I read blogs.  A lot of blogs.  I learn a lot from them.  There are a lot of people out there who are way smarter than I am and sometimes they give their time tested wisdom away on the Internet for free.  So I learn from as many of those people as I can.  But that is not enough.  I keep running into people who are looking for mentors.  I guess though that a good mentor would not need to advertise mentoring services.  But what I have found is that I still get good valuable encouragement and advice from people who are also looking for mentors.  And then I find myself helping them out.

I have gifts where I can be a mentor to many people.  And those people may have gifts that they can use to mentor me.  Its more like a Paul to Barnabas relationship thing, only sometimes you are Timothy.  So why not form groups of people who are interested in being mentored?  Spend some time getting to know each other and find a way to use community to mentor everyone in the group.  Its basically a small group with intention to build each other up.

This is just scratching the surface of one part of my online community idea.  If you are interested in helping put something together like this, get in touch with me.

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A lot of churches out there do small groups or life groups or cell groups….whatever you want to call them.  The Bible is very clear that we should be in community with each other.  I have been in small groups for a long time as both a leader and a participant.  Some groups have been really good and some have been really messy.  I have run into a common problem with small groups lately.  We are all busy people and it’s sometimes difficult to take time to go meet for small group on a regular schedule.  I was in one small group that met every other Friday.  On Thursday night or Friday morning, I would begin receiving emails about where we were meeting.  Often group would not happen because we could not get our schedules together.  I have also felt disconnected from a small group before because I did not live as close to the group as everyone else did.

But I have found another way to connect with people that I believe can take small groups to a whole new level.  You are reading my blog right now because you know me or you like the kind of stuff I share here.  If you have been a reader for a while, you have gotten to know me at least a little bit.  Some of you leave comments and take the next step of interacting with me.  I have made several friends because of blogs and Twitter.  Those relationships developed because of random connections or someone was looking for something and people find each other.

I truly believe that the Internet  can be fertile soil for small groups.  I believe that you can connect with people in deep and meaningful ways using technologies available to us.  Before your mind begins to run through your opinions, I want to say that the Internet is not able to replace proximity.  I can’t give you a hug or personally deliver homemade cookies to you through Twitter or Facebook.  But I can have a video conference and have a conversation with you over coffee.  We can see each other as we talk and interact without hiding behind words typed on a blog.  What is even better is that we can setup a video conference and invite multiple people to web cam in and join a real conversation.  You can go to small group online from anywhere that you have an Internet connection.  Connect from home.  Connect from a hotel.  Connect from Starbucks.  You can travel for work, go on vacation, or just be really busy with stuff at home and still connect with your small group.

<———————–Long Post Intermission – Get a drink or snack and come back. ————————->

I am envisioning something a lot bigger than just small groups though.  As I began investigating ways to connect people online, I found there to be a lot of potential for more.  I wrote a blog post a while back about having a problem finding a mentor in my life.  Well, I have been using the blogs of other leaders to glean an education from.  Essentially, I use what people share online to learn and develop myself in different areas of my life.  I am sort of mentoring myself.  The only problem with that is that there is no personal investment.  When John Maxwell writes a blog post, he doesn’t think about me specifically when he writes it.  I am taking in a lot of information, but the accountability and the challenge isn’t there.  But I have stumbled across something that I am calling group mentoring.  It is mentoring in groups where we invest in each other.  In the last couple of weeks, my friend Joseph and I who met on line have helped each other out with things.  He wrote a blog about needing help with what to read in the Bible.  I was able to make some suggestions on where to start and how to mix it up.  Because I know him, I had insight to what would be good for him.  Just yesterday I wrote a blog about struggling with goal setting and prioritizing and he was able to drop some valuable advice back at me.  One day, I am mentoring Joseph, and the next day, he is mentoring me.  Imagine what help and encouragement could be received in a group of 7 people.

I also have a great passion to help leaders to lead.  More specifically, I want to show people who don’t think that they are leaders how they really are leaders.  I think that there are a lot of people out there who are leading and don’t know it.  They need help and encouragement from other leaders who have been there.  There is a lot of valuable and free help available to us, but we are either too busy to look for it, or we just don’t know where to look.  I am willing to bet that there are great blogs that you follow that I don’t even know about because I haven’t come across them yet.

What I am envisioning is a place online free and available to anyone.  A place where we can take advantage of the power of community to connect people with purpose and develop leaders.  If you are looking for a group of people similar to you, check it out.  If you want to start a new unique group and are looking for others to join, check it out.  Need a mentor or want to share your life experience with others, check it out.  Have you found yourself in a leadership position and need some tips, check it out.

I want to create a community of resources for the busy, the lonely, and the overwhelmed.  I need a team of people to help me accomplish this.  If you feel like this is something that you want to help build the foundation for, you can get in touch with me through comments here on this blog.  You can also find me on Twitter @churchpunk.  I want to setup an online meeting with those interested to discuss further what this could be and how you can play a part.

Thanks for reading my long post if you made it this far.  I hope we’ll be in touch soon.

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I am in a period where I am trying to reset my priorities and set some goals.  I find it difficult because it seems that I have too many priorities.  It is familiar territory for me to try to do too much.  It becomes difficult to manage and I am tired of believing the lie that says it will get better with time.  The truth is that it will not get better unless I do something about it.

So I am brainstorming today and trying to make some tough decisions about how I spend my time.  Even though I know that I need to say NO more often, I still find it hard to do.  But I know if I allow myself to get so spread out, I will only accomplish average goals.  I want to do something great and accomplish some Big Hairy Audacious Goals.  That requires more focus and hard work.  If I am too busy doing other things then I will never get there.

So how do you set your goals and prioritize how you spend your time?

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1You’re blessed when you stay on course, walking steadily on the road revealed by God.

2 You’re blessed when you follow his directions,
doing your best to find him.

3 That’s right—you don’t go off on your own;
you walk straight along the road he set.

4 You, God, prescribed the right way to live;
now you expect us to live it.

5 Oh, that my steps might be steady,
keeping to the course you set;

6 Then I’d never have any regrets
in comparing my life with your counsel.

7 I thank you for speaking straight from your heart;
I learn the pattern of your righteous ways.

8 I’m going to do what you tell me to do;
don’t ever walk off and leave me.

9 How can a young person live a clean life?
By carefully reading the map of your Word.

10 I’m single-minded in pursuit of you;
don’t let me miss the road signs you’ve posted.

11 I’ve banked your promises in the vault of my heart
so I won’t sin myself bankrupt.

12 Be blessed, God;
train me in your ways of wise living.

13 I’ll transfer to my lips
all the counsel that comes from your mouth;

14 I delight far more in what you tell me about living
than in gathering a pile of riches.

15 I ponder every morsel of wisdom from you,
I attentively watch how you’ve done it.

16 I relish everything you’ve told me of life,
I won’t forget a word of it.

Verse 10 grabbed my attention this morning.  I am doing my best to walk the path.  Right now I find more struggle because of all of the uncertainty in my life.  I don’t know exactly where I am going.  I don’t know how to get there.  Some days, I am not even sure what I should be doing.  I am looking for the road signs to give me direction.  To show me the way.  I know because of this scripture that I am blessed for staying the course.  I know that God has prescribed the right way.  And I pray that my steps will be steady

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My notes from Jeff Manion’s talk – The Land Between

You spend 4 years of college getting to say what you are studying and what you plan on becoming.

Then graduation comes and you reach the land between because you don’t land a job that has anything to do with what you have been doing for the last 4 years.

Many of us find ourselves in the land beetween. It is discouragement or depression. Prayer isn’t working and you hope it ends soon.

You are in the Sinai Desert.

Exodus 3 –  I will take them out of Egypt into the land of promise.  We are going from HERE to THERE.

HERE – They were a slave people in a fertile land.

THERE – The promised land flowed with milk in honey. Fertile

They are in the Land between in the desert.

God provided food substance called manna for them to eat while they were in the desert.

Numbers 11:4 -6 Read with a whiny voice.

The land between is fertile soil for complaints.

They weren’t complaining about their condition. They were complaining against God.

How is God gonna meet his servant Moses?

Numbers 11:11-14 Moses’ prayer – I can’t carry this anymore. It is too heavy for me.

The land between is fertile ground for meltdown. Moses says, “ Just kill me now.”

Everybody who serves in a leadership position in any capacity understands the emotion of not being able to carry it anymore. When you reach the end of your ability to handle.

V16-17 God makes arrangements so that Moses doesn’t have to carry the burden by himself.

The land between is fertile ground for God’s provision.

Sometimes God provides employment or better employment. Or sometimes contentment to do without other things. Pulling you out of depression or daily strength to endure the depression. God loves to provide.

Elijah also had a meltdown. He asks to die and lays down and falls asleep. An angel wakes him and he sees food. He is expecting to get a lecture and God makes him lunch.

V18-20 God gives them meat…..so much meat that you will be sick of it. Be careful what you ask for.

11:23a Is the Lord’s arm too short? It is fertile ground for God’s discipline.

Discipline is pain for rescue.

WE are naive to think that we are immune to God’s corrective hand.

What do we do with this.

The land between is fertile ground for transformational growth.

Time does not heal all things.

When you travel through the land between, your heart is in danger

The wilderness is best place for transformational growth, but also the best place where faith goes to die.

Complaint resists eviction from your heart.

Invite trust into your heart to keep complaint out. No room for complaint. Trust evicts complaint.

The space in your life you most resent is the place where God wants to plant and produce.

My Thoughts

I am most definitely in the land between right now in many aspects of my life.  The big obvious is my career.  Being unemployed, I am between jobs and maybe even careers.  I know what THERE looks like and what I want that to be.  But it is a difficult time trying to get there.  I live with preschoolers.  I am looking forward to a time when they are more mature so that I can do more things with them that I like to do.  I am trying to lose weight and lately I have been losing that battle.  If I can approach even these parts of my life with the perspective of what Jeff Manion showed me, it will help me to respond much better to my individual situations.

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As I pondered over how these friendships developed enough that we made an effort to meetup, I began to wonder how many people read my blog and follow me on Twitter that I have not made a connection with.  Okay, so a lot of you I knew in person before I started the blog.  Dad, I know you don’t Twitter or have a blog, but I think that you could have a great blog.

For those of you that have an online presence on a blog or Twitter, I want to get to know you better.  I want to know more about the lurking community here.  So here is your opportunity to pimp yourself and your online presence.  Leave a comment with your blog and/or Twitter account and tell us why you like to read my blog.  If you don’t have a blog or Twitter account, then just share why you like to read my blog.  The last part is to boost my ego a little.

I hope to meet some new people, and maybe one day we’ll have the chance to meet in person if we haven’t already.

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Last weekend I was in Nashville, so I decided to go visit Crosspoint.tv for church on Sunday.  I picked the Bellevue campus because I had made some on line connections with people in that area of town.  This way I would get to visit the church and meet some of my new friends.

I got there a little early because I gave myself extra time to get lost driving over from Murfreesboro.  The kids and I hung out in the coffee bar area for a while.  The people that we ran into were very nice and welcoming.  I was able to meet up with some friends from Twitter before hand and took my kids back into Kids World to get them all checked into their classes.  They were super nice back there showing me how to get them all signed in and helped me to find the classrooms for my kids.  KC didn’t want to go at first, but the volunteers in her room went right to work making her feel comfortable so that I could go to the service.  Ephriam went right into his room and the teachers there were very receptive to his issues with with speech and potty training.  I felt that my kids were in good hands and they were comfortable enough to let me go to church.

We went into service and collected our 3D glasses for the special effects of this series.  All of the videos besides the preaching would be in 3D.  It was pretty cool.  The worship band then started and played several songs.  Now Bellevue is a satellite campus of Crosspoint, so the sermon is projected on the screens from the live service at the Nashville campus.  Each campus has their own worship team which is great.  I have done the church on line thing and I still prefer worship to be live as opposed to on the screen.  The worship band was great.  Nashville has a lot of talented musicians and they did not disappoint.

Pete Wilson is the Senior Pastor for Crosspoint.  He kicked off their series called DNA where they will be sharing and unpacking what the vision for Crosspoint is.  The Crosspoint vision is,

“To continue to grow as a community of believers radically devoted to Christ, irrevocably committed to one another, and relentlessly dedicated to reaching those outside God’s family with the Gospel of Christ.”

This week he covered the portion about being Radically devoted to Christ.  He asked, “What does it mean to be radically devoted to Christ?”  You know that it is great to have a cool sounding vision for your church, but if it is only words on paper then it means nothing if nobody lives out the vision.  Pete said, “The crisis is that people come to church and don’t change.”  It is so easy to play church on Sunday and do what you want the rest of the week.  But Pete sees that the church should be an active living community that is radically devoted to Christ and to each other 7 days a week.  You must commit to believe whatever Jesus says, and you must commit to obey whatever you have heard.  Luke 6:49 says, “But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation.”  We are called to take ACTION on the Gospel, not just reflect on it.

I was excited to be there last week to hear a vision talk.  The whole series will really open my eyes to what Crosspoint is really about.  In my experience with the Crosspoint community on line and now in person, I can say that so far they are living up to this vision.  I have seen them live it out especially in the flood crisis back in the spring.  I felt privileged to worship with this community last week and hope to make future visits when I am in the Nashville area.

Crosspoint, keep doing what you are doing.  Looking forward to seeing the great things that God will do through you.

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