bob thoughts

third-person christian

It's thanksgiving time and I'm thankful for really smart people who I can steal great blogs from.

from The Batterson Blog - Thoughts on Life and Leadership by Mark Batterson

I think some people are what I would call third-person christians. I'm not a grammarian, and I don't know if this metaphor holds up literally, but third-person christians read the Bible in the third-person. They think in terms of "they" instead of "me." They don't personalize it by reading it in first-person terms. And so Scripture is de-personalized.

Here's another example. Third-person christians attend church in the third-person thinking about the people in their life that "need to hear this message" rather than processing it personally! They talk about church in "they" terms instead of "we" terms.

Here's a thought. Simply insert the first-person "I" or "me" or "we" when reading the Bible. It helps you own Scripture. And more importantly, it helps Scripture own you.

the best possible life

There is a story in 2 Chronicles about a King named Uzziah and I think there is a lot we can learn from his life. Look at what it says about him in scripture:

He sought God during the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God. As long as he sought the LORD, God gave him success. 2 Chronicles 26:5

As long as he followed God he was successful. The Bible says that he was very successful and list out all kinds of things he accomplished.

And then...

But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the LORD his God...
2 Chronicles 26:16

In the beginning he followed God closely and the results were great but at some point he started relying on himself more than God and the results were devastating. 

In your life right now are you trusting more in yourself or in God?

fall leaves

I noticed a couple of leaves falling off the trees in my backyard today. I really like fall and I love to watch the leaves change. The leaves fall off the tree but the tree continues to grow and new leaves will come in the spring.

Is there something that you need to get rid of in your life? If you shed that thing that has been holding you back what are you going to do to keep growing? What are you going to replace it with?

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

you're not crazy

I found a lot of comfort in this post

from Perry Noble dot com by perry

As I said the other day…don’t expect God’s next step to make sense.

I’ve had so many leaders who have HUGE dreams…but back off because it will not work out on paper and they are afraid people will think they are crazy…

I think we need more crazy people…

• People thought Noah was crazy when he built the arc.
• People thought Abraham was crazy when climbed a mountain to sacrifice his son.
• People thought Joseph was crazy when he shared his dreams!
• People thought Moses was crazy when he announced God’s relocation project!
• People thought Joshua was crazy when he announced the battle plan for Jericho!
• People thought Gideon was crazy when the army got reduced to 300.
• People thought David was crazy when he walked out to meet Goliath.
• People thought Elijah was crazy when he faced the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel
• People thought Nehemiah was crazy when he had a dream to build something incredible for the Kingdom.
• People thought John the Baptist was crazy when he preached a radical message.
• People thought the woman who poured out perfume on Jesus’ feet was crazy…and yet He honored her in front of all of them.
• People thought the Apostles were crazy in Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit showed up!
• People thought Paul was crazy for planting churches and taking the Gospel to the Gentiles!

Crazy people…insane…but ALL of them were used by God to do GREAT THINGS because they refused to be “normal” when He called them to be something so much more.

I don’t want to be the guy who never attempts anything great and plays if safe…

“Taking up my cross” SCREAMS, “be willing to give up everything…including YOUR REPUTATION!”

The world needs more leaders who will die to the idea of being crazy and live in complete obedience…those are the people who make the difference.

the jesus way

I don't know where I heard this quote but I saw it today going through some old notes.

"Is my Gospel proclamation better than my Gospel application?"

We have become more and more effective at communicating Jesus but if we are not intentional it is so easy to only talk about Jesus and somehow forget to live the way of Jesus.

How are you going to live the way of Jesus today?

problem solving or creating

I love to think about the future and what church will look like. I can't wait to see what ways we will dream up to creatively share God's truth and love. That's all I could think about as I read the following article.

Solving a different problem

By Seth Godin

The telephone destroyed the telegraph.

Here's why people liked the telegraph: It was universal, inexpensive, asynchronous and it left a paper trail.

The telephone offered not one of these four attributes. It was far from universal, and if someone didn't have a phone, you couldn't call them. It was expensive, even before someone called you. It was synchronous--if you weren't home, no call got made. And of course, there was no paper trail.

If the telephone guys had set out to make something that did what the telegraph does, but better, they probably would have failed. Instead, they solved a different problem, in such an overwhelmingly useful way that they eliminated the feature set of the competition.

The list of examples is long (YouTube vs. television, web vs. newspapers, Nike vs. sneakers). Your turn.

new year's resolution

I hope you all had a great holiday season.  Since it’s the time of the year that many of us make New Year’s resolutions, I wanted to encourage you to consider reading through the Bible in 2009.

If you need a place to get started, you can follow the reading plan on YouVersion. It’s extremely convenient since you can read the Bible from your computer or a web-enabled phone.

God has great things in store for us in 2009!

mark batterson and purple cows

I have posted below an entry from Mark Batterson's blog where he talks about the greatest message deserving the greatest effort. Some day when I grow up maybe I can be as smart as him.

One of my favorite marketing books is Purple Cow by Seth Godin. The book revolves around this metaphor: if you've seen one brown cow you've seen them all. But a purple cow, now that would catch your attention. One statement in the book has profound implications: "If you aren't remarkable you're invisible."

Every church needs to paint itself purple. I'm not talking about gimmicks. I'm not talking about being different for difference sake. I'm talking about making such a remarkable difference in our communities that we are unignorable.

I have a couple core convictions:

1) the good news ought to make the news. Brown churches sit on the sideline and invite the community to come to them. Purple churches are always going and compelling. They are making such a big difference that they become a highly visible part of their community. And people drive by the brown churches--the churches that are invisible--to go to the purple church.

2) The greatest message deserves the greatest marketing. I know that marketing is a dirty word in some church circles, but does it get anybody else riled up that Madison Avenue is far better at pedaling its worthless wares than the church is at preaching the good news? I have a problem with that. We need sanctified competitive streaks.

3) The church ought to be the most creative place on the planet. Too many churches look too much alike. We need lots of different kinds of churches because there are lots of different kinds of people. Every church has a unique churchprint and ought to be a unique expression of the gospel in their kingdom niche.

So how do we paint ourselves purple? For starters, dare to be different. You might offend some Pharisees, but that isn't who you're trying to reach. Secondly, disrupt the routine. I think it starts with your personal routine. Change of pace + change of place = change of perspective. You need to get out of your routine so you can have some purple thoughts.

As a leader, you need to cause confusion. Jesus didn't do orientations. He did disorientations. You need to find new ways of saying old things (see the Parables). You need to find new wineskins. You need to sing a new song. Neurological studies have found that familiarity stimulates the left-brain. Novelty stimulates the right-brain. We need some Spirit-inspired, right-brained ideas that capture the imagination of the church and the world.

religion and burger king

I have to admit I love Burger King. I know there are a lot of haters out there that will disagree with me but they do have the best fries!

I think we spend way too much time and energy treating church and "religion" like a trip to Burger King. I ran across this video and it cracked me up big time. Check it out and let me know what you think.

passion

Passion - a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything.

Do you have something that your passionate about? I see people who are passionate about NASCAR, soccer, golf, music, arts & crafts, and underwater basket weaving. Okay maybe not the last one. What I want you to do today is think about the things that you're passionate about - maybe even make a list.

Now, how can you begin to use those things to communicate God's love. We tend to separate our lives into "church life" and "my life" and we don't see how they co-exist.

I have recently seen people be intentional about using scrap-booking (whatever that is) and soccer to positively impact people's lives.

What do you like to do? How can you start to allow God to use your passion to impact people's lives?