February 2012
2 posts
8 tags
Loyalty & Light (& Cockroaches!)
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. Martin Luther King, Jr.
A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Proverbs 18:24
Continuing last...
K-I-D-S
Yesterday’s Grand Opening of the new LHCKids Building provided a unique my-life-flashed-before-my-eyes moment. As a church family, we took the opportunity to remember the vision that God has called us to realize here in Austin and beyond:
to grow the community of Christ one life at a time.
And nowhere is that vision more crucial than in the lives of the next generation. Children and...
January 2012
7 posts
4 Kinds of Friends
This past weekend, the value of friendship hammered me repeatedly over a four-hour span of time. It’s funny how many people have said to me—and I have chimed in in agreement—that they won’t miss 2011. Or 2010. While God did some truly amazing things in my life, 2011 was the most difficult year I’ve ever experienced.
Cue the friends.
As I was driving to & from a...
2 tags
5 tags
Staying Power
Momentum matters. Winning trumps losing. But God bless those who stay. Those who stick around and stick to it long enough to see momentum ebb and flow and keep coming back for more.
A few years ago, I was at a small gathering of pastors. And the topic du jour was the recent resignation of a big name pastor and author to follow God into the unknown of what would be next. The prevailing sentiment...
4 tags
Crossfit Lessons #3: How Many Can You Do When...
One of the bedrock principles of Crossfit is high intensity training over a short duration. Toward the end of one of my early workouts, I was doing pushups with a weighted vest on after flipping a tractor tire multiple times (Don’t ask—these people do some weird stuff). As I was nearing the last push of the session, I was hating life and Web, grinding through some pushups when he got on the floor...
3 tags
Crossfit Lessons #2: Monumental From Incremental
Once I started getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, I noticed something else was going on:
Incremental choices created monumental changes.
Certainly not in and of themselves. But, just the simple decision to train—no matter what—on days when I didn’t feel like it, when I was stressed or distracted, when it was too cold, or any other host of excuses led to noticeable and sustained changes....
3 tags
Crossfit Lessons #1: The Poison of Comfort
2011 will forever be remembered as the year I met Crossfit. Under the able coaching and frequent harangue of Web Smith (@CrossfitChron), who also redesigned my blog, I discovered a whole new world of training that I’d never known before. In discovering Crossfit, I also discovered some immutable laws of life that transcend working out and strengthen performance as a husband, a dad, a pastor, and...
MERRY NEW YEAR!!!
In the beginning, God created…
Gen. 1:1a
This is how God opens his love letter to humanity in the book of Genesis. But, what if we used it as a template to open our love letter to him in 2012? What if everyone who claims the label Christian began this year praying with everything we have to ask God how to create a year that reflects, proclaims, and honors him?
To be sure,...
December 2011
1 post
Frequently AVOIDED Questions
I need your help! I want your help! Beginning Jan. 8, we are launching a highly interactive message series, FAQ/Frequently AVOIDED Questions. So many people I know have so many questions that they’re reluctant to ask, or they doubt whether or not church-folk will even address them.
Well, we’re going to address them. Head-on. Directly. Clearly. Biblically. AND…respectfully.
...
September 2010
2 posts
3 tags
The Church, Starving Artists, Sellouts, & Tweeners
When our church was interviewing architects for our building design, in trying to understand who we are, one group posed a fascinating question: If your church’s building were a car, what would it be? I LOVED that question because it allowed us to be so descriptive in a completely fresh way (our answer was a Suburban with leather seats, btw). I thought about that question when I was looking...
5 tags
Clarifying... Pt. 3: Voice & Responsibility
As you clarify and refine the vision for your team/staff/church/business/school/family, you also have to clarify and refine the VOICE. The voice of a team is the shared sense of mission, joy, urgency, passion, work ethic, philosophy, and responsibility that defines the culture of that team. I CANNOT overstate how mission-critical the voice of your team is. It is sink-or-swim, do-or-die,...
August 2010
2 posts
4 tags
Clarifying Dreams & Vision, Pt. 2
Way back in Feb. I wrote Clarifying Dreams & Visions as a calm, almost academic reflection on Dr. Sam Chand’s observation: Leadership is like changing the fan belt on your car. While driving down the highway.
At the time, I didn’t intend it to be a multi-part posting. But, in the interim six months, God has changed not only the fan belts of our church and my life, but the oil,...
2 tags
The Exponential Power of Birthdays
If you can tell your story simply and beautifully, you’ve got a shot. That’s one of the reasons that I’m a big fan of charity: water, the NYC non-profit started by Scott Harrison <@scottharrison> to provide clean water to people in developing nations. The other reason is that they are changing the world by changing people’s lives right here, right now.
To celebrate...
February 2010
4 posts
4 tags
Clarifying Dreams & Visions
At last week’s C3 Conference, Dr. Sam Chand likened leadership to changing a fan belt on your car while driving down the highway.
Just for the record, he’s right.
God is in the midst of changing some fan belts in me, in our family, and in Lake Hills Church—all while we continue screaming down the highway. It is an incredibly fun, somewhat scary, hugely faith-building time....
2 tags
Distractions
Good is the enemy of best.
When you woke up this morning, you had a choice: Invest yourself in the things that matter. Or, chase rabbits.
Rabbits are the distractions that vie for our time, attention, money, energy, and soul. Some people use email to further their purpose and reason for getting up in the morning. Most people use it to distract themselves from the banality of their job. Some...
3 tags
Discerning
14If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town…16I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Matt. 10:14, 16
Judgmentalism and Discernment are like twin sisters: One is ugly as homemade sin and the other is a knockout beauty. Yesterday’s post...
3 tags
Judgmental
The army of God is the only one who shoots its own wounded.
That statement hits just a little too close to home. Not because of wrongs I’ve suffered or wounds I’ve received, though. It hits so close because of wrongs I’ve committed and wounds I’ve inflicted. I’ve done it: Judging another person by deciding in my own mind what their motives, insecurities, and...
January 2010
3 posts
4 tags
Colt McCoy & the Cultivation of Character
When Colt McCoy was knocked out of the National Championship Game on the 6th play from scrimmage, he was eliminated from the most significant game of his career so far. No meter could measure his disappointment, frustration, anger, and loss.
Yet, his comments in the immediate aftermath of that experience reveal a character and faith that doesn’t just happen. You can’t create it on the...
4 tags
Rev90 Checking In
2 tags
MERRY NEW YEAR!
IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE ATX as we shake out the holiday cobwebs and get back to a little bit of reality. 39 deg. and not a cloud in the sky. In pilot lingo, it’s cold and clear, visibility unlimited. What a great way to describe a new year! Unlimited visibility, unlimited possibility, unlimited hope. All of that unlimitedness feels really strong given the last four days of REV90. A...
November 2009
3 posts
Expo Coaching
Over the years, Julie and I have had the privilege and blessing of meeting some incredible pastors and their wives. One couple at the top of the list is our good friends Bil and his wife Jessica from Bay Area Fellowship in Corpus Christi. In December, Bil is leading a mentoring event especially targeted for pastors and church planters titled Expo Coaching. This is a unique opportunity to learn...
3 tags
GREATER THINGS Unexpected Lesson #1
Last night, I got to share with some LHC’ers the vision behind the GREATER THINGS season of ministry and where God is leading our church in the next few years. We talked about prayer, planning, giving, more prayer, and uniting as a church family through this season of ministry. It was a time of sharing, questioning, praying, eating, and a LOT of laughter. The Unexpected Lesson from last...
5 tags
Where There IS Vision...
In the King James Version of the Bible, Prov. 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish…” It’s an often-quoted axiom that is so undeniably true. Absent a God-given, God-honoring vision, dream, revelation of what might be, people die a little on the inside every day. But, the flip side of that axiom is equally true and infinitely more powerful: Where there IS...
October 2009
3 posts
2 tags
Feed the Fire, Pt. 3 (Put Another Log on the Fire)
When you build a fire, huge energy goes into lighting the fire. Gather the wood…stack the wood…light the wood…re-light the wood… But, once it’s lit, just a little bit of kindling added in at the right times in the right places can continue to fuel the flames for hours. Before Lake Hills Church began generating its own heat, the Ground Floor Group who were there at the...
2 tags
Feed the Fire, Pt. 2
As I’ve been processing the Feed the Fire leadership paradigm, I’ve tried to identify specific strategies, activities, and action items to share. And, there are some that are powerfully effective that I will share in a coming post. But, as I was processing and thinking, one item kept leaping to the top of the list. When I think about the things that feed my personal fire(s),...
2 tags
Feed the Fire (Back from Hiatus), Pt. 1
Like Jack Bauer, I’ve recently gone dark in blog-world, not so much intentionally or for a lack of inspiration, but for a lack of time. Coincidence or not, this blog blackout corresponded to a fairly significant shift in my personal leadership paradigm. Essentially, the shift comes down to this take-home: FEED THE FIRE. Where things are working, where people are doing well, casting vision,...
September 2009
3 posts
2 tags
Spur Leadership Conference
Two days from today, hundreds of leaders from the marketplace, government, ministry, the military, school districts and every imaginable arena will gather for the second annual Spur Leadership Conference. Months of planning, prayer, preparations, and work have been poured into making this a unique event that truly serves every single person who attends. This morning, we were given an entire hour...
3 tags
Faith vs. Science Resources
As I mentioned in this morning’s message, here are the books that are a GREAT resources for the faith vs. science discussion: (Huge thanks to John Fones for formatting this for me and making me look like I know what I’m doing w/ technology!) ###
1 tag
Help the World--Vote for Dog the Bounty Singer
OK, our boys are in the home stretch of the Gatti’s Pizza Jingle contest. Voting ends this Sunday, so I’m asking everyone who’s ever enjoyed great music, great pizza, and great people to GO HERE AND VOTE RIGHT NOW for “Gatti’s Good Time Jamboree” by Dog the Bounty Singer. The great pizza—well, who doesn’t like great pizza, and Mr. Gatti’s...
August 2009
6 posts
2 tags
The Sound
John Ragsdale. True friend. Freak artist. Anointed preacher. Dumb-lucky husband. He’s one of the greatest gifts in my life and the artist behind The Sound, his new CD that drops today. A few months ago, I got to hear some of the roughs and was blown away by the diversity of styles, John’s voice—which will melt your face off—and the genuine worship coming through the...
4 tags
I Have a Dream
It’s not an original line, but here’s MY dream: The Church puts the government out of the compassion businessCrazy? Maybe just crazy enough to work. Here are the dollars allocated to social programs in the current federal budget(these numbers are from the Congressional Budget Office): $78.7 billion - Dept. of Health & Human Services $47.5 billion - Dept. of Housing and Urban...
3 tags
One of Those Days
This morning, it was just one of those days when God creates a phenomenal gumbo of our worship with his presence, creativity, joy, challenge, affirmation and conviction. Yet again, Mark Groutas and our worship team took us to the throne with an inspired combination of fresh worship blended with a centuries-strong hymn that took on a new life of its own. The message hammered me long before it saw...
1 tag
VOTE in the Mr. Gatti's Jingle Contest
OK, here’s the deal: Jon Branch and Ross Tyler, two of our very own LHC staff members, have co-written a jingle for Mr. Gatti’s Pizza and we need to put them over the top. Their “Gatti’s Good Time Jamboree” is one of only five worldwide finalists. SO…everyone in the LHC family gets to vote for them and make them #1! In the world! Go to the Mr. Gatti’s...
1 tag
VOTE in the Mr. Gatti's Jingle Contest
OK, here’s the deal: Jon Branch and Ross Tyler, two of our very own LHC staff members, have co-written a jingle for Mr. Gatti’s Pizza and we need to put them over the top. Their “Gatti’s Good Time Jamboree” is one of only five worldwide finalists. SO…everyone in the LHC family gets to vote for them and make them #1! In the world! Go to the Mr. Gatti’s...
1 tag
VOTE in the Mr. Gatti's Jingle Contest
OK, here’s the deal: Jon Branch and Ross Tyler, two of our very own LHC staff members, have co-written a jingle for Mr. Gatti’s Pizza and we need to put them over the top. Their “Gatti’s Good Time Jamboree” is one of only five worldwide finalists. SO…everyone in the LHC family gets to vote for them and make them #1! In the world! Go to the Mr. Gatti’s...