Why Email Starts Fights...

Only 7% of what we say is conveyed through words... tone and visual cues make up the other 93%.



I thought this was an informative clip... and Ed seems to know what he's talking about, even though he probably won't win any spelling bees (attidude). But trust me, I wouldn't email that comment to Ed.

Everything Is Amazing, But Nobody's Happy...

If you haven’t seen this video yet, take four minutes to watch it... and then ask yourself: “Am I the person he is describing?”



I'm trying to put my finger on what it is about this clip that makes me laugh, but at the same time convicts me that I'm the person who can be impatient with today's amazing technologies.

Give Me Love & Five Bucks...

This is an actual note left for the tooth fairy by a little boy named Eli. You've got to love the sweet, capitalistic spirit of a child.

On Confessing "Safe Sins"...

The following post was written by Jon Acuff for his blog "Stuff Christians Like." Jon writes with transparency, humor and grace... and his words almost always challenge me.

Have you ever been in a small group with people that confess safe sins? Someone will say, “I need to be honest with everyone tonight. I need to have full disclosure and submit myself in honesty. So you brace yourself for this crazy moment of authenticity and the person takes a deep breath and says… “I haven’t been reading my Bible enough.”

Ugh, you, dirty, dirty sinner. I’m not even sure I can be in a small group with you any more. Not reading your Bible enough, that is disgusting. And then once he’s gone someone else will catch the safe sin bug too and will say, “I need to be real too. I haven’t been praying enough.”

Two of you in the same room? Wow, freak shows! I can barely stand it.

But what happens when people start confessing safe sins is that everyone else in the room starts concealing their real junk. I mean if I was surrounded by confessions like that in the eighth grade I would have instantly known I couldn’t follow the “not reading my Bible enough” guy with my own story:

“Soooo, this weekend when it was snowing I told my parents I was going to the dump to sled but instead I was really just digging through a 200 foot mountain of warm trash looking for pornography.” And the same principle would have applied to me in my late 20s. I wouldn’t have been honest sharing my struggles with Internet porn if everyone else confessed their “safe enough for small group” sins.

And that sucks. It sucks that as broken as we all are, as desperate as we all are for a Savior, we feel compelled to clean ourselves up when we get around each other.

But this blog has taught me something unbelievable. If I stop writing tomorrow, this will be the lesson I cling to the most.

When you go first, you give everyone in your church or your community or your small group or your blog, the gift of going second.

It’s so much harder to be first. No one knows what’s off limits yet and you’re setting the boundaries with your words. You’re throwing yourself on the honesty grenade and taking whatever fall out that comes with it. Going second is so much easier. And the ease only grows exponentially as people continue to share. But it has to be started somewhere. Someone has to go first and I think it has to be us.

We’re called to give the gift of second to the people in our lives. To live the truth, to share the truth, to be the truth.

Let’s give the gift of going second.

Headed to New Orleans...

Early Saturday morning, I'll climb into a SoHills' van and head toward New Orleans with a group of ACU students. These students will be giving their Spring Break over to ministry alongside the Carrollton Avenue church in New Orleans, and Carrollton Avenue's recent church plant in the Hollygrove community of the city.

On Wednesday night of next week, we'll be throwing a gospel music party in the street in front of the Hollygrove church building. The city of New Orleans has given us permission to close the street for the party. Music always draws a crowd in the Big Easy, and we've got George Pendergrass coming into town to lead the singing. Several pots of fish will also be frying on the back porch of the Hollygrove building, so nobody will go away hungry.

I've got a feeling that God is going to do some amazing things in New Orleans next week. I'm just looking forward to being there!

The Stool...

Watch this clip and see if you don't agree that it does a great job of presenting the challenge we all face in coming to terms with self and Lordship.



A powerful lesson taught in under two minutes...

Church-World...

The following is from a recent post by Tony Morgan on his blog... so these words aren't mine. I'm intrigued and challenged by what Tony has written.

Let me preface this by saying I’m not sure what I think about what I’m about ready to share. I’m still processing. I’m still waiting to hear more from God on this. I haven’t landed.

As best as I can tell as I study churches across the country, here’s how the typical contemporary church asks people to invest their time today.

-Participate in Sunday worship gatherings.
-Read their Bible.
-Pray.
-Become a member of a local church.
-Attend classes to learn more about the Bible and their spiritual walk.
-Participate in a small group with other believers.
-Serve in a ministry.
-Participate in events and programs that connect believers with others in a similar life stage. (i.e. men, women, married couples, moms, singles, college students, etc.)
-Participate in missions efforts either locally or globally.
-Invest in people’s lives and invite them to church.

I think that’s a fairly comprehensive list, but you could probably modify that for your specific church and add or delete from the list.

Now, as a result of all this, we see that about 20 to 25% of people end up doing most of the serving at a church. Contemporary churches struggle to get more than 30% of their people engaged in small groups. A very small percentage of people are in the Bible daily. People end up spending a lot of time at the church rather than connecting with people outside the church. We reinforce a consumption mentality that says if you’re going to grow in your faith that the church needs to spoon feed you. People become reliant on the church rather than Jesus for their spiritual maturity.

This is going to sound a little sacrilegious, but I’m wondering what would happen if we eliminated some ministries of the contemporary church. What would happen, as an example, if we only asked people to invest their time in this way:

-Participate in corporate worship and Bible teaching.
-Read your Bible.
-Pray.
-Serve others.
-Make disciples.

Kind of scary isn't it? There’s a lot of stuff that we do as churches that’s not on that list. Most of what’s not on that list are the gatherings and activities that bring believers together to learn more. No small groups. No classes. No singles ministry or women’s ministry events. No structured missions programs.

I’m wondering what would happen if rather than focusing so much on transferring knowledge, we focused on helping people love God, love others and make new disciples. What would happen if we asked people to spend less time at the church and more time in the lives of people who need Jesus? What would happen if we offered fewer gatherings to transfer knowledge and more tools to help people study the Bible on their own? What would happen if there was less emphasis on church activities and more emphasis on reaching the world for Jesus?

Maybe groups and classes and ministry programs aren't the discipleship strategy. Maybe encouraging personal disciplines and serving and making disciples is the discipleship strategy.

Like I said, I’m not sure where I’m going to land on this. I just think some aspects of the contemporary church that we've accepted as requirements for “good ministry” are creating barriers to spiritual growth and to the fulfillment of the Great Commission.