Consider Adam’s story. God created everything; the land and water, plants and animals, and then God permitted Adam to name things. (Genesis 2:19-20) God delegated the responsibility of naming the animals He had created. Surely if God can design and create the intricacies of the human body He could come up with a more creative name than black bear, yet God gave that job to Adam. Something else I find amazing is that it seems that it was while working through the process of naming the animals that the discovery was made of Adam’s deficiency without Eve. (Vs. 20)
Wow! I love this idea. I need to clarify I had nothing to do with it and didn’t know about it until I read it on one of our staff member’s blog, but I’m so proud of our team!
I have posted many times before about my attempt at discovering my strengths and weaknesses. The older I get the more I realize things I’m not good at doing. This discovery process has led me to what I believe is the perfect combination on a team:
It’s Saturday…time for another dream stretch! I promise not to take this into perpetuity, but I really do believe the world needs a few more dreams. You can read more about my thoughts in the first dream stretch post HERE.
This video blows my mind. I love big dreams…I love mind-stretching exercises…this one helps me think bigger than I might normally think. It’s 18 minutes long, but it’s worth watching. Whether you agree with this line of thinking or solution to global problems is not the issue here, but feel free to share them. I’m sharing this because I love how big Paul Romer is thinking.
I am not a techie, but I am Mac guy, so I was mesmerized, like many of my techie friends, with Apple’s new iPad. This week when Steve Jobs introduced it, I felt an instant urge to hold one. Did anyone else get that urge? (Please don’t give me an idolatry lecture…I know my priorities…I’m not obsessing, but I am fascinated.) Being one that is always looking for ways to improve my productivity, I can see how I would make use of such a product.
Even so, in my position, I often have to say “Noâ€. I have to consider the amount of money and energy expended as it relates to the entire church organization. Honestly, there are times I feel like the dream killer more than I get to be the dream enhancer, because I often have to be the “No†voice, but the fact is, as with any organization, we operate with limited resources and sometimes saying no is the right decision at the time. In these times, I have to walk the delicate balance between saying yes and saying no.
Change is necessary, however, if organizations want to continue to improve and grow. The simple fact is that change requires a certain amount of faith. Faith is much easier to believe, and even to preach, than it ever is to live by.
A couple times a year we do an extended weekend retreat. This weekend we are headed to Nashville for an all staff planning retreat. An added twist is that our spouses will join us on Friday night for fellowship and then on Saturday morning for a special brainstorming session. (We think they may have better ideas than we do!)
In the four years Grace Community Church has been a church we have received much praise from people that love what we do. Hundreds of lost, hurting people have chosen to unite with us. We have had some previously churched people join us who felt we were a better fit for them or their family, but mostly we have reached people who previously did not attend church. Most exciting to us is that we have baptized more adults than children in our four years, indicating to us that we are truly evangelizing and not just helping people swap churches. It has been a wild, exciting, thrilling time watching God shape us over these first few years.
