Best Books for Pastors 2011 Part I
Earlier today I was a little critical of a list of top 10 books of 2011 for Church leaders. Personally I think it was a pretty weak list. You can check it out http://www.churchleaderinsights.com/index.php/free-stuff/view-articles/top-10-books-of-2011-for-church-leaders
Not that there weren’t some good books on the list…I am found of Dave Ramsey’s Leadership book and John Maxwell’s newest book. My fear is that pastors are being steered so hard to read books on Leadership and church growth and strategy and getting lost in that are books with spiritual depth. Yes, the Bible should be our first source of spiritual information and inspiration, I’m not denying that, but He has gifted certain men to communicate spiritual truth through the written word and we as pastors and church leaders should take full advantage.
I want to share with you the 20 books that made the biggest impact on me in 2011. Most were published in 2011, while a few were published in 2010, but I never got around to reading them until this year. To keep this post short, I will only give a one sentence blurb on each book…it’s up to you to get it and read it!
In no particular order;
20. The Good and Beautiful Community by James Bryan Smith. The 3rd book in Smith’s Apprentice series, focuses on what it looks like to like in true biblical community with other believers.
19. Letters to a Young Pastor by Calvin Miller. Calvin Miller has been a pastor for 25 years and a professor and writer. He shares a lot of wisdom with young pastors that I wish I had when I was 25.
18. A Kingdom Called Desire by Rick McKinley. Rick McKinley has always been one of my favorite pastors and has written another insightful book to go along with, “Jesus in the Margins” and “This Beautiful Mess”.
17. God without Religion by Andrew Farley. This is a great book about the freedom found in Jesus as opposed to a religious system.
16. Scandalous by D.A. Carson. This is an instant classic on the work of the cross. Carson’s writing can be a little tedious, but it’s worth it.
15. Jesus + Nothing = Everything by Tullian Tchividjian. A great explanation of the gospel for those who feel that Christs’ work on the cross wasn’t quite enough.
14. The Faith of Leap by Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch. I thought this was an excellent book on leaving the security we all seek and live out the dangerous faith we were meant to. Piper didn’t like it though!
13. Practice Resurrection by Eugene Peterson. Peterson writes in such an honest way, I’m sorry his, “Conversations” series is over.
12. Longing for God by Richard Foster. I enjoyed this one more than “A Celebration of Discipline.
11. The Next Christians by Gabe Lyons. A peek into the future of what believers will look like.
Top 10 will be posted in Part II….Feel free to make any comments, disagreements, etc.
Baseball is Here!!!! Finally!
As we open the page on a new season…hope springs eternal for all Major League Franchises.
Here are my predictions:
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AL East:
1. Tampa Bay Rays (Their pitching is SICK!)
2. Boston Red Sox (Loss of Bay will hurt…who are they trying to fool with Cameron?)
3. New York Yankees (Granderson cannot hit lefties, they’ll miss Damon and Matsui, Burnett won’t last an entire season, Jeter, Petitte, Rivera are all 106 years old)
4. Baltimore Orioles (They will battle for that 3rd spot and only finish less than 5 games back of the Yankees)
5. Toronto Blue Jays (Lots of young talent, but not ready yet)
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AL Central:
1. Chicago White Sox (Really good pitching and the return of Quentin will help them)
2. Minnesota Twins (Loss of Nathan, may have lost them a shot at Division crown)
3. Detroit Tigers (will make this a 3 team race and Scherzer is the real deal)
4. Kansas City Royals (only avoid the basement because of Greinke)
5. Cleveland Indians (bad, really bad)
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AL West:
1. Texas Rangers (Only if harden stays healthy)
2. Los Angeles Angels (loss of Lackey will hurt bigtime)
3. Seattle Mariners (even worse if Lee is hurt)
4. Oakland A’s (a couple of years away)
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Wildcard: Angels
AL Pennant: Rays
MVP: Evan Longoria
Cy Young: Felix Hernandez
ROY: Brian Matusz
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NL East:
1. Philadelphia Phillies (added Halladay and Palanco)
2. Atlanta Braves (Heyward will be ROY)
3. Florida Marlins (not enough offense)
4. New York Mets (this organization needs an overhaul)
5. Washington Nationals (Even Strasburg can’t save this stinker of a squad)
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NL Central:
1. St. Louis Cardinals (Albert and the gang win a weak division)
2. Cincinnati Reds (Votto will be a true MVP candidate)
3. Milwaukee Brewers ( Prince and Braun can’t carry a weak pitching staff)
4. Chicago Cubs (That line-up is old and getting older)
5. Houston Astros ( Could suprise and finish 4th!)
6. Pittsburgh Pirates (when will this team ever compete?)
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NL West:
1. Arizona Diamondbacks (big risky pick, only will happen if Webb is healthy)
2. Los Angeles Dodgers (Manny has more left in the tank)
3. Colorado Rockies (will be within 2 games of division crown)
4. San Francisco Giants ( shame that good pitching has almost no offense behind it)
5. San Diego Padres (When Jon Garland is your number 1, bad things happen)
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Wildcard: Reds
NL Pennant: Phillies
MVP: Chase Utley
Cy Young: Roy Halladay
ROY: Jason Heyward
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World Series: Phillies over Rays in 7
Why Christian radio stinks!
I’m a bit of a music snob, I admit. A couple of of things really bug me. One… that Christians miss out on great worship music because their churches consistently play songs that are 5-10 even 15 years old. These are the “contemporary” churches too! If your churches worship set often includes, Here I am to worship, How Great is our God and Open the eyes of my heart….it’s a little behind. I’m not talking about rotating in an “oldie but goodie”, but those are the staple songs or the “new” songs! Psalm 96:1 tells us to “Sing to the Lord a new song…”. That leads me to believe that God doesn’t want our corporate worship of Him to grow stale. We should always be listening for or even writing new songs to sing to God.
Secondly, I don’t like it when Christian artists don’t write their own material but purchase the rights to cover a song. The writer or original artists version is 99 times out of 100 better, but somehow the covers find their way to the top of the charts! Revelation Song, Lead me to the Cross, Mighty to Save, etc are all recent examples of this.
Lastly, it bugs me that Christian radio plays the same tired music over and over again. Artists that people should really know about get no airplay. To prove my point, I printed off a recent playlist of a popular local Christian radio station. In a 24 hour period there were 315 songs played. Here are some interesting facts about which artists were played:
Third Day. 22 times
Casting Crowns. 29 times (including 4x in the same hour!)
Mercy Me. 19 times
Jeremy Camp. 21 times
Steven Curtis Chapman. 20 times
Michael W. Smith. 18 times
Toby Mac. 20 times
Phillips, Craig and Dean 12 times (this was the same song 12 times!)
Chris Tomlin 24 times
This is the same for a couple other artists. I think this proves my point. Not that any of these artists are terrible (although some are IMHO), but we don’t need to hear them that many times. No wonder the world looks at our music as second rate and outdated. Any thoughts?
My Confession…ie The Gospel according to Metallica.
This is by far my most personal post ever. My guess is that many of you struggle with the same thing I do…the same thing I’m going to write about here. For the last 10 years or so, I have been struggling mightily with my weight. To those of you who know me, that’s not news to you. You’ve seen the “growth” over the years. I’ve always said to myself, one day I’m going to lose this weight, one day I’ll start going back to the gym, one day I’ll stop eating the wrong things and start eating the right ones….one day. Today, I had an epiphany, a revelation, although it was something I already knew deep inside me. As I was walking on the treadmill at LA Fitness and listening to my Workout Mix (that had lain unplayed for a long time), the song, “Master of Puppets” by Metallica came on. As I listened to the words of the song, something inside of me broke and I began to cry. Right there in LA Fitness on the treadmill. Most people probably thought that it was sweat so I still have my man card in my wallet.
I never thought God would use Metallica to convict me of sin, but He did. Here are a few of the lyrics that spoke to me:
Taste me you will see
More is all you need
Dedicated to
How I’m killing you
Come crawling faster
Obey your Master
Your life burns faster
Obey your Master
Master
Master of Puppets I’m pulling your strings
Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
Blinded by me, you can’t see a thing
Just call my name, ’cause I’ll hear you scream
I know that this song was written about drug addiction, but in that moment I realized that I had become a slave to my weight, food has become my master. I eat when I’m happy, I eat when I’m sad, when I’m bored, when I’m busy…you see, the food which God had intended to lead me to worship, was controlling me, even killing me…certainly costing me a certain quality of life. My weight had officially gotten to the place I swore it would never be…319lbs. I’m 6’4″, so people will tell me, “You’re just a big guy”. I’m tired of that cop-out. With added weight came health problems, a worsening of my asthma, the development of sleep apnea, and the aches and pains on my muscles and joints that come from carrying that much weight around. Not to mention the thought of not being around for my wife and kids in the future. Despite knowing this, I did nothing about it…you see, I was a slave…I was addicted, and I was lazy.
Ok, back to the treadmill. At the end of the song, these verses from Romans chapter 7 came to my mind:
So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.
I’ve been controlled by the old nature…just straight up laziness and glutony…that’s my confession. But these verses reminded me that I have been released from that and I don’t need to be controlled by anything other than the Spirit of God. So, my decision is this…I will no longer be controlled by food. I will no longer use something that God intended for my good to lead me down a path of destruction.
My goal is to lose 100 pounds in 1 year. I know that I can do this through the Spirit’s power. I’m posting this to make my confession and goal public. I hope it has inspired some of you to take off the chains of addiction to food and get yourself healthy so you can more effectively serve God. For those of you who see me on a regular basis, I ask your help. I ask you to care more about me than about my feelings. Ask me how I’m doing, keep me accountable, help me make the right choices, exercise with me. For those of you who don’t see me on a regular basis, Facebook me, e-mail me and most importantly, pray for me. Thanks for reading my confession.
Featured Band: Between the Trees
From Wikipedia:
Between the Trees is an American indie rock band from Orlando, Florida, formed in 2005. The band consists of vocalist and guitarist Ryan Kirkland, drummer Josh Butler and bassist Jeremy Butler.
Between the Trees released their debut album through Bonded Records in 2006, entitled The Story and the Song. In 2007, they signed to The Universal Motown/Universal Republic Group, but it was later announced that this relationship had fallen through and their next album would be self-released. Their second album is entitled Spain and was released on August 11th, 2009.
http://www.betweenthetrees.net/
http://www.myspace.com/betweenthetrees
Check out “We Can Try” over to the right in MyBox! Let me know what you think.
You know what makes me smile?
Jesus
People who forgive
a good book
my boys laughing and playing
a nice 75 degree and sunny day
people who are willing to step out on faith, even though it may cost them something.
Ollies
Good music
My beautiful wife
The Beauty of Creation
giving and givers
when I live the gospel and people take notice.
Opening Day!
a well timed phone call
You know what really grinds my gears?
People who don’t merge
Church politics
Family Christian Bookstores (no, for the love of God NO, I don’t want the “FireProof Gift Pack!!!!!”)
The Newsboys (seriously, Micheal Tait? It was time to hang it up guys.)
Rain
The fact that there aren’t more hours in the day.
Testamints, Stupid christian t-shirts and bumper stickers
Poverty
My lack of action to alieviate poverty.
Digital Hymnals (what???)
consequences
Christian “celebrities” and their “groupies”
when the UPS man doesn’t knock.
cowards
crime in my neighborhood
comfortable Christianity (check yourself)
Satan
25mph in a 45mph zone
fear
that I’m my own worst enemy
wet mail
what grinds your gears? All in good fun!
One Step forward, two steps back
I was hanging out with one of the young people in our church today. We decided to hit the local driving range and try to see how far we could hit the ball (I’m not a golfer!). Now it was probably 95 degrees today and after good 30-45 minutes of driving golf balls, we’re dripping sweat! It was a workout! While we were there I participated in one of my favorite activities…people watching, and I saw this guy driving, sweating,getting a really good workout. He then proceded to take a seat, get out a nice clear bottle of smart water (expensive water that doesn’t have any of the bad stuff in it) and lit up a cigarette! It really struck me as funny at first….”Hey, it’s almost 100 degrees out, I’m working out here, dripping sweat….you know what I’d really like? A Cigarette!” Then it became something really sad. Here’s a guy, putting in some time exercising (even if you don’t consider golf a sport!), then in the same “breathe” destroying any good he had done his body. He was taking one step forward and two steps back. And while I found part of me chuckling and even judging him, I realized that I frequently do the same thing. Not just in excercise, but in many areas of my life…especially spiritually. How many times have I taken a step forward in my walk with Christ, only to find myself seemingly taking two steps backward? How many times do I allow myself to fall into bad habits or sin that basically destroy the spiritual work or momentum I had gained? The truth is, is that if I want to be more like Christ, if I want to daily be transformed and be an active participant in progressive sanctification, then I’ve got to give up smoking! (metaphorically speaking) I’ve got to stop shooting myself in the foot spiritually and grab hold of the power of Christ in me that will allow me to shed the habits and sin that keep me from ever truly becoming the man of God I have been created to be. What about you?
A Tribute to Project 86
In honor of my favorite band releasing their new CD, “Picket Fence Cartel”next Tuesday I have put together a little P86 Top Ten. You can listen to all 10 song through my box inthe upper right hand corner of the blog. Enjoy!
Building Defenses
Men, remember the message from Saturday? We all know where we are weak. If you say you don’t you’re lying to me and to yourself. We know if we have pride issues, anger issues, etc. If we know where we are weak, why do we not do a better job at building safeguards and defenses in our lives to protect us in those weak areas? None of us is Superman! As a man myself, I will be honest…I don’t know a man alive that doesn’t struggle with lust. If you are that guy then awesome!, please pray for the rest of us! Men of Journey, let’s not let this area of our lives bring us to defeat. Go with basic cable and get rid of Skinemax and HBO, because it’s too tempting! Avoid those stores that display porno mags! Make sure your internet access is filtered, with a password that only a trusted friend knows. It shouldn’t be embarassing, it’s the way we are wired. Remember, Jesus said, it is better to cut off your hand and go through life with one hand than to be headed to hell with our whole body. How important are those things to you? Cut them out of your life. Here is a great resource if you are a fellow struggler with lust.
The wisdom of Forrest Gump
I was flipping through the tv channels the other day and just like every other time I’ve been flipping through the channels, “Forrest Gump” was on. I’ve seen this movie a thousand times (not as many times as Robby has) but if it’s on, it’s one of those movies that if it’s on, I’ll watch it. It just so happened that the scene that was playing when I tuned in was the one where Lieutenant Dan, who is now in a wheelchair asks Forrest this question. “Forrest, have you found Jesus?” Forrest’s answer stirred something up in me. He said, “I didn’t know I was suppossed to be looking for him.” That statement just hit me like a ton of bricks. So many people need Jesus. They need His grace, His mercy and the forgiveness and wholeness that He offers, but they don’t know it. Maybe, they’re not suppossed to be looking for Him. I mean, if you know Jesus, did you find Him because you were looking for Him? I didn’t. Maybe He’s looking for them. Maybe He wants to use us to bring himself to others. But, my fear is, as the church we sit back and have our services and are just waiting and expecting for people to come to us looking for Jesus. We give some of our money to missionaries that go for us, but we aren’t going. Not even across the street…not even next door. I think we have this warped view of lost people. One where they are curled up in a fetal position in the corner, sucking their thumb, crying about how bad their life is, and how empty they are. That may be the case sometimes, but I know lots of lost people that love life. They have happy families, great jobs, great relationships, and they simply don’t feel they have a need for anything outside of themselves. But, we need to bring Jesus to them, through our lives, through our friendships, through our prayers, through our actions that are so kind and selfless that they can’t help but want what we have. Jesus came to give them life to the fullest. How about you? Are you developing relationships with your unsaved friends and neighbors in order to point them to Him? Or do you even have any unsaved friends? Just remember…they don’t even know they are suppossed to be looking for Him.
Half the Battle
“Know that showing up is half the Battle!” I have seen this quote on the walls of many a gym or weight room and it never fails to inspire me. For me, showing up is the hardest part of the equation. Whether it’s getting out of bed early, giving up time with my family, or time to rest…that’s what’s hard. I don’t show up at the gym and then sit around…no, once I’m there I work out hard. I know that 99% of you reading this can relate (the other 1 % are gym rats!) I have been thinking about this quote and it has occurred to me that it’s true spiritually as well. Showing up is truly half the battle. Are there days that you just don’t feel like putting forth the effort spiritually? Are there days that you don’t feel like it’s worth the effort to obey God and to apply the Word to your life? Ever want to take a vacation from your faith? Tempted sometimes to take a permanent one? I know I do. But, showing up is half the battle. Refusing to quit, no matter how many times you’ve failed, committed that same sin, fallen into that same pattern of addictive behavior….that’s half the battle. I want to be like Jesus, but sometimes I’m sooooo far away. Just the realization that I’ll never fully get there in this life, so for now the journey is the destination. But, I’ve got to let go of the shame and condemnation that I pile on myself, that I pile on others, and that others pile on me for not being perfect. God may be leading me toward the peak, but maybe getting there is less important than getting up every morning and being willing to continue taking steps, to gut it out, even when I feel like turning back. So, to those of you feeling discouraged, feeling like a failure, feeling like you’ll never be able to do this thing called following Christ…just get out of bed and make the choice to show up again today. After all, it is half the battle.
Are you a spiritual lightweight?
I’m not making this up, I promise! I read an article the other day about a 6 pound Chihuahua from Michigan who was literally blown away from her owner by a strong gust of wind. The dog was eventually found nearly a mile from where “Tinker Bell” had last been seen. Now, Chihuahuas are naturally small and light dogs and can’t help being blown away! But how many of us are lightweights in our faith? How many of us really have not progressed in our faith since the moment we called on Christ to save us? Some of us are perpetually in the infancy stage of faith, not feasting on the deeper, meatier things of God’s Word, but still sucking on the bottle that we should have been weened off of long ago. We don’t make time for silence, solitude, service, Sabbath, prayer and meditation on God’s Word in our lives and then don’t understand why we aren’t close to Him. We rely solely on our pastor each week to spoon feed us and then complain if you want something deeper. Here’s the newsflash…”the deeper comes in the silence, the solitude, the study, the serving, the prayer time…not from a pastors message.” You are where you are spiritually because you have taken the steps to get exactly where you are. No one else is to blame…you are. Sorry, hard to swallow, but the truth nonetheless. So maybe it’s time to get out of the highchair, stop making excuses and start chasing after God…pursue Him, make Him a priority, get desperate for Him. Ephesians chapter 4 tells us to “no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching…but to grow up into Him, Christ, who is the Head”. So, are you a spiritual Chihuahua? Maybe you need to put on some weight!
Jesus wants the rose!
Please, please take 4 minutes and watch this clip. It really sums up why we exist as a church, and what drives us to do what we do!
Untapped Potential
I spent a few hours today sorting through my baseball card collection. I haven’t really actively collected in a few years, but I still have hundreds of thousands of cards. As I sorted through these cards I started to realize how many of these players I had never heard of and had not really made it in the big leagues. I’d say a good 40% of the players I was seeing, never realized their potential. I then started to think about spiritual matters. I wonder what the percentage of believers out there never really realize their God-given potential (myself included). How many of us never truly step out of our comfort zones…you know, the place you have to go in order to realize that potential? How many of us just are full of excuses, or are too lazy to really do the things that we know we should be doing for God. Many of us are too comfortable with where we are currently and will never realize that potential because it takes obstacles, sacrifice and hard work to get there. So my question to you and to myself…”Am I living up to my God-given potential?” If so great. If not, why? What is holding you back? What is holding me back? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be just another career minor leaguer that never lived my dream. Maybe our dreams are too small.
Broken Pieces
I learn alot of spiritual lessons from my 6 year old son, Lincoln. It’s funny how God brings spiritual things to my mind from some of his comments or actions. I picked him up from school the other day and he was so excited to show me what he had found on the playground during reccess that day. I have to admit, I thought that he had found a shiny, pretty rock or something that was mildly attractive, but he pulled out 3 or 4 broken pieces of plastic. It looked like what once was a plastic ball of some sort with a picture on it, Lincoln was so excited because he wanted to take it home, piece it back together with tape and glue and see if he could make it pretty again. Then he told me that he wanted to go back out to the playground tomorrow to see if he could find more pieces! My first thought was to say..”Oh, that’s nice”… and not think twice about it, but something kept coming to my mind. This was a perfect picture of God and His people. He finds us broken, scattered, meant to be beautiful, useful and whole. He longs to pick us up and put us back together again, to glue those broken pieces of our souls with His grace and His love. He wants nothing more than to see us restored and whole, living the life that He had imagined for us to live, reflecting His majesty and beauty. Once He has restored one of us, the search for more broken pieces continues. I then prayed and thanked God for gathering up the broken pieces of my life, of my soul and for continuing to repair those seams that seem beyond repair. What about you? Have you allowed God to gather the broken pieces of your soul? Have you given your fragmented life to Him to make whole? He is ready to begin….are you?
Hard Truths
This past week I spoke about being a church….a people that has a taste for truth, even the difficult ones. Sometimes we don’t really want to hear or know the truth, because it cuts us, it wounds us and it just plain hurts. The Bible is full of truths that we would really rather not accept, but ones that we must embrace if we are to truly wrap our minds and hearts around the gospel. Here are the 4 hard truths that we covered on Saturday;
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1. That there is one truth, an absolute truth. Not all roads lead to heaven. As arrogant and intolerant as that sounds, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.”
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2. You’re not a good person. I know that one hurts. It hurts me too, but even though some of us might behave “better” than others, we are all still wicked at heart. Paul writes in Romans that “There is no one who is righteous, not even one. There is none that seeks after God.”
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3. God is not really interested in your happiness. What? How can a loving God not want us to be happy? Well, if you are a parent are you always interested in what will make your children happy? Or what is best for them? Wanting us to be happy and making our happiness priority number one are two different things!
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4. You have nothing. Simply put…God owns it all. Your possessions, your money, your resources, even your children are God’s and are simply on loan to you from Him. What kind of steward are you?
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You see? Not easy to swallow, but truth nonetheless. The cool thing is, if any of these weren’t true, the gospel wouldn’t be the gospel and we wouldn’t have forgiveness and a new life in Christ. Over the next few weeks I will be posting a new hard truth for us to chew on.
Repeats!
The next several blogs will be repeats from my entries over at The Journey Church blog over the last couple of months. I’m just putting them on here so I have a record of them.
Stone-throwing 101
Something has really hit me today. Sadness. Sadness, not because of the untimely death of Michael Jackson. But sad at the reaction and the comments of so many “Christians” to his death. Many have stated, “How can that molester get such a great send-off?”, or “He doesn’t deserve a tribute like that after what he’s done.” I don’t know anything about what Michael Jackson did, just what he was accussed of doing. And while the things he was accussed of are sinful…who of us isn’t a dirty sinner at heart? Who among us has the right to throw stones at Michael Jackson, when truth be told, if we aired your dirty laundry out in public your face would get pretty red! I know mine would. When will we as Christians begin to love people the way Jesus did? He wouldn’t have thrown stones at Michael Jackson…He would have wept with his family. He wouldn’t have made insensitive comments, he would have used his words to comfort and to testify to others about the grace and forgiveness of his father. When?
I’m Back…with a confession.
If you haven’t noticed…I haven’t blogged on this site for quite a while. The reason is embarrassing. I was blogging for the wrong reasons. I became too obsessed with who was reading my blog…”was a particular, popular pastor reading my blog?”. I’ve come to the conclusion…who cares? If ANYONE reads something I wrote down and is challenged, inspired or convicted then great and glory to God! So, I am back and I am going to post blogs that come from my heart and my struggles and I hope that it helps me to get these things out of my head and I hope it challenges you…the reader, no matter who you are!
Snaps from the Great Anne Arundel Candy Drop!
This event was a great time and a blessing to the community around us. Here are some snapshots!
Addicted
If we’re honest I think that alot of pastors are addicted. Maybe not to porn or drugs or alcohol. Some maybe to more “pastoraly” accepted things like work, success, leadership, power, praise or affirmation from others, or the Church. Yeah, that’s right we can be addicted to the Church. Although working in the church is our calling, it is not our life. To paraphrase the Bible, “What if you gain a large, “successful church, but lose sight of what is really important?” I think I’m very guilty of thinking in the past that a large church is the goal. Size matters. If I want to be deemed successful in the circles that I try to run in, that I must have a large ministry, have the coolest, most successful pastors reading my blog, or hanging out with me at a coffee-shop talking ministry! I, just like many of the pastors I know or know of are addicted to this sub-culture of influential pastors. If I could just have this many people read my blog…if I could just have this many people following me on twitter, if I could just write a cool book, maybe I could lead a lab at Catalyst and then people would recognize me as successful! I know alot of us feel that way, but most wouldn’t admit it. I had to ask my self about a week ago, “Why do I blog?” I had to examine my heart and come to the conclusion, that if I was blogging for any other purpose but to point people to Christ, and to encourage others in their ministry, then I’m an idolater. O.K., I guess i’m off my soapbox now.
