Refocus On Podcast

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My buddy next door, Gabe Lett, is a counselor and life coach.? He has a new life coaching business called Refocus, Inc. that coincides along with the Life Transformation Center that he runs his counseling business through.? He asked me a couple of weeks ago if I would be willing to have a conversation with him about “Revolutionary Christianity” on a podcast.? Basically, it is a discussion of the book Revolution, by George Barna.? I jumped at the chance to talk with him (I know many of you find that hard to believe that I love to talk!)? Here is a link to the podcast online.? You can also go on his website, refocus4life.com and subscribe to the podcast via iTunes.? Enjoy.

I really like Gabe and his heart for helping people and connecting them to the Church.? He has a lot of great ideas and is a great young leader in the Church.? He is also an author of Let’s Get Together: Building Community In The Church. You can get it here.? Trust me, he didn’t have me say that and I don’t get any kickbacks for this advertisement (I should though. . . just kidding!).

Golden Testimony

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We are in the final stages of our Generations Campaign at our church.? It is a capital fund raising campaign, yes.? But what I am finding it to be is a “faith raising” campaign.? I know for sure that our faith has been challenged for sure.? Jenny and I have neither one been through a campaign like this, so we are definitely “newbies.”? I have heard stories about couples praying seperately and then coming together to the penny, etc.? I always thought those kinds of stories were from super spiritual people and would never happen to me.? We actually had that happen as well to us this time around–pretty crazy.? I actually didn’t want to say what I had in mind because it was a huge stretch, so I asked Jenny what she thought first.? (Some people call it a lack of guts, I simply call it diplomacy!)

All along the way, however, there have been AWESOME testimonies come in about God’s moving in our church.? Here is yet another unbelievable, creative I might add, testimony of what some of our folks have done to give to this campaign.? Got this tonight from our pastor in an email . . .

Dear Generations Team,

Yesterday, we got an unusual gift from an anonymous donor.? The letter said,

“We felt like this offering needed a letter of explanation. Enclosed you will find a portion of our offering to the Generations Campaign. We have both been previously married and at one time these were a symbol to us of a person’s love and commitment to us and God. We both took our vows with commitment, but later in life, found that our former spouses did not. The results of our divorces left us feeling little self worth, but the Lord never gave up on us.? We were worth His life. We are priceless

Some time later the Lord led us to FPBC where we met through the singles ministry and became friends.? We were married here and gave each other new rings that symbolize our love?We have asked ourselves what we could do with our old rings. They are worthless to us, but the Lord could make them worth something for His kingdom.? Please accept them as a portion of our offering to the Generations Campaign.? We pray the Lord uses this offering to heal the broken, return the lost, and reveal His children’s worth to them.”

Attached is a picture of the rings.

I’m excited about Sunday.? I believe it is going to be a miraculous day!

Much love!

John

Tuesday is for Training

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Mark Dinwiddie has been sending us Multisite/Missions Nuggets of Truth each week for a couple of months now and I am starting a new category of them so you can talk about them and comment.

We have really been talking about that dirty word for perfectionists, DELEGATE.? Enjoy.

You have two choices in your work.? When something has been assigned to you, you can either do it yourself or get someone else to do it.? Your ability to get someone else to do it, to delegate it effectively??? —more than anything else— is going to determine your career track, your position and rate of promotion, your pay, your status, prestige, and success in management.? (The Delights of Delegation)
?I owe whatever success I have attained, by and large, to my ability to surround myself with people who are smarter than I am? Andrew Carnegie

I once had one of my dad’s best friends, “work himself out of a job.”? He had worked for this company back before he retired and hired on with another company doing consulting.? Basically, he delegated all of the work to be done by the company employees that he was no longer needed–and he could go back to traveling in his retirement!

Who do you know that is a good delegator?? What makes them good at it?? What prevents you from delegating the way you ought?

‘To Do’ list

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I have been really trying to get my act together and be more organized. (Go ahead and feel free to insert your smart remarks here!) I have begun a process of carrying a list in my pocket of things to do on one side and what I have done on the opposite (to help me complete my “ministry report” each week.). Taylor must have seen my list sitting on my desk the other day, because he has a list of his own. I found this the other day in my car. Man, how awesome is this kid?

Feed dog. Play. Scool. Play. Sleep. Oh to be in 2nd grade again!

What we’ve been waiting for!!

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We have been looking for a good check-in system as well as Church Management Software.? The other day, Dinwiddie said, “too bad LifeChurch couldn’t just write some software and give it away for free!”? Well, they have done it!? I am really excited about what they are doing over at LifeChurch.? The best thing–it’s totally free, just like their online Bible software called YouVersion.? LifeChurch has been and continues to be a leader in open source church resources! Thank you LifeChurch!!

Willow Creek Leadership Summit Simulcast

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Just sitting in the first session of the Leadership Summit with the Forest Park family.? I am actually sitting next to an old friend, Billy Grady, the BSU guy at MSU.? I love this conference each year and so I am really excited to be here with my new coworkers.? I will hopefully get you some pics and “big ideas” from the sessions later on.

Youth Camp–Day 2

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We spent most of the afternoon driving in the car!! We left camp after the morning celebration time and had to go all the way back to Ozark to pick up some papers for the banker. We are changing loan “programs” and are getting at “Rural Development” loan and this particular loan has manual underwriting instead of the web-based underwriting that we had already completed several weeks ago. We had to have a lot more documentation than the other loan had that we had already packed up and put in storage–nice. So, it was off to the storage unit and then to the house to get some more documents. While we were there, the Doyle’s came home, so the boys wanted to play, so we were later getting to Carthage than planned.

We did finally get to Carthage and back to camp just in time for dinner–not back in time to swim during free time. So after promising to stay and swim on Wednesday, we prepared for night two at camp.

I talked about one of my favorite stories in the Bible . . . John 11 and the story of Lazarus. We talked about why tragedy happens and that everything in life is for God’s glory–the good and the bad. The worship band has done an AWESOME job this week and did an excellent job tonight as well! They are called Broken Outside Beautiful. They are all from around Joplin and Cartersville (right next to Carthage.) So basically this is a week as they said, “to welcome me to the neighborhood.”

There was a lot of good discussion in church group times and I think the Lord really moved tonight!

Taylor and I went to the “Late, Late Night” and watched the “Don’t Forget the Lyrics.” Pretty cheesy indeed!!

Going to bed . . . Taylor and I are sharing a bed tonight and Jenny and Tucker sharing . . . we’ll see how that works for us tonight! Exhausted from all the driving and searching through the storage for files! More tomorrow. No showings today I don’t think–bummer.

Off to Youth Camp!!

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We are heading off to Youth Camp at Baptist Hill Assembly outside of Mt. Vernon, MO.? I will be the camp pastor for the Greene County Baptist Association’s Youth Camp and Jenny and the boys are going to be hanging out with a bunch of teenagers.? Back to my roots!!? My friend, Kurt Simon, invited me to preach for them this week.? I am actually kind of nervous!? I haven’t been around a large group of teenagers in quite a while–and I am pretty scared of them to tell you the truth–just kidding.? I always have a nervous stomach before these kinds of events because I know the potential that is just waiting to be realized.

I can remember youth camp at Centrifuge in Glorieta, NM when I was going to be a Freshman in High School.? I can remember making a decision at that camp that I wanted to be around these kinds of environments for the rest of my life!? Maybe it was the shorts and t-shirts, but I think it was the Lord calling me to ministry!

Be praying that God really moves in the hearts of these students and leaders this week!

Beach Disaster–June 25

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We decided to give the beach another try and headed out to the St. Andrews State Park (which is really awesome, by the way) to get some beach time. The boys didn’t think the “our” beach was clean enough, especially after going to the Shell Island beach the other day, so we were going to try to go to a cleaner beach. I find it funny that Taylor says “that is the cleanest/dirtiest beach I have ever seen.” Oh yeah, how many beaches have you seen buddy?

We had made our lunch, packed the chairs (thanks Gary and Fran) and a canopy shelter (thanks mom and dad). I realize that the picture on the front of the canopy is a beach scene, but they definitely didn’t have the beach scene we have had the entire time here–pretty brisk wind. So basically our canopy deal didn’t work because it was too flimsy for the large winds on the beach.

Secondly, what is always at the beach and tends to multiply?? Everybody? SAND! When God promised Abram that he would make his children as many as the grains of sand on the seashore, he wasn’t messing around!! I think the boys like the idea of the beach and the sand, but they get sand on their hands, then head to their faces to scratch an itch or whatever and the get sand in their eyes. Then add an anger management issues and throwing sand at each other and you have a disaster on your hands. That is what we had on our anniversary morning and early afternoon–a full on beach disappointment.

We left the beach just in time to head to Happy Hour at Sonic (wish is was something else, quite frankly–just kidding). It is “anti-customer service week at the beac”h for us, so even something as simple as some drinks turns into an almost 45 minute ordeal. The first hint was that the girl came over the speaker and said there was a 15 minute wait, would we still want to order. Well, we had just gotten done with an absolute beating with a two year old, so we needed some self-medication for sure. We ordered our drinks and watched all of the cars on our side come and go. . . 25 minutes go by and Jenny walks up to the door. She is not alone. There is a pretty upset senior adult who wants names and telephone numbers of district managers. The beauty of the deal was that the manager and assistant manager are both sitting down eating while the short staff is drowning. They didn’t even come out to face the angered public, they sent this poor teenage boy out to try to calm down the masses. Forty-five minutes and free drinks later, we were off to take a nap at the condo.

We had some really good hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner and ventured out to get those awesome vacation pictures next to the sea oats and the sunsets. Did I mention that Tucker doesn’t really like the sand and waves? I think I did.

Overall, we had a really good time and we think we got some good pictures to capture the memories of this week. We had to go to the pool before bed and really had a good time at the pool.

Here is Taylor’s entry for the day . . .

We went to the ocean. It was a lot of fun. Then we went to the pool.

Here are a few of the pics from that photo shoot . . .

Seriously, you’ve never been on the tour??

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As I mentioned earlier, we went to the Welcome and Information Center for Panama City Beach this morning to get. . . um, information . . . about what there is to do here in Panama City Beach. Of course there are those little brochure kiosks everywhere to try to get you into their place of business. But we wanted to hear an “insider’s view” of the attractions. Someone who has a “been there, done that, DIDN’T buy the T-shirt” (or vice versa) kind of informational experience. But it simply isn’t going to happen! Not today anyway!

Here’s a little tip for the city of Panama City Beach. See if you can’t spring for a couple of bucks to send the help to some of the excursions–ANY of the excursions. Basically, the lady(ies) who helped us had not been to ANY of the tours or whatnot in the town. “They were too busy working to have time to go on those things.” What!?! Isn’t that your job to know what tours are good and what tours stink?? Shouldn’t you be able to steer people clear of spare tours and tourist traps?? Seriously, you can be more help than “I think there are some brochures over there on that kind of stuff!”

For what it’s worth, I think that we in the church are a lot like that aren’t we? We are representing something that many of us aren’t really that enthused about, let alone even experienced!! To put it the way Rob Bell puts it, “we aren’t ‘smokin’ what we’re sellin’.” You can’t talk about an experience with Jesus until you have come face to face with Him and He comes in and changes your life. This isn’t simply something that you “do” . . . this Christianity thing! It is your “LIFE!” Every time someone comes into one of our environments (churches), people ought to get an “insider’s” view of the Gospel–EVERY TIME! They shouldn’t just hope they “get the good one [volunteer]” or not get the “guy having a bad day, ur, life.” Think about the consequences of not having an insider’s view of the Gospel at your church. Who is there because they had an insider’s, “I once was blind, but not I see” kind of person helping them to understand this crazy thing called the Gospel and the Church? Is someone there because you are “smokin’ what you’re sellin’?” Or are they turned away unsatisfied because you are no better than a bunch of brochures sitting all neatly in a row–lot’s of information, but no passion of an insider’s perspective.