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Tag: adam mclane
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Travels With Stoney: Stuff
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Are you fake around your pastor?
Check out this quote.
Dear God,
I was a pastor for 23 years. It killed me. I am not sure I was every called to it. As you know, the overwhelming numbness finally caved in all around me. Now, I am on the outside of the church looking in and I don’t like what I see. Why do we have to be fake to be a Christian or part of a church? How did we buy the lie that showing up occasionally was the same as a relationship with you? Now that I am not a pastor, people are honest with me. I had no idea how hard life was for so many people because when they came on my “turf” they pretended just as much as I did. I feel hope inside God. Now, without the job I feel like you let me go through everything to understand pain. I want to do what I can, but I feel like a failure every day. Can you still use me? link
While I can’t identify with the feeling far from God or having felt fake with God while serving at a church, I can definitely tell that people are more honest with me about their lives now that I don’t work at a church full time. Why is that? Was there something in my title that made me someone you couldn’t speak openly with? Did you feel like I couldn’t help? Did you feel like I didn’t want to know? Were you trying to protect me? Do you think I’d judge you? Not love you? Tell others you were human? Were you looking for an escape when you were around me? Did I project myself as someone who couldn’t understand? Was I above your struggles? Was I intimidating? Was I uncaring? Was I too transparent? Not transparent enough?
The thing is, I’m not done being a church leader… at least I hope not. I just want to know.
HT to Andy
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Top Five Posts of July
#1 Goodbye Creepy Guy (here’s why)
#2 Shutting Down Missingmoney.com
#3 3 Lies of Church Growth Experts
#4 $200 Asterisk for the iPhone 3G
#5 Vision, Goal, and Mission Statements
The power of google. That’s why most of those top 5 are there. People are searching for something that brings them here…. welcome! And it’s also worth noting that you’ve helped me get one of the highest vote tally’s at this contest. Thanks for reading this month. I can’t wait to journey the next 30 days of my life. It’s gonna be great.
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10 random Monday thoughts
It’s a holiday. And a holiday for me means that I tend to get strikingly little done. I may have some big plans for my day… but if I get 1-2 things actually done I’ll be satisfied. Here’s just a data dump of things on my mind.
- I’m definitely taking a bike ride today.
- It was supposed to rain today, but looking at the satellite I don’t think that’s likely.
- I stayed up until 2 AM playing Madden 08 for the Wii. It’s just OK.
- This morning I added a ton of people to my friends list on Facebook. Many of them I don’t know personally but are “fans” of YMX on Facebook.
- It was fun to head out to Metemora State Park last night to hang with the Fisher’s and Brinker’s. Each time we come home Kristen and I vow to take our kids camping. I don’t really know if that will happen or not. But I hope it will
- Everyone is asking us when our house will go on the market. Probably in a few weeks. We have some things we need to do first. We are oddly at peace about the process. We know it’s a good house and are hopeful it will sell at a good price.
- Jimmy was clutch yesterday. I was very pleased with the services over all. I especially liked that he “de-cheesed” the Lee Greenwood song, “God Bless the U.S.A.”
- It was a little weird being my “last day” at Romeo. At the same time, we’re back next week. It’s not like we’re moving right now. The most common question yesterday was, “When do you start your new job?” I start next week and my next trip out west in in a couple weeks.
- I’m shopping for a digital SLR as my wife has broken both our cameras. How do you decide between Nikon and Canon?
- Mellen’s Market (the corner store across the street from us) is closing its doors and going out of business later this week. That’s a total bummer.
- Bonus random thought: Kristen and I are planning to sell our car and buy a new one when we get to San Diego. We are definitely looking for a small/tiny car that gets great mileage. (I may even get a scooter!) High on our list of cars to look into are the Prius and Civic Hybrid. (American cars) We are also considering some Korean made cars and Mexican cars made by Ford and GM. I just had to get that dig in since Romeo people still think that there is a delineation between “American cars” and “Foreign cars.” No one outside of Michigan has used terms like that since the 1980s… but you still hear and see it here on bumper stickers. Let’s translate that… by “foreign car” they really mean “non-union made car.”
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Our Big Move
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind… literally. First, there was the crazy phone call that started it all. Then there was a lot of prayer. Then there was the trip out there. Then there was a lot more prayer. This was followed by some very tough conversations, more prayer, and a decision. Then some waiting, some finalizing details and finally here we are.What’s the scoop? A week and a half ago I met with the deacons of our church to formally tell them that we are leaving our beloved ministry in Romeo to accept a new calling on our life at Youth Specialties.
Following that, we told our students and parents followed by an announcement to the congregation on May 11th. I’ll talk more about this later… but the people here in Romeo have been amazing to Kristen and I for the last 5 years. They are either truly excited for us or are really good liars. I’d like to think they are excited for us. If they aren’t, please let me believe they are!
In the coming days I’ll begin to share a little bit more about my time here in Romeo and describe a little more about what I’ll be doing in San Diego.
Kristen and I are just a mashed potatoes of emotion. We are sad to leave a place we love. We are thrilled by this door God has opened for us. We don’t want to move. We do want to live in San Diego. We don’t want to leave the security of our life here. We love a little adventure.
The byline of my blog and subplot of my life is: Crazy enough to want to change the world. The last few weeks God has gotten up in my devotions and said, “Oh really? Wanna prove it?” I don’t know about the changing the world part… but this is the most exciting and craziest thing God has ever asked us to do.
More to come…
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Twitter takes off in Youth Ministry
In the last two weeks Twitter has gotten extremely popular among Youth Ministry people. The two biggest Youth Ministry companies, Youth Specialties and Simply Youth Ministry put their Twitter accounts in this weeks newsletter. (YMX was ahead of them by a couple months on this one!) And it seems like every youth pastor around is jumping on the bandwagon now that Andy (the main dude at Simply) has a battle with Doug Fields to get to 1000 Twitter followers. (Both YS and SYM seem to be using Twitter for viral marketing, bravo!)I maintain that Twitter is a fad that will fade as soon as a more interesting platform is created. But for now Youth Ministry is on fire with Twitter.
What is Twitter all about? (see the video) It answers the question “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less. Think of it as “open” instant messaging. I look at it as a back-channel communication for my friends. No fluff, no pontification… just simply “What are you doing?” I’ve found it a cool way to get to know people in a new capacity.
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You Matter to Your Schools
This was just posted over at Youth Ministry Exchange. Here’s an excerpt:Here’s a thought that will blow your mind. The God of the Universe chose you to help him build the church in your town. Here’s another thought to give you some perspective. The God of the Universe has an enemy, Satan, whose deepest desire is to distract, discourage, debilitate, and destroy you. It’s as if Satan has a special department in the community you live in just for that. Just like there is a Street Department and Water Department, Satan runs the Ministry Destruction Department in your town and people like you are his number one project. Read the rest
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Youth Ministry Pro
Observers of YMX and this blog will remember that we recently started “domain farming” a few domain names that aren’t currently registered… but we think would make great websites.In other words, we bought a bunch of domains hoping that if we marketed them a little, people would pay for them. Well, along the same lines we’ve learned that you can’t just buy the domain and do nothing… sometimes you have to do a little property development.
So, I’ve had that buried in my “dream list” for a couple months. Today I decided to go for it and develop a domain we’ve owned for a long time, Youthministrypro.com.
I could not believe that this domain wasn’t owned by someone! It’s a great domain name.Today I finally took a little time and developed this little property of ours. I installed Joomla, pimped it out with a nice template, did some simple graphic work, wrote a little copy, partnered with a great content delivery system, and voila: Youth Ministry Pro was born.
What is it? Basically, it’s a job board for youth ministry. Sure… there are lots of these… but not very many of them are independently run. Most are tied to a school, denomination, or a publisher. What makes this one different is that we can offer some job finding content, a safe place to post your resume, access to Raising Lazarus, and of course a place for employers to post jobs. (Actually, it’s part of a mega-network of job listings so there is lots of stuff already there!)
The best part is that this new site pretty much runs itself. Other than posting new content (e.g. reprinting from YMX) there isn’t a lot to do with it. That is… unless someone was willing to invest a lot of time and a little bit of money into the project. (Neither are commodities I have.)
And, of course, the domain is still for sale. Now instead of just selling a domain, we’re selling a complete and profitable little business. Interested? Contact me.
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From the MainStreet vault
Some of these clips are for MainStreet tomorrow while others are for “web only.” But over all I thought this was some funny stuff.
I caught this on my vanity search this morning. It came