On a whim tonight, I made some major modifications to my blog design. I did a bunch of things…. The Site width is now 960px instead of 1000px. I hope this gives the design a little more breathing room. I reduced the font size a bit. Simplified the header Tried to make the section titles a bit more bold (as i want to highlight the little sayings in throw in there). I put the feeds up at the top. I only have two full posts showing now, the rest below it are excerpts (for you geeks out there, this was done by using two looks and i queried posts, then offset the bottom section by two posts) I moved the flickr photos down to the...Read More →
Archive for April, 2008
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April 30, 2008
Speaking of Shiny New Things
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April 30, 2008
The Lure of Shiny New Things
I’ve become a big fan of Patrick Lencioni and his leadership books. I think he sees things that most of just don’t see. The things he sees are those “duh” type of things too. I subscribe to his “Point of View” newsletter. (you can do so here). Today he sent out a thought on the lure of “new” things. At the risk of always evolving and always learning, he shows that there is some value in simplicity and consistancy. He writes about the phenomenon of In-N-Out burgers… There is a regional chain of quick-service (a.k.a. fast food) restaurants on the west coast called In-N-Out Burger. If you‘ve never lived or spent much time in California, Nevada or Arizona, you might not know about In-N-Out, but...Read More →
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April 30, 2008
Church Leadership Meetings: Is it Possible Not to Hate Them?
Meetings. We typically don’t like them. In fact, most of us hate them. This is true for many reasons. I’ve blogged about this before. At The Well we’ve been on a journey to figure out how to best form our meet time so that our time is well spent. I’ll be honest, I’ve gone back and forth between loathing out meetings and loving our meetings. Since we’re working in an atypical model with two part-time paid pastors, its a little more difficult to manage expectations and responsibilities and maintain communication as a team. Right now we’re only able to meet once a month so our time together needs to be well spent. In the past we’ve struggled with a number of things. The biggest struggle...Read More →
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April 29, 2008
Am I a webdesigner or pastor? Keeping on task…
I wrote yesterday a bit about how I work bi-occupationally (I have two occupations and one vocation – my vocation is “christian” or “Christ follower” if you like that term better). One of the challenges of working this way is knowing where to draw lines and boundaries. Both these jobs can be demanding of your time at all hours of the day and I have learned that it take major discipline to manage tasks, responsibilities and priorities well. Discipline was not something I majored in in college so this has been a challenge! There two practices that I started this week to help with this challenge and I am pretty sure I have been 100% more productive and responsible to needs of the church and...Read More →
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April 28, 2008
The Best 1:43 you will spend today (A Mason Video)
Seriously, if you had to do spend 1 minute and 43 seconds doing something, you’d have a hard time finding a better way to do it…
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April 28, 2008
On Being a Part-Time Pastor…
I am a part-time pastor. Well, I am paid part time to be a pastor. Many people have asked me over e-mail or in person, how this part time in two worlds thing works. In case you are new here and have no clue what I am talking about, I am part-time as lead pastor at The Well and I also run my own freelance web design business. Giving proper attention to the two isn’t easy and its something that I am learning to do better and better. As far as being part-time at my church, I love it. As you can imagine, its not easy. But, its so rewarding. It not only frees my up to be more of a “normal person” with a...Read More →
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April 26, 2008
10 Reasons Men Should Not Be In Ministry
Through a series of links I found this funny top ten list… this is hilarious stuff. This is from the post: 10. A man’s place is in the army. 9. The pastoral duties of men who have children might distract them from the responsibility of being a parent. 8. The physique of men indicates that they are more suited to such tasks as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do ministerial tasks. 7. Man was created before woman, obviously as a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment rather than the crowning achievement of creation. 6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. Their conduct at football and basketball games demonstrates this. 5. Some men are...Read More →
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April 26, 2008
Open Handed Ministry
(I posted this post over at my other blog that I don’t think will actually take off again because I am realizing I can’t put energy into two blogs, so I am reposting it here). If you are a pastor, here’s a question: How do you refer the people in your church? Most pastors I know use interesting language when talking about the congregation they pastor in. They usually are called “my people?” Now, I understand that this might be semantics but I tend to think that semantics are pretty dang important. Calling the congregation “my people” obviously speaks of possession. But, are they really your people or are they really God’s people? Sure, you say, of course they are God’s people. Right. What God-respecting...Read More →
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April 25, 2008
Hoping for another Devin Hester
I am posting this video in hopes that the Bears can strike gold again in the draft tomorrow…
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April 25, 2008
I Sold this Blog to Google for $1,000,000
Okay, another overstatement of a title. But, I am now sporting some ads on my blog. What’s this world coming to? Next thing you know my kids will be paid to wear companies names on their clothing…oh, wait, I think we pay them for the privilege to do that… Anyways, I personally think these ads are fairly un-intrusive. I am actually going to take all the money I receive off these ads and put them toward our adoption debt. So, it’s for a good cause! Let me know if you are completely offended by these ads or see anything inappropriate pop up.
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April 24, 2008
Are You A Leader? Or Are You Just Holding A Position?
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about leadership. This question has haunted me recently. Am I acting as a leader or am I just holding a position? Now, I realize I tend to be way too hard on myself but I think that’s sometimes really helpful to be so. But, the thing I am learning is that its way too easy to hold a position of leadership and not actually be leading to your fullest potential. A question… Does our comfortable culture allow us to be in situations where we can get by without actually leading? Really the question comes down to this, as leaders, are we so captured by an alternative vision for the future that we are willing to give anything...Read More →
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April 23, 2008
Rethinking my Allegiance to Apple…
Uh, yeah, right. No chance I am rethinking my allegiance to Apple despite the long, long list of recent problems my MacBookPro has had (read about them here). Not only did I have all those problems recently, but some of them were repeated. Just this week I was without my computer again for two days. Seems the logic board failed again and needed to be replaced. So, now i am on my third logic board since I bought this computer. If you are unfamiliar with computer parts, the logic board is pretty much the heart of the computer. So, in a sense, I am on my third machine. Apple told me that if the machine has any problems in the next two months they will...Read More →
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April 19, 2008
I’m Not A Good Suburbanite
I have a confession to make: I was a bad suburbanite yesterday. Why? Well, there are a number of reasons… I carpooled down to the city in the morning with someone who was already going down there instead of driving my own car. I walked all over the city. Yes, on foot. Since I carpooled down to the city, I had to take the train back to the burbs. When I got to my train station, I walked home about 1 mile. Later, I had to return some movies and go to the bank. So I rode my bike. (To which, i noticed that people find bikers really annoying in the burbs. Its actually a slightly dangerous adventure). So, there you go. I am a...Read More →
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April 18, 2008
Poverty
“Poor people die not only because of the world’s indifference to their poverty, but also because of ineffective efforts by those who do care…” William Easterly, in the book The White Man’s Burden
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April 16, 2008
Information about Zambia
Some Facts About Zambia: 64% of the population living on $1 or less a day, Unemployment rates hover at more than seventy percent 30,000 children being born HIV-positive each year Of the population of 11 million, almost 10% or orphaned street kids. The price of being peace makers I was shocked to hear that Zambia is one of the few countries in the world to never go to War. Pastor George told me that when the country was founded it was founded by refugees from neighboring countries that were at war. Because of this, they built into their DNA that they would be a helping country. And they did just this. Early on in the history of the country, an immense amount of their national...Read More →
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April 16, 2008
Zambia or Bust
After a few weeks of praying and processing, I’ve accepted the invitation to head to Zambia, Africa to spend two weeks working with my good friend George Palo (a pastor from Ndola, Zambia). George will be leading me and two other pastors as we visit his country and meet and encourage the pastors there and see first hand the desperate poverty of this beautiful country. We are hopeful that this trip will begin a long-term relationship between the Zambia churches that George is affiliated with and my church network (Ecclesia). Zambia, like most African countries, is in desperate times. I’ll be writing more about this country in the weeks ahead but one example is that of the approximately 11 million residents of this country, 10%...Read More →
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April 16, 2008
Zambia 2008 Trip Itinerary
Tuesday, June 17 Arrival and rest Evening tour of Lusaka (prayer for the Street Kids) Wednesday, June 18 Speaking at Lusaka Leadership Conference – 4-hour bus ride to Livingstone in the evening Thursday, June 19 Speaking at Livingstone Leadership Conference Late afternoon tour of Victoria Falls 4-hour bus ride to Lusaka in the evening Friday, June 20 Flight to Ndola (or 4-hour bus ride) Evening of ministry and speaking with Harvest City Church’s Leadership Team Saturday, June 21 Speaking at Ndola Leadership Conference Spend the night at Nsobe Game Camp Sunday, June 22 Speaking / Preaching at Harvest City Church Afternoon spent visiting Nissi Orphanage and Dola Hill Village Evening meeting with area pastors Monday, June 23 Speaking in Kalulushi for an abbreviated Leadership Conference...Read More →
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April 13, 2008
Silence and Community
I am taking the next two days and heading out to a cabin in the woods with one my closest friends. We’re headed up there do to a mix of solitude and community. We made the deal that there will be no talking from after from breakfast till dinner time. During the evenings we’ll spend the time talking about life and God and what how our time of silence was. I’ll personally be spend much of the next two days just taking a step back, resting, listening to the Spirit and taking a long look at my life. I am sure God and I have a lot of talking to do. The last time I did this it was perhaps the simple most transforming weekend...Read More →
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April 10, 2008
MereMission: Missions, Missional & The Global Church
I’ve got my first post of the new MereMission up. Here’s an excerpt: One of in things to say in churches that claim to be “missional” is something like this: “we don’t have a missions program, our church is a missions program.” This is a great statement, I’ve said it quite often and I am a firm believer that we need to understand and see our entire church as “missional.” This means, that everything we do as a community is for the sake of witness, for the sake of the proclimation of the risen messiah…. Read the rest of my post at MereMission
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April 9, 2008
MereMission Is Live Again
About a year or so ago I closed down the site MereMission. The conversation had stalled and it didn’t seem like it was doing much. Today someone asked me to open up the archives again so they could link to a post. This got me thinking that maybe the site deserved another try. So, i’ve giving it another go. I will mainly be writing on this site in the areas of leadership and local / global theology. Check it out here.
