In “Steering Through Chaos”, Pastor Scott Wilson explains in a deep but simple way how to handle situations that are bound to happen when we are in leadership. It is sad that so many pastors and leaders give up the place where God has placed them because of burnout and lack of direction. It happened to me, after several years of chaos, one of the reasons I left Puerto Rico was because I was tired, plain and simple. I needed to be refreshed, refocus and be fed. I truly believe that it is possible to be a minister and live refreshed, successful lives, quitting shouldn’t be our option.

Among other things, Pastor Scott explains the importance of focusing on our vision and how we, as leaders, shouldn’t avoid transitions but be the ones creating them at the same time that we recognize opportunities and avoid obstacles. These and other awesome points are practically described and further examined through profiles from actual scenarios in thriving churches.

If you are a leader or involved in any kind of ministry, I highly recommend you get this book. Even if you were a leader and experienced the chaos and barely made it alive, get this book and be refreshed with a new outlook and the possibility of going at it again, not only surviving but celebrating every step of the way.

Click here to get the book on Amazon!

So, be happy, smile and use your life to make others happy, it will come back to you when you least expect it.

In other news, I had an awesome night tonight.

Click here if you can’t see the video!

Sometimes I would like to leave everything behind. Move to a third world country and just spend my life serving others. Life is complicated, so many ups and downs and the need to perform can bring so much stress. My mind is tired, when I think I know what I want I realize that I don’t really know what I want. What if what I feel is just a selfish desire of achieving greatness? What if it isn’t God’s will? What if, what if, what if?

Is it wrong that I want to be famous? Is it wrong that I want to have lots of money, even if the reason for this is not to use it on me but to pour it into other people’s lives? I am tired. I’m gonna keep fighting but I definitely need to know if the direction I’m heading is the right one. I guess I will know once I get there and if it wasn’t at least I was moving. The struggles in my life make it so difficult to see myself as a conqueror some times, but I have to keep reminding myself, it could be much worse.

Well, I felt the need to vent a little, I definitely need to invest some time in others, I am coming to the realization that this fight inside of me can be because everything I’m doing at the moment has to do with me, I’m going to school, I am working, I am thinking about my future, I’m spending too much time on my own struggles but basically none of my time is being invested in the lives of others, I need to fix that.

What would you recommend to live a fuller life? A life with more meaning and satisfaction

I know, I know, some of them are more into red than fuchsia, but still, it’s a little crazy for me that through 6 different seasons that hair color has prevailed. I mean, it’s not a totally normal hair color like, black, brown or blonde. But all that red makes me wonder… Why?

• Does it have something to do with the producers decisions?
• Is there a mastermind behind all this hair dye?
• Is this a result of some frivolous plan to make everyone in the universe want to have their hair this color?
• Is this part of the marketing put in place for Coca-Cola? Red cups, red hair?

I don’t know I may be getting carried away but who knows, maybe one day one of them will break the secret code and open up to the public and spill the beans. Until that moment we will have to live knowing that as long as Idol lives there is a high chance of seeing more ladies with this unusually strong hair color. Anyway, the way I see it, Idol may not have too many years left, X-Factor will take over, in my opinion. So we may know sooner rather than later.

WHY?

The more I listen to this week’s performances the more I realize that some of these people are really good singers that had a below average night. It’s not surprising on Idol for the first week to be semi-disastrous. Some contestants that have barely made it through the top 24, went through and in one case ended in the top 6, Anoop Desai for example, who had to be brought back by the judges as a wildcard.

Yesterday was the first elimination and I’m not entirely happy about how it turned out, I think there were people that deserved to go home more than who did, at least on the guys side. But , this is American Idol, and at the end of the day, the voters decide, unless the producers shovel someone down our throats and we fall for it.

If the judges have a wildcard round this season, which I haven’t heard about yet and haven’t seen it on the Idol calendar I wouldn’t be surprised if they bring Tyler Grady, but it’s very early to tell since not a lot of them have been eliminated yet. I like that guy, yeah I know, his chin is humongous and distracting at times, but I think he has a cool voice and I like how he performs, give him a bottle of Jack, throw him in a sewer for an hour and he can be the male Ke$ha.

At this point in the competition, with one week down, my favorites are the following.

Do you have any favorites yet? Sound off in the comments!

Oh well, another night of underwhelming performances. Pretty much no one did anything that made me root for them. I feel like nothing has changed, the hollywood performances and auditions were more memorable than what they did tonight. I will still be voting for Tyler Grady whenever I get the chance until someone else wins me over. Here are my picks.

The Best
Lee Dewyze - He is the only one that made me change my opinion about him. I think he did really well; even though his style is not my favorite.
Tyler Grady – He’s just one of my favorites, I enjoy his style and his performance.
Casey James - Very cool voice, I like him. Hoping that Kara will drop the crap about him being hot. It’s too much.
Andrew Garcia – He was good tonight but I agree with Simon, it wasn’t a risk. He’s still one of the best.

The Middle
Aaron Kelly – Good voice, no star power whatsoever.
Todrick Hall – He seems to be playing the game, he needs to control it a little because the arrangement of his song was a bit too much.
Michael Lynche – He can sing but his performance didn’t do anything for me.
Alex Lambert – As the judges say, I really like his tone too. He just needs a lil’ something.
Joe Muñoz - He was a lot better than the Puerto Rican guy from last season, I loved his song choice.
Jermaine Sellers – This guy has a big voice, I liked him. Wasn’t expecting to but I did.

The Worst
John Park –  I think he has a good voice but this was painful.
Tim Urban – The first one to be murdered by Simon. Ouch.

Overall I think the show got better in the second half, some performances were just painful. The thing here is that I don’t think many of them are terribly bad, they just had awful performances. I can see potential in most of them but they need to bring their best, theres more than 20 million people watching, they need to step it up!

Who were your favorites tonight? Who should go home?

Today was the first night we could actually watch all the girls sing, some of them were at a disadvantage, because this was the first time we were seeing them, but it helped in making it a very underwhelming night. Also, the microphones wer sounding messed up. So, here is how it should turn out this week in my opinion.

The Best:
Lilly Scott -  Like her style and her jazzy voice.
Didi Benami – I really liked her tonight, maybe it’s because I like that song. But she was good.
Siobhan Magnus – My favorite. Kickass name, powerful voice, quirky persona and a blowtorch. I like her a lot.
Crystal Bowersox – She could go all the way if she keeps it up, she’s different, loved that she played the harmonica. Her teeth apparently were whitened, that’s a plus.

The Middle:
Katelyn Epperly – She was alright but her clothes and lipstick were just a bad choice.
Paige Miles - I think this girl has a nice voice but she was the prime victim of the horrible mic.
Janelle Wheeler – Meh. Kinda flat and weak. I think there could be something there but I don’t see it yet.
Katie Stevens – The only good thing is that she brought memories of when Adam Lambert brought the house down with this song. She doesn’t sound bad, but looks old fashioned.

The Worst:
Haeley Vaughn – I just don’t like her, I believe she needs to learn to control herself, especially her smile, too overpowering.
Ashley Rodriguez - Another victim of the audio, plus she is no Leona Lewis. Wanted to love her but couldn’t.
Michelle Delamor - The judges liked her, for me she wasn’t anything special. Pretty but that’s it.
Lacey Brown – She’s this season’s staple Fuschia girl. I wanted her to do great but almost fell asleep during her performance.

I think anyone in my middle or worst lists can go home and not be missed too much.

Really looking forward to the guys tomorrow, without having them performed my favorites are Tyler Grady, Andrew Garcia and Casey James, let’s see if anything changes.

Who were your favorites tonight? Who should go home?