Welcome to My Library!

Organization has never been my strong suit, but I'm learning there are tools that planters with diagnosed (and undiagnosed) ADD can use that help. One I've found is LibraryThing which enabled me to catalog all 1246 volumes of library by scanning the books' bar codes. (Sticking 1246 labels on the bindings took me a year.) The great thing about LibraryThing is that now I have an online "card catalog" that allows me (and others) to search key words and locate my books. Below is a "wiki" that should (God and technology willing) to search the books I have on my shelves. If you'd like to check one out (literally), let me know. (Just remember, the overdue fees fund my kids' college account.)

Audacity and Purple Cows

I had to do the "Jedi Mind Trick" on our Elder Team to get them to O.K. it, but one of our church's values is Audacity. Typically, when someone calls you "audacious" it's not meant to be a compliment. However, Seth Godin writes in his book Purple Cow that to be noticed you must be audacious. (Alright, he said "remarkable" which is such a Brown Cow word!)

Cows, after you've seen them for a while, are boring. They may be well-bred cows, Six Sigma cows, cows lit by a beautiful light, but they are still boring. A Purple Cow, though: Now, that would really stand out. The essence of the Purple Cow -- the reason it would shine among a crowd of perfectly competent, even undeniably excellent cows -- is that it would be remarkable. Something remarkable is worth talking about, worth paying attention to. Boring stuff quickly becomes invisible.

So if you are a church planter, what are the audacious things your church must do (and be) to be "worth talking about, worth paying attention to" so it does not "quickly become invisible"?

Blogging Baby Steps

"Why would anyone want to read it?" That's the question I asked when prompted by others to enter the world of blogging. That's a question I still am asking as I'm sitting in a local, Irish Pub pounding out my first post. I know a little about a lot of things, but one thing I've learned a lot (the hard way) about is church planting. My hope (and feeble prayer) is that on this blog I can share a few of the "hard way" mistakes I've learned through the three churches I've helped to plant, and the I can't remember how many planters I've talked, laughed and cried with along the way. At the very least it will help me put into words the "Audacity" of a God who would choose to use guy like me to be a part of an adventure like this.