GREAT BOOK!

I picked up Dick Hardy's recent book 27 TOUGH QUESTIONS PASTORS ASK.

What a great book!! I really mean that!

I had the privilege of working with Dick in Des Moines Iowa at a great church! He is a great friend and a gifted person.

This book is filled with fantastic info. What I love about the book is that it doesn't offer 'how-to's' from a lead pastor viewpoint. It offers lead pastor insight but refreshingly from a different view-point. Dick was one of the best executive pastor's around which influences how he writes and I love it!

Great book. Great insight. Great answers. I'll have more on this in the next few days!

Getting ready to head to Wichita, KS next week to meet with a pastor and music staff in a consulting format. We'll have a ton of fun!!

Keep it real!

Mark

HOW TO BUILD A CAR IN THREE HOURS!

Totally amazing! My daughter and me (with the help of my wife) built a car that propels itself! We did it in about three hours! OK, so the thing can't carry people or anything at all, but it still runs...for about 20 feet!

We built a mousetrap car!! I'm sure many of you have had to build one of these, but this is the first mousetrap car effort for this family. Not sure how our oldest daughter missed this drill, but she didn't have to do one in her 8th grade year.

Now here is the reason this is significant: I'm really not good at this stuff and my wife is. She is like her dad: can do just about anything by thinking about it and drawing it out....sometimes only in her head. She is very talented and makes me look like, well, a real loser!!!

So, given that my wife had quite a few things to get done yesterday, it fell upon me to assist the youngest with her project. As the child received the news that mom was busy, I could hear her mutter to her mother "Oh, brother!"

Fortunately, mom and daughter had started the project and it was underway with enough prior planning so that I could come waltzing in and claim the victory! We finished the car. It works! And now I'm ready for MIT!

Kudos to mom and daughter for a job well done!!!!

TAKE A STEP BACK

In our hyper competitive society, when faced with an insurmountable challenge, we typically put the pedal to the metal and push on ahead. It doesn't matter if it is athletics or sales or the corporate board room arena, the challenge always come from somebody that we have to give more, push harder, give a better effort!

But what happens when we are already at peak capacity and giving more is not an option?

Engines red line. Muscles fatigue. Brains go numb.

Seth Godin talks about instead of trying harder, try different.

How true it is.

Take a different angle. Relax. Let the game come to you. Work on a different muscle group.

Tony Horton talks about 'muscle confusion'. By changing things up we get more out of our muscles than if we get stuck in one routine.

Sometimes when we think we need to try harder and are already at max capacity, take a step back and try different!

WHEN AVAILABILITY AND ABILITY COLLIDE

I was thinking the other day how some people have the ability to do something, but are unavailable to do it. Then there are those who are available, but don't have the ability.

Ability + Availability = Great Success.

He played football at a small university. Not very fast. Not very big. Had some ability.

Turned down by one NFL team, but was available to drive, yes drive nearly 2000 miles and try out for another.

He made the team!

During his career, Steve Largent, out-performed people with great abilities, and he turned a very humble start in the NFL into a Hall of Fame career.

How?

Ability + Availability = Great Success.

There are people all around us that have the ability to make a difference and they do not. Why? They think they are unavailable.

Others end up making a huge impact because they recognize their abilities and make themselves available! Those kind of people are HUGELY successful!!!

If you have the ability, then become available and watch the great things happen!!

A Reversal Of Thought

I was reading the story of how Jesus healed the woman who had a bleeding disorder. It is found in Mark 5. She had struggled with this problem for 12 years. She had been to every doctor and she had spent everything she had tyring to find a cure for her illness. She was desperate!

Then it happened. She had a reversal of thought!

She had heard of this Jesus who had the power to do miraculous things for people. She had heard how he had touched them and they were healed. She thought: "If only I COULD TOUCH HIM!"

She wasn't arrogant. She wasn't proud. She was at the end of her rope.

She believed in the power of Jesus. She knew He could heal her illness. Her humility was profound and her faith huge. "If only I could touch Him."

She didn't need to be the center of attention, she knew Jesus was.
She didn't need to have Him see her, she just needed to see Him.
She didn't need to tell Him all about her problem, she just needed a corner of his cloak dragging behind Him in the dust.

She fought through the crowd and touched a portion of Jesus' garment and instantly she was healed!

Instead of asking Jesus to touch you, why don't you ask Him what it takes for you to touch Him!

This Sunday is Valentine's Day! I can't

remember the last time it landed on a Sunday!

We are going to be talking about what it means

to LOVE STRONG!

Too often we view love as an emotion or something connected with flowers, chocolates, or jewelry.

Jesus said is was deeper than that.

Jesus said to love your enemy. Love those who treat you poorly. Love those who actually inflict bodily harm upon you.

Jesus implied that we are to LOVE STRONG!

All Around Us

I just finished a great article by ESPN columnist Rick Reilley. I love to read his stuff. He is a gifted writer. (as I listen to Cartagrapher by E.S. POSTHUMUS...now that is some fine stuff right there! Two brothers who write crazy stuff!!)

His article was titled: The Misbehavior of Athletes.

He gave examples of pro athletes who have undermined the public trust and cheated their sport or spouse. Examples: Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Tiger Woods, Gilbert Arenas.

For every misguided athlete he listed its counterpoint: Ken Griffey Jr., Jack Nicklaus, etc.

He chose to focus upon the glass half full picture when it comes to athletes whom we have a tendency to place upon pedestals.

One reality from his great article is this: for all the bad that seems to happen in our day, there is just as much good happening all around us.

The sun is still coming up in the East. There is sufficient oxygen to breathe. There is someone who loves us completely and there are people that want to be our friends.

There IS good all around us!

Smoked!

Some of the guys stayed after church last week and we played a rousing game of football! I think there was a conspiracy, but on the team I was playing with, we had a good share of the 'wiser' dudes. OK, so we were older!

I'm not sure at what age it happens. It is really a bizarre thing when you realize it for the first
time. I've known it for a few years now. That moment when your brain is still thinking like
a young, twenty-something and your arms and legs are functioning at their true age!

The brain says 'NOW!' The legs say, 'Huh?'

Needless to say, our team got smoked!!!!

I'm putting all the blame for the horrific outcome on the league commish: Jason!!!!

What A Machine!

My wife hollered for me to come and get the spider!

She is deathly afraid of them. One had made a bummer of a move and
showed up on the wall at the worst time....when she was walking by.

So, I meander up the stairs and here is this tiny, little spider. I was able
to get it into my hands and he wiggled free, hanging by its thread!

After I got him back into my hands he became damaged goods.

As I was walking to the sink to rinse off my hands, I felt this single thread
of a web brushing against one of the hairs on the back of my hand (sounds
gross!). It startled me! It actually felt like something much larger than
a single strand from that teeny tiny spider.

I couldn't beleive that one single thread from that single little spider could
make such a commotion of nerve impulses as it brushed against a single
hair on my hand! Blew me away as I thought about the thousands if not
tens of thousands of electrical charges taking place within my body and
brain just from one single spider web thread touching my hand.

The Bible says that we are '..fearfully and wonderfully made.'

Fo sho!

The next time you think about it, thank God for your one-of-a-kind
machine called your body!

God does good work!!!

Wacky Emails

I had a new email in my Spam folder the other day. I find it quite amazing that people would actually click and open one of these whacky wacked out deals. You get them. I get them. Everybody gets them! They are peddling nasty stuff, to bogus financial junk, to meds, to whatever.

But the one I received the other day made me laugh out loud! It was trying to hook me up with some RITALIN!!!!! Hilarious!

How did they know I ran out??????

Gotta go. ADD/AHAD/AHDL/....KICKING IN!!!!!!

RESOLUTIONS!

Hey, if you are into New Year's resos, here's a few I came across!

1. Stop eating boogers- Cameron 6 years old..

2. Stop passing gas in church- Melissa 10 years old
3. Stop drinking out of the milk container- Rick 36 years old.
4. Then stop putting back the empty container- Rick 36 years old.
5. Stop eating other employee's lunches out of the frig- 28 yr old worker at a food distribution plant
6. I will balance my checkbook ………………on my nose.
7. I will think of a new password, other than the word password.
8. I will always....always check for paper, when leaving the bathroom.
9. I will work with neglected children......my own.
10. I will not sit in the living room all day in my pj’s; instead I will be moving the computer into the bedroom.
11. I will work hard to become a legal advisor and push for the immediate restriction of anything Twilight.
12. I will be a millionaire on Farmville.
13. I will not ask my fellow taxpayers to bail me out of anything.
14. I will not text or email my spouse or children while sitting in another room.

Happy New Year!!!!