Archives for April 2008

• In many ways this has been an odd week schedule wise.
• Wow I thought week 1 of the series hit a nerve…the response from week 2 has been through the roof…God is really working in a lot of people’s lives.
• It’s only going to get better these next two weeks as we tackle how to get financial margin into your life.
• For the most part I hate meetings because 95% of the time they are a complete waste of people’s time.  I’ve had a few here though recently that have been very good, productive and will be very beneficial long term to the health and growth of CFCOG…that makes me happy!
• Please pray for Earl’s dad George.  Earl left unexpectedly on Tuesday to head to Arizona to be with him.  The last report I got was his dad was in critical care with lung problems.
• We finally got all of our PA auto stuff taken care of.  Paul Robinson from the church owns a great shop up near the mall and handled all my inspection stuff.  My tires needed to be replaced and Paul told me they were so bald that the only thing keeping me on the road was the Holy Spirit.  If you ever need anything, look him up…he did great work and in a very reasonable time.
• By the way, when I returned my MD tags at the MD DMV, I was in and out of the building in less than 5 minutes…unlike my PA experience…tell me again why I left Maryland?
• We finally ate at Moe’s recently and it’s very good…check it out some time.
• Don’t want to jinx it but I’ve got to say it now while it lasts….the Orioles have the best record in all of baseball!!!!   Folks be ready…Jesus may be returning soon…either that or hell is about to freeze over.
• I’m still sitting on my big announcements…hopefully next week I can unveil 1, if not even both of them.  Here’s a hint though…this summer is going to be unbelievable! 

Imagine if I told you that I was absolutely passionate about the Baltimore Orioles.  Then as a way to keep the conversation going you ask me, “When was the last time you talked to somebody about them?”  Then imagine I said, “Wow, I have no idea. It’s been like forever.” “Wait a second,” you ask, “How often would you say you talk about the Orioles in general?” I think for a second and then answer, “Well, basically never.”

Now ask yourself this question before continuing to read…based on the above do you still believe I’m passionate about them?

If you’re being really honest the answer is no.  So now the obvious questions are…when was the last time you talked to someone about Jesus?  When was the last time you invited someone to church with you?  When was the last time you shared with someone else about all that God is doing in your life?

If the answer is “It’s been a long while” or “I never do that” then it’s time to seriously evaluate just how passionate about Jesus you really are.  The big 3 indicators of passion are:
     1.  What do you spend the majority of your time on?
     2.  What do you spend the majority of your money on?
     3.  What do you most talk about?

We try to make it very easy each week for you to have spiritual conversations with those around you by presenting topics that are relevant to all of our lives.  For the next two weeks I’ll be talking about money and how to avoid all the stress that’s generally associated with it.  So take a chance and invite someone to come along with you this weekend….who knows maybe it will be the first step towards them coming into a relationship with Christ.

BE PASSIONATE!

• I can’t believe I lost yesterday’s post…getting ready to type this again feels like Groundhog Day…”hey didn’t I already do this.”
• Oh well, there’s some exciting stuff going on and I wanted to make sure it got communicated.
• The new series has really struck a nerve…I can’t believe how many people are saying how timely this is to their lives.
• This week we’ll look at how to create margin in your schedule because let’s face it we’re constantly on the run always living for someday.
• Guess what someday will never come, so we’ve got to learn how to maximize our time right now…this week we’ll discover how.
• Again the remainder of the series will look at how to create financial margin, moral margin and professional margin. 
• In the next few weeks, I’m going to have some huge announcements to share with you…hold on, things are getting good!
• Speaking of good, March ended up being our highest attended month ever!
• What’s cool is that would have still been true even without adding in Easter!
• Way to go United…you keep inviting and God keeps working.  In the words of Bill Hybels, “There’s nothing like the local church when the local church is working right.”
• I received my copy of Pop Goes the Churchthis week.  For those not familiar with it, it was the book that I was asked to help review the initial manuscript.
• It turns out that a lot more people were asked to help than was originally planned but it was still cool to see my name as a part of the review team anyway.
• I said this before, if you want to get a look inside my head at what makes me tick and what we’re really trying to accomplish, then buy this book.
• The author, Tim Stevens, makes the most compelling biblical case for why the church needs to redeem culture instead of condemn it that I’ve ever seen or read. 
• In the coming weeks and months as I go back through it, I’ll share some insights that I had that we weren’t allowed to discuss when it was still in manuscript form. 
• Trust me…buy the book and get on board or I’ll…
• The above is only funny if you’re a regular reader of the blog.
• Ok, I’m carefully now going to hit the “submit” button so I don’t have to do this all over again tomorrow.
• Of course if I did it would have to be on a different computer because this one would still be in pieces from the sudden but violent “drop” on the floor.  :)

I had a new blog post all typed out and then hit the wrong button, thus wiping everything out…I’m not even going to try again…talk to you tomorrow :(