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.

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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!