Our good friend Jeremy Cowart has an amazing cause that we want to let you know about. It’s called Help Portrait.

Help Portrait is a brilliant idea that is bringing together a movement of photographers that seeks to give back to their community.

On December 12, photographers from around the world will be grabbing their cameras, finding people in need, and taking their pictures. Then when the prints are ready, they deliver them to the folks that they took the pics of.

If you want to be a part of Help Portrait click here and check out this great video.

Tonight Jud and I (and about 500 of our closest friends) talked about true accountability in the Mancave. We talked about how we “game” the system and and know all the “right” answers to keep up our charade of doing OK.

I shared a nugget that a mentor shared with me a few weeks ago. It is simply this:

“High powered and effective leaders have the ability to out run their protection.”

When I heard this I got rocked. It’s pure truth. I think about this all the time now. It’s a great warning for all of us.

So what are some ways you/we out run our protection?

Posted by Mike Foster:

I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of Phil Wickham’s new album “Heaven and Earth.” It is sweetness!

I’m wearing it out on my Ipod.

Phil Wickham is doing the official album release at Generate on Wednesday November 18 at 6pm and 7:30pm.

Generate is a passionate weekly gathering in Southern CA for thousands of young adults.

If you’re not in the Southern California area NO PROBLEMO! On Thursday their will be an online event broadcast of Wednesday night at Generate’s Facebook Campus.

For all the details go here now!

Posted by Mike Foster:

So often my life is a “There I Fixed It” life. Instead of taking healthy, productive, and disciplined steps to an integrity filled life, I take shortcuts.

And then my life and leadership becomes an epic kludge of duct tape, chewing gum, and wire. The parts that are broken stay broken. My life is a massive jury rig. Their might be short term relief, but never long term healing.

Can you relate?

(Btw, who do you think did this girls hair? A dad or a mom?)

I was at Generate on Wednesday night and they showed this video of Vince and Ashley getting engaged. I just thought it rocked seeing two wonderful people planning on spending their lives together.

It made me remember how much I love my wife.

Imagine I ran into you at the store. We chat. Catch up on life. You ask me to join your family for dinner this weekend.

My response: “I don’t want to because you are a self absorbed jerk and your couches smell like cat urine. Also, those kids of yours are spoiled brats who annoy me. But thanks for the invite.”

Apparently this would be my answer if I was part of the Radical Honesty movement.

What is radical honesty? Radical Honesty is an actual movement that means you tell the people in your life what you’ve done or plan to do, what you think, and what you feel. It’s the kind of authentic sharing that creates the possibility of love and intimacy.

You have to say the truth. 100% honesty. Is this the key to healthy and authentic relationships?

What do you think? Great idea or plain stupid?

The Online Mancave will take place at 9amPST AND 6pmPST on Tuesday Novemeber 10.

And for those that were wondering, “The Mancave” is named after Jud’s garage where they first began the discussion.  This forum is open to all.

Video, Live Group Chat, Private Chat, all utilizing new Facebook technology.

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Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite will be sharing some leadership manswers Tuesdays at 9am and 6pm PST. We will be talking about sex, accountability, marriage, porn, second chances, and other hot topics. Only two more Mancave sessions left.

All of us are saddened by the tragic events that happened at Fort Hood yesterday. So many of our friends and family serve faithfully in the military and they are true heroes! Here is a list of the men and women who lost their lives yesterday.

We’ve been praying for the victims, the families, and all those who have been touched by this tragedgy.

If you would like to join us in adding your thoughts or prayers, we invite you to do that in the comments below.

We live in a culture obsessed with success.

A CEO of a Fortune 500 company pulled into a service station to get gas. He went inside to pay and when he came out he noticed his wife engaged in a deep discussion with the service attendant. It turned out that she knew him. It fact back in high school before she met her eventual husband, she used to date him. The CEO got in the car and drove off and said, “I bet I know what you were thinking back there. I bet you were thinking you’re glad you married a Fortune 500 CEO and not a service attendant.” “No,” she said, “I was thinking if I’d married him, He’d be a fortune 500 CEO and you’d be a service attendant.” There are lots of opinions on how to be successful.

I don’t know about you … but I don’t know where I’d be without my wife.

Various people in the conversation share their reflections on that conversation below:

Kathy Khang writes:

The conversation didn’t begin until our moderator, Nikki Toyama-Szeto, introduced the individuals at our virtual table and then lead us in prayer. The very act of praying and acknowledging our common need for and desire to seek after God, and hearing Nikki’s voice invite us to the conversation and into God’s presence, reminded me that leadership does not always look, sound or feel the way or come from the places we expect it to. Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite did not expect our voices, our concerns or our leadership when this started with a Facebook status and blog post, but now here we were on a conference call. What I heard were the voices of leaders all committing to begin a conversation that took energy, passion and a common agenda of seeking to start the process of reconciliation. For me, Eugene Cho and Soong-Chan Rah, the conversation is not a new one. But before I could even begin to answer questions about next steps and reconciliation and share even more about our concerns I knew I needed to hear something from both Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite. I needed to hear an apology with no if, ands or buts. I heard what I believe many of us wanted and hoped to hear: “We’re sorry. We didn’t know. We want to learn. How do we do that?” And then Mike and Jud listened. We start right there, and we hope to continue.

————-
Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite write:

We started a positive conversation with members of the Christian Asian-American community today who have been part of the blog discussion about Deadly Viper and Asian culture. We’ve waited to comment on the situation until now not because we weren’t listening, but because we hoped for a better understanding and for a conversation. Much can be misconstrued in a blog post. We are learning a lot. For one, we deeply offended some members of the Asian-American community who feel like we hijacked their culture for our purposes. We sincerely apologize for this and want to take steps to listen and respond to concerns. We will be removing a video and some content immediately and we’ll talk with our Asian friends to make sure our community embraces all peoples. We are on a learning journey here. Please have grace with us. This was never done intentionally or with any malicious forethought. We each have many Asian friends, some of whom have been part of the Deadly Viper community. We’ve also made some new friends who have shown us kindness. We desire to honor Asian culture and those friendships. We prefer to have these conversations in ways that have more potential to generate light than heat. In that regard, we’ll continue to have conversations about this topic offline, continue to learn and continue to grow.

—————
Soong-Chan Rah writes:

This afternoon I was part of a conversation with the authors of Deadly Viper (and Chris Huertz) and a number of Asian-American leaders. I am thankful that we were able to engage in a direct conversation over what has become a highly charged issue.

I am thankful for the authors’ genuine remorse for the ways that many in the Body of Christ were wounded. The telephone conversation should pave the way for further dialogue and ways to remedy what has been a source of great pain to many, but specifically to the Asian-American community.

I know that the authors have already taken steps by removing offensive material. This action was taken with great sincerity and with a desire to move the process forward. I believe we have taken a very significant step in dealing with a serious issue and believe in the sincerity of the authors to move further along the process of understanding and reconciliation. I ask that they continue along that journey, as difficult as that path might be.

On a very central level, we are brothers and sisters in Christ seeking to understand each other. There are many potential places of misunderstanding in the Body of Christ, but we are united by one Savior and we are part of one Church. Thanks to our brothers who were willing to hear the pain borne by others. Thanks for your commitment to continue on this journey.