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This fall I will be starting seminary through Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
When Jesus is subtracted from the good things that you want to pursue, the good things are meaningless. When good things are added to the cross, the hope that is offered by the cross is robbed by the good that is added.
Simon Sinek did a small session during Catalyst 2012 as he explored the idea what it means to use inspiration to lead people. As leaders you can either manipulate people into following you, buying your product, or attending your event or you can inspire people. Manipulation works; eventually, if you price a product low enough people will use it because it's cheap. But manipulation does not breed loyalty or trust. What if instead of manipulation we used inspiration? Simon gave a similar talk at TED that I highly recommend watching to understand what he talked about.
As leaders, we need to get past waiting to be discovered and desire for God to develop us.
Any organization has two requirements for success. One requirement is objective and easily measurable, the other is messy, emotional, and difficult to measure.
Information and insight alone do not a leader make.
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For the last couple of years, I have had the opportunity to head to Atlanta, Georgia for the Catalyst Conference to learn from some of the best teachers, pastors, and communicators in the world of leadership. Each year I have been overwhelmed with the the things that I have learned and have enjoyed sharing some of the notes from the sessions. During the conference this post will serve as a table of contents for the notes that I take so check back often to see what notes I have for you to read.
Conference Notes
We experience hurts feelings, divorce, and more. Families are made up of sinful people and because of that our families often hurt each other. As we continued our series, this week we focused on specifically being a Christian should influence our relationship with our siblings.
One of the most effective ways to communicate with teenagers is through text messages. Most of our teenagers have cell phones and are constantly on them sending and receiving text messages.
[tentblogger-vimeo 13399691] Over the past year I have found myself more and more interested in creativity and how being an artist influences my ministry whether it be through design, preaching, or simply the way I approach a problem. As I've explored what some people might call being a "creative" type, I've spent some time on an incredible website called 99U. If you are interested in idea generation, managing creative people, or executing ideas this website is invaluable. I recently watched this video which I loved because I so often find myself jumping from idea to idea, which Scott Belsky speaks against in this clip.
As we continued our series, this week we focused on the simple command that every parent loves, "Honor your father and your mother."
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If you feel like you're family is crazy, you'd be happy to know that you are in good company. The Bible is full of people that have family situations that would put most of ours to shame.
Because we all have crazy families, full of sinful people, it often feels like we are just trying to survive. This series is about what the Bible has to say about how we interact with our families.