LeadingSmart

The View from My Chair

Just to prove I'm really relaxing...

Don't Focus on my Toes

Faith and I are having a great time! If you really want to vicariously live through my vacation, check out more pictures on Facebook.

P.S. A couple people have been on my case about blogging while I'm supposed to be vacationing. Shhh. I have a secret. I wrote all my non-vacation posts last week and pre-scheduled them to post this week. So get off my case :)

Coming Soon...To a Location Near You

I'm not much of an extrovert, but I really would enjoy meeting you this year. Here are some of the places I'll be teaching in 2008.

• May 22 - The WhiteBoard Sessions - Reston, VA -- This one will be fun. I get 30 minutes to communicate one big idea, plus I get to hang with Ben Arment.
• May 30 -- Simply Strategic Volunteers - Granger, IN -- if you are looking for help on finding, training, leading or caring for volunteers, this all-day workshop is for you.
• June 12 -- ARISE: Willow Creek Arts Conference - South Barrington, IL -- I'm teaching a "featured breakout" at the conference this year. Not sure what "featured" means, but I'm looking forward to talking about Pop Goes the Church.
• June 23 -- Pop Goes the Church -- Granger, IN -- an all-day workshop for those who want to drill-down on what it means to engage the culture as a local church.
• August 14-16 -- Echo Conference -- Dallas, TX -- this is a brand new conference that I get the opportunity to speak at with a bunch of cool speakers including Donald Miller, Mark Batterson and Mark Steele.
• September 18-19 -- Innovate 2008 -- Granger, IN -- of course I'm biased, but I think this is "the" premiere conference for church leaders.
• October 8 -- Catalyst Conference -- Duluth, GA -- I've attended many times, but this is the first year I get to participate. I'll be teaching a Catalyst Lab along with Perry Noble, John Burke, Joel Hunter, Dave Ferguson and others.
• November 5-7 -- National Outreach Convention -- San Diego, CA -- We're still working out the details, but it looks like I'll be teaching a breakout session during this popular west coast conference.

Surviving My First Earthquake

You can`t tell from this picture, but we experienced an earthquake today. A few minutes after the building started moving, we turned on CNN and saw that a 5.8 earthquake hit somewhere in central Mexico. Pretty exciting!

Besides that, we are enjoying a laid back life including laying in the sun, laying in the shade, and then laying in the sun again.

Hola from Mexico City

I'm sitting in the airport in Mexico City after a very long, red-eye flight. We were on the back-row (you know, next to the kitchen where the seats don't recline and all the families with screaming babies are placed).

So, why am I in Mexico City? I'm with my wife of 18-years taking her to a beach destination so we can focus on each other.

• We've prioritized a week together, alone, without the kids, every year since our oldest was born.
• This is a non-negotiable for us.
• There are a thousand reasons not to take a trip like this. We have to ignore them all and just do it.
• There is never a good time to leave the kids and focus on each other.
• It requires planning months in advance.
• It requires prioritizing the money in our budget--over other stuff that we might really want.
• It requires others who believe in the priority as well who are willing to watch the kids and keep up with their insane schedules (thanks to my mom and dad for driving over from Iowa!).

I was joking with a friend the other day and said, "I love my kids 51 weeks a year, but one week a year I happily leave them behind."

Here is what I really mean: "I love my kids so much that I choose to leave them one week a year so I can focus on their mother and strengthen our marriage, which in turn will help produce a strong, secure home where each of our kids can thrive."

For those of you with kids...what are you doing to prioritize your marriage?

2nd Printing

I heard from my publisher this week that they are doing a second printing already. Evidently Pop Goes the Church is moving well since it's been in bookstores less than two weeks.

The initial print run was 5,000 books. I wasn't sure how that compared until I found these stats...

• There will be about 300,000 book titles published this year. That is about 34 per hour every day of the year. Whoa.
• There are over 1.2 million books currently in print.
• In 2004, over 79% of all books sold less than 99 copies.
• In the same year, 17% sold between 100 and 1,000 copies.
• Only 25,000 titles (or 2% of all titles) sold more than 5,000 copies.

You want to know my personal "I-would-be-ecstatic" goal? I'd love to see the book exceed 20,000 in the first two years.

One good thing about a new print run...we get to fix mistakes. Kevin and Zak will be glad!

What Does a Campus Pastor Do?

I'm pretty excited that we have hired our first Campus Pastor. I'll introduce you to him after our church has a chance to meet him in a couple weeks.

But have you wondered what the job of a Campus Pastor looks like? Here is a glimpse of what we believe is the ROLE of a Campus Pastor...

Catalytic Leader: Able to rally people to a cause.

Team Builder: Can build teams and identify high capacity leaders to build more teams.

Relational Leader: Friendly and approachable.

Talent Scout: Always on the lookout for new leaders and volunteers.

Total Quality Manager: Looking for ways to improve; sensitive to misses; committed to excellence.

Communicator: The primary host, greeter and vision-caster of this congregation.

Cheerleader: Encouraging volunteers and staff constantly.

Carrier of the DNA: When you cut them, they bleed the mission, vision and values of GCC.

Solution Specialist: Able to identify problems and find solutions.

Staff Champion: Cares for the spiritual, emotional, and familial health of campus staff.

Pastor: Has a heart to identify leaders and build systems to care for the congregation.

Reproducer: With the entire staff, reproduces leaders, followers of Christ, and campuses.

Download the entire job summary for free: Download campus_pastor_job_summary_short.pdf

What did we get right? What is missing?

The Other Side of the Fence

My backyard is to die for. Ask anyone who has seen it. It is over an acre with a huge playset, 2 treehouses with a rope bridge, swimming pool, 150' zip line, tire swing, trees to climb, plenty of room to run, and a huge forest to hide in and build forts.

So why is it that this weekend we discovered a hide-out the boys had built just over the fence? It is in another yard...someone whom we've never met...someone who has not given us permission to be in their yard.

Why is it so enticing to be in someone else's yard? What is so tempting about the other side of the fence?

I think it has something to do with our flesh. No matter how wide the parameters or broad the boundary markers, there is something that pulls us across the fence.

• Your marriage is great, but there is a relationship just across the fence that is interesting and exciting.
• You have enough money, but you think the amount of money just across the fence would make you happier or give you more freedom.
• Your job is good, but the guy across the fence seems happier. You love the church where you work, but you've seen all the buzz in the blogosphere about that one church, and wonder if you should drop some hints or put out some feelers.
• You're doing great watching your weight, but it sucks to have to count every calorie. That juicy cheeseburger just across the fence surely won't take you too far off track.
• In your yard you are single, surely the married yard is better. Or you are married and wish you were single again. Or you don't have kids and wish you did. Or you have kids and can't wait until they are out of the house, like the couple across the fence who has total freedom with their time.

Yes, there is something enticing about the "possibilities" across the fence. You can pray this week that God gives me the wisdom to enjoy my own yard, and the courage to deny the temptations from across another yard. I'll pray the same for you.

Random Weekend Thoughts

• There was a death threat at my daughter's high school on Friday. And 1500 students stayed home. She blogged about the day here. It's a new day we live in.
• Lately CNN and Fox News should be called 24/7 Pope-TV. The news coverage (i.e. the pope gets out of the vehicle, the pope walks into the building, the pope is in the elevator, the pope is on the 37th floor) is getting a little old. Although I did learn yesterday that the Pope is a trained helicopter pilot. That's pretty cool. Oh, and Megan (my 13-year old) proclaimed that she wouldn't make a very good pope.
• Six days from now I'll be laying on the beach in Mexico with the love of my life.
• I didn't feel the earthquake on Monday, although just about everyone I talked to was awakened by it.
• It's hard to admit that I'm becoming a fan of Anderson Cooper. For more than 10 years, I chose Fox News as my primary source of cable news (after all, it's fair and balanced). But recently my cable company added CNN-HD (high definition) to my line-up. So, it looks MUCH better than Fox, plus I'm finding that Anderson Cooper (and his sidekick Erica Hill) are very entertaining to watch.
• I got to ride my John Deere today. It made me happy.

Out of My Comfort Zone

Tonight I'll be speaking at our New Community service at Granger Community Church on being a People of Relevance. I'm humbled by the opportunity and have a few butterflies in my belly as I finish my preparation. I tell others it is good to be out of your comfort zone every now and then, so I guess tonight I get to live that.