Ode 17

Transforming a Doer to an Equiper

My wife and I are attending a seminar this week that deals with business practices specifically for hair studios (Joanie's business). I took a week of vacation to attend this with her as I am always looking to pick up insights from the business world. Besides, it's not often I get to sit in a seminar with my wife (the real reason I'm here).

One of the instructors gave a talk this morning that reminded us we have employees that come in all shapes, sizes, and personal standards of work ethics. Our job as employers is to move them further up the ladder towards being the best employee they can ever be. After all, if they are satisfied with being adequate at best, are they the ones we want to have working for us? To paraphrase his talk, the presenter broke the employees down into the following five categories:

Level 1: These are blamers not thinkers. They don't think the quality of the job...

My Bench: Allstars!

I've been reading John Maxwell's book, The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork. This morning's law was the Law of the Bench. Every great team has a strong and deep bench. What would any great sports team be like if not for a group of tremendous players right behind the starting lineup? A great bench is not only wonderful to have but a necessity if you want to see success continuously.

While reading this chapter I reflected on this past Sunday at church. My starting role at Sugarloaf is...

Yoo Hoo!

That's what one of my readers said to me, followed by "Where are you?" I know I have been lax of late in getting to my blog. My plate has been a bit overflowing. I'll get back to regular blogging in a while. In the meantime you can look forward to a new blog design that will be coming soon. In it, you will have an easy way to listen to our music, purchase materials, and an ease of navigation. I'm looking forward to it. Meanwhile, I am still here taking care of some pressing issues. Keep checking in. I appreciate it.

Big Church - Little Church

I recently had a conversation with a fellow minister about traps that churches fall into. These traps can easily define a church's size. This morning I awoke to have my devotional time, drink my coffee and check emails, when I ran across this brief article from Church Solutions. I thought I would share it with you. Of particular note is the simple check list at the end. Check it out.

Copyright 2009 by Virgo Publishing. http://www.churchsolutionsmag.com/ Posted on: 09/09/2009

Why Small Churches Are Small By Lamar Slay There are many reasons churches are small. Every small church is small because of a combination of many of those reasons, but there seems to be one common denominator: Small churches think small. Or I should say, “smaller churches think small.” There are some churches in the 1,000-2,000 attendees range, or even larger, that continue to think small; they have grown in spite of themselves. That small thinking...

Career Transition Workshop

In these economic times it is obvious that layoffs would have effected some of my friends. I was talking with another of my good friends, Gari Tarulli, about things we could do to help our friends. His company, TCI Search, has put together a great seminar called the Career Transition Workshop. He offered to bring it to a small group at Sugarloaf. I offered this to some of the people in my Worship Arts Ministry and we are sitting in the seminar right now. There is a lot of energy in the room.

Here is a wonderful discovery: there is as much a desire to help each other as there is to get something out of this seminar. The attendees who have been looking for work for the past year obviously came here with a desire to get something useful out of the time spent here today. But along with that desire comes a real caring desire to give to each other.

That brings me to this question, "What are you doing to help your friends along?" If we all do just a little bit, whether it be a simple word of encouragement or networking assistance ...we can all do something to help our neighbors out doing these times.

A Second Opportunity at Life

At our church we have been talking about the question, "How would you live your life if you found you only had thirty days to live?" I was watching the news this morning when they referenced an email sent out after the crash of Flight 1549 into the Hudson River. Here is a vivid accounting of how a man's life was changed in just a few moments.

Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2009 8:53 AM

[This is from Gerry McNamara who was on Flight 1549.]

"Thursday was a difficult day for all of us at the firm and I left the Park Avenue office early afternoon to catch a cab bound for LaGuardia Airport.

I was scheduled for a 5pm departure, but able to secure a seat on the earlier flight scheduled to leave at 3PM. As many of us who fly frequently often do, I recall wondering...

Fortify your self concept

A couple of weeks ago I let you know that I am s-l-o-w-l-y reading a book named, The 4:8 Principle, by Tommy Newberry. I am deliberately reading it at a snail's pace because I am attempting to ruminate on each chapter and principle. I want to become a more positive person with a more positive influence on my family and those I come in contact with during my days. This is not a quick read for me. It is a highly recommended book because in my opinion most all of us would benefit by attaining a more positive outlook on life.

Chapter four speaks of fortifying your self concept. While you are out looking for your own copy of the book I thought it would be great to have you ruminate (think on these things over and over) with me on the eight principles Newberry gives for bolstering up your self concept. Trust me on this, I'm...

Too Many Notes

In an earlier blog I quoted a comment that Miles Davis made to one of my favorite jazz trumpeters, Freddie Hubbard, "Freddie, you play too many notes. Ain't nobody can hear all that [stuff]."

It reminded me of a time as a youth when I had played my little jazz oriented heart out in a church service on my trumpet. A couple of my friends were impressed that I could do all that I did on the horn. I had gotten quite good and was always looking to impress while I continued to woodshed my chops. My dear, sweet great grandma walked up to me and confessed with a combination of look and tone of voice that only Grandma could give to one of her favorite grandsons, "It sounded like you were slidin' all over the place. You weren't playing the melody. I didn't understand it. Remember who you are playing for." Then she gave me her loving and special condescending look, along with a pat on the side of the cheek to assure me she was only trying to help. Grandma didn't understand my bent toward jazz. when it came down to it, I began to realize that in that little church I was growing up in, very few did. Yes, a couple of people understood, but most were clueless as to what I was doing. They really began to understand when they felt and heard me playing for the glory of God and not for my self (but that is a topic for another posting on another day).

How many times do we bring our expectations and personal agenda to the teams we lead or the congregations we minister to? The results can be devastating to you and to the people who are attempting to follow you.

I remember taking a job in a little country church one time. I thought...

Sanctifying the Secular

I was talking with my pastor the other day. We were sort of debriefing about the past week's Sunday morning services that have taken place since his arrival. I mentioned to him that of all of the services I had planned during my many years in ministry, the one that evoked the most response was our service a few weeks ago where we used five Beatles songs to get the message across (click here if you would like to hear what we did). It clearly was an "out of the box" worship experience ...and for a few it was a bit too much. However, for most...

Leaving Boldly: Shane McConkey, 1968-2009

Shane McConkey put a lot of life into his dash. I was just informed that one of my favorite skiers, McConkey was taken from this earth in March, while in Italy shooting a ski movie. They were filming one of his incredible moves, the ski base jump, when one of his skis failed to release, causing him to spin out of control. McConkey was unable to open his chute.
He made skiing cool. He was an innovator. He was awesome at the sport. Take a look at this video of a real sports star.

Shane McConkey