Stop for just a minute and think of one couple whose marriage you would love your marriage to look like. Ask them if you can hang out with them, exchange emails with them, or if they will make themselves available to your marriage. Let their iron sharpen your iron.
I’m sure there is a perfect definition of this, but for me worship happens when you forget about yourself and recognize more about God in that moment. You can put that in the context of a worship service, where a person recognizes that I don’t care about myself or my struggles; I just care about God, or you can put that in terms of a work situation, where a person says, “None of this matters except for me bringing glory to God.†When self disappears and the image of oneself disappears and God’s purpose, design and plan becomes the most important thing, that’s worship.
If you follow my blog regularly, then you know that I’m trying to spur people to dream bigger dreams. Not only do I believe dreaming is a healthy practice, but I believe we need your dreams. Obviously we cannot life in dream world all the time, and I spend far more energy writing about accomplishing dreams than dreaming dreams, but I believe the world needs some more dreamers. I believe God encourages this process. If you don’t believe me, read my first post on this issue HERE.
The older I get (and that’s happening faster it seems that it once did) the more I’m beginning to assess my life and what the experiences of life have taught me. On my laptop I keep I file where I simply type principles/ideas/nuggets of wisdom as they occur to me. Sometimes these originate as a Twitter post, sometimes they are a line from a Sunday message, but often they just go in this file.
The most talked about press conference ever occurs tomorrow. Tiger Woods will face a select group of media. Every sports report I saw today was focused on what Tiger will or will not say. Some were kind, some were not, but all want to know what he has on his mind
In my opinion, if a person is concentrating more on the discipline and his or her ability to keep a rule then he or she is still living under the law system. If, however, one is concentrating on the focus of Christ then he or she is truly living by grace. That should always be encouraged.
That’s one reason I was motivated to promote a new ministry venture I recently learned about. My blogger friend Kent Shaffer’s wife, Evie has assembled a creative initiative to allow artists to use their talent to help other charities. A Beautiful Idea (ABI) allows artists to showcase and sell their unique product, with 100% of the sale of that item going to charity. This can be ongoing, or a one-time deal.
Geoff Surratt is part of the church famous Surratt brothers of Seacoast Church. I have had to the privilege of meeting several of them and I am always impressed. I sat in a breakout at a conference last year where Geoff spoke last year. He’s funny, witty, and smart. His latest book, Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches from Growing, is a frank and honest book that identifies the most common mistakes pastors make. You can follow Geoff on Twitter also.
God said that Joshua and the Israelites needed to rid themselves of anything that was standing between them and God. Joshua went to the people and found a man who had been worshipping idols. The people took that man from the city and stoned him to death. It would be very fair to say that that man was “devoted to destruction”. In fact, that might be an understatement.
Karen on our staff has been asking Cheryl to do a guest post for the Grace Community Church website for months and she finally agreed. She chose the title “Who me – a pastor’s wife?”. Let me say that I believe one of the most important jobs in the church is that of the pastor’s wife. I’m thankful I have such a good one. For more of my thoughts on Cheryl, click HERE or if you want to know how to honor a pastor’s wife, click HERE.
Last Saturday I started encouraging dream Saturdays. You can read the first post HERE. As I shared before, I believe that dreaming is a healthy exercise. I think God encourages big dreams. I even encouraged couples to dream together in Monday’s marriage post, which you can read HERE.
Recently Josh had a career decision to make. He wanted to wrestle through it with me. He actually took my advice. He honored me greatly, not by taking my advice, but with a text he sent me later, which said, “You are my new mentor!†He probably was joking, but he doesn’t know how much that comment resonates with me.
One of my weaknesses in leadership is failing to give enough details. I am skilled at painting the big picture. I have tons of ideas. I can usually get people motivated, but often they have no idea what they are to do next. Knowing this about myself, I must constantly ask if people around me understand what I am trying to communicate. This doesn’t come natural for me, but it is something I have tried to practice in my leadership. (You’d have to ask someone on my team if I’m any good at it.)
The team at Seacoast is packed with sharp people and Mac Lake is one of their best. Mac and I have never met, unless the world of social media counts. If it does we’ve met frequently. I’ve enjoyed our emails, Twitter, blog and TokBox correspondence. Mac is a deliberate and strategic thinker. I don’t know anyone currently more passionate about developing leaders than Mac Lake.
I have tried to practice this principle in my marriage. Cheryl agrees with this principle also, but being the one better wired for dreaming, one year I gave Cheryl a set of large letters for her office that simply spelled the word DREAM. It serves as a reminder to her that we want to continue to dream together as a couple.
