Synergy

Synergy defined is "The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects."

I love this process, and I'm reminded over and over again that its a team that makes it happen every time. When we isolate ourselves we limit what God is wanting to do in us and through us.

Lately, Ive been asking myself, what are the ways we can win the most people for God, the fastest. My heart is stirred for those who dont yet know Him.

So the questions are:
What are we currently doing that we can improve on?
What are we currently doing that we need to stop?
What do I need to do as a leader to grow and change?
What do I need to do or equip the current leaders we have to grow?
What uncultivated leaders do we have that we havent empowered to lead.

God help me to lead the way you would like for me to lead.

Coaching Today

Ive been reading a great E-book about coaching the past weeks. Its from Newthing Network, and you should really check it out.

All of us at some point have had someone coaching or mentoring us. Unfortunately we may not have even known it! I think its vitally important to continue to reproducing leaders all around you. It doesnt mean you have to be an "expert" in the area, just willing to see potential in people and encourage them to go forward with their goals. I think we all need to be more intentional about helping others grow all around us.

From the E-book "Life Changing Conversations, A Coach's Guidebook"

"What is a coach and what does a coach do? In short, a coach is a leader whose intentional investment in the lives of other leaders encourages them to do better; better not just in their leadership role...but better, period. A coach calls out the best in a leader. The relationship between the coach and leader is the engine that God uses to drive the leader to reach their God given purposes."

Who are you coaching?

The Gateway Church

Hey everyone check out my friend and fellow church planter Paul Stewart's most recent blog post.

He is doing a great job planting in Down Town Des Moines. They have been building steam all sumer and are launching this Sunday at the Temple for Performing Arts.

Pray God does amazing things through Paul, his bride Jessica, and the team the have assembled. We can never have too many churches in this city trying to reach people for Gods Glory.

Follow this link and watch their latest video.

Friday

Just spent some time this morning reading and catching up on some blogs before a few meetings and wrapping up this weekends sermon. Check us out Sunday, we are looking at some "capacity issues" from the story of Elijah, the widow and the flowing oil.

Here is a link to a great post by Perry Noble. Its so easy for all of us to get misaligned. Always a good idea to get a new alignment.

Check it out.

Marriage Matters

Check this post from Bil Cornelius. Awesome read.

Help! I Married The Wrong Person!

September 2, 2009 - 3:49pm — bafadmin

When marriage gets tough, the answer is not to run out on your spouse (not to mention the kids), but to stick it out. The problem with just leaving the relationship is that you have to take you with you! If you messed up the last marriage and didn’t learn anything, then you will mess up the next one too! The answer is to stay together, to let the dream die of “someone out there that’s better,” and realize that GOD IS BIG ENOUGH TO MAKE YOUR CURRENT MARRIAGE WORK! Time and again I hear of couples struggling to stay together and I can tell you that time and again there are only a few things that consistently will create the best odds of making a marriage last:

1. Spend uninterrupted time together every day.

2. Keep no secrets no matter how painful it is to reveal.

3. As and act of worship to God, begin serving your spouse immediately…even if you don’t feel like it.

4. Choose to never bring up divorce as an option.

5. Cut off all relationships (even friends and family) that encourage you to divorce your spouse.

6. If you need it, go see a counselor…I can hear you now saying “it’s too expensive!” Trust me, divorce attorney’s cost more.

I have to confess, I may come across a little strong here, because I married well above my head! Having said that, these principles work. Hope this helps. Comments anyone?

Colins joke today

Colin, "Dad, why did the booger cross the road?"

I dont know son.

"Because he was bothered..."

Anna from the other room, "No Colin, becuase he was picked on..."

Colin, "Oh Yeah, thats it."

Hearing the Lord

Lately I've been reading for my devotional times in I Samuel. I love reading the histories. I samuel is rich in the fact that Samuel's goal was to have an ear that hears the Lord regularly.

I love it in I Sam 2:21, Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord.

Chapter 3 he hears God calling his name, and he simply responds with Im listening.

I pray as a Christ-follower that I, too, am growing up in His presence, and when He speaks to me I simply say Im listening , then follow through with what He says.

Simply put, "Speak Jesus, you have my undivided attention, Im all ears..."

Weekly Structure

I am working hard on reworking my weekly routine. It seems the more that needs to be done, the less gets done, if your not super disciplined to stay on task.

With that said, Im working hard to be finished with all the weekend items by Wednesday. Its not a 100% success yet, but I'm trying.

I used to have a meeting day on Tuesday where, id try to stack as many things then as as possible. But I'm finding that Thursday works better. It allows me to get a head of the week instead of playing catch up in Friday, or worse on Saturday!

We are also praying so much more as church directly for our city and congregation. There are over 40+ people committed to pray 10 minutes a day -one hour a week for this city.

God is doing great things already. Keep praying.

Crazy week, to say the least

1. The first part of the week was a whirlwind. Im trying to switch my meeting day to Thursday fro Tuesday. Ana ended up sick on Tuesday, so I had to help with her, as Dara is still on this semi-bed rest gig with the pregnancy. So that moved things around.

2. My grandma died on Wednesday and we left on Thursday to be with the family and speak at the funeral on Saturday.

3. Thursday night my phone feel off the dash and into an open cup of tea in the cup holder. I didnt realize it happened for about 5 minutes. When I pulled my BlackBerry out of the cup the entire screen was full of tea. Not good. Yeah, it still doesnt power on...

4. The hotel we staye din was nice, and the kids loved being there, but the internet wouldnt work right. So i had no email access or phone service. I wasnt pleased as I'm too addicted to being connected.

5. Funeral was Saturday, and we didnt get to leave STL until late by the time we went to the grave and then back to the church to eat with everyone. It was great to see so many family members from far away. My grandma was a wonderful woman and loved by many. Thankfully she is now back with my Grandpa and rejoicing with Jesus.

6. I was honored to be able to say some things about my grandma today and read the letters the family wrote to and bout her. It was a moving time, but I held my composure. I lost it years ago today at my grandpas funeral, as my role was the same at his as well.

I loved them both dearly, and they will truly be missed. I have to say I still dream of Grandpa Brown. I cant wait to run with him some day again in Heaven as we rejoice about Jesus toegther, and sit on some porch and sip a soda out of can with a straw with my Grandma Anna Ruth Brown. My little girl Ana was named after her, and our great friend Anna Tucker...

Grandma and Grandpa Brown you both will always be near my heart. Longing to see you again...

Great Post about Pastors Wives

Guys make sure you read this about pastor's wives. Whether you she is your wife or she's the wife of your pastor take this to heart!

Gary Lamb of Revolution church makes it plain today... or 3 years ago. Whichever, you'll get it if you link to it!

Read it here.

One hour a week prayer

We now have 40 committed to pray one hour a week for our city and church!

With all the prayer partners now praying for the Des Moines metro, we have about 2400 hours of prayer this year going up.

Des Moines watch out, God is about to do great things here!

Way to go, Jordan Creek. So Proud to be your pastor and on this journey with you!

Identifying Crazy People

At C3 last week, Ed Young gave a whole list of how to spot crazy people.

We all know crazy people, and how they drain us emotionally.
Read the list and you'll think of someone. If you dont think of anyone, then maybe your the cra....

Never mind.

Here it is!

Ed Youngs' How you know if People are Crazy

1. They have crazy eyes ~eyes are the window to the soul
2. They are always playing the God card. ~"oh brother God told me.... or God showed me..."
3. They name drop. ~They are always telling you about some celebrity they know or met
4. They are always "one upping you" - They have always done it bigger and better than you
5. They Blow up your phone
6. They dont take any advice, even after they ask you for it
7. They always talk about themselves
8. They dont have any kind of filter. ~ They say whatever comes to mind whenever.
9. They are one issue people. ~ALWAYS stuck on that one thing
10. They are space invaders. ~They dont have any personal space. Right up in your grille all the time.
11. They dress in full uniform of the team that they are cheering. face paint and all...
12. They enjoy their dysfunction.
13. They have crazy pets. ~It goes along with them being crazy
14. They answer their phone, "Mmmmeyellow"
15. They usually are the first to come up to you and they are the last to talk with you....

Hospitality

One of the greatest take aways from the C3 conference for me was the hospitality that was shown. Somehow we got connected with Pace Hartfield from Fellowship Church.

Pace is the Worship Leader there and directs the entire service structure front to back. He is an amazing guy, who after the time at C3 I now consider a friend. He was assigned to us for the few days we had there, since we had access to the backstage area. His term was he was "hosting us." Each of the pastors who had access to the green room, had a host.

I was privileged to be back there. All the pastors there were very successful and doing a great job at leading people to the kingdom as well as leading a great church. I sat with notebook in hand scribbling down notes, when the other pastors invested time with Dara and myself.

It was a great time to soak up some great leadership as well as make some new friends.

Pace Thanks for connecting with us, and forming a new friendship.

Guys check out his blog, you'll be blessed.

Progress bar of life

Here is it ladies and gentlemen. My progress bar of life. Check it out.

5 Powerful questions

These 5 questions are taken from Craig Groeschels Book IT.

If you havent read it yet, you should. You can order it here.

1. Why does your organization exist?

2. Wat can your organization be the best in the world at?

3. If you could do only one thing, what would it be?

4. If you left your organization tomorrow, what would you hope would continue forever?

5. What breaks your heart, keeps you up at night, and wrecks you?

Wednesday

Today is supposed to be my day off, but I'm not very good at that...

I have mens fraternity over the lunch hour and it was awesome. Then worked on a few emails and checked a couple things, went over things for Sunday and next week.

Now I'm wrapping up and going to meet Dara and the kids at the mall in a few minutes!

Quick Update

I cant believe that its almost March!

We challenged everyone at church this weekend to pray 1 hour a week for our city and our church. I committed to pray one hour a day for the same. Man it has been great so far.

So far I'm really having to restructure my time and priorities. Thee next two weeks are probably the busiest Ive had in 2 months! HA But i realize I'm just too busy not to pray!

So I ask you to take up the challenge and pray with me. So far 32 people have committed to pray along side me for the health of our church and for the some 400,000 people in this city who are not connected to a local church.

I believe 100% that the Holy Spirit working through the local church is the hope of the world.

Wont you join me?

C3 Quotable quotes

"Ministry is Brutiful" ~Ed Young

"Cannibals arent the only ones who get fed up with people" ~Ed Young

"Some one has been dealt cards worse than you in life, and they are winning with them" ~Bill Cornelius

"Before God fills the house with people, He wants to fill it with His Glory" ~Bill Cornelius

"Nothing is more humorous than a preaching relativist" ~GK Chersterton via Ben Young

"Are we addicted to what Jesus died for?" ~Jentzen Franlin

Blogging Integrity crisis

Apparently I have one. My last post I said I'd update the next day and I didn't... as you know I didn't for a long time.

So here's the story that rocked me last week.

Tom Jacob's was speaking at a leadership meeting last week. During his talk he told a story of when he was pastoring a church in Sioux City. He had a board member (I think that's how the story went) that was one of the early guys in Gateway computers. The guy oozed leadership. He retired at 31. Tom asked him to meet with him once a week to just pour some of his leadership knowledge into Tom in a mentorship sort of way.

They meet weekly for quite some time, until one day the guy asked to meet in a different location. Tom quickly agreed. They sat down and the guy says to Tom, "Tom what I want to talk about today is something pretty personal I've noticed. Tom, you have an integrity issue."

Most pastors. as Tom did began to play back anything that could be considered and issue. At a loss he asked what?

The mentor looked at him and said, "Its not big things, its the little things. You say by next Thursday you'll do this or that. Its a small trivial thing, but you dont always accomplish it."

That is an integrity issue. Its not just the major things, its all those little things left unchecked, that begins the crack in the dam.

So I have a blogging integrity issue, im going to resolve!

Im in Dallas right now at C3, so I'm not promising a post tomorrow...

Under promise and over deliver.

Blogging

We'll its been quite some time since i have posted here. I wont make excuses, but I do want to jump back in regularly.

Christmas and News Years were great. It was wonderful to visit family and connect again. My Grandma Brown has colon cancer is is very ill. I was glad I got to spend some time with her. Everyone else is great, just busy, it seems.

2008 was quite the year, full of ups and downs. If I learned one thing, it really is to trust God in every area of my life.

He has moved in finances, in family, in relationships, in health. Over and over again, I see His hand of mercy and grace.

I am still human, and at times need those lessons driven home to me again.

More tomorrow about the Daniel Fast!