I’m a believer…

I’ve become a huge fan of Sarah Palin.  I watched her speech from the RNC the other night.  Stellar.  Loved her.  The only thing she could do better is to actually be running herself…w/ McCain as her VP.  I also watched her speech/sermon that she gave to a Masters Commission group in Alaska.  It was great as well.

I love this lady.  Don’t know much more than anyone else does about her…she just seems solid.  She seems like a normal person raising a normal family.  I hope I’m able to see her in the White House in some fashion.

What are YOUR thoughts on Sarah Palin?

Twitter

You guys can follow me now on Twitter. It’s like a minute-by-minute, thought-by-thought blog. You can sign up to “follow” me on it. Basically means you’ll receive up to the minute thoughts as I post…I know, scary!

Enjoy. I’ll try to keep the thoughts flowing.

Hannah Montana

First off, it bothers me a bit that I have a pic of Hannah Montana on my blog. I am a bit creeped out by it. Are you? She scares me for some reason. But my daughters LOVE her.

I’m talking to our students tonight about “What Hannah Montana Can Teach Us About Being Real”. It’s all about relationships. We’ll use David & Jonathan as our biblical example of authentic relationships. I’ll be talking about the big idea: The reward of authenticity is worth the risk.

Here are the 2 things we learn from Hannah about being Authentic: 1. It’s RISKY! Can you imagine what would happen if she really said, “Yeah, Hannah’s fake!”? I mean there are kids who believe they are 2 different people. My kids are 2 of them! Kids’s would freak! She would make half the $$$ she does now. It’s risky to be real. People can hurt us with our own story. People can turn their back on us. Life hurts. Betrayal hurts. 2. There’s a REWARD. Don’t you know she gets tired of wearing that mask (or wig I guess). I mean as she gets older, it’s got to get tired. It’s tiring for us to wear masks. We can only keep it up for so long. It gets old trying to be someone else. It’s FREEING to be us…to be authentic.

So if the risk of authenticity is worth the reward…HOW do we transition from being fake to being real? I think Hannah shows us this too.

1. TRUST – My girls have this dance step thing that tells them the exact steps to take to dance just like her to her songs. I think her steps are so mapped out. Sometimes we refuse to trust life because we are just trying to follow the right steps in the right order. God says our steps are “ordered” by HIM. We’ve got to trust people, life, others, ourselves.
2. COMMIT – Shelby has a wig for HM & wears it a lot. I feel bad for Miley Cyrus, she can’t commit to one persona. We have to choose to pull off the wig/mask and commit to being in authentic relationships with others. Even if we get hurt…we have to be us.
3. BE OURSELVES – Instead of changing our voice and being someone else…I have to be ME. You have to be YOU.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hating on HM or MC. Just using them as an example. Let’s choose today to be real/authentic in our relationships. It’s risky…but there’s a GREAT REWARD. Let’s be real with others. Let’s be real with God.

Thanks Lance…and Todd…

We are always looking for ways to market ourselves, create buzz, get people talking, help our church folks connect with those outside the church, get our vision out, etc.  Our Creative Worship Pastor, Todd Sturgell (or as we so affectionately refer to him “The Toddfather”), came up with the idea of taking an older idea and spinning it for the good of the kingdom.

He basically ordered a bunch of the Lance Armstrong type bracelets.  You know the LIVESTRONG deal.  He got some in black for adults & in blue for kiddos.  He had our vision put on them.  Each one says LOVE GOD. LOVE OTHERS.  SERVE THE WORLD.

Now you may think that’s a dated idea and others have done it.  And you may be right.  But we don’t care.  Why?  Because it’s working.  It’s big time working.  So many people have asked me about mine.  I usually wear 2 at a time because anytime someone asks about it, I’ll explain it, take it off and offer it to them.  Every person has taken it.  I gave my 2 and my daughters away to some kids from her school the other day.  She wasn’t happy at first.  Daddy had some explaining to do!

Anyway it goes to show the power of buzz.  The power of an idea.  The power of harnessing that idea for the kingdom.  The power of reshaping something old to get a new result.  The power of cheap creativity.

Thanks Lance Armstrong.  Thanks Todd Sturgell.  Enjoy the pic.

My RANT about my GREAT night (Just read it, it will make sense.)

So, tonight I went to eat @ Panera Bread with my 2 girls. Melissa’s out of town, so we gotta go somewhere! Shelby LOVES Panera and has been crying for it for months. She’s burnt out on Moe’s.

Here’s the deal…we had a GREAT time as you can see in the pics below…

It was fun just hanging out with my girls.  They are so sweet & so funny.

As much fun as we had, I have some “thoughts” on Panera. Here goes…

• It’s waaaay too much coin for way too little food. I paid over $16 for: a grilled cheese sand, a tube of yogurt, a salad, a cup of soup, 2 pieces of bread & 1 small drink. What the heck!?!?
• Panera is GREAT for b’fast. Cheap & good bagels. Good b’fast sandwiches. Decent coffee. But it blows for anything else.
• They have free WiFi which is good.
• Here’s what I learned from Panera tonight: they create an ENVIRONMENT that people want to be in & an EXPERIENCE that people want to have. And folks PAY for the two.
• How can we create those two things in the church. We have the “bread of life” yet we don’t package it as well as Panera.
• Lesson learned…but I’m still hungry.

A little bit louder now…

I don’t know if your TV does this, but when I’m watching a show I have it set at a comfortable volume. Then, when the commercials come on it’s like the TV turns itself up about 3 times what my volume was. The commercials are just SO LOUD. I don’t know if this is something that the advertisers have done intentionally to try and make me listen to what they are saying or not…or if this is just something that my jacked up TV does.

Either way, here is what my response always is: I hit MUTE or I FAST FORWARD through the commercials.

As Jesus-followers and as the Church of Jesus we sometimes fall into the trap of the advertisers. We have certain messages that we crank up the volume on in hopes that it will get someones attention. Maybe we stand in front of abortion clinics with giant crosses and signs, or we boycott Disney, or we have signs that say “God Hates Fags”, or we preach against a certain topic while we let others slide. Whatever it may be…we turn up the volume in hopes of being effective.

While there certainly are issues that we need to deal with and while we don’t water down the gospel. We need to understand that when we tackle an issue with no grace in our voice and only using volume to make the impact, people respond. They either MUTE us or the FAST FORWARD.

Quotable

“When you’re really unique, it’s both your biggest curse and your greatest blessing. Just be authentic and let it happen.”
- Keith Urban