Blow Your Mind!

Do yourself a favour and check out THIS link.

If you have ever spent anytime meditating on the bigness of God and your place in the universe… well then you’ll love this post.

Leave a comment and share your thoughts with us.

The Good News of the Gospel

Alot of people think that they understand what it means to be a Christ follower… but I bet that most people can not explain why there is a heaven and a hell and why we needed Jesus to die on the cross.

Today people believe that good people from all ‘roads’ will be on the road to heaven.

Others convientlty believe that there is no hell.

Well here is a video that gives a very clear and convincing presentation of the Gospel.

If you liked what you saw… why not forward this post or the video to your family, friends and aquaintances. How cool would it be to see them come into a living relationship with Jesus this year!

Leave a comment and let us know what you got up to.

New Years Resolutions

What new years resolutions / goals / dreams do you have for 2010?

Leave a comment and share with us!

Building A Culture Of Innovation

We truly have entered into a new age. Just tweaking what we do no longer cuts it. As Gary Hamel says, ”We’ve reached the end of incrementalism. Only those companies that are capable of creating industry revolutions will prosper in the new economy.”

With this in mind I wanted to share a great post that I found on 50 Ways to Foster a Culture of Innovation:

As your organization gears up for 2010, here are 50 ways to ensure that it’s culture is conducive to innovation. Commit to a few of these today and begin to work your magic.

1. Remember that innovation requires no fixed rules or templates — only guiding principles. Creating a more innovative culture is an organic and creative act.

2. Wherever you can, whenever you can, always drive fear out of the workplace. Fear is “Public Enemy #1″ of an innovative culture.

3. Have more fun. If you’re not having fun (or at least enjoying the process) something is off.

4. Always question authority, especially the authority of your own longstanding beliefs.

5. Make new mistakes.

6. As far as the future is concerned, don’t speculate on what mighthappen, but imagine what you can make happen.

7. Increase the visual stimuli of your organization’s physical space. Replace gray and white walls with color. Add inspiring photos and art, especially visuals that inspire people to think differently. Reconfigure space whenever possible.

8. Help people broaden their perspective by creating diverse teams and rotating employees into new projects — especially ones they are fascinated by.

9. Ask questions about everything. After asking questions, ask different questions. After asking different questions, ask them in a different way.

10. Ensure a high level of personal freedom and trust. Provide more time for people to pursue new ideas and innovations.

To see the other 40 ideas click HERE

So which were your favorites?

Mine are: 2, 3, 4, 5, 14, 26.

Leave a comment and share yours with us.

The Disease of Busyness

Life today is filled with such business. We have impossibly long to-do lists. We rush from one task to the next. We barely ever stop to catch our breath… and when we do… we collapse. This incessant running to and fro has caused us to loose any sense of awe and wonder.

In our business we have become like Jacob.

Genesis 28:10-19

¹⁰ Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. ¹¹ When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. ¹² He had a dream in which he saw a stairway ^[a] resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. ¹³ There above it ^[b] stood the LORD, and he said: “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. ¹⁴ Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. ¹⁵ I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

¹⁶ When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” ¹⁷ He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

¹⁸ Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. ¹⁹ He called that place Bethel, ^[c] though the city used to be called Luz.

How crazy is that?! “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” How many of us in our busyness have lost sight of God all around us.

I love the story of Shimon and Reuven:

Jewish tradition says that the splitting of the Red Sea was the greatest miracle ever performed.  It was so extraordinary that on that day even a common servant beheld more than all the miracles beheld by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel combined.  And yet we have one midrash that mentions two Israelites, Reuven and Shimon, who had a different experience.

Apparently the bottom of the sea, though safe to walk on, was not completely dry but a little muddy, like a beach at low tide.  Reuven stepped into it and curled his lip.  “What is this muck?”

Shimon scowled, “There’s mud all over the place!”

“This is just like the slime pits of Egypt!” replied Reuven.

“What’s the difference?”  Complained Shimon.  “Mud here, mud there; it’s all the same.”

And so it went for the two of them, grumbling all the way across the bottom of the sea.  And, because they never once looked up, they never understood why on the distant shore, everyone else was singing songs of praise. For Reuven and Shimon the miracle never happened. (Shemot Rabba 24.1)

So let me ask you… do you notice God all around you?

Please leave a comment and share your thoughts with us.

Consumerism

I love this quote from Madeleine L’Engle:

“Probably the worst thing that has happened to our understanding of reality has been our acceptance of ourselves as consumers.  Our greed is consuming the planet, so that we may quite easily kill this beautiful earth by daily pollution without ever having nuclear warfare.  Sex without love consumes, making another person an object, not a subject. Can we change our vocabulary and our thinking?  To do so may well be a matter of life and death.  Consumers do not understand that we must live not by greed and self-indulgence but by observing and contemplating the wonder of God’s universe as it is continually being revealed to us.”

Glimpses of Grace, pp. 98-99.

Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Christmas Gifts That Make A Difference!

I have so many things to write… so little time. As I’m tapping away on the keyboard, it is 12:37am.

With Christmas just around the corner, I thought that it would be expedient to do a post on Chrismas gifts.

This year I have felt challenged to depart from the usual materialistic binge spending over Christmas time, giving gifts to people who really don’t need or want what you give. It has been estimated that the average person spends somewhere in the region of $1500 Christmas buying gifts etc. Imagine how life changing this Christmas could be, if you and I decided to rather give that money to a worthy cause.

Tear Fund do a brilliant job helping to alleviate poverty whilst sharing the message of Christ. Gifts vary in price from $5 to $10 000. Click HERE to check out the various gift options.

Continuing along the alleviating poverty options, what about lending money to people through micro-financing? A few people from around the globe and I have pitched in together to help out Grace Mukamusoni of Rwanda (A 39 year old widow with 7 dependents). This was all made possible through Kiva. Check them out HERE. The brilliance behind micro-financing is that we are empowering people to help themselves get out of poverty and as an added bonus… you get your money back, which you can either keep or continue to loan out to people thus multiplying your influence!

My last suggestion, which I am personally going to be using for my gifts this year is Not For Sale. Not For Sale exists to end human trafficking and slavery of all forms. They have a gift card that will help build a new border outpost in Nepal which will not only employ 8 additional survivors, it will also prevent hundreds of their sisters from ever seeing the inside walls of a Mumbai brothel. If you’re interested in finding out more then click HERE.

So my personal challenge to you… get original this Christmas… and give gifts that truly do make a difference!

Does Experience Give Guaranteed Growth?

I can remember reading a quote by Dr John C. Maxwell that when something like this, “Its not experience that causes us to grow, but evaluated experience that causes us to grow.”

How true. In the rat race that we live in, how many of us take any time out to evaluate how we are doing? Our focus tends to be on movement… any movement. As long as the hamster wheel is spinning… we feel like we are ‘getting the job done.’

But the truth is, you can have worked in an industry for 20 years and only have 1 years worth of experience… if you never learnt from what you were doing. I certainly don’t want to live that way, and I’m sure that you don’t want to either.

As I have been reviewing the sessions from the Global Leadership Summit – that Willow Creek Community Church runs – I have been astounded, that even in my review of the sessions, the finding of one action point from each session, that I still am loosing the plot as I just move on to reviewing the next session. Make haste… not speed! Slow the bus Gus.

So I have decided to create a private blog for myself, where I can review each day. Asking pertinent questions of the day such as, “If I were to do today over again… what would I change?” I will ask other more long range questions like, “What do I want to have accomplished in the next 6 weeks?” Reviewing how I have done over that 6 week period should be very interesting! In this blog I will also ask myself my weekly sabbath reflection questions… such as the ones I discussed in THIS post.

So let me leave you with this challenge and question, “What system of evaluation have you built into your regular routine?”

Please do leave a comment and share yours with us.

Progressive Church – Is It Possible To Stay Ahead?

I recently have listened to a leadership podcast by Andy Stanley (of North Point Community Church). In the podcast he challenged us with a challenge that he had heard from pastor Craig Groeshel (of Lifechurch.tv): “To reach people that no-one is reaching, we have to do things that no-one else is doing.”

That challenged me… and baffled me .

So how do we stay in front of the 8-ball?

I recently attended the Global Leadership Summit put on by Willow Creek. As always, it was phenominal. One of the sesions proffessor Gary Hamel spoke on managing differently now. It was a radical and ground breaking session!

professor Gary Hamel has captured his main thoughts in 2 blog posts. Click HERE for part 1 and HERE for part 2.

If you read the posts you would have seen the mention of Dell’s IDEASTORM. Below are 2 videos that explain IDEASTORM in more detail.

 

 

Now imagine the power that is possible in the church if we were to harness collaborative vision and ideas input!

I’m going to start up a blog and see what is possible. I’ll let you know how it goes, if you’ll promise to let me know your thoughts… and how your implementation has gone.

 

 

 

Bible Reading Has Gone To A New Level

Have you heard about the new Glo Bible? This is going to revolutionize the way that we read the Bible.

Check out this example of what the Glo Bible can do:

 

 

Unfortunately the Mac version isn’t out yet, but keep watch the Glo sight. If you purchase the Windows version, you can get the Mac discs at a reduced rate.

 

Let me know how Glo has rocked your world once you’re using it.