Other people to remember on Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is a great reminder for us to celebrate our mothers, our wives, our daughters who have become mothers. Mothers have an iconic role in our culture, and have been an important influence in nearly all of our lives, and it’s only right that we take at least one day a year to rejoice in that.

But while we do, I hope we can all keep in mind some groups that may not find Mother’s Day so joyful. They include the following:

1) Anyone who has lost his/her mother, especially recently. This can be a tough and not-so-joyful day for them.
2) People who have strained relationships with their mothers.
3) Women who have been unsuccessful at becoming mothers, including those who are not yet married. For some women, this is the toughest day of the year, especially…
4) Women who have miscarried.
5) Women who have had a child die.
6) Women who have given a child up for adoption.
7) Women who have had an abortion.

While we take time this weekend to celebrate our mothers, please take the time to notice those around you who may be in one or more of these situations. Be sensitive to them. Have empathy. You may be the only one who understands.

Have I left anyone out?

Genesis Church – Carmel Campus update May 2012

Hey, all, I’m very encouraged about our 2nd campus at Genesis Church this week. Let me tell you why:

- We had about 140 people come out to the Carmel Campus for our Worship Night on Sunday. If you missed it, you missed some great worship, and two baptisms!

- Have you seen the building? WOW! All I can say is our team of volunteers is INCREDIBLE. What progress has been made in just a few months!

- Our launch team is getting excited. Excited to worship together. Excited to invite their friends.  There’s still time to join us!

- Please be praying with us. While we’ve been very encouraged, we still have a long way to go before our August 19th launch.  Please be praying for:

1. 15-20 more families to join our launch team
2. Volunteers to help us finish the campus buildout. Our goal is to be done by Memorial Day – that’s less than 3 weeks away.  We can’t do it without more help!
3. Financial resources. Our church is very generous, but we are still in need of much of the Audio, Video, and Lighting equipment for the campus.
4. Wisdom to make the right decisions on equipment purchases and staffing for the campus.
5. Finally, for volunteers to fill Sunday morning slots, both at Carmel and at our Noblesville Campus.

Thanks so much for praying with us, for serving, for giving, and for taking this journey with us.  We wait with great anticipation for what God is going to do!

 

Fighting Poverty at the Pump

Two years ago, I attended a conference where I accepted a challenge – go one month without buying gas and give the money to something useful. This seemed difficult for me – I lived 9 miles (one way) from my workplace, traveled a lot for my job, and drove a vehicle that got 16 MPG. Still, I did it. On the 31st of the month, I coasted into the gas station on fumes, and wrote a check to one of my favorite charities.

This month (May), I’m doing it again. It should be easier. I now live only 3 miles from work, almost never travel (long distance, anyway), and my car gets a more reasonable 26 MPG. Only this time, I want you to do it with me. And, this time, I’m using the money to help break the cycle of poverty, by donating to Shepherd Community Center.

Why now? Well, for several reasons:
1) May is National Bike to Work Month. Biking to work makes sense for me, and helps me save gas. In fact, this will be the primary source of my donations (see specifics below).
2) I am currently enrolled in a class called Poverty 101, offered by Shepherd Community Center at Genesis Church and learning how deeply poverty affects people, neighborhoods, and cities is breaking my heart.
3) Gas is really expensive right now. Have you noticed?
4) At Genesis Church, we’re starting a new series this week called, “Change Your World.” Throughout the month of May, we’ll be looking at the book of Nehemiah and using his story to help us write our story.

So, here’s how this works: I filled up my car tonight. Throughout May, I will not put gas in my car. I also will not take my wife’s car for trips where I would normally take my car (that’s cheating!) Instead, I plan to ride my bike on many short trips (8 miles one-way or less).

My commute is 6 miles round trip, which costs me about 1/4 gallon. At today’s rates, that’s about $1/round trip. So, for every car trip I replace with a bike trip in May, I will donate $1 to Shepherd Community. To work, to the gas station, to softball practice.

How can you help? Simple – do the same. Can’t ride to work? Sure you can. A friend of mine used to commute from Nobesville to the Circle EVERY DAY. But on those days you really can’t, then carpool. Take the bus or the train. Telecommute for a day. Or give up something else – coffee, soda, one lunch out per week. Let’s try something – ANYTHING- and see if we can move the needle on Poverty in and around Indianapolis.

Somebody has to do something. Why not us?

We are not elephants.

I hate beets.

I’ve always hated beets.  That was the thought I had at the restaurant a couple of years ago when the beet plate passed by my face.  Then it occurred to me: the last time I tried beets was when I was 12. I was now in my 30′s.  A lot of things have changed since I was 12. Several presidents. Many physical changes and life experiences and some maturing had happened.  So I tried one.

I like beets.

We’re all a little like that. We try something and if we don’t like it or it doesn’t work or it embarrasses us, we chalk it up to experience and never try it again.  But, things change. Environments change, circumstances change, and our abilities and passions and experiences change.  Something that didn’t work 5 years ago, or 10 years ago might work now.  Something we couldn’t do in our 20′s might be easy in our 30′s or 40′s.

I read somewhere once about how they used to train elephants to stay with the circus.  When the elephant was very young, they would tie a chain around it’s leg. The elephant would try to escape, but the chain was too big and strong to the baby elephant, and so it eventually gave up trying.  As the elephant grew, it became strong enough to break the chain. But it never tried. It had been conditioned to believe it couldn’t, so it couldn’t.

We are not elephants.

God has equipped us with the ability to think, reason, adapt, change, and improve. So, next time you’re at a standstill, don’t try something new – try something you’ve already tried.  It just might work this time.

And who knows? You might find out you like beets.

Reality check: 1st pick QB’s since Peyton Manning

Everyone in Indianapolis seems to think Andrew Luck is a lock to bring the Colts back to contender status. I sure hope they’re right. But, check out the quarterbacks drafted #1 overall since Peyton. It’s a mixed bag. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say it’s a 50/50 shot at best.

1999- Tim Couch (bust)
2001- Michael Vick (busted)
2002- David Carr (bust)
2003- Carson Palmer (Pro Bowl, then bust)
2004- Eli Manning (success!)
2005- Alex Smith (jury’s still out)
2007- Jamarcus Russell (bust)
2009- Matthew Stafford (looks good now)
2010- Sam Bradford (see above)
2011- Cam Newton (ditto)

Now, for years where a QB was not selected #1, let’s look at the first QB selected
2000- Chad Pennington
2006- Vince Young
2008- Matt Ryan

Just keep in mind, drafting a QB is not an exact science. In fact, in 2001, EVERY NFL TEAM passed on Drew Brees in the first round. Is Andrew Luck good? Yes. Will he be good in the NFL? Time will tell. Will he be a 4-time MVP and bring a Super Bowl ring to Indy? That’s a lot of expectation to put on a young man, now, isn’t it?

Dads: Ten Cheap (or free) ways to date your daughter(s)

As a dad, you only have a few years to have a major influence on your kids.  As a dad, you have a responsibility to show they’re worthy of your time.

It doesn’t have to cost money to show you love them, just some time and opportunity. You owe her a date… before it’s too late. Here are some suggestions:

1. Go to the pet store and hold some puppies.

2. Library date. Read a book together.

3. Look through a magazine together. Notice what she notices, and where she stops.

4. Go to the nature center at the local park. If it’s nice outside, walk around.

5. Shopping at the dollar store. Each of you take $3. Compete to see who can get the best find. Afterward, talk about why each of you chose what you did.

6. McDonalds has $0.99 (or $0.49) ice cream cones, depending on where you live.

7. Throw a softball in the yard, or kick a soccer ball. You suggest this.

8. Bowling. Put up the gutter guards, if needed.

9. Go on a Mall Scavenger Hunt.

10. Write a story together. Let her choose the topic. You write the text, and she’ll draw the pictures, or vice versa. When it’s done, read it aloud and laugh together!

It doesn’t take much money or effort to invest in your daughter. I promise you’ll be glad you did.

Making the Leap: Preparing Your Place

This is the fifth in a 5-part series. The first is here. If you’ve not been following this series, let me bring you up to speed.  I heard the call in my life to make a change from a life of success to one of significance.  I obeyed the call by selling my house, quitting my job, and moving my family.  But there was still one piece left… the new job.

My church had approached me 9 months prior to this move about coming on staff.  I laughed.  I didn’t think it would happen.  But, after that day, I began praying about it and actually found myself moving toward it.  Here’s the problem… even when I sold my house and quit my job, there was no job waiting for me.  There was no approved budget.  There was no job description.  But, I had faith it was coming.

When it did come together, everything started to make sense.  Many of the things in the job description are the same things I’d been working on in industry.  Responsibilities like leading staff, arranging benefits, hiring and directing, and other things that I had lots of experience doing.  In fact, when I first looked at the job description, I could look back at other things I’d done in my career and see how God had uniquely prepared me to take on that role.  Notice what I just said.  It was not a “close enough” match where I felt I could do the job for a while.  It was one of those things where I could look at each requirement of the job and see, “oh, that’s why I had to go through that.”

I believe that God calls us each to different things at different stages in our lives.  In fact, I believe that very few people are called to do the same thing, be in the same career or in the same line of work for their whole lives.  But, I believe that God uses prior experiences in our lives to prepare us for what he’s going to call us to next.  One pastor says it this way: God is preparing you for what He’s preparing for you.  I believe that Moses was called to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, but before he did, he had to be a fugitive, and understand what it was like to constantly be on the run.  David was called to kill Goliath, but before he did, he had to be a shepherd for a while, to learn to kill lions and bears.

Where you are now may be where you’re called to be for your life… but it may just be where you’re called for now.  It could be that your learning a valuable lesson that you’ll need for whatever’s next.  So don’t rush out of it.  I believe that if God has truly called you to something new, he will prepare you emotionally, prepare you financially, prepare your family, and prepare a place for you that’s perfect – that fits within the abilities, skills and passions He has given you.  Don’t just rush into something.  If you’re going to make the leap, make sure you’re leaping onto solid ground.

I hope this series has been helpful to you.  I’d love to talk more.  Leave a comment or drop me a line if there are other things I can address.

Making the Leap: Preparing your Family

So, you’re prepared emotionally to leave your job – it pains you to go to work every day and by now you’re convinced that anything would be better than your current role. You’re prepared financially – you feel like even if you took a big pay cut, you could make it work. You’re ready, right? Well, maybe. But is your family?

Like any parent, I was convinced the hardest part of making the leap from the corporate world to a ministry job would be the toll it would take on my family. For us, going to a lower-paying (albeit more rewarding and fulfilling job) was going to mean selling our house, leaving our neighbors, and moving to a new city (and school). My girls had just finished their 3rd and 1st grade years. Their teachers were incredible, and they loved their schools. Even more than that, my wife loved serving in the schools. Aye, aye, aye, this was going to be tough.

When we began talking and praying about selling our house, our intentions were to stay in the same school system. In fact, that was the only place we were really interested in looking. But, then reality hit… after four months with no one looking at our house for sale, a couple looked, made an offer, and bought it- and wanted us out in 23 days. We basically had one weekend to look for a house, or start looking for an apartment. The first day, we found the house we loved… the only problem? You guessed it – it was in another town, in another school district. A bigger school district. A district we had intentionally moved away from before our kids reached school age.

At first, every house we looked at, my girls would ask, “will we have to change schools if we move here?” If the answer was “yes,” then they weren’t interested… no matter what the house or neighborhood were like. But looking around this neighborhood, I sensed that we were being called there. I sensed that there were great people, great families – families with kids who were the same age as ours. And I was convinced. What I didn’t really know was how hard my wife was fighting against it. But, she agreed to pray, and what she prayed was this: “Lord, please send good friends for our girls.”

The second day we moved in, there were 9 kids playing in our backyard. I think that a couple of them were even ours. All of a sudden, the girls loved the house. They loved the neighborhood. And, over time, my wife has grown to love it, too. My wife and I were overwhelmed with the new friends coming into our yard and our house all through the day. “It’s your fault,” I said. “You prayed for this.”

Here’s what I learned from this experience… kids are resilient. They adapt well, especially when they’re young. We often transfer our feelings and fears onto them- we fear that they’ll miss their friends, they’ll hate their new school, etc. And, while they might be nervous at first, they’ll get past that. Maybe much easier than you will.

I’m so thankful that God did that work in our family. I’m thankful he stretched us, and made us move out of our comfort zone. I’m thankful he took us from a very nice, custom-built house in the woods to a not-quite-as-nice, smaller, production-built home on a small lot, but with great neighbors. It’s part of the work He wanted to do in me. I had the chance, for a time in my life, to live in a very nice, big, beautiful home. And through it all, we learned that a house is just a house. It doesn’t make you happy. It doesn’t solve problems. It doesn’t make your life any better or easier.

Yes, before I made the leap, God was preparing my family. Next: God (finally) prepared a place for me.

Making the Leap: Preparing Financially

This is the third post in my “Making the Leap” series. If you haven’t seen them already, part 1 is here, and part 2 is here.

You probably won’t quit your job. You may want to quit. You may already be prepared emotionally to quit. You may not have any reason at all to stay. Except that it pays the mortgage and the car payments and for electricity to heat and cool and brighten your house. Other than that, your job may be useless. But, that stuff’s important, so you probably won’t quit.

When I prepared to make the leap from a corporate career into a ministry career, this was an area of concern for me, but even more so, for my wife. How could we make it? Could we afford it? But, God already had this under control.

After returning from Haiti in January 2010, I felt God telling me to sell my house. I didn’t know where I was going to go – while I’d been talking with the church about coming on staff, I didn’t have a job offer, the job I wanted didn’t yet exist, and there was no budget for it. But, God said to me, very clearly, “If I’m going to do anything with you, I need you to sell your house.” So, I told my wife. Very delicately. And to her credit, she said ok.

But in truth, God had begun financially preparing us for this transition years before it happened. We had managed our money in such a way that we had no debt except for our house. We had quite a bit of equity in our house, so even if we had to drop the price, we would still come out ok.  God had been very faithful to us with a pretty good income for a number of years, so we were able to put away money for retirement, an emergency fund, a new car fund, etc. I’m not bragging here, I’m telling you that God had been preparing us. We weren’t loaded, but we were comfortable.

Which was part of the problem.

We began praying for the church. We began praying for people to be generous. We began praying for someone to buy our house. I (not we) began looking for houses. But no one came to look at ours. No. one. For four months. So, I did what any person would do who is ready to make the leap – I went and quit my job.

I don’t recommend that. Unless God has prepared you financially. I knew that we could make our mortgage payment for a while even if I didn’t find work. If I got the job I wanted, even though would be a pay cut, we could make it last even longer. I knew we had money put aside to live. And because God had been faithful, I was able to be faithful and do what He was calling me to do, even in the face of my fears.

I believe that if you’re called to a new career… not just that you want a new career, but that you’re being called to a new career… God will prepare you financially, as well. If he doesn’t, you need to be praying seriously about whether or not the call is from God. He won’t call you into something and not provide. As one pastor I know likes to say, “If it’s God’s will, it’s God’s bill.”

So, before you ask, “Should I quit?” ask, “Am I financially prepared to quit?” Do you have an emergency fund? Do you understand how you’ll live? Are you willing to accept a new standard of living? I’m not saying there’s no faith involved, but Proverbs 21:20 says, “The wise store up choice food and olive oil, but fools gulp theirs down.”

Just because you are prepared emotionally, doesn’t mean you’re ready to make the leap. Make sure you are prepared financially. It’s good stewardship.

Making the Leap: Preparing Emotionally

Most of us get frustrated with our work at some point. Either it’s a feeling that you’re not able to be effective, or an inability to work well with your boss or co-workers, or a general feeling that you ought to be doing something else with your life. Whatever it is, most of us deal with some amount of discontent in our work at times. The key to dealing with this effectively is to discern the source of the discontent. Where is it coming from?

I’m in a series I’m calling, “Making the Leap.” I’m exploring how God prepared me tomake a mid-life career change from the corporate world into the ministry world. If you haven’t yet read the introduction, you can see it here.

Discontent can stem from a lot of different roots. It could be that the job isn’t right for you. Maybe it’s the company that’s wrong. Maybe it’s just general discontent that is borne out of the fact that you weren’t created for this world. But it could be that your discontent is what author and pastor Bill Hybels calls a “holy discontent.” In other words, your sadness that you feel could be planted by God in order to cause you to make a change. Some people are so hard-headed (points to self), they won’t even consider a change until the current situation is really uncomfortable.  I believe that this is the first step God planted in me before I made the leap.

I remember when I had the first conversation about joining staff at our church.I think I laughed. I really thought it was a preposterous idea. I was a successful corporate type, making 6 figures. I loved my work. I lived in a big, custom-built home in an exclusive neighborhood that my wife and I had designed and built from scratch. It wasn’t going to happen.

But then, I started to feel the discontent. It started with some changes at work – policy changes, damaged relationships, changes in direction. Then, I traveled to Haiti and saw families living in “houses” smaller than rooms in my house that I never went into. I heard God telling me, “sell your house.” I didn’t know why, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, but all of a sudden, I was discontent with my life. I felt like everything I was doing – everything I’d worked for – really meant nothing. It was like Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 2:18: “I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me.” I believed that my work was no longer what I was supposed to do. I realize, now, that this was God preparing me emotionally to make the leap.That’s where many of us bail. We feel discontent in our work, so we look for something else. We send out résumés. We call a recruiter. We look for something- anything- new. We feel ourselves in a deep valley, and we desperately want to get out.  But that’s a mistake.  If we try to take control and start looking for new work just because we’re discontent with our old work, we can miss what God has to say to us in the valley. God still had lots of work to do in my heart – maybe I’m just more stubborn than you are! But, God doesn’t just want to drive us away from something, he wants to steer us toward something. In my case, He still had a lot of work to do to show me what was next in my life.Coming next: How God prepared me financially.