Yes, this is 94 minutes long. But it is one of the most incredible Q&A times I have ever seen!

I’ve been struggling with something for the past few days. This has huge implications, so I don’t take this belief lightly. Our church is starting a new sermon series called “Man Up.” It’s geared toward reaching the men who will show up on Easter and Christmas and otherwise would never darken the door of a house of worship. I don’t have an issue with the series itself, it has always been my belief, based on the Bible (Paul and the Jailer, Jesus and the Centurion, etc.), that if you lead a man to Christ, you lead a family to Christ. No, that’s not my issue. Over the past two years my eyes have been opened to the world around us (and by world around us, I mean the WHOLE world around us, not just across the street and across this nation). You see, in the world, the men have taken a back seat oftentimes in the spiritual role, leaving women to lead great churches. One such example is an older woman in India who has planted over 1,000 churches by herself! When asked why she does it she responds, “Because there are no men doing it.”
What this very Godly woman does is goes into a city or village, gathers people together, and begins an intense discipleship program with everyone in attendance. She then assess the men and chooses one to raise up as a leader. If no man is present or able to take on such responsibilities (as laid out in Timothy) then she raises up a woman to do it. If you wanted to argue that we need to take every woman out of the lead role as pastor, you would automatically leave millions of Indian and Chinese Christians without a leader, mentor, and pastor.
This morning, Bob posted a great post on American isolationism on his blog. He discusses how we in America like to debate theology and how we are pretty much alone in that debate because around the world they are so oppressed and living without that they don’t care! To them, to live is Christ and to die is gain… PERIOD! We have to stop this nonsense of debating petty differences such as tongues, Calvinism, security of the believer and other such garbage!
Ok, ok. I’ll step off my soapbox now. Ladies, here’s where I need you. If a pastor or Christian leader gets up and says that we need to reach the men in our (your) city, how does that make you feel? I really, honestly have no agenda behind this! I’m really trying to seek out answers here!
You need to know one other thing about my beliefs. I believe that a man, if present and qualified, is to be the lead pastor of the local church. (Don’t start sending the hate mail just yet). I also believe that a woman can teach/preach if she is under the blessing of that lead pastor.
If you’ve read my blog for any amount of time, you know that I like Mark Driscoll. I don’t agree 100% with him on many things, but the guy knows what he believes and doesn’t debate it… he just lives it, which is admirable. Here is the video that caused such a raucous at last years’ National New Church Conference:

And this is a response to that video. Very well done, you have to see this… but I don’t know what I think about it, honestly. It moves me, but so does jalepeno’s on a Supersonic burger, so who knows.

I’m tired. The “spring forward” time change always gets the best of me for about two weeks. I can’t seem to get my head in the game, I’m sleepy all the time, and I can’t focus on any one thing (bad timing seeing as how I started school again this week). But, within the next week or so, my body and mind will recover and I’ll be back in the game at full speed.
But what about those people who are in this fog all the time? I can hear some of you saying, “What are you talking about?” I’m talking about those people who can’t focus on the right decisions and seem to continually make the wrong ones. Oh, they’re focused alright… on themselves. They can’t seem to see the “others” that are around them.
Last night there was one of those news programs (Dateline, 20/20, or something like that) that did an experiment. They invited people to come to the network headquarters for what they thought was an interview to be on a reality tv show. As they walked through the park up to the building, there were people placed outside that were crying and distraught, obviously hurting. Most of the people walked by without a second look. They were focused on what they were going to do in the interview to secure a spot on this tv show (little did they know that they were already in a reality). There were a few that slowed down, looked with sad eyes, and kept going on their way. And there were a slim few who actually stopped to ask if there was anything they could do.
How many of us are so focused on ourselves that we fail to see the “others” in our lives? The sad fact is that most of us don’t have a clue what’s happening in our neighbors’ home, let alone across the ocean. Still worse, there are those who can’t see what’s happening in their own home due to selfish focus! Our families are spiritually bankrupt and most of us don’t care. We won’t fight for what is important… our spouses and children (notice I put spouse first… if this makes you curious, let me know).

Where’s your focus? When was the last time you raised your head to take notice of the “others” in your midst? And if you do take notice, what’s your reaction… empathy or action?

Well, as of midnight tonight I will officially be back in school after a 3-month hiatus. Full time work, full time school, full time Dad… we’ll see how my brain functions in May! But as a good stress-reliever, I’m going to post a video that my cousin’s neighbor did… this guy’s got some serious talent! For those of you who don’t live in the metroplex, you won’t understand some of the references… for my homies and homettes here in the ‘plex, it’s ok to laugh out loud! (By the way, “Flo Mo” stands for Flower Mound… where my cousin Denisa lives).

About 7 months ago I received an email from a church planter who knew Bob and was looking for a Mother church. We made a meeting and he came to the church to meet myself, Omar, and Brian. This guy is big… no, he’s BIG! He could crush me with his little finger (that’s why we’re friends… he’s my body guard)! He’s my kind of guy, tattooed heavily and the piercings in his ears are big enough for me to fit my fist through (ok, not quite that big… but still big). While we were having our first meeting, I mention that I’m from Colorado and he asks, “What part?” I say, “Grand Junction.” He says, “My brothers live in Grand Junction and one of them pastors a church there.” I said, “Really? What’s his name?” And Phil replies, “Ray Shirley.” Now here’s what you need to know: Ray is a good friend of mine and we did a lot of work together in my time in Grand Junction. All I knew was Ray had a twin named Roy… I never knew he had another brother… especially one who is larger than Ray and Roy put together (did I mention that Phil is HUGE! Phil, love ‘ya big guy!).
Anyhow, Phil Shepherd is this month’s Church Planter for March 2008. His church is in downtown Ft. Worth and is reaching out to “everyday people” who, for one reason or another, is disenfranchised with church, hate church, don’t feel comfortable in church, etc., etc. The Church’s name is “The Eucatastrophe“. If you are a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis, you probably know exactly what a “eucatastrophe” is. Rather than me explain it, I’ll let guys smarter than me and who have British accents explain it… because, as we all know, when someone explains something with a British accent, the whole world understands better.

I read this book about 5 years ago when I owned a company in Colorado. We had an amazing staff meeting this morning that made me think about that book all over.

Jim Collins in his book, “Good To Great” talks about how most companies (read churches) settle for good things. Good works, good worship, good staff, good people. They tend to say “good” is enough. So the greatest enemy of “great” is always good. We live in a “Go! Go! Go!” culture. Things change faster than magazines can publish and print! I think it is in this fear of change that we settle for the “good.” Even in our personal lives, we settle for “good” friends. You know who I’m talking about. Those people who really don’t inspire and challenge you to go from good to great. We accept the first volunteer in our ministries that comes along, unwilling to be patient for the great person just around the corner. I’ve always had a philosophy in business and in ministry… if you don’t have the great person to do the job, don’t do it. In the end you’ll do more harm than good if you don’t.

Same goes for your personal life. Who do you let speak into your life? Are your friends challenging you to become more than you are? Here’s a tough one for you… are your siblings/parents/grand parents challenging or inspiring you to do greater things? Rennee and I have a great friend whom we love deeply (hi Tina Marie!). About a year before we moved to Texas she came into my office one day and said with a tear in her eye, “You are too big to stay here.” I must have given her a crazy look because she followed it up with, “You are supposed to do bigger things than just stay here.” She then got up and walked back out. I hadn’t said a word. A few days (maybe weeks… who knows, my memory sometimes squeezes time frames together) she repeated this same sentiment to Rennee. We understood what she was saying. She wasn’t stroking my ego, she was challenging me to live up to my full potential. While leaving friends and family is never easy or fun, sometimes you have to get out on your own to realize what you’re made of. I miss having the built-in babysitters that family provides, but sometimes we care too much about what they think to step out on faith and take that risk that will show you what God can (and will) do through you.

Always ask yourself, “Is this good… or is this great?” God wants you to choose the great (Jeremiah 29:11 & John 10:10)

We all know someone who enjoys a good, stress relieving video game. But more importantly, we all know at least one (or in my case, two) person(s) who will spend ungodly amount of times playing in a virtual world while the rest of us are living in the real one. There is a raging debate going on now about the legitimacy of video game “addiction.” Right now, you could more accurately call it video game abuse, but it still interrupts daily lives. Kids being forgotten, bills not being paid in order to buy new video games or video game components, and foregoing time with friends, family and God. I’ve never really been a gamer. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good game every now and then (I think I played for an hour about 3 months ago). It’s getting this bad in China: