetings. But I love meetings where progress is made, where issues are worked out, where relationships are built, where ideas are bounced around, where strategies are solidified, where vision is formed and seen, where value is brought to all meeting participants.

I guess this goes with one thing Colin Powell said at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit this year. Not strategies on paper... not rules set in stone... "only people make things happen."

I guess this is also why I'm becoming more and more about "coaching".

Cool photo

On Saturday, the family seemed to all want to stay in even though it was a beautiful day. So, I went hiking! I snapped this photo standing behind a waterfall and looking straight up.

The Organization of Jesus

Confession: Sometimes I spend too much time listening to the leadership ideas of people today instead of looking to Jesus for leadership wisdom. God, in the human flesh of Jesus, led an organization on earth... and it's documented!

Today I started looking at the gospel of Mark with a focused eye on how Jesus created and led his organization. These notes aren't polished; they are just what is hitting me as I read.

------------------

Recruiting: Jesus saw people who were busy at work, said “follow me”, and left it in their hands to decide whether to get up or stay put. (Mk 1:14-20)

Modeling: He showed his followers the importance of building his relationship with his Father (Mk 1:33-37)

Lead from purpose instead of following the clamor (Mk 1:37-39)

Jesus did not want certain people to tell about his healing them. Then they told anyway and made things hard for Jesus. (Mk 1:40-45)

Relate closely with followers: Call to Levi to “follow me” then Jesus ate at Levi’s house (Mk 2:14-15)

Use pictures to bring clarity (Mk 2:18-22) Cloth/wineskin: Some things don't work together. New people in an organization can feel like old or new wine in the opposite wineskin. What is it that makes new wine and old wineskins able to work together? Time.

Boldly take action in front of detractors to transform culture. (Healing on the sabbath right in front of people; Mk 3:5-6)

Buckingham and the Bible

Something I've been thinking about.. Marcus Buckingham says the things I noted on this post.

For believers in Christ, how does Buckingham's philosophy square with passages of Scripture like this?
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

Finally... Willow Leadership Summit Notes

After I attend a conference or read a book I sometimes make a busy one-pager of all the most important things I learned. I often put that sheet in a sign holder frame on my desk for a while to keep it "top of mind". Here's the one-pager I just made from this year's Willow Creek Leadership Summit.

Now that's just silly...

I know they are trying to get people's attention with something unexpected... but come on.

Even if it IS silly, kudos to that mayor for taking a risk, though. See Article

Move closer... see each other less?

When we lived in Texas and would come to the Little Rock area for a weekend, in the midst of planning the trip we'd think of making a special point to see extended family and friends.

Now that we live here close to all of those people, we forget to make that same point to see them.

Maybe we can plan a get-together soon...

That's one way to get revenue

I saw this tower behind a church here in Little Rock. I guess all calls made in this sector are blessed by God.

Awesome day yesterday

What a great Sunday yesterday was. Our church went to two services. Lots of newness was rolled out yesterday and there was a "buzz" of new life as we officially moved into the second five years of our church.

Our pastor gave an inspiring message about the different "ports of call" this "ship" known as Mosaic Church has docked at. With the newness of two services and a call to deeper commitment, our church sets sail once again into an awesome future.

Ships don't belong in a harbor, they belong out on the open sea. Here we go!!

When did THAT happen?

I thought Girl Scouts were this:



Then Em brought this flyer home from school. When did THAT happen?

Horrified

Today my 4 year old daughter was painting with watercolors. After each painting was finished she would put it on a table or counter to dry. You can imagine my horror when I discovered one of her wet WATERcolor paintings sitting on the keyboard of my open MacBook Pro laptop.

A little color had bled onto some of the keyboard keys, but no other water damage was found.

Why?

I met a lady in the Walmart checkout line today. In conversation, I found out she goes to a church just down the street from the school where my wife is teaching this fall. Since the school is 80% African-American and 20% Latino I asked this lady (Caucasian) about the racial mix of the church.

It's sad that a church in that community is "almost all white with a couple of black families and a separate Hispanic service".

Since I had just been to Deb's school for their "meet your teacher" party earlier in the day, the thought of an island of such bright whiteness in that community just seems so out of place.

Testing email subscription option

Over on the right, I've added an email subscription option. This post is to test and make sure that is working!

Long time no post

Man... it's just been a crazy time... no time to post!

Couple of highlights:
Visited Debbie's classroom today. It looks great! I know she is going to do a great job. What a chance to impact 18 kids' lives! So much potential in that room. I'm proud of you, Deb.

Our kids return to school Monday. They are mostly excited. Should be good for them AND FOR ME after the last two weeks with Debbie in teacher orientation and me working.

Willow Creek Leadership Summit was great last week. Maybe I'll post some highlights.

Anyway... gotta run...

How to pray, what to pray

If you could use a recharging of your prayer-life, take a listen to three excellent messages on prayer by Andy Stanley. I thought these would be good messages, but they were even more impacting than I expected.

Just go here.

And listen online or buy the "Permission to Speak Freely" messages from 9/25/05, 10/2/05, and 10/9/05. The "cart" link leads you to how to get an audio CD, but at the bottom of the page about the series you can buy each message in MP3 for a dollar.

_ _ _ _ \\\\||||

Great stuff from a great book

I've been reviewing and re-learning some memorized Scripture the last couple of weeks. The book of 1 Peter in the Bible is awesome. So many amazing things to encourage us to press on and thrive in this life.

Here are some nuggets:

"Grace and peace be yours in abundance" - yes.... YOURS IN ABUNDANCE

We have a new birth... a living hope.

We have an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.

We are shielded by God's power.

We greatly rejoice... (just for a short time, a "little while", we may have trials but in the grander scheme of things we are about GREATLY REJOICING)

Our faith is of greater worth then gold.

Ratatouille

We just saw the Pixar movie, Ratatouille. Amazing animation, great story. I wish Walt Disney were alive to see these movies.

After the movie all three of my kids were down all fours crawling like rats through the hall of the movie theater.

On the way home Em wrote a recipe for a salad with a special, original house dressing. The kids are now in the kitchen cooking. I just heard Susie say "There's a tomato on the floor". Alex... "Can we use some of the celery?"

Deb said they have knives out to cut cucumbers. I'd better go check on them.

Man... am I beat

What a packed two days! Yesterday I got to shoot video at the Texas Motor Speedway. That place is humongous! Between seats and infield it holds 215,000 people. We got to shoot three cars running on the track and various other cars, pit, garage, etc. Very cool. I've never, ever, not even once at all wanted to go to a nascar race. Visiting the speedway, though, makes me at least want to go to one race and experience it.

Today we shot at a restaurant some content that goes with the speedway stuff.

All fun and good... but I'm beat.

Things I love about our church

This week I had to make a form so that our congregation can sign up for which service they plan to attend, which area they will serve in, and what LifeGroup they will attend.

I was so happy that after I completed the form that looks like this...




I also had to make one like this for our integrated Latino population...



LifeGroup...........GrupoVida!!! Love it.

Baby steps toward serving

Today we did something a little different in our Sunday morning worship service. Since it was an idea I had pitched, I was a little nervous.

We need just about everybody to serve in some way on Sunday mornings as we go to 2 services soon. Instead of just hitting them with a big sign up, we eased them into it today and threw in some vision.

Our pastor gave a short talk and then we had the congregation make a baby step - but a step none the less - toward serving. We had five "stations" set up around the church, one for each of the five major serving areas on Sunday morning. At each station a carefully selected passionate leader spoke to people who came to that station about why the work of that area is vital to the health and life of the church. We didn't have people visit all FIVE areas as that would be information overload. We just asked them to visit two areas. In asking them to visit only two areas, we were causing them to do a little work, to engage in the process, to make a mini-decision on the path to determining where that can serve in the fall.

The scary part was in wondering whether people would actually choose an area to visit or whether they would just stand around or even leave the service early.

Drum roll please........

Most people visited the stations! Of course, the real success of today will be measured by how many people really do commit in coming weeks to serve. Today, though, seemed like a step in the right direction.

A few pix...

CHILDREN'S MINISTRY


CONNECTIONS - greeting, intro to Mosaic, etc


ENVIRONMENTS - Cafe, community meal, interior atmosphere


YOUTH


WORSHIP/PRODUCTION/PRAYER


We also had two stations set up for those only speaking Spanish and for deaf persons in order to share with them where they can serve at Mosaic.

I gotta make more time to post

Man, things are busy. Things are ramping up quickly with my job at Mosaic Church. Loving it, but lots to do!

Tomorrow we head briefly to Texas to take Em's friends back from their two week visit with us. We'll just stay Friday night and return to Little Rock Saturday since we have a big day at church on Sunday.

Once we get back to only five of us in the house, maybe I'll get back in the rhythm of blogging. See you Monday.

Ever Been Burned Out or Beaten Up at Church?

My friend, Anne Jackson, is writing a book called "Mad Church Disease".

Mad Church Disease is a book which will discuss the epidemic of ministry burnout in today's contemporary church. Currently, surveys are being conducted at MadChurchDisease.com for those who are on church staff, those who are family of church staff, and those who are volunteers.

By analyzing these surveys, as well as conducting interviews with pastors, families, and volunteers world-wide, Anne hopes to bring this touchy subject to light using real-life stories of not only tragedy, but redemption and healing for those who have been affected by this disease.

Anne is a gifted writer with a huge future. Please help my friend, Anne, and the countless others who will read her book by clicking on the following graphic and taking the quick survey!

Wow- what a week

Debbie has training this week for her new teaching job, so I'm working from home and watching our kids Tuesday through Friday. Not only that... we have two of Em's friends from Texas staying here with us this week and next. Craziness... so no time to post anything thoughtful.

Maybe in a day or two....

Leadership Development Class

Our pastor is hosting a summer leadership development class for key leaders in our church. It's really great. Not only is it refining leadership skills in our leaders and potential leaders, but it is also clarifying our vision and values for these leaders and thereby creating more carriers of the vision -- more carriers of this multi-ethnic church virus.

Transmission of vision is never perfect, but it seems that when these 30 leaders dialogue weekly and face-to-face with the primary vision holder, the transmission has to be pretty good. It also helps that we aren't just discussing the theoretical but are digging each week into a real issue facing the church.

Among other things, today we talked about whether each leader in the group is a:
designer
designer/developer
developer
developer/manager
manager

Which one are you? Are the other roles covered on the teams you are a part of?

At work!

This is an exciting day! Since we have been in Little Rock, I have been doing a few things at Mosaic, but mostly I have been fund-raising. Now with fund-raising at over $2000 per month and my video production business becoming more lucrative, I am able to focus less on fund-raising and dive into projects at Mosaic. I went to my first "staff meeting" today and left that meeting with a huge task that will have big impact in the logistics of going to two worship services here in September. I'm also (edit as of Wednesday) going to be co-leading Mosaic's LifeGroup ministry which kicks back up in Sept as well. Busy... but I love it!

I love being to the point where I can make an impact here. Glory to God for his provision not only in monthly gifts to our ministry but also in my expanding video production work. Thanks to those of you who faithfully give monthly to support our ministry financially. Thanks also for those of you who pray for us! We need it!

This is day one! The future is huge.

Please pray for these things:
MOSAIC
- For many volunteers to step up and serve to make Sunday mornings awesome
- For LifeGroups at Mosaic to become exactly what God has in mind
- For continued and strengthened unity (a church with so many different kinds of cultures and backgrounds is hard to keep together without the work and grace of God)
ARNN FAMILY
- Debbie is looking for a teaching job. Had great interview today! Please pray that she gets just the right job for her purpose and passion.
(UPDATE AS OF TUESDAY: SHE GOT THE JOB! I KNEW SHE COULD DO IT! SHE'LL DO GREAT. THANKS FOR PRAYING)

- That my leadership in my family doesn't suffer now that I'm diving into work at church. For self-accountability's sake, these are the biggest things I'm working on for the family: 1) Helping us internalize the family values we decided upon a while back 2) Having a monthly "Family LifeGroup" where we talk about how things are going personally and in our family and pray for each other 3) Helping the kids make a couple of short films about the parables of the "Lost Coin" and the "Lost Sheep"

Random Summerness

Lazy morning for the kids... (Em wants you to know she is NOT sucking her thumb! She is eating a grape!)




We're keeping my parents' dog, Barnaby, while they are away...


More pix here...

A Blog I Like: Copyblogger

Just wanted to highlight one blog I like to read:

It's called Copyblogger (a play on the word "copywriter"). I always find it thought-provoking and helpful. Not just in the strict sense of writing copy, but also in terms of marketing, influencing people, etc.

As an example, I thought this post was very interesting. I usually think getting something to someone as fast as possible is the most helpful, most conscientious thing to do. But maybe that's not the best thing in all cases. I can think of two or three cases in life right now where delaying a bit may be the best choice.

Anyway... Copyblogger... check it out.

Vision

I was reminded of this quote this week. I think it has huge implications.

"Vision isn't to be the best whatever. Vision is for everybody."

-- Benjamin Zander

Who's running the place?

I heard someone say last week something that I thought was very insightful.

Designers see grand visions and get the ball rolling. Developers then come in to implement the vision. As long as the designers hold tight to their values and work closely with the developers, things go great. Once developed, pieces can be handed to managers to run day to day.

The problem comes if the managers are allowed to start running the place. In a quest for efficiency and cost savings, managers (if allowed) can unknowingly squeeze out the very things that made the place special, the things that could have made the original grand vision happen.

You wouldn't think this would happen. But it happens!

DVD Studio Pro

WARNING: TECH GEEK POST

I'm happy that this week I've finally jumped in to learn DVD Studio Pro for authoring DVDs of videos. Previously, I had used iDVD to create DVDs if the menu and "look" didn't matter. If the menu operation or "look" of the DVD menu DID matter, I'd get a friend to take that piece of the job.

DVD Studio Pro didn't turn out to be hard to learn. Just a few things in the user interface that weren't completely intuitive to me. Once I got through those, it was no problem. Powerful program!

Broken and poured

I briefly referenced this in a post before, but here's some more thought...

For those who are familiar with the "Lord's Supper", Eucharist, communion...

What does the "do this" in "do this in remembrance of me" mean?

a) Eat a cracker and drink some juice to remember what Jesus did

b) Be broken and be poured out for others

Sure, (a) is a powerful moment for the church body in remembrance together. But, what about (b)? Maybe we should take Jesus to say "do this" -- be broken for others as I am (symbolized by the bread); be poured out for others as I am (symbolized by the cup).

The next time a silver bowl of tiny manufactured bread-lets or a rugged hunk of real baked bread comes by in church, take it along with the cup of juice or wine. Bite down on the bread. Taste the wine. Worship Jesus for the incredible God that he is in giving his body and blood for you.

But lets take it a step further. Think about it beyond remembering what Jesus did with HIS body and blood. It can be a model for what WE are supposed to do... to be broken and poured out for others.

What good gifts (EU-CHARIS) are you giving your community or neighbor or friend or kids today?

[adapted from: Rob Bell via Scott Hodge]

Life is amazing

It's amazing that this:


becomes this:



in no time!

More pix of our flowers here.

Google Map Street View and Photosynth

I think this is amazing...

This is even more amazing...

If you're intrigued with global connectedness and photography, you've GOT to check these out.

Video Project

This weekend I did a video project for the company I often work for. This time the project involved my family.

Here are some screen shots:

Lots of great stuff...

... but no time to write about it right now.

Maybe tomorrow.

Does everything have to be put on ice?

I hope my oldest daughter doesn't hear about this...

Seating Arrangements

I love this behind-the-scenes blog from Elevation Church.

I love their intentionality about the small things that make a huge difference.

Today, their executive pastor was talking about how they set up chairs for Sunday morning.

I especially like this line:
"Most non-Christians understand packing a house for things like concerts and movies. These events tend to be crowded when they are worth going to but somehow church is supposed to be boring and you sit wherever you want because there are plenty of seats."

Busy Week

Lots of video editing the last few days. No time to think or post much.

Are you watching "On the Lot"? I'm loving it. Which films were your favorites last night?

I love this MacBook Pro!

Tonight I was converting a batch of about 15 videos totaling about 22 GBytes down to small web versions of about 300 MBytes. I started the batch converting and left the house. I later returned to find that I had forgotten to plug in the power cord, so the computer had gone to sleep.

I woke up the computer and it resumed that huge conversion without a hiccup.

Maybe other laptops work this well these days... but I doubt it!

Do they?

Susannah turns 4

It's a tradition in our house that I always take each kid out for birthday lunch. They get to pick where we go and it's just us.

Susie turned 4 this week. She decided she wanted a baked potato from Jason's Deli.











Susie took this one of me. I love shots from a kid-perspective.

Flowers

The last time we had flowers like this on the dining room table was when I bought them from www.proflowers.com for Deb on our tenth anniversary.

Proflowers is GREAT. But, these flowers weren't bought.



They are growing in our yard.

Love it!

In Texas...

Tonight I had dinner with good friends Kerri and Dan.

Conversation with them is always good.

Biggest nugget of the night...

Coaching is much more powerful than just teaching.


Now I'm back at Kris and Tom's. Dog sitting until they return.

These dogs are crazy... SO jealous. If I pet one... man, the other comes running.

Memorized Scripture as Spoken Art

My wife and I have always loved memorizing scripture. This video is a very cool version of memorized scripture. When you memorize scripture, it grips you and this kind of thing comes out.

Deb, we should still do something dramatic with a memorized passage like we've always talked about.

Now that's more like it...

After all the afternoon thunderstorms last week, I'm liking this...

How to stop complaining - Part 3

The kids and I continue to talk about 'complaining' at the breakfast table, today we looked at 'complaining' as it relates to pride.

Pride is thinking of ourselves higher than we ought.

I think there are two ways we complain related to pride:

1) Sometimes we complain because we have to do things that we think are beneath us.

2) Sometimes we complain because we think we deserve better than what we got.

In his "Character Matrix" Erwin McManus says the first antidote for pride is humility.

Seeing ourselves rightly. Take a second, let pride dissipate, and do that thing we think is beneath us. Or if you're feeling like gosh darn I deserve more or better than this, think of Jesus. He deserved a way better life than to die on a cross.

How to stop complaining - part 2

Talked with the kids some more this morning about complaining.

As I mentioned yesterday, we're looking at 'complaining' through Erwin McManus' "Character Matrix" which says that character problems are rooted in three things: greed, foolishness, and pride.

Today we looked at how 'complaining' is 'foolishness'.

2 thoughts:

1) Complaining (especially about our lack of whatever) is foolish because it indicates that we don't trust God.

2) Complaining is foolish because it's just not good for us. As Christ-followers we live in light, not in the glumness of griping. We know the Prince of Peace. Our Father made everything and loves us immensely. Complaining simply has no place in our lives.

Erwin says that the antidote to counteract foolishness is faithfulness.

Faithfulness means: Just do it. Decide today to live right.

So we must be faithful today to just stop complaining. If we fail today (and we probably will) we get up tomorrow and try again to be faithful to stop complaining.

The bonus in all of this..........
If we stop complaining we'll feel better and we'll be brighter lights to transform a hurting world.

How to stop complaining - Part 1

A week ago today, I started leading the kids through a 20 minute time either reading a Bible story or teaching a Biblical lesson before school.

This week we are working on how to stop complaining. I say we (not just the kids)... we are in this together!

Anyway... I'm helping the kids view complaining through Erwin's "Character Matrix".

Erwin sees character problems as rooted in three things: greed, foolishness, and pride

So the first question to ask is how can complaining be greed?

Common complaints around our house:
"It's too hot" - greed for perfect comfort
"Mom is taking too long" - greed for doing exactly what we want when we want to do it
"Aawww... I don't like that dinner" - greed for the perfect thing in our stomachs

The first antidote for greed? Gratitude. What happens to our complaints when gratitude is applied?

"It's too hot" become "I'm so thankful it's not 110 or 40 below"
"Mom is taking too long with grandma" becomes "I'm thankful that grandma is nearby"
"Aawww... I don't like that dinner" becomes "I'm sure thankful I have any food at all"

Sparkpeople

So Debbie and I are trying to get back to eating right and exercising after a few months of craziness with our move, etc.

Deb found a website called www.sparkpeople.com. It's free and works great. We've both signed up and are on day three entering every food we eat and trying to stay in our correct calories, fat, carbs, etc.

It's funny how you eat less frequently when you know you're gonna have to go through the trouble of logging all that stuff in.

It also lets you keep track of cardio workouts and strength workouts. I'm tracking cardio, but logging every strength exercise is too tedious for me. So, though I'm doing some strength work, I'm not logging it.

Happy Mother's Day

American Idol - Final 3

We missed American Idol on Tuesday night and then missed the results show Wednesday night as we took our son to the emergency room. (He's fine)

So, last night we caught up on both shows.

It was tough to see Lakisha go, but it's the right thing.

We're still on track for my prediction of leaving...

Lakisha
then Blake
then Melinda
and then... winner... Jordin

Forum on race in Little Rock

Last night I attended an outstanding forum on race here in Little Rock.

Here were a few of the nuggets from the conversation:

-- We must be deliberate not to move apart from each other as a society. Think schools, churches, housing options, business deals.

--We are more the same than we are different.

--If we want to make a difference, we can't just have private compassion. We must have public action.

--Soft power is a better change agent than hard power:
::::::hard power is getting people to do what you want
::::::soft power is getting people to want what you want

--TV and movies perpetuate racism in innocent children who might not otherwise discover it

--"1957 is still palpable in Little Rock" - civil rights and Little Rock Nine historian

--Realtors can do a lot to help stop the segregating of neighborhoods, "white flight", etc. Realtors' suggestions to buyers are powerful - they can nudge society to come together instead of drift apart.

--70% of African-American children are born out of wedlock. We have got to step up and start taking care of children who are not our own.

--Lastly, there's the topic of "authentic blackness" and "authentic whiteness" and how it impacts choices and behaviors. This is something I'll have to think a lot more about. Maybe in another post...

Headline we didn't want to see

In the New York Times today, front page above the fold:
50 Years Later, Little Rock Can’t Escape Race

Tonight, I attended an outstanding forum on the issue of race in Little Rock. I'll post some key thoughts tomorrow.

Vision Casting Team?

Steven Furtick's "copy of a copy" post has me thinking. Growth causes us to delegate out many things through creating teams. Maybe we need to have a select group of people, a team if you will, that we coach to cast the vision. I've heard of lots of teams in churches, but what about some sort of "vision casting team"? (This is not to be confused with a 'vision team' assembled to figure out what the vision is!) The more people involved in thinking with the pastor about how to convey the vision to others the more passionate and accurate vision-casters we'll have. And, if the pastor has to teach others how to cast the vision, his own vision will become even clearer.


Other things I think are important in spreading the vision among growing populations:

Small Group leaders teaching the vision to their small groups

Staff and ministry leader performance evaluations infused with discussions about whether they are getting the vision and living the values.

Anxiousness

I may have blogged this before, but this nugget from Erwin McManus keeps coming back to help me over and over:

Anxiousness comes from two things:
1) Minding business that is not yours to mind
2) Not minding business that is yours to mind

"Doing life together" with Jesus

Last week, I saw a word in the following verse from the Bible in Philippians that I'd never paid attention to.

Philippians 3:10
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

The word I had missed is "fellowship".

In human relationships we know that we can have fun with people, hang out, "network", fit in, look cool in the clique without ever going below the surface. But, we also know that deeper, more lasting relationships are formed when we go through the hards times of life together.

It's the same with Jesus. We can draw on his power, his grace, the good things, the cool things, the fun things, but if we really want to go deep in our relationship with him we must go to the place of sharing with him in his sufferings. Not that he needs our comforting or counseling like a human friend does. But since he is a friend, we can have fellowship with him - that is, we can deepen our relationship with him - by attempting to understand the agony of the cross, by empathizing with his pain, by accepting his sacrifice so that all of that suffering he went through will not be wasted, and by sacrificing ourselves, our will, our desires, our comfort as he did.

Going through the deep stuff with him (his cross and my comparatively minimal trials) can make me closer to him.

Don't live just "on the surface" with people; and don't live just "on the surface" with Jesus.

To the top of Pinnacle Mountain

With Emmaleigh spending the night at Namaw and Papa's Friday night, Alex and I decided to get up early today and head back to Pinnacle Mountain. After some Krispy Kremes we made our way to the mountain and hiked up the West Summit Trail. Alex did great and we made it to the top. The last 10% of the hike was a big boulder field. While we were going up I worried about how Alex would do on way down the boulders, but he did fine.

More pix are here.

This struck me funny...

So I unplugged my laptop and took it with me to the bathroom of the library (where I'm "office-ing" today) to prevent theft. But, where in a bathroom is clean and perfectly dry to sit my precious MacBook? I thought about strapping it into here since it is kind of like my fourth baby. On second thought maybe that's not too clean or dry either.

Hiking at Pinnacle Mountain

Last Saturday Deb and the kids, my dad, my niece, and I went hiking at Pinnacle Mountain here on the outskirts of Little Rock.

Pix here.

American Idol

I like the final four. I thought Phil was pretty good, but having him and Chris go is OK with me.

From here my prediction in order of leaving is:

Lakisha
Melinda
Blake
Winner: Jordin

We'll see!!

The Lot

Can't wait for the new reality show on Fox called The Lot. Steven Spielberg helping choose the best filmmaker.

MAY 22!!!!

Blogging Idol Live

So I'm checking itunes music store to check out all the old Bon Jovi songs seeing what the contestants are going to pick to sing tonight.

Phil - good
Jordin - pretty good on a difficult song
Lakisha - great but she won't go much further
Blake - really surprised me - good
Chris - not good... and the way he moves always makes me nervous... irritating
Melinda - fantastic singer but won't win... not young, cool enough to be Idol

Man... this is getting hard. I only want to lose Chris R and nobody else.

I think Chris and Lakisha might be gone.

If Jordin is gone this week just because of tonight's weaker perforance that's sad.

Things that drive me crazy

Let's just pretend for a second that I haven't attended church in a very long time, but have been thinking about it.

I'm driving home and notice this sign. It looks like this place has things going on at several times. That's good. But what the heck are SS, CH and EV? Do they have SS, CH and EV every day of the week or just certain days? Also, I know there have been a lot of mergers lately, but I hadn't heard that the phone company merged with the church.

WELCOME?