How do you lead a healthy team dynamic? In this episode, Bill Hybels and Jim Mellado revisit a classic interview with Carly Fiorina at The Global Leadership Summit. During the interview, Bill asked her about the dynamics within her board. Bill and Jim then identify the dynamics involved in healthy teams.
Um… very insightful.
This session was recorded at the 2010 Acts 29 Boot Camp in Seattle, WA. In this session, Pastor Mark Driscoll talks about Marriage, Ministry, and Mistakes
This is very eye-opening. Pastor Mark is being very honest about many real issues for many people jugging ministry, marriage, and family. The truth is that, many things can go really wrong. He is not pulling stories from books, but from thousands of pastors’ lives.
“If you put ministry in the first slot, you are an idolater. If you put ministry in the second slot, you are an idolater. If you put ministry in the third slot, you are an idolater.” – Pastor Mark Driscoll.
Christian, husband, father, pastor.
The video is about an hour long but it’s worth every single minute of your time. I highly recommend this if you have thought about church planting.
Ministry, Marriage, and Mistakes
http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/special/ministry-marriage-and-mistakes
I just finished watching all of the NOOMA videos from 1 to 20. NOOMA is a series of short films produced by Flannel promoting spiritual perspectives on individual life experiences. The storyteller Rob Bell is the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church. Each video is about 10 to 15 minutes.
The videos are so great that, I just don’t know how to put into words. Let’s just say, you know the guy is giving a message, but you are so deep into his story that you are just enjoying his story while taking in his message at the same time. These videos/messages are based on real life experience and biblical truth, and are presented in simple day-to-day words and images.
If you are a small group leader I will definitely recommend you to watch these nooma videos. There are also study guides available.
Here is the list of the videos:
001 | Rain: “Things don’t always work out the way we want them to.”
002 | Flame: “What’s up with the word love?”
003 | Trees: “Do our lives really matter?”
004 | Sunday: “Why do we do the things we do?”
005 | Noise: “Why is silence so hard to deal with?”
006 | Kickball: “Why can’t we always have what we want?”
007 | Luggage: “It isn’t always easy to forgive.”
008 | Dust: “Does God believe in us?”
009 | Bullhorn: “Can we separate loving God and loving others?”
010 | Lump: “A lot of us have done things in our lives we are ashamed of.”
011 | Rhythm: “What does it mean to have a relationship with God?”
012 | Matthew: “Suffering the loss of someone we love can be the most difficult thing in life to deal with.”
013 | Rich: “Maybe God has blessed us with everything we have so we can bless and give to others.”
014 | Breathe: “Our physical breath is actually a picture of a deeper spiritual reality.”
015 | You: “Some of the central claims of the Christian faith are the source of many discussions and heated debates. But are we always debating the right things?”
016 | Store: “We all get angry about things from time to time.”
017 | Today: “How much time and energy do we spend wishing things were how they used to be?”
018 | Name: “Why are we so concerned with what other people think, say, or look like?”
019 | Open: “What if there’s more to prayer than just God listening and answering?”
020 | Shells: “What are we really doing with our time?” (June 2008)
021 | She: “When we omit the feminine, are we missing a very fundamental part of His nature?” (September 2008)
022 | Tomato: “Most of us grew up believing that our worth comes from how smart, competent, fast, better skilled and good we are. But Jesus invites us to die to all of that so that we can really live.”
023 | Corner (2/20/2009)
024 | Whirlwind (5/15/2009)
025 | Third (2009)
My personal top 5 favorites are: Rain, Sunday, Bullhorn, Lump, and Shells.
Here is a preview video of the video Rain, I am sure you will like it.
Here is another one, Lump:
Wow… This is a very short yet challenging message for me and yo’all Christians out there. I have heard of the name Francis Chan before but I just recently saw one of his message videos, and man what an analogy regarding how the majority of the Christians live nowadays in America!
If you are not a Christian, this could also be challenging to you as well. Very so often we challenge our kids to dream big, and to live a life worth living for and so forth. But, I just wonder if we can really use our lives as examples while doing all the preaching.
Hope you enjoy this video. It’s only 4 mins long.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA_uwWPE6lQ
US churches use Twitter to reach a wider audience
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/twitter/5274071/US-churches-use-Twitter-to-reach-a-wider-audience.html
Pastors in Westwinds Community Church in Michigan spent two weeks teaching their congregation about Twitter, which allows users to send messages to each other which are no longer than 140 characters. Of the church’s 900 adult members, 150 are now tweeting.
The church encourages congregants to ask questions about a sermon that the pastor can answer later. Alternatively, they can “tweet” during the service in case another worshipper can provide enlightenment.
Um… I think we are entering a new era of worship… starting from old traditional, to women preaching, to contemporary music, now even to twitter! I think outwardly worship can take on many different forms, so long as we are connecting with God.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a name foreign to many of us. I recently watched his autobiography DVD, and I am deeply impacted by how he lived his life.
From the PBS website:
He was born into a comfortable, upper middle class family and he risked it all to join the German Resistance. He had deep respect for human life, but he committed himself to joining plots to assassinate Hitler. Facing the death sentence in prison, he wrote some of the most compelling theology of the 20th century.
Some of the tough life questions from his life are:
Bonhoeffer went back to Germany, joined the German Resistance, and participated in many of the underground operations. However the assassination attempt failed and he was executed along with some of his brothers. He was not well known because he didn’t succeed. However his life became a great source of inspiration to people like Martin Luther King.
I recommend you to check out his autobiography DVD.
“The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
This song is really funny. It puts all the things you ever heard from your mom into its lyrics. I am not sure who started this first but this particular video is made by Northland Church. Hope you like it. 
I have been doing some searches on churches lately. Then I came across these two articles. They are pretty well written.
Is your church more Chinese than Christian?
Youth: most active, least committed
Disclaimer: The above articles do not necessarily represent my view. ^^;
Last night I sang a few Christmas songs at my church. One of the songs was “The First Noel”. The song goes like this…
The first ‘Noel!’ the angels did say
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay;
In fields where they lay keeping their sheep,
On a cold winter’s night that was so deep.Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel!
Born is the King of Israel!
So like, we sang Noel Noel many times, the pitch went from super low to super high. But I was like, who is Noel? I know Noah, maybe they are cousins?
Well, it turns out that Noel is French. I mean, not that he is French, but the word Noel is French. It means Christmas.
You can read up some more on wikipedia.
Um… interesting. So next time when I sing that song again, I know that I am in fact singing:
Christmas! Christmas!
Christmas! Christmas!
Born is the King of Israel!