Margaret & I saw the movie Invictus. It is a GREAT leadership movie. At least a dozen leadership lessons!
Maxwell thinks about leadership wherever he goes. That is why he is so good at it.
I wonder what lesson’s he learned?
Social Media Feedback Source
How Billy Hornsby uses twitter:
Social media gives him a chance to receive feedback almost instantly. It is especially helpful while traveling since he has to leave quickly after speaking or after long speaking engagements like church planter’s roundtables when he will have up to 8 sessions in one day.
After speaking he logs on to a popular social media site called, twitter, where he will check what people are telling their followers.
He finds quotes like this:
“I can use twitter to find which examples are getting my point across. They tell me what they like,” Billy says while we were walking through the Ronald Reagan International Airport.
Often pastors wonder what people are saying about the church when they leave. Social media gives them a chance to
Quick Tip: Use social media as a tool. Don’t get consumed.
This hasn’t been a good thing for some church leaders as not all conversations are helpful. Unhappy church members start gossip or leave and use social media as an easy way to cut down the church. Some get bolder behind the keyboard saying things they never would face to face. Getting caught up in gossip is never helpful.
Click here to learn how to search twitter <– really helpful. Learned a few things I didn’t know.
Like how to search emotions 
*Sidenote: If you are Mark Batterson, everything you tweet gets retweeted (41 times the Friday i checked.) Thats right 41 RT’s in one day.
Dinner Time
28
Feb
This weekend I was home for a short time between between 2 trips to Florida. Saturday I capitalized on a recipe or two from mom. She emailed them to me:
Chicken & Rice Casserole
Ingredients:
4 boneless skinless chicken breast
garlic salt
1 stick butter
1 box long cooking long grain wild rice Uncle Ben’s
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/3 cup milk
Directions:
Cook rice according to package and place in a 9by13 casserole dish. Melt butter in a skillet, add garlic salt to taste and slowly cook chicken in garlic butter. When done cut chicken into bite size pieces and place on rice Make a gravy using garlic butter left in the skillet and add soup and milk to skillet. Pour it over the chicken and rice. Sprinkle lightly with garlic salt. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes uncovered.
Apple Turnovers (Same idea as pigs in a blanket only with apples and cinnamon.)
Ingredients:
2 granny smith apples
2 tubes of cresent rolls
1 and 1/2 cups sugar
cinnamon
2 sticks butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 small can mountain dew or apple cidar
Directions:
Peel and core 2 granny smith apples and cut into 8 slices each. Wrap each slice of apple in a crescent roll. Soften the butter and mix the cinnamon, vanilla and sugar with it and glob it on the apples rolled in the crescents. pour the liquid between the rows of apples. bake at 350 for 40 minutes.
I saved them on my phone and headed to Publix. It was cool to have the list on my phone, but my friend was a little nervous. I almost ran over a few people with my buggy while trying to check for the ingredients needed. We survived the store and had fun cooking. In short they are both really easy to make and taste great (especially the apple turnovers.)
Here is a picture of Brian eating the tasty treat.
Guess That Artist
28
Feb
It is Friday night. I was searching iTunes for a great song.
Some how I made it to this Bio:
“A former Christian artist who ditched the sacred sounds of CCM for secular mix of sass and spunk… She grew up in a Christian household as the daughter of two pastors. Though she was not allowed to listen to secular music as a child…”
I realized we had a lot in common (everything in red.) We are even close to the same age. Her birthday is 2 days after mine.
Do you know who I’m talking about?
Pastor Chris of Church of the Highlands mentioned one of her songs in a message.
If you need a hint.
WOW Factor
25
Feb
Shaun King has his WoW factor story. Read it. You won’t be able to stop. His story is much more than a WOW factor for his blog, but it is still a WoW Factor.
What is a WoW Factor Story?
It is the story you tell on a first date. It show the other person you are interesting & helps if it REALLY HAPPENED.
I’m still trying to figure out my wow factor. Maybe I’ll use my Giraffe Story.
What are your guidelines for a WoW Factor Story?
I received an email titled “Previous launch date February 14, 2010.”
It read:
“I say previous launch date because he has officially removed an official launch date from the calendar.” Said the Church Planter’s coach. [The Church Planter] had the school lined up and was stoked about it. The board said yes, the principle said yes. Everything was rocking and rolling then he heard back that the janitor refuses to open the building for them so they can’t do church there. [The CP] tried everything with this janitor but he flat out refuses to open and close the building…”
WOW, just like that the church plant was put on hold. All because one person didn’t buy in. One person didn’t see the purpose behind what was happening. This story shows how one person [the janitor] can make the difference in a church plant.
What difference could you make in a church plant?
My {First} Black Pastor
17
Feb
This last Sunday, Valentine’s Day, I got to visit the Courageous Church.
The night before I had a dream of what the service might be like. This is weird but my dream was:
- That the worship leader was a Harlem Globetrotter. Some how he was able to play basketball and sing at the same time. ‘
- The service was three hours long.
- & Shaun King spoke via Skype.
Ok I made up the last point, but the other 2 were really in my dream.
Ready to visit my first urban church, I started early leaving my house @ 6:30am. Arrived early and a few people showed me around.
I had a conversation with an Evolutionist during the free breakfast. We talked about the bible. He said a smart man wrote it. Just before the service started Shaun (the Black Pastor) came over to greet me. I was impressed. I think he greeted everyone in the room. A very approachable guy!
The service:
I forgot what it is like to got to church as a new visitor. It is like a first date. You really put yourself out there as a new visitor. Not knowing what to expect made me nervousness.
The 10 piece band was cool. They had Rap music for the intro (Several rapper’s attend the church.) Shaun even opened by having a conversation with the crowd about their favorite Love song’s { Conversational Style.}
He talked about How to share your love. Used some great examples from his life and Grey’s Anatomy.
Biggest take away: “Love makes the small things better.”
If your ever in Atlanta stop and visit The Courageous Church. It is a great diverse real community.
Thank you for Blogging!
15
Feb
Thank you Evernote for writing this blog post. If you hadn’t I probably would have just been finding out this great news.
Evernote for Android: It’s here!
December 16th, 2009
Say hello to the newest member of the Evernote family: Evernote for Android. After months and months of development, we’re incredibly excited to unveil this shiny new version of Evernote. As you would expect, Evernote for Android is free and available in the Android Market.
Capture everything
Evernote for Android allows you to create text notes, snap photos, and record audio. In addition, you can easily attached files to your notes. Free subscribers can add PDFs, text, audio, or image files. Premium subscribers can attach any file they like, as long as the total note size is under 25MB.
When creating your notes, Evernote for Android lets you specify titles, tags, and destination notebooks.
Find all your notes, any time
Evernote for Android comes equipped with native note browsing, which means that you can easily browse and search through all of your notes. Thanks to Evernote’s synchronization features, all the notes you make in the desktop or web versions of Evernote are instantly accessible from your Android phone—and vice versa.
There’s also Evernote’s image recognition, which automatically recognizes text contained within snapshots—this is great for everything from business cards to wine labels to whiteboards.
Different views
When viewing your notes, Evernote for Android lets you choose between a fancy thumbnail view or a simpler list view. If you’re on a speedy network, then opt for the thumbnail view. If you’re on a slower network, or one that charges based on data use, you can go with the slimmed-down list view. Your choice.
Check the menu
To maximize the amount of visible space, we placed a bunch of functionality into the Android menu. Click your phone’s Menu button, and you’ll be able to browse notes, set location awareness, view Saved Searches, and more.
Where you at?
Evernote for Android captures your location whenever you create a note. It then lets you find that note by proximity to your current location. To activate this feature, go to the Settings menu and make sure that the location settings are enabled. Once a connection is made, the “Notes Near Location” option will appear in the main Evernote menu.
And much more…
This is only the beginning. We have big plans for Android in 2010, so stay tuned.
We also want to give a special thanks to all of the people that helped us iron out the kinks during the beta period. You rock!
Speaking of which, if you were a Beta tester, then you need to uninstall Evernote and reinstall it from the Market.
Portions of this page are modifications based on work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution License.
Have any blogs made you happy lately?
1 Year in the ARC
5
Feb
Imagine you are back in November when you read this post:
Nov1st
This month marks my first year with the church planting organization called the ARC. In the past year, I have visited and talked to more churches and pastors than ever before. It has been a learning experience.
5 Things Learned in My First Year + 1 Reinforced:
- Churches can be on the same team. If your thinking “Not my church” read IT by Craig Groeschel. it may seem basic but this concept blew me away.
- Teams get more done.
- Their is more than one way to do church. Every church I have gone to is different.
- Schedule your time. It is more effective. (Ask Pastor Chris about filling the Big Jar.)
- I don’t have to be the problem solver. Trying to solve the problem can actually be an insult. (Gee lighten up. Just trying to help.)
- Prayer is effective. Like never before I have seen the power of prayer. Thank You everyone that prayed for me this year.
What was your first year (of work or school) like? Did you learn anything?
A few of my friends have made list too: