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I am sure Kevin will want to write more about this but I just had to say something before I explode. A few weeks ago we approached out theater about placing a poster somewhere on the premises. You know, since we meet there anyway. Well we didn’t here back from them for some time but we just got word back. They approved our poster and offered us on-screen advertising.

The on-screen advertising will be seen before every movie, on every screen for the next 6 months. This is so huge for us. We have had no money for any kind of marketing. What an awesome opportunity. I would love to here from everyone…with this very focused advertising, what would you put together for the on-screen add? We can use video, still images or whatever.

We asked for one simple poster and he provided half a years worth of premium advertising. Of yeah, he threw the poster in as well. God is just awesome!

But what if you can, should you? The truth is sometimes you can do it all. I can. When I look at the church I think to myself…I can do that. I believe God has called and gifted me to present his message so I will always give it my all. We need a website, a logo or even a video edited for Sunday morning? No problem. I am an Adobe freak and have been doing freelance work for years. We need someone to lead the band for praise & worship? Why do you think I learned to play the guitar? We really dodged a bullet there.

James, what do we do about refreshments? You asked the right person, did you know I helped start and run a coffee shop once? First Impressions? I have years of experience in customer service. Children’s ministry? I used to lead one.

I can keep the books, handle all the legal issues and even train the drama team. My past jobs and ministries have trained me to do all those things. I’m not even going to share what I learned from my jobs at a call center, plant nursery or my short stint as a door to door vacuum salesman. I’m not making this up…it’s all true.

Yeah there are a lot of things I can do but it doesn’t mean I can do them all extremely well at the same time. I am just one member of a much larger body. God gave me my niche as a conceptual thinker and overseer. My experience to be able to do it all is not so that I can do it all but so I can help others in their future life missions. In fact there is nothing on the above list that I am supposed to do other than the very first one.

I made the point in my last post that “everything is not high priority” for the church and now I would like to add the same for you as an individual. Find your strengths, determine your calling and then leverage them both properly. You will not only get a lot more done but you will do it with a lot more free time and a lot less stress. I think we could all use a little less stress in our lives.

Kevin has recently been talking about finding your niche. You can read it here and here. When speaking of niche you are usually referring to playing to your strengths but there is also another important element involved in finding your niche known as aligning your priorities.

It is not uncommon in church leadership for everything to become a priority so much so that nothing becomes a priority. It’s a lot like this post. Perhaps you noticed that the entire post is in “bold”. When trying to make something standout it has to be unique and set apart. When everything is bold then actually nothing is bold. Nothing stands out as special or more important.

The same is true in the church. When everything is equally important, everything becomes equally unimportant. Instead of doing a few things with excellence we do a bunch of stuff with little or no impact. It takes strong leadership to stop the senseless marking of everything as high priority and narrow it down to the irreducible minimums. When we do that the church can find laser focus which inevitably leads to explosive impact.

Ask yourself this, what could I accomplish if I actually defined what was most important in my life? I’d love to here your thoughts.

UPDATE: Mark Howell over at Strategy Central has some great thoughts and shared resources on this topic as well.

Yesterday was a full day. I had a job interview in the morning. My current job in the afternoon and birthday day dinner with the in-laws kept me busy till about 7pm. Then I helped my Mother-in-Law buy a computer and dyed my wife’s hair (I don’t think it’s a secret). The best part for me was the job interview. I usually hate job interviews but today was very different.

The position is the Web Administrator for the Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union. If you look at the site you can see that it is in great need for someone to fill that position. Why I liked it so much was their current move towards a very non-traditional approach to financial services. All their newer branches feel more like a Starbucks than a bank or credit union. The floor of each branch is wide open with a warm brightness. They have added a lounge style café area. Multi-media was visible everywhere. The coolest part…no teller counters. Instead they have these little islands where members have their transactions processed while standing right beside the employee. Their goal…remove the barriers between members and employees. You really have to see it to see what I mean. If I get the job you will be able to check out their website to see what I mean.

In my few minutes in the branch here are some of the observations that I made.

• Community motivated. When you visit the branch you feel like it is more of a meeting place then a business place. This fosters relationships between the company and the public. Also with no queue lines people stand in loose groups instead of linear lines. There is a human experiment if I ever saw one.
• Trust inspiring. Have you ever visited a bank and wondered what they were doing with your account or what they saw on that hidden screen. By being able to stand right next to the person processing your transaction it removes the unknown and therefore adds trust.
• Team oriented. No one really has a station so to speak. Every teller, it appears, has a computer that they are responsible for but all the other service/sales representatives float to whatever desk is available. This removes the tendency to hide from customers and to stay in the game 24/7. That is always encouraging to the rest of the team.

I don’t know about you but I think these are three musts for the church. What can we learn from Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union? What are some ways that we can remove the barriers between the churched and the un-churched? It’s just something to think about.

With the release of Book 7 in the Harry Potter series and the newest movie in theaters now it has stirred up fans and foes alike. Some want to destroy the evil that is Harry Potter and some want to praise the Christian imagery. Talk about both ends of the spectrum.

My friend Zack makes an interesting observation on this topic in his post, Christianity vs. Fantasy. Check it out and share your opinions with him.

Discouragement has been knocking at my door lately. I am usually the one who can see the bright side of any situation but recently my heart has been feeling a bit cloudy. Don’t worry too much. I never let discouragement stop me from pursuing what God called me to do but I feel that I need to be honest when I am battling it. Here are some reasons I get discouraged.

• When things don’t work out. You could add, the way I planned, but when discouraged it’s hard to see it working out even the way you didn’t plan. It just feels like things didn’t work out period.
• When I don’t get the results I hoped for. Let’s be honest, we all have our ideas of what success looks like even if it is a flawed idea.
• When I fail at doing even the very simple things. There are some things that I am just supposed to be the best at. At least that’s how I feel. When I don’t perform to that standard I have set it feels like a complete failure.
• When I can’t fix what’s not working. This is that powerless feeling. It’s like with my computer. I still can’t watch videos on it. I’ve tried everything I know to do but still can’t get it to work. Now put that same frustration on to something that’s actually important and it makes you want to scream.
• Loneliness. When people don’t seem to get it like I do. This is many times just a perception problem but when you are dealing with discouragement everything is. I wish sometimes that I could take all the urgency that I feel and inject it into other people.
• The result that the above points have on the unknown future. The fact that it is unknown is bad enough but add all the things that feel like they are going wrong and it just intensifies the issue.

Here is the strange part. When I am feeling discouraged my first instinct is to force the opposite of what made me discouraged in the first place. Sometimes this is good and sometimes it is not. And sometimes it is really hard to know the difference. That is where I am right now.

As much as Philippians 4:11-13 as become a part of my DNA, I guess I am still learning what this really means. What are some things that discourage you and how do you battle them? I’m pretty sure that I am not the only one.

• Service to day was really good in my opinion.
• Kevin did the message today and did a GREAT job.
• Sunday afternoons have become my favorite times. I find it easiest to relax directly after a service.
• Although Sunday afternoons are usually very relaxing this one has been a little stressful due to financial reasons.
• Did I mention how great Kevin did today.
• Kevin shared the story where God told Saul to completely destroy the Amalekites. God wasn’t doing this for kicks. He knew that if left they may again rise up as a force against Israel.
• Sometimes I think I, like Saul, spare some of what God tells me to completely destroy. That is very stupid of me.
• This week is going to be very interesting. I hope I make it.

Tomorrow is a little strange for me because I wont be doing the teaching. Instead Kevin will be taking the helm and I am really looking forward to it. I think he has a great message prepared and it promises to be challenging to all of us.

Today instead of spending a lot of time to tie up the message for Sunday I have been sharing with Kevin some things that I do to communicate the message the best way I know how. Here are just a few things I shared.

• In most cases, when covering a large story in the Bible I opt to tell the story over reading the story. The reason is that many times our people have read the story as it is written and have a hard time connecting. By telling the story I can bring it into everyday situations that they can relate to.
• I always try to find the one point that must be shared and then drill it into people’s hearts. I have been a big multiple point preacher before and I have found that most of the time people only remember one thing out of a message anyway. I might as well start there in the first place if thats where I am going to wind up in the end.
• Deliver your message to one person. I know that sounds strange but here is what I mean. Act as if you are having a conversation with a great friend that you care deeply for. In the end each person will feel as if you were speaking only to them.
• Be vulnerable. Nothing speaks to people more than your real life. They connect and see themselves in it. Once that happens it is a whole lot easier for them to come to similar conclusions.

These are just a few ways in which I choose to communicate. What are some of yours?

As some of you know I am currently looking for another job. Until I find said job I will remain in my current one as the webmaster for a fashion jewelry website. Overall, it’s not a terrible job. I enjoy what I do for the most part and I have a lot of down time in between major projects. In between and sometime as one of those major projects I am responsible for photographing and editing most of our merchandise.

One of may favorite pieces to edit are our rings. I won’t get into how extremely difficult it is to photograph jewelry since that isn’t the point of this post…but trust me, it isn’t easy. The real point is the type of jewelry I deal with. For the sake of this post I am going to share with you the two main types of jewelry. Basically you have “fine” jewelry which is expensive and “fashion” jewelry which is not. The whole point of “fashion” jewelry is to look like the real thing. To the untrained eye these pieces of jewelry appear authentic and valuable but with after close inspection it would be clear that these pieces are phony. Why buy them? Because the real thing costs to much. Besides, why buy the real thing when you can fool everyone with your imitation and spend that money on something else. That is until your finger turns green.

Many people approach their relationship with Jesus the same way. They feel that an authentic, thriving relationship with Jesus costs to much. Sure they could invest what it takes to really be close to God but then again it seems so much easier to just put on the surface relationship. A couple of church services here, a couple of fellowship gatherings there and perhaps a few prayers to to repel public criticism; but when they go home at night they are still empty. Under closer inspection their relationship is more “fashion” than “fine”. In their spirit their finger is definitely green.

The truth is that relationship with Jesus is costly. But it is far worth the investment. He seemed to think so.

We live in a time where people are genuinely interested in spiritual matters. Sometimes as church leaders we think that people want us to be cool when all they really want is for us to be authentic. Authentic beats cool any day.

This is a funny video that shows how many times we try to be something we aren’t supposed to be and treat teenagers like they don’t care about Godly things. This really made me laugh.