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Thoughts from Vacation... Plus a little Sunday Stuff.

- I'm having a great time with my family.  

- Loved teaching the "Pillars of a Healthy Church" seminar. Got to meet some great Pastors doing amazing things in New England. 

- I ate at a place called Max Burger 3 times. I ate the same meal each time: A burger called the "Fatty Melt". It's a cheeseburger with 2 grilled cheese sandwiches instead of buns. The top grilled cheese sandwich has tomato and the bottom one has bacon. Amazing burger! 

- I taught at Calvary Fellowship in Hartford. Great church led by Bill LaMorey who is knocking it out of the park! To see what God is doing in Connecticut (the least churched state in America) is awesome!

- On Saturday we went to an orchard and picked raspberries. I will never again complain about the cost of fruit :)

- Most of this week is just downtime with my family. 

- I'm looking forward to catching the Sox at Fenway on Tuesday.

Randomness...

- We're kicking off a new campus in 17 days! I'm nervous and excited at the same time. 

- My 13th wedding anniversary is on Monday. Who said 13 is unlucky? 

- Contrary to popular opinion, I still think the ipad will actually boost Kindle sales.

- The people we should be worried about is book publishers. 

- Only a few spots left for my new coaching network that starts later this month. (Besides coaching, we're giving ever person in the network $600 in www.church-strategies.com resources!) 

- Just downloaded Michael Gerber's new book to the Kindle. I read everything he writes. 

- Today is my younger sister's birthday. Need to call her.  

- This year I've been listening to the Bible on audio. Loving it. 

- Can't wait to start our new series "Happily Ever After" on February 21st! 

- Teaching Esther has been great. I have a new appreciation for that story now. 

- We're moving our church offices! Thank you Lord. We've needed to do this for a while. More space. Less money. I love that equation! 

- Need to finish Sunday's Message. I'm out...

Quick Hits

- Looking forward to our staff Christmas dinner tonight

- If you haven't read "The Year of Living Biblically" by A.J. Jacobs, you're missing out on one hilarious and insightful book. 

- It's hard to eat healthy during the holidays. 

- I'm in goal setting mode right now. So expect some reflective posts over the next week.

- I'm almost out of copies of Zero to Sixty. Our "You pay the shipping, we'll send the book for free" promotion is bringing out the bargain shopper in many people. 

- I didn't read anything last week except for the Gospels. It was really refreshing. 

- I think next year I'm going to do less book reading and more aggressive Bible reading. 

- If you follow me on Twitter, then you know I've been tweeting a lot of Jim Rohn quotes. Jim died this week. He was a speaker that gets classified under the motivational title, but he was much more than that. 

- He was very influential in John Maxwell's life. His teachings and philosophies were very influential in my life as well.  He spoke mainly to business leaders, but he simply taught them the principles found in the Bible. He was a serious follow of Jesus and will be missed.  

- Here's what I've been thinking about recently: Everything you write on the web is there forever. It's making me rethink what I write and how I word things. I don't want to write something that I regret later (some of that is inevitable. Some is avoidable.)

- The new John Mayer album is just OK. The Daughtry album is amazing. We're living in weird musical times :)

Thursday Stuff...

- Had a great time with a great friend last night. 

- Times like these make me realize how important it is to have close friends you can talk about anything with. 

- My kids are growing up so fast. I know they're young, but it feels like time is flying. 

- I love the Kindle, but I miss reading "real" books. I need both in my life :)

- I know I've been obsessing over the "7 Deadly Sins of Direct Mail" seminar that I'm leading today, but I'm as excited about this seminar as I've been about anything we've done at www.church-strategies.com.  

- Just started watching NCIS: Los Angeles. It's quickly becoming my new favorite show on TV. 

- It's been a crazy week filled with board meetings, staff meetings and other garden variety meetings

- Looking forward to teaching this weekend on the Wise Men in Proverbs - it's not the 3 guys you're thinking of :)

- Just got done outlining by January series in the book of Esther. It's going to be awesome! 

- We are 83 days away from launching our Miramar campus. And yes, I'm a little nervous :)

- But for the record, I'm more excited! 

- Looking forward to the Worship concert we're doing on Friday. All the proceeds are going to the launch of the new campus.  It's going to be a great time! 

- OK, time to look over my notes for my Seminar today...

Randomness...

- Crazy week (and it's only Monday)

- Sunday was awesome!  Taught Revelation 3:1-6.

- If there's one church I don't want to be in Revelation 2-3, it's Sardis.  The "Weekend at Bernie's" Church! 

- I went to a Nooma premiere last night.  It was great. The new Nooma (Corner), is crazy good! 

- My friend Kelly hosted the event and he introduced me to Rob Bell.  He seemed like a really cool guy from the few minutes I got to talk to him.  

- Got to see a bunch of people I haven't seen in years.  That was great.  

- I haven't slept much.  4 hours for the last 2 nights.  I'm going to sleep good tonight :) 

- We're ticketing our Easter services this year.  Last year was total madness, so we're asking people to pick up their FREE tickets to indicate which service they are coming to.  

- Last year, we have one service at 150% capacity, another was 75% full and the other was at capacity.  

- We're in a few facility, but I want to make sure everyone has a seat.  

- I'm looking forward to being in Atlanta next week for a Zero to Sixty seminar.  it's going to be a good time.  If you're in the ATL, you can click here to register. 

A Couple of Thoughts for the Auto Industry

The car industry is in trouble and they believe the problem is money. Wrong. More money is just going to keep them doing more of the same.

I believe the auto industry would turn around if carmakers did the following:

1. Make better cars - I don't own an American car and don't plan to get one in the near future. Why? Because American cars aren't as reliable as Japanese cars. Honda isn't in the brink of disaster. Why? Better cars. Improve your product and things will get better.

2. Use your influence to make buying a car a better experience - Everyone hates going to a dealership to buy a car because they hate dealing with salesmen who they know are scamming them. The auto industry could do something about this, but doesn't. Make the experience of buying one of your cars more enjoyable and you'll probably sell more cars.

3. Recognize money is a symptom, not a solution - Every couple of years, the auto industry lays people off and threatens even bigger layoffs if they don't get help. They didn't fix the problems when they were small and now they want the government to give them money when the problems are big. These companies are usually bloated with middle management and unnecessary staff. I'm not saying layoffs are good. I'm saying they need to change their ways or they will be her again.

I'm sure there's more, but this is start...

Random...

- Crazy week! I just realized I didn't do my normal "Sunday Stuff" entry. All went well if you're keeping score at home.

- I'm finding that Twitter is killing a lot of my normal blogging. If you twitter, I'm here.

- Had a great time with Scott Hodge yesterday. The more I hang with Scott, the more I like him. Plus, hanging with him and his buddy Jamey gave me a great excuse to go to Versailles on Calle Ocho. Best Cuban food in town!

-Working on something BIG for the church. Can't go into details until I get a confirmation, but if it happens it will be the biggest thing we're ever done

- I really like Facebook. I know there's a lot of haters out there, but I've had a great experience with it so far. I'm here if you're interested.

- America's Got Talent is frightening! I caught 1/2 of last night and it was aweful! What's up with those whistlers?

- Finishing Habakkuk on Sunday. This has been so good for our church. It's been a very encouraging series for those going through a tough time.

- Mia turned 18 months today! I don't remember what life was like without her :)

My Week...

I realized I haven't blogged in almost a week, so here's what's been going on with me:

- We flew into Boston on Thursday evening and hung out at my sister's house.

- Friday I taught an assimilation seminar in Hartford, CT. Just over 60 church leaders were there. It was a great time. I'm from New England, so helping leaders that want to reach this area of the US is very rewarding. Also, hanging out with my buddy Bill was a lot of fun.

- Saturday we drove into New York City and met up with Mark as we were going to the Journey on Sunday. We ate at Carmine's (arguably, the best Italian food in America).

- Had a great time this weekend at the Journey in NYC. They were very kind to show us their A/V set up and it was great to see a church that's very similar to ours. Nelson taught a great message and it was great to hang with him for a bit.

- After the weekend in in NYC we drove back to Boston where I met with a couple of church planters. Very excited for them!

- Today is a day off where we're going to hang out with my older brother and sister (I need to pick up some new Red Sox gear while I'm here) and try to catch a Sox game if the weather doesn't foil our plans :)

- While I haven't blogged much, I've been pretty consistent twittering. You can follow me here if you're so inclined :)

Quick Hits..

- I had a great time hanging with about 20 Pastors in Tampa at a coaching network! Got to teach on Assimilation, which is something I'm really passionate about. Helping people take next steps is what our church is all about!

- I broke my GPS today on the way home from Tampa :( It fell off the dashboard and hit something and cracked! The problem: I'm going to be in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York in the next 6 days and I need it. So I bought a new one tonight. Frustrating!

- Stopped in Barnes and Noble tonight to pick up a book for my trip. Walked out empty-handed. I had read everything in the business best seller section. The Christian section looked weak, and I didn't have time to comb the store looking for my next book. I have a couple of books at home I haven't read, but I was hoping to get something exciting to take with me. (By the way, having a book that I want to read more than the one I'm currently reading helps me read faster)

- I'm looking forward to seeing my brother and sister while I'm in Boston.

- I'm hoping to catch a Red Sox game on Tuesday. Pray I can get tickets that won't cause me to have to sell my car to pay for them. If you aren't aware, the Red Sox have sold out every game for over 3 years. Tickets aren't easy to come by.

- I don't like the new Coldplay album. I can't get into it. It's depressing. After listening to it, it made me wonder if life was worth living at all :)

- I'm looking forward to stocking up on my Red Sox and Celtics gear! It's my yearly pilgrimage to Bob's Stores (no relation), who carry the best t-shirts, jerseys, shorts, hats, and pajamas (yes, I have Red Sox pajamas - don't you?).

- We've got a whole pile of church leaders coming to our Assimilation seminar in Hartford on Friday. If you remember, pray for me.

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.