Archive - April, 2008

God’s Perspective

April 29, 2008 in CCC, Scripture with 0 Comments

At CCC we’re in the midst of a series called God Is Bigger Than.  We’re looking at things that we deal with that God is bigger than, things like fear, confusion & sin.  On Sunday Adam talked about how God’s perspective is bigger than our perspective.  It’s so true that we can’t see things the way God sees things but it’s also true that we can always see things a little more like God does. 

When I think about God’s perspective versus ours, I think about the verse Adam talked about and the analogy that’s there:

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me."  1 Corinthians 13:11

When children don’t understand something because they don’t have the right perspective (like – why the oven is hot) they need somebody to explain it to them, usually over and over again.  To see God’s perspective we probably need some clarity from Him, over and over again as well.  I think that is one reason you can read a verse in the Bible that you’ve read before, but it can affect you in a new way – your perspective has changed.  I hope I can see things from God’s perspective more and more because it’s clearly the best way to live.

Friday Five

April 25, 2008 in Friday Five with 0 Comments

Here are my 5 favorite blog posts from this week:

Tim Stevens – Great post about temptation and our desire for what we don’t have

Phillip McCart – His nonnegotiables when considering working for a church (I commented as well and the guy who commented after me makes a great point)

Brian Jones – Wounds from a friend can be trusted – How true.  We all need friends like that.

Ben Arment – Thoughts on Willow’s Reveal Study backlash – I agree 100%

Jon Ferguson – Thoughts on hanging out with Rick Warren – Rick Warren takes a lot of shots from all sides.  I have opinions about people I’ve never met as well, but I’ll always remember that those opinions (or things I hear) aren’t confirmed and it’s always great to hear from somebody who has actually met them. 

John Burke & Vince Antonucci Interviews

April 24, 2008 in CCC, Church Culture, Leadership, Strategy with 0 Comments

As I mentioned in the previous post, some cool guys (Todd Rhoades, Scott Hodge, and Chris Elrod) caught some of the Exponential Conference speakers backstage for interviews.  Below is the one with John Burke & Vince Antonucci.  Some of the CCC staff team visited Vince’s church before CCC launched.  Vince has also spoken at CCC once and his book was just released in February.  It’s called I Became a Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt.  I love the title.

John Burke wrote the book No Perfect People Allowed.  We highly recommend that all small groups at CCC read that book together because it’s what we’re all about.  Enjoy the video: 

Click here to check it out on Scott’s blog

Exponential Conference Experience Via Web

April 23, 2008 in Leadership with 0 Comments

The Exponential Conference is taking place down in Orlando, FL.  Three people on our staff team are there. Thanks to Todd Rhoades, Scott Hodge, and Chris Elrod I have been watching some backstage interviews with Andy Stanley, Alan Hirsch, Dave Ferguson, Troy McMachon and right now…Greg Surratt.  The live stream, with some archives is here:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/mmi-office-live

They’re working on getting some of the other ones available to watch again. 

Advance Seminar Thoughts

April 22, 2008 in Church Culture, Leadership with 0 Comments

This past Friday I attended the Maximum Impact Advance Leadership Seminar.  It was a simulcast from a live seminar held in Atlanta, GA.  It was a great experience and as I listened to the speakers about half my notes were about great insights, and the other half were ideas for CCC that were prompted out of things they said. 

Actually, one of the best parts was connecting with a friend who works on staff at the church that hosted it – LifeBridge.  I even missed 2 of the speakers because we were having a great conversation (don’t tell anyone).  Two of the speakers were giving talks I’d already heard from them before – Andy Stanley talking about Making Vision Stick and Patrick Lencioni talking about The Three Signs of a Miserable Job. 

Here are some quick highlights (and who said them):

  • The best leaders are learners – John Maxwell
  • Don’t manage your time, manage your life – John Maxwell
  • Nobody alone is as smart as everybody together – Bill Taylor
  • The thing that helps organizations launch successfully is what will help them continue to be successful – Andy Stanley (that’s clearly on Andy’s mind lately, as North Point is very successful and he doesn’t want them to become complacent)
  • Complex organizations are dumb – Andy Stanley
  • When the student is ready to learn, the teacher will appear (borrowed by Dan Cathy)
  • When the rate of external change exceeds the rate of internal change, disaster is imminent (borrowed by Dany Cathy)
  • You can easily determine the caliber of people by the amount of opposition it takes to discourage them – John Maxwell

ServeFest

April 21, 2008 in CCC with 0 Comments

At CCC we structure everything around the 3 C’s – Celebrate, Connect and Contribute.  ServeFest is something we do at CCC to bring intentional focus to the Contribute part of our strategy.  Contribute really has 3 different aspects:

  • Contributing by volunteering regularly within CCC or outside CCC to help expand God’s kingdom
  • Contributing financially in obedience to God and to support the mission of CCC
  • Contributing by serving to bless the communities in which we live

ServeFest is all about that third one; we want to bless the surrounding communities with no strings attached.  ServeFest will span 2 weeks this Spring, from April 26 – May 11.  It starts with the 5K Pond Skipper run this Saturday and ends with the Collection Drive for Baltimore Pregnancy Centers.  The full list of opportunities can be downloaded here. 

I’d love to hear about how you and/or your group plan to get involved.  Leave a comment and let me know what your plans are.  Right now I’m leaning towards helping with the opportunity at Chase Elementary with some gardening stuff on May 2 from 9am-12pm.    

For all you Super Mario Brothers fans….

April 19, 2008 in Fun with 0 Comments

This is just insane:

Friday Five

April 18, 2008 in Friday Five with 0 Comments

Here are my 5 favorite blog posts from this week:

Passion Tour – Finished in Atlanta – Passion is awesome and was (and is) a huge influence in my life.

Brian Jones – People Pleasing Pastors – I feel bad for pastors that feel the need to please people.  It’s great to want to make people feel good but the people they please have different opinions and that usually leads the pastor to become different things to different people, in a bad way.

Churchrelevance.com – Paying Tithes is Not Popular – So much for job security.

Tony Morgan – Simple Church book thoughts – Great book, great takeaways from Tony

Casey Ross – 20/20 Wisdom – Great lessons learned the hard way.

Bonus:  http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com/  – hilarious

A child’s dream come true…

April 17, 2008 in General with 1 Comment

This is like a dream come true for a child.  And since I think and act like I’m 8 years old it’s a dream come true for me too….

Good to Great

April 15, 2008 in Church Culture, Leadership, Strategy, Systems with 0 Comments

I finally got around to reading Good to Great, a book that’s been on my bookshelf for a long time.  There’s a ton of great information in there and I wanted to share one thing I learned from it.  The book is the result of years of studying companies that went from good to great.  Meaning, they were regular companies averaging profits on par with the market standard, but eventually became great and averaged much more than the market average for years.  The book shares the differences between those companies, and companies that just stayed good, or got worse, that were in the same market. 

One thing they found was that the good-to-great companies all broke through at some point, beginning a steep incline in market share.  But, none of them could point to one event, decision, investment, technology, or anything that produced that breakthrough.  In all of their cases, they said it was years of hard work, consistency, and development.  So, from the outside it looked as if they had a revolutionary breakthrough.  But the truth is, it was really the result of a lot of consistent development for many years.  And, for the people involved in that development, the insiders, it did not feel like a breakthrough at all, because they experienced all of the hard work for many years whereas people on the outside didn’t even notice them until they were great.  Like, after the Tipping Point.

I think we all look at other successful people and organizations and want what they have, without the years of hard work.  We want a better lifestyle than our parents had, 20 years before our parents had it.  We want churches as big as other churches, right now.  We want to be financially independent…..now.  We want to be the manager, CEO, director, or whatever, 15 years before the person who currently holds that position was.  We expect more, earlier. 

I’m reminded of the parable of the talents – "You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things."  We want the responsibility without showing faithfulness.  I know I do, so it’s a good thing God knows better. 

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