Peeps: Making New friends is hard.

Sometimes it's hard to make new friends. Phil the peep and Francis the puppy look like they are going to be friends

Peeps Video... some things are worse than being alone.

We have some strange things we do to make a point.

Paul thanks for asking... I am right here.



(PS... Paul is an awesome photographer)

Scandalous

So a few observant readers have noted that the picture on this blog is actually of red squirrel and not a brown squirrel. Who knew... but the whole town is buzzing with the scandal...


Fear not all you avid brown squirrel readers... (both of you)... this will not discourage his legendary-ness... but the adventure will continue...

after all... the color in the adventure was never about the official color of the squirrel...

but about the squirrels true colors...

which remain unabashedly brown...

Painfully true...

(image: www.despair.com)

Awesome ministry Insight from John Stott...

Several weeks ago I heard a mp3 of John Stott's Final address. Stott has been a stalwart of evangelical faith for half a century, and to be honest I was not expecting much from the message. My own cynical struggles aside, I was quite surprised when the message held some incredible and timely wisdom for the church.

I will lay out what I thought was the most significant stream of thought in it... but feel free to read it for yourself and tell me what I missed.

I want to share with you where my mind has come to rest as I approach the end of my pilgrimage on earth and it is – God wants His people to become like Christ. Christlikeness is the will of God for the people of God.

[There is a] sense in which the Incarnation was not unique: the amazing grace of God in the Incarnation of Christ is to be followed by all of us. The Incarnation, in that sense, was not unique but universal. We are all called to follow the example of His great humility in coming down from heaven to earth.

[In] his commissioning in John 17 [Jesus] says ‘As the Father sent me into the world, so I send you.’ These words are immensely significant. This is not just the Johannine version of the Great Commission but it also an instruction that their mission in the world was to resemble Christ’s mission. In what respect? The key words in these texts are ’sent into the world’. As Christ had entered our world, so we are to enter other people’s worlds.

This entering into other people’s worlds is exactly what we mean by incarnational evangelism. All authentic mission is incarnational mission. We are to be like Christ in his mission.

Why is it, you must have asked, as I have, that in many situations our evangelistic efforts are often fraught with failure? Several reasons may be given and I do not want to over-simplify but one main reason is that we don’t look like the Christ we are proclaiming.

John Poulton, who has written about this in a perceptive little book entitled A today sort of evangelism, wrote this:

‘The most effective preaching comes from those who embody the things they are saying. They are their message. Christians need to look like what they are talking about. It is people who communicate primarily, not words or ideas. Authenticity gets across. deep down in side people, what communicates now is basically personal authenticity.’

What thoughts does this generate for you?

Systems are more important that mission statements...

This was the main point of a talk by Andy Stanley at catalyst. I was really engaged by the concept. Marva dawn has written a whole book on how human systems are effected by sin and create injustice. But for the purpose of church leadership, here are Andy's points that I liked.

Systems create behaviors...

Preaching and Cool environments do not create behaviors; systems create behaviors.

A system is the way that your organization gets things done, or fails too.

The system you adopt will impact what staff and volunteers do... 80% of your problems are most likely related to systems...

For Example: If people in your church are not inviting people.... it is because there is a system that is creating that behavior... an announcement does not do this.. nor a video... nor _______

Your church is a combination of multiple systems... if you don't fix them, you will spend time blaming people, firing people, and never figure out why things don't change.

if you dont address things on the system level, nothing changes...

Components of a Good system (or lack of):
1. Expectations / rules...
2. Rewards (or lack of...)
3. Consequences... (or lack of...)
4. Communication, (style and content...)
5. Behavioral patterns (of those in charge...)

Look at those five things and ask what are the expectations in our organizations... (what do we reward... )

In any organization, what's rewarded is repeated.

---> Missions statements are less significant than systems....

--->Your staff is doing what you have led and rewarded them to do...


1. This principal explains why it is so difficult to transition an organization...

2. If a new leader casts a new vision and never addresses old systems, nothing changes.

Change the system... change the organization...

IF you create a context in which leaders are free to lead, and you will attract leaders...



Three Questions that we need to ask ourselves as we explore this stuff...

1. What are the behaviors that we wish characterized our people and organization?

2. List one thing we are doing systematically to encourage them?
-What are we doing in the rhythm of our organization to get it?

3. List the things you are doing to encourage wrong behavior?

Onslaught: a provocative Video on Beauty...

So I saw this video the other day... It was made as part of Dove's Campaign for true beauty and it really impacted me. I am still trying to figure out how and when and if it can be useful in a church context working with Middle school students...

Would you use it, and in what context, and for what purpose?






I found this video on MarkO's blog...

Catalyst Conference

I am at the Catalyst conference in Atlanta, and I was going to live blog each session, but I can't since the WIFI here does not work... SO... now you are going to only get a few thoughts from the day....

One of my favorite authors, Patrick Lencioni, was talking about Jobs that suck this morning. He said this...

I talk to some managers who tell me that they do not take a personal interest in their employees because they just are not interested. They don't want to know the details of their lives. This may sound bad, but it is really ok. Organizations have many roles that work fine with an individual contributer. However, to be a manager requires that we care about the people who work for us... If we do not care about the people we manage we need to be an individual contributor... not a manager... The power of getting to know people is truly great....

My favorite speaker of the day was Francis Chan. He said many great things. These are a few of the best quotes:

"You can be a very successful pastor without loving anyone... I really do love my people... but this is a new thing for me... I could preach great sermons and was an awesome pastor and grew a church for a long time, but did it without loving God or People. I was not in love with God or these people... but man was I a good pastor."

I was talking to my wife and I realized that if Jesus had a church in SIMI valley... Mine would be bigger... if Paul had one... mine would be bigger....in fact, I am more popular than Jesus.

We were about to build a 60 million dollar building... but we stopped... wouldn't it be a better picture of Jesus to the community to feed the poor than to to build another church building.

Izzy is growing up...

I love my dogs... though on occasion, they do eat one of my favorite things.... such as my $80 mac power cord, or ipod speakers, or my favorite sandals.... they really are a person best friend.

Izzy is at a cute stage... basically from the moment we come in the door she follows us around... until we leave.... all day... all night she is like 6 inches from us. Sorta cute...

Television Evangelist RAP!

Ran into this on youtube... I think that most would agree about television evangelists, but it made me think again about how many negative stereotypes the Church has to overcome to be effective. The problem of course is that so many of them are based on some degree of truth...