Featured

I was recently asked what were some of my favorite films. It is a question that gets asked of me several times a year and I don’t think I have ever set down to put pen to paper to create a list of my favorites. I do have a Moleskine Film Journal that I started keeping in the summer of 2011 that I purchased at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. I have been adding my movie stubs to it and will occasionally write the name of films that I watch on DVD or TV to it. I have created a running list of my favorite all time  movies here but will list a few of my favorite films of 2011 below:

• Drive – This movie had so much swagger. To call it “cool” would be an understatement.
• Hugo – A great film that helps make some history of the cinema into a palpable story.
• Super 8 – If there was an award for making a film most likely to have been lost by Steven Spielberg, this would be it. Great on all points.
• Warrior
• Crazy Stupid Love
• The Descendants
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 1 & 2
• Moneyball
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes
• Hanna
• Real Steel
• The Adjustment Bureau

Not a bad list there. What were a few of your favorite films from this year?

I had the chance to go and see George Clooney’s new film The Descendants this past weekend while in Dallas with the family. I have been really excited about seeing this film after reading the Critics reviews. After seeing so many 100 out of  100 reviews I knew this was one that I was going to have to check out.

This is a powerful movie. Clooney’s character is being pulled in so many different directions. His wife has had an accident and is lying in the hospital. His workaholic lifestyle has kept him from developing a deeper relationship with his two daughters. His extended family is betting on him to make a decision that will result in them inheriting a huge sum of money. He finds out that his wife, who is lying in the hospital in a coma, has been having an affair. That is quite a load to carry on your shoulders.

As I sat and watched this film I began identifying the stories that were happening to Clooney with those of the people that I help oversee. It helped give me insight into what they went through this year and gave me hope that the trials that we encounter help refine us into a person that is more closely connected to God and His purposes. Don’t allow bad circumstances to pull your faith and hope away from Christ.

What will it take for you to change your life and commit to a deeper relationship with our God? These pivotal circumstances that we have little or no control over can wreck your life…or they can help you get back on track with God. They will help you realize what is really important in life and what you should really be thankful for and focusing on.

Check out this video and share some thoughts about a pivotal circumstance that God has used to redirect your path.

As Harrah Church has worked at continuing its mission of developing people in Christ we have focused time and resources on helping people to begin to embed themselves in service to our community and not in a weekly schedule inside the walls of the church. Embed is the word I like to use when talking about a missional lifestyle here in Harrah, America. Embedding ourselves into the lives and culture of our community has come to the forefront of ministry at Harrah Church.

We have watched the food pantries shut their doors around us. Churches in our area are struggling to keep staff pastors and leadership in various roles for long or at all.

I want to go to Verge Conference 2012 to discover how Harrah Church can begin embedding ourselves deeper into the fabric of our community. How can we weave our small group strategies around serving the neighborhoods where our groups meet? What kind of ministry can we do within the daycare centers in our community? What can we do to help the schools improve student achievement test scores and graduation rates? What established groups within our city can we pull up to and begin working beside? What kind of ministry is taking place in retirement and nursing home communities? How do you support foster families who are taking in the kids displaced by addiction? How do we increase awareness and bring solutions and education to our community about the social problems that are affecting families? How can we connect the faith communities in our town with the needs of our neighbors?

I want to go to VERGE to find answers, to meet practitioners, to discover solutions to our community’s issues, to discover answers to questions that I don’t even know to ask yet. Harrah Church has an incredible heart to help develop people in Christ and they are reaching out to the least of these. I want to support the work that God is doing here, learn to develop the ability to discern where God is leading the church, the issues within our community and how to realize a church that knows the heartbeat, hurts and hangups within our community and can help begin to recover and celebrate their community.

For me VERGE is an opportunity to connect with the thoughts, practices and leaders who will help change our community and connect people to Christ.

I recently helped build a website for the guys over at West Metro Community Church in Yukon, OK. Great guys and a great build process. Thanks to Pastor Hank for calling. Three weeks ago I started getting all this mail for some people at their church, or so I thought. As I began reading the emails I realized that they were meant for employees at West Metro Fire in Lakewood, CO. The difference here is only four letters, FIRE, but for West Metro Fire it could be the diference between making a sale and not or providing great customer service and dropping the ball.

Here is the lesson: too many times the difference between the results we want and the results that we end up with are only a few words. The issue is those few words either escape our mind or don’t seem that important. It is better to over-communicate your expectations than to leave them open to interpretation.

Don’t just tell people WHAT you want done, tell them WHEN you want it done by.

Dont just tell someone they did a good job, tell them what actions that they took went above and beyond. In the future they will begin focusing on perfecting each step in the process rather than just getting the job done.

You can make a little bit go a long way, but a little bit more may increase that distance exponentially.

What are a few ways you may be miscommunicating or under-communicating to those around you? What few words can you add to your communications to help people under your expectations?

I spoke in my last post about some problems that I was having with my radiator. I would have never discover what the real problems were with my system if Darren Herdman had not brought his pressure tester to my house. Having the right tool for the job will not only save you time but it will help you do the job right the first time. Here is a list of the things that I did before discovering the real problem:

1. Put the slipped belt back on
2. Put the slipped belt back on
3. Put the slipped belt back on
4. Changed the alternator
5. Put the slipped belt back on
6. Changed the upper radiator hose
7. Put the slipped belt back on
8. Changed the overflow hose
9. Put the slipped belt back on
10. Changed the belt tensioner
11. Put the slipped belt back
12. Put the slipped belt back
13. Threw my hands up in frustration

Tonight I need to say a big thanks to my friend Darren Herdman. Sydnie’s van has been throwing the belt since this past winter and leaking anti-freeze. Darren was able to come over to the house and sort out our car troubles in a matter of minutes. It turned out that my radiator cap was bad and wasted capable of holding the 16lbs of pressure required. Because the pressure wasn’t correct I was unable to discover the crack in my radiator that was causing my anti-freeze to leak.

When I took over the role of administrator of our Early Learning Centers here in Harrah and Choctaw I went from managing a a little over a hundred volunteers a week to overseeing a staff of 70 plus employees and hundreds of volunteers. I have been working on fine tuning the amount of pressure that needs to exist within our organization in order for it to operate in a healthy manner that ensures the best possible product. If you don’t apply enough pressure then you are too soft on people and they will take advantage of you. Apply too much pressure and you become Gordon Ramsey. Because I work for a church I can’t run around dropping the F-Bomb, yelling at people and telling them they are too weak of a person to do us any good. Ok…I mean I shouldn’t do those things. You have to find a balance.

Do you feel that you are being too soft or too hard?

Remember, when you are too soft on those who report to you you will increase the amount of pressure on yourself. Dial it in and figure how much pressure you need to maintain in your environment and make sure that you are achieving it. Don’t worry about increasing the pressure. This problem is like boiling a frog. Do it slowly and he will never notice. Do it all at once and he will jump out of the pot.