Category: Character

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Small Group

My wife Vikki and I lead a couples group on Sunday nights. Our current group has been together for almost a year. We just started a new study called Love & Respect. It is based on the best selling book by Dr. Emmerson Eggrichs. We have been having some great discussion about marriage and this idea of men loving their wives and women respecting their husbands found in Ephesians 5:33. It is very helpful to hear how other couples are working on their marriages and that we don’t all have it together. Every couple has hard times, conflicts and difficulties. In a small group we can talk about some of those things and we can have fun together. Building relationships and friendships has been very rewarding for Vikki and I. We have gotten to know quite a few people over the past 10 years through small groups.

We eat together, party together, serve together, laugh together, pray together, celebrate together, study together, encourage each other and care for each other when we can. Life change really can happen in small groups. I would encourage you to get into a small group if you are not in one. That is were life change happens best.

Here are some pictures of us hanging out after group. We have to make room for the furry friends as well.

John with Max on lap, Chad with Bubba on lap, and Jasmine in the background.


Casey
and
Cookie

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Mentoring

This week I spent time with two engaged couples. They are both getting married in May, and I am mentoring them. I will meet with them 5-7 times over the next couple of months. We (NewPointe Community Church) use an online inventory called FOCCUS. They take the online inventory, and then we print out a report and go over the results with them. There are many categories like, lifestyle expectations, friends and interests, extended family, personal issues, sexuality, problem solving, communication, marriage covenant, and more.

I also will give them exercises to take home and work on. The first one is to fill out their family tree and interview some family to find out about grandparents, aunts and uncles etc.

I love to hear their stories of how they met and how they are working on their relationship. These two couples are working and preparing for a lifetime together. The work they put in now will payoff big time down the road. Having the hard conversations before marriage is always better. Making sure you have discussed and agreed on many of these areas is vital to a healthy marriage.

The skills they are learning now will help them work through the difficulties ahead. It is time well spent.

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My Biggest Challenge

Every week I have to fill out a report at work that summarizes what I did last week and what I am working on and focusing on. We call it the 5/15 report (5 minutes for my boss to read and 15 minutes for me to fill out).

One of the questions on that report is “what is your biggest challenge right now”? For me the biggest challenge has been and always will be me.

Leading myself is what determines how well I lead and help others. If you are really honest with yourself, this is true of all of us. We tend to be the biggest roadblock to our own success.

So, if this is the biggest challenge many of us face, how do you lead yourself? Here is my top 20 ways to lead yourself:

  • Spend time with God on a regular basis (prayer, reading the Bible, meditation)
  • Discover your strength and focus on developing those strengths – Understand your weaknesses and manage around them
  • Character is a big deal – It’s what you do when no one is looking that matters
  • Find systems that help you work and live smarter
  • Read
  • Ask Questions
  • Find mentors and organizations that you can learn from
  • Have someone holding you accountable – Give them permission to ask tough questions
  • Continually work at listening better
  • Don’t be afraid to fail or take risks, but learn from your failures
  • Surround yourself with good people that are strong in your areas of weakness
  • Be Humble – Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking less about yourself
  • Be willing to step out of your comfort zone – Do something that stretches and challenges you
  • Pay attention – To people, to culture, to circumstances, to body language etc.
  • The things you do today are preparing you for your defining moments of the future. Little things matter
  • Think about the big picture every day – Work on it not in it
  • Get help – It is OK to go to a counselor, pastor or doctor
  • Make sure you are healthy Emotionally & Physically – This takes discipline
  • Don’t forget to relax and have fun

I could list many other things, but this is a good start. The better you lead yourself, the better your relationships will be and the more valuable you become to the people around you.

Lead On!

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Divorce

I am passionate about reducing the divorce rate in Tuscarawas County. The rate of divorce in Tuscarawas County was 69% in 2006. That is up 5% from 2003. The rate for the state of Ohio is 55%.

What if I said we could cut that rate in half in the next 10 years. Would that get your attention?

There are proven ways to work at reducing the rate of divorce. The best approach is to pull the local churches, local government leader’s and other local leader’s together to form a strategy.

Part of the strategy would be to work at better preparing couples for marriage, offering marriage enrichment events and activities, mentoring and coaching troubled marriages, offering support groups for blended families and more.

If anyone is interested in being a part of a movement to lower the divorce rate, please contact me or comment. NewPointe Community Church is part of a program called Marriage Savers. Marriage Savers has done the research and put together a great program that is designed to bring a community together to make a lasting difference in families.

I am believing God is going to do something BIG in 2009. The local church can impact a community and change a community, if we work together.

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Men

I’ve been talking with a few guys about what it means to be a man. Not just any man, but a Christ following man. Most guys have not had many good role models to learn from. We grow up learning what men should or shouldn’t do. We see bad examples and a few good examples. We are influenced by television, Internet, magazines, books and people. The church has also done a poor job of modeling the right view of the Christian man. For most Christian guys, we think we have to be this nice guy that gets along with everyone, provide for our families and have it all together.

As men, we desperately need to change this wrong view of who we are. In my conversations with these guys the theme that came out, is that most men growing up today are not getting the message that God wants them warriors and lovers. Men are not, in general standing up and leading their families well. Many men have settled into the role of just providing. We are much more than that. God has called us to be courageous warriors to go into battle for Him. He has called us to love like He loved, serve like He served and fight like He fought.

God does not want us to be timid and passive, especially in spiritual leadership. Most women want their men to be the spiritual leader in the home, but have had to take that role on, because he hasn’t. I think that happens because men and women have a different idea of what that looks like. How do you lead your family spiritually? How do you become the man that God created you to be?

Maybe we don’t understand who Jesus really was. Jesus is our absolute best example to follow. Maybe we need to take a new and fresh look at Jesus the man.

Jesus was bold, courageous and daring. He did not care what others thought about him or said about him. He was focused and driven with incredible passion. He was not afraid to speak his mind and even offend some people. Yet he did this with incredible compassion, humility and love. He was a perfect balance of warrior and lover. He stirred things up, challenge people to think differently and then loved deeply. Jesus was not a nice guy or a good teacher. He was God and man. He was the greatest leader of all time. He showed us what he wants us to become. As a man that inspires me, that challenges me.

Life is an adventure, we are part of a bigger story that God is writing every day.

To become the man that God wants you to be, you need to have a right view of how God sees you. He sees you as His son.

Our challenge as men is to grow closer to Jesus, so that we can lead better, serve better and love better. Don’t settle for being a nice guy.

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Why Change?

I was reading today and came across this quote. It really resonated with me and challenged me. I hope it does the same for you. This is from “How People Change” by Timothy Lane & Paul David Tripp.

“Making us holy is God’s unwavering agenda until we are taken home to be with him. He will do whatever he needs to produce holiness in us. He wants us to be a community of joy, but he is willing to compromise our temporal happiness in order to increase our Christlikeness.”

“God is not working for our comfort and ease; he is working on our growth. At the very moment we are tempted to question his faithfulness, he is fulfilling his redemptive promises to us. Change is the norm for everyone, and God is always at work to complete this process in us.”

If you are a Christ follower, you are in process. God is at work in every area of your life, pushing for holiness. He is drawing us to him, so that we can become more like him. He won’t force it on us, but his desire is for us to be holy like He is holy. Are you holy in your relationships, your work, your family, your finances, your Internet activity, your conversations, your days off, your vacations? Where is God working on you? Where are you too comfortable? How are you changing?

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God at Work

Today I had a really cool story happen right in front of my eyes. This past Sunday at church someone stopped me and said he would like to donate a car to a needy family. I told him that I did not have anyone in need of that right now, but that I would let him know if I came across anyone with that need.

Well today it happened. I got a call from a single mom on disability. She was very stressed out, because she had lost her child support, because her daughters father had lost his job. That had put her behind on all her bills. She had bought a cheap car recently, only to find out it needed a new computer. The cost was half of what she paid for the car, and she still owed money on the car.

I told her I may have another option for her. She told me she had been praying a lot lately and had been going to church and trying to do the right thing, but things only seemed to be getting worse. I called my friend and told him the situation and he said that is exactly what he was looking for. He said he would have the car ready in a week.

When I called her back with this, she was blown away. I could hear a difference in her voice. I believe it was a faith building moment for her, a defining moment. I will be working with her on some other issues as well, but I believe that God is already working in her life. My prayer for her is that her personal relationship with Jesus Christ gets more intimate through all of this. This act of compassion and kindness could be what she needed to break out of the problems she has been facing. She still has some work to do, but this helps big time. God is good.

God works through people, what story is He writing through your life?

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New Years Reading List

Happy New Year!

This time of year usually is a time for people to make resolutions or goals for the coming year. Many people have new hope of making some changes in their lives. That is all good, but many fall short after only a couple of months. January & February are busy months for the weight loss and exercise business. My question is this: If you could change one thing in 2009, what would it be?

One thing that I have tried to do each year to grow and change is to meet new people and read good books. The people you meet and the books you read will impact you more than you can imagine. To do that, you must be intentional about getting out to meet people, to seek a mentor, to get into a small group, to make an appointment for lunch or breakfast. You also need to plan on what you want to read this year. So start planning on who you need to meet and what you need to read.

Maybe you want your marriage to change this year. A great way to start that process, is to read some books about marriage and relationships. You could also go see a counselor or pastor and even better, find a couple with a healthy marriage and meet with them and get to know how they worked through their problems.

Here are some books on marriage and relationships you should consider:

Love & Respect by Emerson Eggrichs
The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
The DNA of Relationships by Gary Smalley

If you have read those three, contact me for more good marriage books.

Whatever you want to change in 2009, starts with your decision to change yourself. I hope that 2009 rocks your world. I hope that you will be stretched out of your comfort zone; that you will be challenged in new, unexpected ways; that God will give you a burden for something; that you will have courage to walk through the doors God opens in your life; that God will heal you emotionally, spiritually relationally and physically.

So what am I reading in the coming year? I always have a stack of books on my to read list. Some I don’t get to and I often add to it throughout the year. Many come from recommendations of others, or favorite authors. In any case, I hope you will read more this year and meet some new people that can help you grow.

Here is my reading list:

Non-Fiction:
Unchristian by David Kinnaman & Gabe Lyons (Currently Reading)
How People Change by Timothy Lane & Paul David Tripp (Currently Reading)
Discovering God’s Daily Agenda, 365 Daily Devotional by Henry & Richard Blackaby
Crazy Love by Francis Chan
Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell
Sex God by Rob Bell
Sex Begins in the Kitchen: Creating Intimacy to Make Your Marriage Sizzle, By Kevin Leman
Becoming A Coaching Leader by Daniel Harkavy
True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership by Bill George
Axiom: Powerful Leadership Proverbs by Bill Hybels
Just Courage: God’s Great Expedition for the Restless Christian by Gary Haugen

Fiction:
Split Second by David Baldacci (Currently Reading)
The Last Juror by John Grisham
The Partner by John Grisham

The Bible – NCV

Change & Grow!

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Running in December

Some of you know that I have been running to get exercise. I have run in two 5k’s and am looking forward to running more in 2009. During this time of year it is difficult to get outside to run, so I have been running some on the treadmill. I am a fair weather runner. Yesterday was an unusually warm day, it was in the low 60’s here in Walnut Creek. I took advantage of the nice day and went for a run.

This was a different kind of run for me. About half way through my 2.5 mile run I started talking to God. I started talking about how I want to be different this coming year. How I want to be more like Jesus in all areas of my life. I named the roles that I have like husband, son, brother, employee, co-worker, friend, small group leader, pastor, and mentor.

We all play a variety of roles in our life. Each of those roles are important, but are not who we are. Those are the areas that we have influence with other people. I want to use that influence to Glorify God. I talked to God on that run about having a life of worship. To worship God in each of the roles that I have.

As I was running, I kept thinking that this run is the beginning of a long marathon. I asked God to help me keep running, not along the road, but in life. To run a marathon you must run patiently, and to struggle through some pain. It also takes some hard work and preparation to run a race. It is more than just jogging a few laps. The spiritual life is hard work, just like the physical life. If you want to be in great physical shape you must eat well and exercise well.

If you want to go deeper with God, you must eat well and exercise well. It takes more than just going to church. A life of worship includes things like; prayer, reading your Bible, forgiving people, giving grace, having healthy relationships, giving generously, volunteering your time, working with excellence, doing what you say, doing what is right, even when no one is looking, sharing your faith with others, living with purity & integrity. It is loving God with all your being and loving people deeply.

In 2009, I want to love God and love people, like never before. This is an adventure, a race through some rough terrain, with some rough people. It could get a little dirty and you may fall down, but the finish is worth the effort. Every time I go running, I will be reminded of the race we are all in. Read 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Hebrews 12:1-3 and 2 Timothy 4:7-8 for more on running the race. Start running!

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The Identity Trap

I have been studying a book on “How People Change” by Tim Lane & Paul David Tripp. I have only gotten into the first chapter, but already am learning a bunch of good stuff.

When I meet with people, I am always trying to help them make changes in their life. I love to coach people and encourage people to grow. Most often people have lost focus and perspective in their lives. They have become blind in some areas of their life. They have bought into the schemes of busyness, money, happiness and performance. I’m too busy to spend time with God every day. I don’t make enough money. God wants me to be happy. I need to perform for people to like me. Those are just a few lies people believe.

In their book, Tripp & Lane talk about spiritual blindness. The first spiritual blindness is that of identity. “Many Christians do not have a Gospel perspective on who they are.”

“This lack of Gospel identity shows up in two ways. First, many Christians underestimate the presence and power of indwelling sin. They don’t see how easily entrapped they are in this world of snares.” Read Galatians 6:1. They don’t grasp the comprehensive nature of the war that is raging within the heart of every believer (Read Romans Ch. 7:7-25). They’re not aware of how prone they are to run after God replacements. They fail to see that their greatest problems exist within them, not outside of them.”

Did you catch that? Read it again slowly. Your greatest problem is the daily struggle that goes on inside you. The struggle for your heart and mind. The stuff you think about and the stuff you believe. That is why the Bible says that the truth will set you free. Believing and thinking about what is true sets you free. Your true identity sets you free.

Here is the second way our false identity shows up.

“If who I am in Christ does not shape the way I think about myself and the things I face, then I will live out of some other identity. Often in our blindness, we take on our problems as identities. While divorce, depression, and single parenthood are significant human experiences, they are not identities. Our work is not our identity, though it is an important part of how God intends us to live. For too many of us, our sense of identity is more rooted in our performance than it is in God’s grace. It is wonderful to be successful at what God called you to do, but when you use your success to define who you are, you will always have a distorted perspective.”

So my question for you today is this, who are you? Do you view yourself through the lens of the Gospel or through the lens of this world? Have you underestimated the level of sin that lives in you and the daily battle you are in? Have your problems become your identity? Maybe your work or ministry has become your identity?

The best gift you will ever receive is your true identity as a child of God. Having that identity will change your perspective and change your life. Keep growing in your faith, character and leadership.

Merry Christmas.