What Do You Think About Google+?

July 8, 2011 in Technology with 1 Comment

I have been playing with Google+ for the last week or so and I wanted to share with you all the good and the bad that I have found while using it. The bad list is shorter right now because I just really like it so far.

The Bad

  • It is currently in limited use by invite only. For this reason, many of you may not be able to play with it yet. I have found a few people to connect with in the network, but it is always more fun when you can connect with people that you know.
  • Not all features have been released yet. There are a lot of things that I feel are missing from the social network that will most likely be added in the near future. But because this is a limited release, the features are also limited.

The Good

  • It is clean and simple to use. I am comparing this to the likes of Facebook and their ever changing user interface.
  • It is not loud. There are aren’t game requests and suggestions coming at me from every direction about who I should follow. This will change as more people gain access.
  • Circles are my favorite part about it. It is a built in community organizer that is easy to use. By default you have a circle for your family, friends, acquaintances, and following. When you share something, you get to pick which circles see it. I love having that kind of control over who sees my updates.
  • Unlimited photo uploads. Google plus is connected with Picasa.  I am already a Picasa user and I have the free account with 1 GB limit to upload. I am only using about 2% of that right now, but today on Google+ I uploaded 1/2 GB of photos and it did not count against my Picasa limit. I am hoping this does not change because I will use this to backup my entire photo collection in the cloud.
  • Hangouts are a place where you can tell your circles that you are available for chat. People can join you and do live video chat. I have not been in one yet, but am looking forward to trying it out.
  • Keyboard shortcuts are a nerd’s best friend. I am a nerd and I like them a lot. Google+ has shortcuts built in much like Google Reader. This allows me to skip to the next shared item in my stream instead of having to scroll through everything.

Those are just a few of the things I have found while playing with Google+. If you were lucky enough to get into the service, look me up and we’ll connect. I would also love to hear what you have thought about it if you are using it. And if you haven’t, would you consider using it over Facebook?

Failing Your Way To Success

July 7, 2011 in Leadership with 0 Comments

“Success is on the far side of failure.” –  T.J. Watson, founder IBM

If you find yourself running into failure, don’t give up. Sometimes when I fail at certain things, I get this idea in my head that I will never be able to accomplish that. I begin to believe that I failed because I am not good enough. I know that I have to fight past those thoughts. If I have learned anything about success it would be that it never comes without failure along the way. You can become successful by first learning how not to do something. How many times did you crash your bike when trying to learn to to ride on two wheels? If you quit the first time you may have never learned.

Don’t give up. Keep failing over and over and over again if necessary and learn from each failure. Do something different with it the next time. Eventually you may reach your goal.

The Danger of Compromise

July 6, 2011 in Personal Development with 0 Comments

Compromise is defined as a settlement of a dispute by concessions on both or all sides.

This can be a good thing when there is a disagreement between individuals. Disputes can be settled fairly this way. In fact we have become so accustomed to such compromises that it is spreading to the rest of our lives. Specifically, I want to investigate how we compromise in our faith.

I have discovered that I have compromised a lot of things in my life that I should not have. I have compromised my health, finances, and my faith. I justify my poor behavior and do the things I want to do guilt free. I have listened to the lie and believed it to be true. Because of this I am now trying to fix big problems that could have been avoided with better choices. I am overweight and need to lose about 100 lbs. I have credit card debt that I need to pay off and it is crippling the rest of my finances. And I have allowed sin to take root in my life where it can be hard to weed them out. I have compromised in so many ways and it is preventing me from being the best of what God has planned for me.

I am working against these things and it can be difficult. It takes discipline and a great amount of support and encouragement. I will fail at times, but if I stick with it, I know that  I can find my way out of it.

How Do You Represent Jesus And Your Church?

July 5, 2011 in Discipleship with 2 Comments

You might be the only version of Jesus one person meets. Someone in your life might see you as the basis of their opinions on Jesus and church. To think that there are people out there who do not want to go to church because of something I said or did really irritates me. I know that I have a strong personality and that I can easily offend other people. I get excited about things and my mouth opens up before my brain thinks about it. I sometimes wonder how many people I have turned away from Jesus and church. We like to count all of the people we bring to Jesus, but what about those we scared away from Jesus.

Whether we like it not, we are a front line representative of the church. People watch everything that we say and do and will pass judgement on what we represent. Unfortunately we are severely flawed. I am not always a good representative of Jesus. I get angry at other people and the last thing I want to do is love them. I say things that I can’t take back. I stopped wearing a WWJD bracelet a long time ago because I am just not that good at representing Jesus all of the time.

Therefore, I don’t pretend to be perfect. If I act like I got it all together, then I come off as a self righteous SOB. See I told you I don’t always say the right thing. So I just put it all out there. I let people see that I am screwed up and that is part of the reason that I follow Jesus. If I was perfect, I wouldn’t need Jesus. If I am perfect, I am unapproachable and judgmental even before I open my mouth.

Jesus came to earth to experience our experience. To feel our pain and suffering. So that we can touch him and know that he feels exactly what we feel. He was the only one who could live and be perfect. He came down to our level to help us, to save us. And we should do the same. We should be using our hands and feet to help others where they are. We need to get dirty.

How are you representing? Are  you clean or are you dirty?

Ask Anything

July 1, 2011 in Community with 0 Comments

I didn’t  have any blog posts ready for today and I didn’t get any crazy inspiration last night to throw one together. So today I am fishing for ideas to write about. I thought I would ask you what you want me to write about. Do you have any questions for me that I could try to answer? Are there things you want to know about me? So the lines are open. If you have a really good question, I will write a whole blog post about it.

Dave Ramsey Disciple

June 30, 2011 in Discipleship with 0 Comments

Last night, Faith and I began classes in Financial Peace University. I am excited like Christmas Eve excited. I was unofficially a Dave Ramsey disciple before, but now I am all in. Before, I knew only the basics, but now we are are going to go deep. I have a feeling that the next 12 weeks are going to fly by for me. I also may have found a new way for me to volunteer at church when this is over.

I am ready to learn from the master about controlling my money. I think it’s going to get a little crazy.

Vision Casting To Create Other Vision Casters

June 29, 2011 in Leadership with 0 Comments

Is vision caster a real word? Well, you get what I mean. So you have an idea or a vision and you want to lead your organization to follow that vision. You share your vision with others and describe it in detail. You explain why it needs to be pursued and why things have to change. But how do you really get people on board?

I have been reading through ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen Covey and as I was reading over the 2nd habit about beginning with the end in mind. A study had been done on peak performers and they found that almost all of them were visualizers. They visualized steps and processes and imagined themselves working through them before they ever took the first real step. They had a vision to accomplish something and visualized to the end before actually taking action. Seems like common sense to me.

Then I though deeper into it. I thought, if I am a peak performer and I lead a group of people, I have the ability to help those I lead to also become peak performers. I believe that leaders should reproduce themselves into those they lead. So if I am a visualizer, then I need to train others to be visualizers like me so that they can have similar success. If I am a vision caster, then I need to develop other vision casters or else the vision dies with me.

I wrote yesterday about churches who follow their pastor more than they follow Jesus and what would happen if that pastor suddenly left that ministry. If that visionary pastor and gifted communicator is the reason that church is successful, then he needs to be able to pass on his leadership and gifts to others so that the church would not falter without him.

In order to get others to buy into your vision, you need to teach them and let them dream the dream with you. Help them to visualize it and begin adding their own gifts and abilities to your vision. They will take part ownership and they will walk it out with you.

Attending Church To See Jesus Or The Rock Star Pastor?

June 28, 2011 in Church with 4 Comments

I was traveling last week and I attended church with extended family in their home town. It is not the first time that I have visited this church, but the regular teaching pastor was out of town and we had the opportunity to listen to someone else preach. I didn’t think much of it because at my church, the pulpit is shared among multiple teachers and preachers.

When it was discovered that the regular preacher was not going to be there, comments were made about how attendance will be down this weekend because the regular guy isn’t there. These comments made me sad for this church. I began to think to myself, what would happen to this church if the Senior Pastor retired? Would the majority of people stop coming because everyone else is a boring preacher compared to him? Is this one man the primary reason that this church has grown so much? Do they go to church to see Jesus or to see the Rock Star Pastor?

My hope is that my fears would not be true. My hope is that this church really follows Jesus and not just a man who has a gift to teach others about Jesus. My hope is that this one man has invested in the leadership of the church so that it can be a thriving community without him. My hope is that the people of this church would be able to to pull together and continue to grow closer to Jesus if this one man was no longer around.

Has church become a form of entertainment to the point that if the Rock Star takes a week off, we go look for something more interesting to do?

 

Taking Time To Recover

June 27, 2011 in Personal Development with 0 Comments

I spent the last 7 days in Nashville, TN. I have just finished the drive back. It is now Sunday night at almost 11:30 PM. The kids are tucked in bed and the car is unloaded. I didn’t feel like writing tonight, but I am trying very hard to write something every week day. And I don’t want to just throw some random post at you. So I am going to write about recovering from these types of events.

Why should I take time to recover? My kids are going to bounce out of bed in the morning and have as much energy as they did the day before. I am not sure I am ready to take that on tomorrow. The good news is that they haven’t played with their toys at home all week, so they will be pretty entertained remembering all of the cool stuff to do around here. I don’t plan on pushing things too hard tomorrow. I will unpack and readjust to living at home life. But after 24 hours or so around here, we have to get back into gear. So it is important that I get good rest tonight and try to ease back into things tomorrow.

When I was working the normal 9-5 job, I used to take an extra day off after vacation to recover a little bit. Or we would come home a day early if I didn’t have the time off. It is no fun to come home from a fun trip and turn around and jump right back into work. We have done that before, and it takes me days to get unpacked. Then I feel like I didn’t get anything done that whole next week. But if I plan for that recovery time, it goes so much smoother.

The point of a vacation is to take a break from work. But often vacation feels like work. When you spend the end of your trip driving and packing and hauling and loading and unloading, there is nothing relaxing about that. So if you are coming off of a busy season or a big event with family or work, don’t forget to take time to recover.

What Is Your Favorite Family Event?

June 24, 2011 in Community with 2 Comments

After talking about family all week, I thought I would ask you about yours. So what is your favorite thing to do with your family? Today is your chance to share. Here is one of mine.

I love road trips with my family. The stereotype is the cranky kids in the back and me driving and yelling something about pulling the car over. It doesn’t work that way for us. My kids have been road tripping often since they were babies. We bring stuff to entertain them. We stop along the way. We pack a  lot of snacks. And it doesn’t hurt that our van has a DVD player in it. The kids wear wireless headphones and I can play the stereo up front. My favorite part is that it gives Faith and I time to just really talk without too many distractions.

Ok, your turn.

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