Today I am changing the name of this blog to Umbrella of Grace, because today I need you to lend me that umbrella and have it cover this post.
First off you have to understand that I am not married, and for that matter am very single (dangit) and so I do not claim to have any of this figured out. You will see why this is important in a minute. Mainly I just like to ask questions, prime the pump a little bit, and then stoke the fire.

Let me muse with you a little bit here…Twitter is powerful, there are some really cool people that I have met, that you have met, and that we will continue to meet. I mean pretty much everyone that is reading this now has come to find out about this blog through twitter. You literally can have friends in every state and even out of the country.

There are some downsides of twitter. One of the biggest is spam. Porn spam, Phishing spams, and even tuna spam (that stuff is nasty tasting) have all hit us at one time or another through DM’s and followers. This is an obvious flaw of twitter, but there is also another thing that I find interesting/concerning about twitter: Inappropriate Relationships.

This is not coming from personal experience, more through observation. I can see twitter being used as a new tool of relationships that move to far. Maybe it is through DM’s or how others are perceiving these relationships on twitter. This seems to be a big gray area and I have not heard a lot of people talk about it. You do hear the discussion about the dangers of inappropriate emails or even facebook messages, but twitter seems to fly under the radar (pun intended).

For me I do not think twice about who I am talking with. But the more I started to think about this the more I realized that if I was married would my wife have a problem with me caring on a conversation through DM’s or through @ replies with a lady, and for that matter a lady that she does not know. I let the situation run even further and thought about how easy it would be for me to hide this. Knowing that I have my own account and have my own little world on twitter things could get out of control pretty quickly, and yet everything started out so innocent.

Couple of things that I would like to hear from you on:

Have you noticed this as an issue?

Is this a big deal?

What is the line of appropriate Twitter Relations?

*kyle

Please help make this post, Cheating with Twitter a whole lot better by adding some value to the conversation by leaving a comment. This is a post from: Thoughts about Nothing*com - A blog that claims to have nothing figured out.

Check out Tony’s post here

What would it mean for you to unplug from things that zappppp your energy?

*kyle

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But the very thing that I cannot live without, Noise, is slowing zapping all my energy out of me.

What is bringing you down right now?

*kyle

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In this context leadership conferences are failing. Do you become a better leader because you have memorized every word of John Maxwell or because you have put what you have learned into practice? Or how about this, are you an expert on blogging because you read blogs all day or because you have taken the time to blog and have grown an engaging blog community? I would say the second option is true in both circumstances. So why do we equate more with success? Its like trying to open up a grocery store next to a super wal-mart, you have no shot at winning or being successful. Or to bring it back to church world, its like starting a church plant a block away from another church, seems to be kind of working against each other.

Perry Noble announced that his church, New Springs, will be hosting a one day Leadership conference featuring these speakers:

• Steven Furtick
• Mark Driscoll
• Judah Smith
• Francis Chan
• Jud Wilhite
• and me!  (Perry Noble)

Now that is a serious lineup, and to be honest I would love to hear all of these guys speak. I would be there if I could. But when it really comes down to it all this is not the only conference or for that matter leadership conference going on in the next 5 months. If someone told me today that I could go to these conferences and they would pay for me (hint hint) I would definitely go. But in all reality that is not a reality and therefore I am left at home hoping to be a better leader and grow in my leadership. Where the failure seems to be happening is the flood of conferences and the disconnect between young leaders and current leaders.

I do feel like (and I have heard others say this as well) conferences are starting to become out of date. Look at Willow Creek, that place was a conference machine. Now they are down to about two conferences a year. This trend is starting to be noticed by others as well. Not a coincidence that online conferences are starting to appear as well.

With this announcement of another leadership conference that I will not be able to attend I am feeling left out and wondering what I am missing. You know, like when you don’t get invited to a party that everyone else is going to?  Difficult thing for me is that I feel like I am missing a chance to learn, grow, and network, unfortunately it will cost me close to $500 to do all of this, and that is just for one day.

Are Leadership Conferences failing?

*kyle

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Last night was the 82nd annual Academy Awards,
or The Oscars.
As millions sat at home and watched about two thousand (complete guess sounds good though) people filled the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. The separation was obvious not only from the screens that separated us but the movies and culture that we were watching. As I sat there watching these awards and trying to figure out how I had never seen 75% of the movies that were up for awards I could not help but think one of two things:

1) Either I am very uncultured
2) There is a huge disconnect between hollywood & America

The answer is probably both, but an industry that has only people to thank for taking them to where they are today has became out of touch with common people.

A good story is what we are after. Whether it be in the movie (Hurt Locker) or about a real life story (Blind Side, Invictus). A story can cut through any race or class divide and bring people close. But for some reason “good” seemed to get lost in translation. I was reminded of this as I tried to figure out why I had never heard of movies such as An Education, Precious, A Serious Man, and other movies. I wonder if it was my fault that I did not do my job of paying attention to the newest releases or if it was Hollywood’s fault for choosing to promote movies such as the Hangover over a movie about a young African American girl who is trying to make it through life (Precious). When it comes down to it, certain things sell and we are left with award shows like the MTV movie awards instead of the Academy Awards.

Why is it called the Academy Awards? Probably because an academy of 6000 people vote on what they think is the best film of the year, who was the best actor or actress, etc…  As I sit at home in my sweat pants, button up flannel shirt and house shoes watching and waiting to find who had the best film of the year I was reminded of the disconnect between me and the people who are wearing dresses that were worth more then the house that I sit in.

Here is where I bring in the spiritual side of things. You will have to forgive me for this. Mainly because I usually make fun of people who try to over spiritualize everything or for that matter stretch as much God out of something that is divinely possible. But I am going to go out there on a limb and raise this question:

Has the church become so out of touch with the ones watching that the greatest story every told is being lost?

If that doesn’t make sense, let me know. Say something like “hey Kyle, somewhere your thoughts from your head did not transfer to your fingers and I am confused on what you are asking.”
Or maybe it made perfect sense and you wanted to weigh in on how this story is not being lost and what you are doing to make sure that others get to hear and see the story in action.

Give me some feedback…

*kyle

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You can answer them all or just one….

1) When was the last time you watched Saturday Night Live for more then 30 minutes and laughed?

2) One book besides the Bible that you could not live without?

3) And the Oscar goes to….who will win best movie tonight at the Oscar’s, Hurt Locker or Avatar?

Answer them all or just one….these are questions for you.

*kyle

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Please help make this post, This is Ridiculous a whole lot better by adding some value to the conversation by leaving a comment. This is a post from: Thoughts about Nothing*com - A blog that claims to have nothing figured out.

Wednesday they held another online Conference called the Aha conference.
Featuring new voices that talked about Aha moments for leaders.
What a great idea and topic.
It was all good until it started.

Watch this video below and see what happened.

Did you hear it? Obviously you heard the clicking noise, but did you hear the guy in the background talking about the clicking noise?
The problem was resolved after about 5 minutes. But inside of that time I wonder how many people tuned out? I know I did. It took reading someones tweet saying they fixed the problem to bring me back.

I am very thankful for all that the leadership network does and the opportunity to attend this conference online for free, but I was quickly reminded how a great idea can go very bad very quickly because of a technology problem. We are moving in a great direction, just not there yet with technology and live online conferences.

Do you have a story of a great idea going very bad?

*kyle

**later today I will have a follow up post about online conferences and the positives and negatives. Stay tuned

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Patience is indeed a virtue…
But what the heck does that even mean?
I have no clue what it means to be patient. I guess it has something to do with waiting for something to happen. At least that is the way I have defined it for the last 10 years. Realizing more and more that one of the biggest issues and hurdles for all 20 somethings and beyond is patience.

Can I be honest with you? I hate being patient, absolutely hate it. I struggle to sit waiting for someone or something for 2 minutes, I check my email obsessively in waiting for a response, and to be honest I hate being patient with God and the future. Patience literally eats away at me, like something prodding me along to find answers and have results right now.

Here is the crazy thing, I have been patient for the last 9 months now. Seriously, I have been patiently waiting and learning. Preparing and watching, and learning what it means to be patient. Instead of me rushing into something, I have stepped back and learned what it means to be patient and prepared instead of hurried and rushed.

This season or chapter of my life is all about patience and preparation and I really feel the squeeze the more I learn about being patient. It is almost like the people I am waiting to hear back from know that God is teaching me patience so they are assisting by taking their time.

What have you learned in your times of patience?

*kyle

Check out this video from Gary V…good good stuff

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What is your favorite music video you have ever seen?

Here is mine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XVWR-5fiG0

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