Hip Hop artist Lecrae has a great new song out with the proceeds going to the relief efforts in Haiti.  You can pick it up in the iTunes store.

Great song. Great cause.

Until it was first achieved in 1954 by Roger Bannister it was commonly believed that the human body was simply incapable of running a mile in less than four minutes.  Since then though, the feat has since been accomplished by many male athletes, and it has now become a standard of all professional distance runners to strive towards.

Once runners knew it could be accomplished, and were able to look at exactly how Bannister had trained and learn from his techniques many others were able to accomplish it too.  In fact in the years since the record was first broken, the many runners who have broken the record have also managed to shave another 17 seconds off of Bannister’s original time of 3′59.4″

I believe that one of the important roles the local Church plays is to allow people to see others accomplish things that they’ve believed to be impossible. Many in my generation have grown-up without having a successful marriage to look at and emulate, the church though offers incredible examples of people who’ve done it; people they can look to and learn from.  There are men who grew-up without a father in their home, but in the church they can look to the example of some great and successful fathers.  There are people who have been victims of abuse and believe they’ll never recover, but in the church they can see those who’ve overcome it…

In many ways I believe the church is called to the standard-bearer for the culture at large.  The place people can look to and see many of the things that are “impossible” are possible with God.

Thoughts?

Due to the historic amount of snow our area has received this weekend we’ve been forced to once again cancel weekend services at Community Church.

Thankfully, due to technology (and a few Jeep Wranglers) we were able to get this Sunday’s message recorded and posted online.  In our Online Campus you’re also able to take notes and give online, so even though we can’t be together as a church family today we can still worship together in this way.

Take a few moments to check-it-out.

I read about this the other day and thought it was a pretty out-of-the-box idea.  The team at Mosaic, a church in in Los Angeles led by Erwin McManus, decided to enter a contest Doritos‘ was holding to design an ad that might be shown in the Super Bowl.  … and they’re now one of 6 finalists in Doritos’ Crash the Superbowl contest for their commercial “Casket”.

I love that they put themselves out there and went for it on this.  Hopefully we’ll be seeing it Sunday night.

What do you think?  Is it cool that a church would do something like this?

In case you missed it: Yesterday morning Pastor Charlie Whitlow held his first press conference as Lead Pastor of Community Church to take-on some of the questions and allegations he was facing.

Here’s the video:

I read an blog post this week, by Penelope Trunk, that has got me thinking.  The post, Being an expert takes time, not talent, sites a Harvard Business Review article from 2007 which takes-on our commonly-held ideas and explains how expertise is often not what we think it is.

“…there is no correlation between IQ and expert performance in fields such as chess, music, sports, and medicine. The only innate differences that turn out to be significant—and they matter primarily in sports—are height and body size.” So what factor does correlate with success? One thing emerges very clearly is that successful performers “had practiced intensively, had studied with devoted teachers, and had been supported enthusiastically by their families throughout their developing years.”

Today the standard for being an international success at anything is so high that the authors say you need to spend at least ten years working in a very focused, everyday way on the thing you want to be great at.

I have some things I want to be an expert at; I hope you do too.  I have a few other things that I’d like to be really good at, if not an expert.  I’ve started asking myself: “What am I going to do today to become an expert?”

Maybe its not revolutionary thinking, but it’s silly for us to assume that we can be great, or even good, at something we’re unwilling to invest a large amount of time into.

Someone might find this insight demotivating; You mean I have to work HARD and do it EVERY day to be an expert? To me though, the insight is encouraging; even the most gifted have to work LONG and HARD to become experts… and it’s time and dedication that often trump inclination in becoming an expert.

What are you intentionally investing a lot of time into?

I’ll be honest: I’m really excited about LOST returning tonight.

We’re planning to watch tonight after our LifeGroup meeting.

I’m very intrigued by some of the imagery they’ve chosen to use in promoting this season.  The picture above- obviously inspired by Da Vinci’s “Last Supper.“  And also this TV spot they were running at the end of last year, set to the tune of “Amazing Grace.”

Should be an interesting season and finale to the show.

I just hope it doesn’t end with Hurley waking-up from a dream.

The book of Nehemiah may be my favorite in the Old Testament; it tells such a great story.  I was reading though the book again last week and was struck again by how Nehemiah was just minding his own business and enjoying a life of comfort until some news from a far-off place completely disrupted everything to the point that he was no longer content to stay where he was; he could not ignore it.  He could not simply pray about it.  Nehemiah was disrupted to the point that he had to act.

So often our prayers are prayers for comfort, for protection, for God to give us safety… and these are good prayers, however sometimes the best thing for us is not for us to be comfortable, protected and safe, but for our lives to be disrupted to the point that we’re no longer content with the status quo.  Sometimes a Holy Disruption is exactly what we need to wake us up to what God has for us.

This morning is a monumental one for us at Community Church.  For the past 27+ years we’ve had one Senior Pastor; our Founding Pastor, Pastor Arlie Whitlow.  By this afternoon, though, we’ll have a new Senior Pastor; Pastor Charlie Whitlow.

This is an exciting Sunday for us because this is not one of those situations where one Pastor gets voted-out or pushed-out, or a situation where some new guy from the outside gets brought in… Thankfully today we’re cerebrating something great that God is doing in our church.

God has done some awesome things in Chapter 1 of our church’s history.  I can only imagine all the amazing things He’ll be doing in Chapter 2.  Exciting days are ahead.

I’ve recently been in a few different conversations, with different people, where a lack of resources was lamented as a reason they were not able to do all the creative things they wanted to.

Those cool moving lights cost money.  Hiring a good designer isn’t cheap.  Building a new set every few weeks is a big undertaking.  Too often though, we allow our lack of resources to be an excuse for not doing something great.

Its true that, if money where no object, it would be pretty easy to make your Christmas Eve service look like a U2 concert… while that might be impressive, it wouldn’t really be all that creative; you just copied what someone else had already done.  Pulling-off a similar experience on a $1000 budget, not THAT would take some creativity.

Lack is the currency of creativity.

I’ve been pushing myself lately to not see the lack of resources as inhibiting my creativity, but to see it as an opportunity to be even more creative.  Trying to make due with little will cause you to try things you would have never tried, to do things in a way you’ve never done them, and to rethink everything… in the process creativity is often produced.