Fun Music Video

Her Morning Elegance
Directed by: Oren Lavie, Yuval & Merav Nathan
Photography: Eyal Landesman
Featuring: Shir Shomron

Gotta love Austin

Someone reprogrammed two city construction road signs near the University of Texas early Monday morning in an attempt to warn Austin of an imminent zombie attack.

Messages that typically alert Lamar Boulevard drivers to a detour for Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard splashed several warnings like “Caution! Zombies Ahead!” and “Nazi Zombies! Run!!!”

How much fun is that!

Inside the Mind - Excerpt

Over the next few weeks I'll be throwing out some excerpts from the book for dialogue.

"When a church is in a hurry to hire a youth pastor, it’s a sign that something is wrong. If you learn to read the signs, you can educate yourself on what you’re getting into. A healthy church can wait indefinitely for a new youth pastor. If it takes a year, the church can wait. If it takes three years, the church can wait.

Hurry is a sign that something is wrong, because it suggests pressure from within the organization to take action more quickly than it naturally would. If, for instance, there’s a pressure to hire a youth pastor soon out of fear that students will stop coming, then you can read the sign that says, “The youth pastor is the center for all relationships with kids in our church, and we don’t have enough volunteers.”

If there’s a pressure from parents to find a youth pastor, you can research the origins of it by asking questions about what kind of leader the senior pastor is and what kind of authority parents have in making day-to-day decisions in the church.

Youth pastors and churches who take their time in the hiring process to get to know each other are more likely to be a healthy fit."

taken from Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors, Chapter 10 (Before you say Yes)

Module 1 - Leadership for the Rest of Us

So I'm hosting my first ever leadership learning lab. Read below and see if it's for you!

Leadership for the Rest of Us
Module 1: Leading Church B
April 27 - April 29, 2009

Leading Church B is a combined experiential training, learning lab and retreat for all who want to create and apply practices of working effectively with others to create innovative and comprehensive solutions during times of change. It is a powerful leadership practicum as well as a daily pattern and practice for individuals, communities, families, businesses and organizations who aspire to work in more interactive, engaging and effective ways. This particular Module is advanced training based on the basic foundation found in Mark Riddle’s book Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors.

We welcome fellow leaders – trainers, youth pastors, senior pastors, executive pastors, consultants, youth workers, church plant organizations, leaders of missionary organizations, church board members - pioneers from various roles of church leadership- who want to see and act wisely from a different perspective and practice leadership where our own and other people’s courage, creativity, intelligence and wisdom are set free.

This Training is NOT for Spectators:

Our learning will start with the presenters content, but will grow out of participant contributions and presence – we will support one another as co-learners.

We will learn by observation, experience and practice, using an interactive process to build a safe challenging and inspiring environment.

Develop competence in several interactive processes including unearthing assumptions, advocacy and inquiry and others that produce learning and clarity, creativity and shared commitment to action.


The Hosting Team

Mark Riddle
Mark Riddle is an entrepreneur, speaker, coach, pastor and writer. He serves as the lead pastor of the Eikon, a community committed to living out the dreams of God in Tulsa and the world.

Mark leads the Riddle Group, a coaching and consulting firm committed to collaborating with local church leaders to promote and develop sustainable ministries.
Mark is the author of “Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors: A Church Leaders Guide to Staffing and Leading Youth Pastors” (Zondervan / January 2009).
Mark teaches the 3 course Certificate at Biblical Seminary outside Philly and speaks to coaches church leaders around the country. Mark spends a lot of time with Lead Pastors, Youth Pastors, Church board members and volunteers.

Jonathan Reitz
Founder of the Leader Shed, Jonathan is a gifted speaker, and coach. A natural leader with over 10+ years of ministry experience, Jonathan has worked as a denominational staff member, and as a third party coach. He is a requested speaker, author & coach for ministries of all sizes in the areas of strategic planning, stewardship, & staff development. Jonathan also works in corporate coach development and life coaching.

April 27-29- Conference starts Monday evening and ends Wednesday noon.

Location: Agora is a unique church in mid-town Tulsa - living missionally within the marketplace.

Agora in Tulsa, OK.
4959 South 79th East Ave
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74145

Registration Deadline is April 7, 2009 – Space is limited to 40 participants to maximize this experience. Spaces tend to fill up quickly. Registration is not confirmed until payment is received.

Registration Contact:
Mark Riddle
918.407.1545 (Tulsa, OK. Central Standard Time)
mark@theriddlegroup.com
1807 S. Gardenia Pl.
Broken Arrow, OK. 74012

Cost: $225 (tuition) This does not include meals, lodging or transportation.

We have priced this event to provide modest support for the hosting team and pay for the cost of the facilities, registration and materials. This is seminar is based upon hundreds of similar gathers the hosts have facilitated. However this particular date will be an updated version. For this reason we have significantly lowered the tuition from $1,299 to $225.

Giving up my iphone for this

I think I'd be willing to give up my iphone for one of these.

Link to the Pomegranate.

You should check it out too!

A Plinky Poem

If you had a wild animal as a pet:

I have a new puppy. We call him Barracuda.
A mouth full of teeth stick out of his mouth.
He always looks like he's smiling.
But he never looks happy.
Our friends won't come over any more.

Sure he's not as friendly as he could be.
He's got quite a bit of attitude.
The hair on his neck sticks up in the air when someone walks near,
and his blotchy fur coat in places is bare.
Be he's my new pet, a gift from a man who never left us his number.
One day maybe I'll pet him, or he'll let me in the den, so I can watch tv in my small home again.

Gman Reviews Inside the Mind

Highlights from his review:

1. I wish I had this book when I was in youth minister or better yet my Senior Minister's had it.

2. It helps resonate where I am now. We are currently looking or were looking but am slow in the process - (which is a good thing) and think we need to be more like Church B than Church A and well our values reflect some of both.

3. Chapter Twenty "Unfunny Jokes the Church keeps telling" was so true yet hard to read and Chapter Twenty Three "The Comparison Game" was worth the price of the book itself. This line: "Comparing your youth pastor or youth ministry to those of the church down the street is always destructive." pg. 159 (Whether that be literally or those across the nation)

4. It is a practical book for lay leaders, senior pastors with discussion questions to know what you expect in a Youth pastor, what are you looking for and why?

5. Ever Senior pastor needs to read this. I just wish it want from the mind to the heart and reflected our actions.

6. There is a criticism I would like to make of the book which I think is valid. Despite the 35 pound raccoons we face (Read Chapter 2) the book was too short. I finished it and was like that's it? I wanted more. I even wanted a list of resources and a bibliography and a follow-up. Definitely a book for discussion and getting you started on the right track.

7. I think when we do eventually hire our next staff person - they would benefit that our congregation and the people invested in the youth ministry will have looked at some of the ideas and principles Mark had laid a foundation to here.

Tell all Senior Ministers you know to get their own copy.

Link

Happy Birthday Jaden!

Happy Birthday 8th Jaden!
I love you so much. You are a passionate, energetic boy who loves to share life with others. You are growing into quite a wonderful kiddo! I love spending time with you and sharing all that is new in life with you.
-Dad

Creative pro life ad

What do you think?

Entrepreneurs and Juvenile Delinquents

Loved this CNN article about entrepreneurs. Ask my wife if I'm stubborn, delusionally optimistic, creative, fearless and focused... and ignorant. some of you already know the answer to that.

When to quit -- said Kamen, also the inventor of health care technologies and the Slingshot water purifier -- is "the toughest question there is" for any entrepreneur who survives on creativity and instinct.

"It's not nearly as glamorous as people think to keep working on something and to keep hitting roadblocks and to keep going," he said.

Stubborn, delusionally optimistic, creative, fearless, flexible and focused are some of the ways psychologists and business people describe the personality of an entrepreneur. Surprisingly, another word is ignorant.

"You need to be in denial or in ignorance about the huge challenges you face," laughs Guy Kawasaki, a former Apple executive and entrepreneur who's starting the self-described "magazine rack" alltop.com. "You have to believe that it wouldn't be hard for you to succeed."

Research by Harvard Business School psychology professor emeritus Abraham Zaleznik has unveiled a darker side to the entrepreneur's psyche.

"Entrepreneurs tend to have a singular weakness that allows them to do things without checking their conscience," Zaleznik said. "Juvenile delinquents act and then try to sort things out afterward. I think entrepreneurs have this tendency."

Another academic researcher on the topic, professor Kelly Shaver of the College of William & Mary, told Forbes magazine in 2002 that successful entrepreneurs "really don't care as much" about what other people think. "They're just happy to go ahead and do what they're doing."

Link

Fishing Advice from the Disposal

The following article was written in the car on my iphone the day an article I'd written was rejected by a popular pastor magazine for not being practical enough, not giving enough answers and therefore being negative. My publisher thought that since I don't care for practical easy steps 1, 2, 3, that I should write an article about it. The second article was rejected for the same reasons as the first. So I thought I'd put it here for your reading pleasure.

Fishing Advice from the Ministry Disposal:
Practical and Easy Steps to Being a Pastor and Supervisor for your Staff

"Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth." - Baz Lurman

Step #1: Stop reading articles with any kind of practical steps for advice or decision making. Depending on a stranger for one, two, three, step advice may be helpful for assembling a new bookshelf or entertainment center, but will always mislead you when it come to ministry. Always. You can know your ministry better than some writer in a coffee shop in another part of the world. Spend your time listening to the people in your community and less to experts in magazines. You might be better off.


Step 2- Stop depending on or looking to experts for answers. Looking to experts is actually subtly running from the problem. It assumes there's a right way to do things. It takes the responsibility off your shoulders and your congregations shoulders and put it on a stranger who knows nothing about you of your church. Let me tell you a secret about practical advice. It's generic. Generic sells. Which is nice is you own a publishing company. But really unhelpful and borderline addictive if you are a church leader. Remember Mr. Lurman’s quote above. The answers to your problem might come from the people you already have in the room, especially if these are the people responsible (with you) for causing the problem in the first place. Great solutions come from great conversations that explore the issue fully by people who see themselves as part of the problem and the solution.

Step 3 – Stop playing the expert. You aren't one. Certainly you are very good at some thing, adequate at others, and horrendous at others. Everyone is good ad something. Great leaders form environments in which each member seeks to raise up the communities skills, abilities and gifts. Being a pastor often means you feel like you should have answers to problems people have. Marriage issues? You provide answers. Raising kids? You provide advice or you hire a children’s pastor who will. Of course if you take this line of thinking to it's full extent it's pretty arrogant isn't it? As a pastor myself I remember when I realized my mentality. That if everyone did what I told them to do or needed them to be then all would be well. Marriages would be better. Families happy. Missions, evangelism everything would be wonderful of they just listened. I'm finding the need to be the expert for my community comes from others and from me. And this is a subtle temptation to manipulate others or worse, take the responsibility of someone’s life and faith from them and make it my own. Unintentionally enabling is the nature of experts with practical advice. So you relieve others of responsibility for their marriage by answering questions and giving advice. For taking responsibilities for raising kids and putting it on a staff person like yourself who can be the expert. Thus, letting people outsource the spiritual formation of their kids. So here's some more practical advice that might be true for you. Stop reading experts easy and practical steps to great leadership. Stop being the expert for your church and empower people to own their faith by not putting it on your shoulders. Stop asking your youth pastor to be the expert. Instead be a pastor. It's a forgotten art in a culture of CEO’s leaders and execs.
Freedom awaits. Freedom to be yourself. Freedom from the oppressive voice that says you need to fake it. Freedom to love people where they are, not as they should be.

Phil Bell reviews "Inside the Mind"

Phil Bell, a pastor in SE Michigan reviews "Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors".

Hers's some of what he said:

A great book that every senior pastor needs to get from their youth pastor! But, also a book that every youth pastor needs to read to better understand the dynamics of their churches and their senior pastors.

I would also say that this book is an essential book for a youth pastor who is looking to get hired at a church anytime soon. It will open your eyes to how a church thinks and acts in the hiring process. You will save yourself time and pain if you read this.

Mark highlights many challenges that youth pastors face, but also allows them to see the big picture of what is going on in their own minds, as well as the mind of the senior pastor and church. It’s a great ‘bridge builder’ of a book and is very practical and relevant.

Link

Thanks Phil! I'm glad you see this as a helpful tool for those leading the church.

Flip mino HD

anyone out there own a Flip mino HD? I'm considering getting one, but I'm interested if anyone out there has one and what they think about it.

Do you want to keep doing this?

Sunday night was the first anniversary for the eikon community. After our meal I asked the question I hope we will ask every year.

Do you want to keep doing this?

I don't care how big we get, or how small we become. This is a question I want to ask every year. Do we want to keep doing this?

Nothing is a given. We aren't entitled to be living this way. We aren't going to do it simply because we have. Community is work. Suburban living is too hard to waste anyone's time with unimportant things.

Do you ask that question in your context? Could you? What would happen? Why?

Pete Rollins - No Conviction

This could be just as good as an audio. The video quality is pretty poor. and more than a bit cheesy... but i think that's intentional. However,
I'm looking forward to this book.
The end is so good. Not where you think it's going to go.

Happy Birthday to John Raymond!

Happy Birthday to John Raymond!
I thought I'd include a picture of John from years ago. John's on the right. Can you name to other member of the team standing to his left?

John if you're reading this, spend the day listening to Elvis Costello, Green Day and U2.
Love ya man! Happy Birthday! See you in February at NPC!

So so cool.

somebody to this in tulsa please!

David Bazan is doing house shows around the country. If you don't know David or have never heard of pedro the lion you my friend are missing out on someone special.