Archive for March, 2007

The Prestige

by Christopher Nolan

Mark told me in a comment on my review of The Illusionist that if I enjoyed it, I would love The Prestige. He was right. It’s a must see. A little pat on the back for myself… After watching this movie, I was able to make my DVD remote disappear for a full 30 minutes, prompting a late-night couch sweep. After giving up, it reappeared magically in my shoe that I had taken off during the movie. Very cool.

Let me know what powers you get after watching the movie. I think I’m going to go watch Smallville next. The whole flying thing is appealing…

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What think ye of last week’s (April 2, 2007l 2, 2007
English: World English Bible - WEB


WP-Bible plugin) cover story in Time magazine that encourages the Bible to be taught in schools? Here is another good article about the shock of the Christian community to a positive report from the magazine that once ran a cover headline of “God is Dead.” On top of that, here’s a good article in the April 9, 2007l 9, 2007
English: World English Bible - WEB


WP-Bible plugin edition about how pastors’ wives are finding fellowship and encouragement from one another in online community.

Love this cartoon for Mac switchers! Thanks, Jason!

I am such a sucker for stuff like this. I agree with Tim. I just gotta have one of these…

Creating Community: Five Keys to Building a Small Group Culture

by Andy Stanley

An intensely practical book for those who understand that smaller is better for life change and transformation in ministry.

Stanley and Willits are staffers at North Point Community Church in Atlanta. From the beginning, they desired that the church focus around life transformation by intentionally creating a small groups structure.

They ask three questions that help direct their focus. The questions, I think, are essential to keep one’s ministry focused and help it stay in ministry mindset rather than degenerating to a maintenance mindset:

1. What do we want people to become?
2. What do we want people to do?
3. Where do we want people to go?

The answer to the first, he says is that people need to be a growing disciple of Jesus Christ. The second question is answered in three parts:
• Disciples should pursue intimacy with God.
• Disciples should pursue community with insiders.
• Disciples should pursue influence with outsiders.

They also encourage a church to find their “word.” What one word or idea summarizes your church or ministry? It’s important to be known for something. Before you give the Sunday School answer, and say that you want your “word” to be “Jesus,” consider that many people don’t want to know Jesus at the outset. Northpoint picked the word “relational.”

Northpoint is strategically focused around creating community. They give several reasons and advantages for small groups in their book:
• Groups support their evangelistic strategy of “invest and invite.” They say many irreligious people often want to belong before they believe and groups enable them to process the claims of Christ in a nonthreatening environment with friends.
• Groups decentralize church leadership and care. Groups place pastoral care in the hands of laypeople instead of requiring a professional staff to service an entire congregation.
• Groups enable more people to serve.
• Groups help develop authentic community.
• Groups offer maximum flexibility.
• Groups allow a church to be better stewards. They make the point that small groups enable a church to focus resources on people rather than buildings. By not having to build to accommodate Sunday School or Christian education, money is freed up for ministry and trained personnel.
• Groups remove the primary limits to growth.

One of the interesting findings about North Point in this book was that they have closed groups. That means that once they begin their life cycle (usually 18-24 months), they generally aren’t looking for new people for their groups. Newcomers are assimilated into new groups rather than existing ones. That’s a little different than how we’re doing things at Journey, but it may be more of a necessity for us than a strategy.

Willets also says that they work hard to strategically move people from Point A to Point B spiritually. They use the visual analogy of foyer-living room-kitchen to communicate the progressive steps of community they try to lead people toward. Your foyer is for formal introductions and welcome. Your living room is an environment for visiting and entertaining; however, your kitchen is where intimate conversation and talk often takes place. In fact, it’s around the table that many deep friendships are begun or cultivated.

Willets also says that training is essential for a small groups system, and they have poured the proper resources into this area. They put qualified, visionary personnel over their groups process as well as having small groups leaders go through an application process. He stresses that your small groups ministry must be “real.” It must work in the real world. I can vouch for this, in that we’ve tried many things at Journey that sounded good in conversation but didn’t work out in real life. Your system must fit people’s lives.

As they train their leaders, they focus on six things. (Go read the book.) and continually train their leaders in these six areas. Stressing that less is more, they practice this in their training as well. It’s not important to fill a leader’s notebook with pages of guidelines but to realistically develop their leaders in essential areas.

Finally, they mention the importance of being a small groups ministry, rather than just saying you have a small groups ministry. They do this by financially investing in personnel, training, and childcare. I was very intrigued, especially for the implications for our own church, that they apparently reimburse parents for childcare costs while they are attending small groups. They have a reimbursement form and payment chart even. Interesting.

All in all, it was a fast read for me. Not revolutionary, but supplementary. I can highly recommend it.

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I laughed rather heartily last night as my wife gasped in dismay when she discovered that Sanjayah had made it through another week on American Idol. She has rebuked me thoroughly for my earlier post and told friends, “Jeff is ruining American Idol.” My little blog can’t do much damage, I don’t think, but that hasn’t prevented me from reveling in the fact that an obvious no-talent (but with amazing hair gymnastic ability) has made it so far in AI. Even Simon said last night, “It’s obvious that America doesn’t care what we think.”

I helped Carolyn clean/clutter the house today for a yard sale tomorrow and Saturday (come spend money! Oh, and Jason, I’ll link to your shameless yard sale post as well!). I stepped over the Amazing-Ever-Growing-Pile-of-Junk-and-Treasure accumulating in the hallway and tried to file an old receipt in our filing system. I discovered the following there:

I’m considering an intervention at the house. If you know of a good obsessive-compulsive disorder counselor, please let me know… ;)

Now I’m not quite ready to run out and purchase a Wii, obviously. My trusty Xbox still give Sam and I hours of fun and entertainment. However, with the release of two new gaming systems over the holidays, I’ve been following them to see what may become the “must-have” system of the future. Many thought it would be the PS3; others said the Xbox 360, which was released during the holiday season 2005 would stay on top. However, it’s price seems to be it’s detriment so far. Normal gamers like myself aren’t ready for Blu-Ray and having to upgrade their TVs to HD just yet, and the $250 tag of the Wii seems to have pulled quite a few back to Nintendo’s side. In addition, the innovative game play, using the interactive nunchuk controller may also be winning of many non-gamers, as gaming becomes more of a fun, interactive experience for everyone. (Or is it that folks just enjoy laughing at the gyrations of a gamer on a Wii?)

Whatever your conclusion, there’s a great analysis over at the compete.com blog you’ve gotta check out that includes this image:

She Calls Me Daddy

by Robert Wolgemuth

This was a nice book. The author is humorous, which I really appreciate, and his suggestions for being a father to your daughter not only are challenging, but they’re also deeply practical.

You can’t go wrong, if you have a daughter. Put at least some thought and time into how you can be a more effective dad.

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This cartoon has the role reversed in our house…

Thought I would do this again to see if I got better results. My number one lookalike was Condoleeza Rice. Just great. Thank goodness the new, improved myheritage.com site allows you to select which ones you want to show up…

Like I said before, this is nutts. Wrong coach fired. Similar situations…

Here’s the story: UA coach takes team much further than anyone anticipated. Team fails to make it to the big game. Coach is fired in one case, retained in the other. Sigh.

Yes, this picture is real, and the entry about it over at Tim’s blog is not only fascinating but challenging.

When what to my wandering eyes should appear, but one Journey elder with leaf blower gear…

I returned home this morning from a few hours at the church to discover TJ Files blowing the leaves in my front yard into a large pile. Curious, I asked him what he was doing. After he caught his breath (hahahahahaha. Not really. It was a gas-powered blower.), he responded, “Just thought I’d come over and blow your leaves into a pile after I did it at my house.”

Simple response. Profound impact.

Muchos gracias, TJ. It’s random kindnesses like that that produce deep gratitude. It’s not that my front yard now looks great (and I’m saved a sinus infection, what with all the pollen in the air), but it’s the sincere friendship and helpful spirit that he demonstrated that means more. While you’re toodling around on the web, check out his blog: Thrown to the Lions.

After such an act of kindness, I almost feel bad for posting that picture of him…. Nah, not really. You just have to know TJ. Really.

Besides the fact that you can vote multiple times and that I loathe how AI consumes our lives each year at this time (Cmon, twice a week?! Give us a break.), now there’s another reason for AI to be a little suspect. I say this with great trepidation because my wife and kids LOVE the show. So do many of my friends… several of whom are bigger than I am. I’ll even confess that last year, I gave AI everything I had. I watched every episode and laughed hysterically at my favorite parts (the tryouts). However, this year has been sporadic, occasional, or even not at all.

I do know enough to know that Sanjayah is still on the show. Here’s why: votefortheworst.com. I think it’s rather funny to show that you can skew this show. Heck, it’s already skewed by the fact that you can vote more than once for a single candidate.

But here’s what I plan to do:

I’m back from my traveling and retreat and am looking forward to sharing with you some of gleanings from the past few days on my retreat. First of all, I must say that everyone needs a friend whom will allow you to unload everything that’s on your mind and then boldly but gently offer you biblical perspective, counsel, and encouragement. Thanks, Jackie. I’m fortunate to have several such close friends. In fact, I’m gloriously blessed in this regard.

I’m just shooting from the hip, but I think that such godly friends among men tend to be scarce in most men’s lives. If you don’t have men you will unashamedly speak loving truth into your life, then you are skating on thin ice.

In addition to several hours of deep conversation, I dedicated myself to reading through the Gospel of John, taking notes as I went. On Friday evening, 5:30-11:00 p.m. and on Saturday a.m., 8:30-11:00, I was gloriously glued to this Gospel. If you have not ever devoted yourself to reading it through in a sitting or two, I can’t stress enough how much you need to.

Seek to answer these three questions about each chapter:

1. What does Jesus say about Himself?
2. What do I say about who Jesus is?
3. What are the implications for my life?

This may seem rather like a “duh” statement, but I was surprised by Jesus – by his words, insight, and realization of His identity. I love being surprised by Him.

More later.