• You have to be blunt

    stop watchThis morning I was reading an appeal from a ministry. The crazy thing about this appeal was that it wasn’t clear what it was asking me to do. Will you join us? Will you help us?

    I thought to myself… How can I join you when I live so far away? What is it that you’re asking me to help with?

    In today’s culture you have to be blunt. The internet moves a million miles a second and we all get dozens of emails, read tons of well-written blog posts, check out news stories, and basically see thousands of messages a day. Studies show that you have 0.7 seconds to catch a readers attention or they will simply move on.

    If you want to catch my attention you have to be blunt and you have to be quick about it. Make it quick, make it count, and make it visual.

    Otherwise, you’re just another blog, another email, another news story, or something else I will quickly move past.

    What was that ministry asking me for? I have no idea. It never said.

  • Snow day

    Foot O SnowNo complaints today, we got dumped on last night. At our house we got about 10 inches or so. It was a weird snow too as it slushed all afternoon yesterday and then as it got colder the snow got more and more fluffy.

    Kristen loves to shovel, so she jumped out there early this morning. I begrudgingly pitched in and  picked up a shovel. It took us about an hour or so to do the driveway and sidewalks. It was an annoying snow to shovel since the slushy stuff on the bottom built up on the shovel and it got progressively heavier.

    When I came in my shoulders were shot. Kristen’s back is a little sore but she is obviously in much better marathon shape than I am.

    They canceled school last night about 10:15 PM. I totally agree on their call this time.  I tried to make it into the office this morning… but the snow plows had built up snow in the drive about halfway up my door… so there was no way the Camry was going to make it in.

    Note to self: Save up some money for a snow blower.

  • New release: How to Boil a Frog

    How to Boil a FrogI saw this on Tony Morgan’s blog and thought it was interesting. So I gave it a whirl. (2 minutes on PhotoShop)

    This is my random album cover for my latest release. My band is “How to Boil a Frog.” We’ve been together for about 15 minutes now and are releasing our debut, “The Tediousness of Life.” The bats in the picture represent the tediousness of life in youth ministry. Those little details are like the gnats the bats eat… just swallowed up in a blur leaving nothing but inaudible communication in its path.

    Create your own!

    The Rules

    1. Band Name The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

    2. Album Title The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

    3. Album Cover Art The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

    Post a link to yours here. I’m kind of thinking this could end up being a contest over at YMX. Thoughts?

  • MainStreet is back tonight!

    It seems like a huge layoff for the MainStreet gang. (Since Christmas Eve) But we are back at it tonight with a great event.

    During the layoff we’ve gotten an opportunity to do a few things that will help us in the Spring run.

    • Rest!
    • Reorganize!
    • Re-prioritize!
    • Renewed enthusiasm!

    Rest. We needed it. Pulling MainStreet off every month takes about a month of preparation. The result is that each month our team gets just 3-4 days of not thinking about or acting on MainStreet per month. We need this layoff just to have some time to not think about “Oh my gosh, it’s 2 weeks away!”

    Reorganize. If you come to MainStreet you may get the idea that we’ve got a play book. You are wrong, we have created MainStreet from scratch. Things that we thought would work didn’t. And when we divided up jobs we didn’t know what would be big jobs or small jobs… so during the layoff we were able to reorganize a little bit to divide things more reasonably. It’s a big project, but when the team works together its pretty manageable.

    Re-prioritize. Sometimes you are so busy working on a project that you can’t think enough about the strategic goal. Stepping back gave us the chance to change some things and focus this more specifically as a foyer environment. (An invitable event) Tonight, you’ll see this play out in a couple of ways as we specifically point new people to the next step… our living room environment of UpTown. Watch for this in the greeting and goodbye especially. Another thing we’re doing better than ever is teaching the virtue. As we point attendees to the next step, UpTown, we want to introduce this month’s virtue… watch for kindness to be taught all over the place… from the greeting, to a special song, to the skits, to Bob’s talk, and other places.

    Renewed enthusiasm. Stepping back and evaluating MainStreet helped us recognize just how far we’ve come and just how effective MainStreet has been. This charged us up. This helped our team look at our body of work and say, “It is a ton of work, but it is helping us draw people into the Kingdom… so let’s do it even better!”

    We’ve got a long way to go until our next break. (July… maybe!) I’m looking forward to the next 6 months of MainStreet. We’ve got some goals to accomplish along the way and I can’t wait to reveal them as we go. Let’s just say we plan on doing MainStreet bigger and better as we finish season 2.

    UPDATE: Man, the snow is so bad… and getting worse… that’s we’ve called off MainStreet for tonight. I am so bummed out! So, the layoff continues until March 5th.

  • 3 Teen Pregnancy Resources

    Time Magazine Teen PregnancyEvery once in a while we get a great string of synergy at Youth Ministry Exchange and we really hit it out of the ballpark with solid resources.

    Today we released 3 different resources on teen pregnancy.

    Big props to Amy for putting all this together. She’s mucho good at what she does.

    I am continually in awe of what God is doing with YMX. The other day I had the opportunity to talk to a “real publisher” about YMX and publishing and starting a business and all kinds of things. As I look back at the quality of things that we are able to produce with no money, no staff, no offices, and no backing from a major publishing house… it is clearly a God-ordained movement. It really is youth ministry people encouraging and uplifting one another and sometimes I sit back and just go… whoa, this is cool.

  • Lamentations 1:7

    Lamentations 1:7

    (more…)

  • I like it…

    I was sitting in the service today and I started thinking about things. I really like our service. I mean… sure, it’s not perfect, but I like it.

    Really, is there such a thing as “the perfect worship service?” I doubt that this side of heaven we won’t approach perfection. But right now I feel like we’re hitting a stride and I dig it.

  • Make sure your company name doesn’t have a double meaning.

    titi nails

    I thought it couldn’t get any more odd than the S&M Market on 32 Mile and Rochester Road. Well, we spotted this gem of a store name next to the Costco on Hall Road. Something tells me the store owner doesn’t speak English as a primary language.

    Click on the image for full-sized version.

  • Exhausted

    Since I don’t get sick very often I don’t know how to respond “the right way.”

    I probably could have milked being sick to take off 3 or 4 days and no one would have said anything. I took a half a day.

    I had a pretty full schedule and a bunch of deadlines I could have pushed off a few extra days, but I didn’t.

    I told a friend I would help him move, and with being sick and everything else he probably would have still been my friend had I bailed on him. But I didn’t.

    It seems like there are people who can get away with being sick, taking time off, and properly recovering. They get sick with style. But the rest of us struggle to get a moment just to rest before life forces us into a tired dirge of recovering while working.

    The result? While I feel better, I am exhausted. With next week being even busier than this week… I need a break.

  • Saturday Tunes

    saturday tunesIt’s not a monster day, but it’s about all I can handle. (Still recovering from whatever has me in its grips.) So as I get ready for my day, eat pancakes with the kids, and otherwise enjoy this Saturday morning here are the next 10 songs from my iTunes party shuffle. As always, no cheating and my ratings are included.

    1.  Rock of Ages by David Crowder Band ****
    2. The Final Word by Michael Card **
    3. Turn Your Eyes by Vicky Beeching **
    4. Speed of Sound by Coldplay ****
    5. All Creatures of our God and King by DCB ****
    6. Witness by Sarah McLaughlin ****
    7. Everything is Beautiful by Starfield ****
    8. Hear with Me by MercyMe ***
    9. Awesome is the Lord Most High by Chris Tomlin ****
    10. Sleep (Instrumental) by Kimya Dawson ***** (Digging the Juno soundtrack)

    Hopefully by next Saturday I’ll have all my songs rated and we’ll be back to normal.

    How about you? What are you listening to this morning?