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Sunday Stuff and Other Stuff...

- Today was a mixed bag. 3rd service was great. 2nd service was pretty good. 1st service was lame.
- Taught on how to study the Bible. People seemed to respond to it really well. I purposely didn't do a Father's Day message
- We gave away copies of Wild at Heart to every guy today. That was cool.
- Attendance was good. Great to see so many guys at church on "their" day!
- I am loving our TXT series so much, I expended it 2 weeks :)
- Looking forward to my message on the 22nd. I'm going to answer questions via text. Should fun. (If you've done this and have any insights or do's and don'ts, please email me)
- Looking forward to hanging out with some Pastors on Wednesday in Tampa.
- Flying to Boston on Thursday. I'm hoping to get there before the best bakery in the world closes. They usually remember me because I'm the guy from Miami that that comes in once a year and orders 10 pounds of cookies a time :)
- Looking forward to teaching an assimilation seminar in Hartford on Friday (June 20th) and going to a concert with my good buddy Bill.
- Mark & I are going to The Journey on Sunday morning to see how they do I-mag and multi-site. All of their locations are portable, so I'm looking forward to learning.
- I'm pretty sure that Carmine's is in our future while we're there :)

A Few Book Reviews

Here's a few books that I read recently that I'm not going to do a full book review for, but were helpful...

The Back of the Napkin - The 1st 70 pages of this book were great. The big idea of solving problems through pictures is worth picking up the book just for his explanation. I walked away with several ideas of how we help people take next steps and using pictures to help people in the process.

Stimulated - The chapter on changing your office environment to stimulate creativity was really good. I got a lot out of that chapter in particular and it caused me to make changes in my work spaces immediately.

The Laws of Lifetime Growth - My friend Nelson has a good review of the book here. This little book is worth your time. You should be able to put this book away in 90 minutes tops. It answers the questions, "How do you keep on growing?" Great wisdom!

The Breakthrough Company - Most of us love Good to Great. This book helps smaller organizations think through how to get better. If some of the concepts in Good to Great were too big, this book resizes them for us.

Evangelism Seminar

Just something to put on your radar:

We're going to be hosting an Evangelism seminar on July 24th from 9AM - Noon. I have greatly benefitted from this seminar personally as we have seen over 200 people come to know Jesus in our services this year!

I don't know if there's a more important subject for church leaders than evangelism.

Click here to register for the seminar and for more information. I look forward to seeing you there.

By the way, if you're in the New England area, I'll be leading an Assimilation Seminar next Friday (June 20) in Hartford, CT. You can click here for more info.

The Preacher and His Message

Here is my relationship with every message I teach:

Wednesday: I love it, I can't wait to teach it

Thursday: Anticipation building. This is going to be awesome!

Friday: I can't look at it anymore! I hate it. I wouldn't teach this message at gunpoint!

Saturday: It might not be as bad as I originally thought. This might actually be preach-able.

Sunday: I think it went pretty well. I don't know how, but God used it. I wish I would just say what I wrote :)

Monday: I'm never preaching again!

Tuesday: I'm thinking about preaching again :)

Sunday Stuff...

- Awesome Sunday!
- We kicked off a new series called "TXT" You can hear the message here
- The message went over really well. I taught on the purpose of the Bible.
- Mark is on vacation sitting under a palm tree in the Keys, but Hector did a great job leading worship
- There was a hideous sound that came out of our speakers during worship in the 1st service. It sounded like a demon was being exorcised from our sound system (not that I have 1st hand knowledge of what that would sound like)
- The church got to hear that Pastor John got engaged! It's about time! Really happy for him and Carolina!
- With school getting out, I was sure we were going to be a ghost town. We had a fantastic crowd on Sunday!
- Picked up Bil Cornelius' God Big conference DVD while I was in CA. Been watching it. Awesome stuff!
- Funniest twitter of the week: Scott Hodge: "I just ran over a bunny. I hate the sound of that!"
- I hired an assistant this week. I've gone nearly 8 years without one, but I'm in desperate need of help. Wendy is going to rock when she gets here in a couple of weeks!
- Looking forward to a great day off with my family on Monday!

New Series on Sunday!

Book Review: How to Become a Great Boss

I'm a big fan of Jeffrey Fox's books and How to Become a Great Boss doesn't disappoint. This book does what all books should do: cut out the fluff, short chapters, and right the point! This book is 50 chapters of wisdom and you can read it in less than 2 hours.

In the spirit of the book, I'll make this post short and give a few highlights:

- "Whether intentional or not, the great boss shapes the organization, because the company does what the boss does."

- Don't hire because you have a deadline."

- "The great boss eliminates future problems on the first day of hiring."

- The great boss makes great people decisions."

- "Your words cary weight; speak with discretion."

- "The great boss only cares about the quality of the idea, not the source of the idea."

- Innovation and entrepreneurship go down as the number of policies go up."

- The great boss does not sacrifice someone to save himself."

Sunday Night Thoughts... (Monday Morning Edition)

- Sunday went great!
- It felt great to be back!
- Teaching on the will of God is always a fun and eye opening message
- I wasn't expecting attendance to be as good as it was since school got out this week
- We finished our Frequency series. I'm so glad we taught that series!
- I'm really looking forward to our new series, "TXT: Rediscover the Word of God". It starts Sunday. We're going to cover the purpose of the Bible, how to study the Bible, and the history of the Bible. Should be fun!
- I'm learning that as our church grows, our communication with leaders has to improve. We're trying to figure out how to do that better.
- Should be a fun week...

Quick Hits about the Last 2 Weeks...

- Glad to be home from my trip to So. Cal.
- Weather = awesome! I didn't get to hit the pool as much as I wanted to, but the cool weather was refreshing
- In n' out burger = the greatest fast food place on the planet. No question!
- Saddleback Conference - I had a great time meeting people. I learned a ton listening to Rick. Still processing everything that was said. But a great time.
- Loved hanging out with this guy and this guy during the conference.
- I saw James Cromwell at LAX when I was getting on the plane (read: almost missing my flight) yesterday. I wanted to thank him for inventing warp drive (OK - bad Star Trek joke)
- Took Mia to Disneyland - I think she loves Mickey Mouse as much as she loves her mommy and I. (btw - Disney World is far superior in every way)
- Learned a lot at a church I visited (yes, I go to church even when I'm on vacation - isn't that when Christians are supposed to do?)
- Personal highlight: Meeting Steve Harris in Newport Beach on Wednesday! Took a picture with him and talked about their new tour. I started playing bass almost 20 years ago because of Steve Harris, so it was an honor to meet him and take a picture with him.
- I read a few books while I was out of town. I read this one, this one, this one, this one, and I'm 1/2 way through this one. This one was the best in my opinion.
- All in all, I had a great time learning and then I had an even better time connecting with my girls.

Balcony Time

Being away for a few days has been great for me and my family. God has given me tons of ideas for tweaking our systems and a few new ideas that will make us more effective. It's hard to be creative or even to be objective when you're in the grind. Ronald Heifetz in the his book, "Leadership on the Line" talks about 'Balcony Time'. This is where you get away for the purpose of getting a big picture perspective of your organization.

Baseball players can't examine their swing while their in the batter's box. They have to step away and review some film. They need to look at themselves from an objective position. That's the power of breaks and getting away for training. It causes us to see our churches from a new perspective.