Wicked Friends Lead to Evil Ends

I talked last week quite a bit about the people you naturally attract. It’s a chance for you to influence others for the positive—for individuality, risk, passion for God, etc. But what if you attract the wrong kind of people? The truth is, some of the people I’ve attracted in my life are not necessarily…

Your Responsibility to the People You Reach

We talked Wednesday about the people you will naturally reach. These are the folks who are naturally attracted to you. And this is also the opportunity you have for influence. Be sure, you have the chance to influence other people. Those people you naturally attract, you have just as much chance to influence them as…

Everyone Is Someone’s Best Friend

I’m the type of person who wants everyone to like me. I personally believe for me it’s a bit of a competition. Subconsciously, I want to be everybody’s best friend. God forbid someone doesn’t like me. And God forbid someone likes someone else more than me. I’ve been working to overcome this major flaw in…

Why I Write Two Books at Once

I’m currently writing two books at once. One’s a church leadership-type book, the other is a “discover yourself” type book. They’re different. And I’m so glad I’m writing them at the same time. I did this with Created for More and Unwelcome. I didn’t intend for them to release within a month of each other;…

Why Church Leadership is Wrong

There’s a popular concept going around the church and it’s this: Everyone is a leader. Along with that, everyone is their own replicator. If everyone’s a leader, everyone is supposed to spend much of their time replicating themselves. Essentially, we should keep promoting ourselves in higher and higher leadership roles as other people take over…

Real Limitations or Lies?

I love the story from Hans Christian Andersen: The Emperor’s New Clothes. The story goes that man years ago, there lived an emperor who was exceedingly vain. He spent all his wealth on the finest clothing. Two con artists hatched a plan to swindle the emperor. They were weavers, and they offered to create clothing for the…

Butterflies in Your Stomach

I heard a great quote last week: “It’s okay to have butterflies in your stomach. Just get them to fly in formation.” Any time you attempt something new, it’s natural to get scared. It’s normal to feel a bit of fear associated with a risk. But fear is not a bad thing. It keeps you from…

Where Do We Put 1000 People with Food

We were in the planning stages for Echo Conference, when we found out we didn’t have a place for dinner during the first night of the conference. We would have around 1000 people at the conference and we planned to provide a meal for them. Unfortunately, the church where we were hosting the event informed…

Just Do the Work

I’m writing two books right now. One is a co-writing project about guest services in church. It’s with a fairly notable individual and I can’t wait until we get it all together and out into the world. The second one is a personal book project my literary agent and I decided would be a good…