Sundays are generally a great day at our house.
We are involved in a great church, which gets us out in front of the lunch crowds 
But sometimes we get off to a slow start and wake up on the wrong side of the bed, if you’re having a bad day, watch this…you’ll be glad you did, and may even feel a little guilty for your own feeling sorry for yourself…
I’m headed home today from Colorado
I leave Tuesday for Florida, week after that California, week after that Florida
I’m ready for a real live vacation
The Detroit Tigers are making me pretty happy lately, I think they’ve got a shot
I am about to unleash some seriousness on this blog, we’ll see how long it lasts
We’re having our first quarterly Saturday Servolution Event on June 20th, and we’re getting pretty excited about it!
We have several great volunteer opportunities already lined up and several more in discussion. If you’d like to get involved you can sign up on our church website. And just so you don’t think this was an all original idea…
Servolution 2009 Recap from Healing Place Church on Vimeo.
In celebration of the end of the eighth season of American Idol (is anyone else getting tired of it?) I decided to do a little research for you and give you a list of…
Top Three most successful Idol contestants based on album sales to date–
3. Clay Aiken–the only American Idol alum to already have a greatest hits album! It was released in March and has sold 3,400 copies, though his total is nearly 5,000,000.
2. Carrie Underwood–Will likely take over the #1 spot with the release of her next album total sales to date are over 9,600,000
1. Kelly Clarkson–The original American Idol! Yes, it helps that she has had the most time since winning, with four albums totalling over10,000,000 in total album sales.
Honorable Mention- Chris Daughtry is closing fast having sold over 4,400,000 copies of his debut album, new album due in July should move him past Clay.
FYI- Five other American Idol contestants have sold over a million albums…winners Ruben Studdard, Fantasia, David Cook, Jordin Sparks, and contestant Kellie Pickler.
Happy Memorial Day–
“Our great modern Republic. May those who seek the blessings of its institutions and the protection of its flag remember the obligations they impose.”–Ulysses S. Grant
“The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.”–Douglas MacArthur
It’s a question I ask a lot. So I thought it would be worth giving an answer…
Why do I have advertising links on my blog? Because Google targets the ads in the boxes based on related topics and items, and when you click, I get money, BUT when I get money, I pass EVERY penny on to charity.
So far it hasn’t been much (less than $200), but every time you read this blog and click on one of the advertising banners, you are providing mosquito nets for African Children, homes for Cambodian families, and food for Haitian orphans.
Just another reminder that we CAN do good, even when no one is looking…but if you look, we can do even greater good!
I resonate with the first few verses of First Corinthians Chapter 3…
I’m often very carnal, and need to be preached to as such, but occasionally I’m more in Paul’s role of speaking to the “church people” who must still be talked to/at as carnal humanity.
I spend a few hours a week helping in a church plant in one of the most overchurched towns in America, Cleveland, TN. And countless more hours talking with other people at various stages of the church planting journey, from pre-launch to several years in to a “successful” church plant.
As I was reading today, I fell into a couple words I’ve often thrown away, verse six”I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.”
A few translations use growth instead of increase, but this is not one of those verses that gets dramatically different if you use NIV,KJV,ESV, etc…
No, it wasn’t my first time noticing the verse, there is a biblical example of church planting there! It’s ultimately all about God! But I had never really paid attention to those two words in the middle, Apollos watered.
In most of my conversations with church planters there is lots of talk about me this and God that, but it’s a rare occasion that we start talking about their “Apollos” the person(s) that will water the work.
In order to do the watering this person(s) need a few basic skills–
3. They must have desire–Few things could be worse than having to use the laborer who needs to be constantly coaxed into helping…if they don’t want to be involved, you are better off focusing your energies elsewhere. There may be a way to motivate that desire up a few notches, but if its something you are spending lots of time and energy on, look elsewhere.
2. They must have water!–In any organization, especially at the beginning we’ll sometimes accept any help we can get, but this can often choke and slow long term progress because those given responsibility don’t have the skill necessary to complete the task…it can even make things worse because now you’re focusing attention away from your primary objectives onto fixing the mistakes that these eager water sprinklers made. One way to prevent this is by spending more time up front in the training and equipping before you send them outside with their water pale to get to work.
1. They must have direction–some need more than others, but you’d never just give someone a bucket of water and say go put this outside if you had a specific place that needed watered; tell them and show them, but be careful not to micro-manage, this will not allow them to come up with better solutions than you ever would have.
It seems that anything worth planting is worth watering, so who is watering your plant, and what are you doing to make sure they succeed? If you focus on planting and equipping others to water, God can cover his part!
-NOT take any work related calls for five days–this one is tougher for me than it sounds. I don’t do vacation well…heck, I’m making a to-do list!
-Visit Healing Place Church–I love what Dino and his team do. Their focus on being a Healing Place for a Hurting World is a great one line mission statement for the church, and Dino’s book Servolution tells their story well and may even inspire you to start your own Servolution initiative.
-Do lots of important stuff–like sleep in, play with my kids, go swimming, and have a generally great time!
I travel a lot, I try to be responsible/sustainable/green/eco-friendly, these two are tough to reconcile…
Top Three Environmentally Friendly ways to travel
3. Public Transportation–This actually includes bus, light rail, train, etc. Increasingly we are seeing these move to CNG and even electric (the buses in downtown Chattanooga are electric!) While Buses obviously use more fuel than a car, they use far less on a PER passenger basis.
2. Walking–Yep, the good ole left right left is pretty tough to beat for earth friendliness, not to mention that it’s much better for YOU.\
1. Bicycle– Why is it better than walking? Because you can travel at least four times as far in the same amount of time and still produce no emissions.
Honorable Mention–Ok, so what about those longer trips and business meetings far far away (like downtown), for those I’d recommend train, WEBEX, or the revolutionary new invention…CARPOOL
Thoughts–Is that client, congregation, conference attendee, etc, really going to be that much better off for you being there face to face? Sometimes the answer is absolutely YES, but more often than we currently admit, they could get just as much from our virtual presence and follow up as from our in the flesh presence.
