My office is cleaned out, my final paper work is done and so is my time in the office at Islands. A bittersweet moment. Sad that I’m not going to be working with James anymore, or with our new Worship Intern, Kenny, but excited that God has something else in store for me. Dawn, Chloe and I are off to Jacksonville, FL tomorrow morning for a interview with a church. Dawn and Chloe are meeting some friends from college and I’ll be at the church. I’m excited, just talking with the elder that is heading up the search for the Jr. & Sr. High Minister is really sharp and has defiantly definitely bought into the vision of the church. I’ll write about the experience on Sunday.

Have and great weekend and if your married take Tony Morgan’s advice.

I found this story on Engadget’s site this morning. What a cool idea. We use so much technology for pleasure, but it has so much more potential. Here is a group that will really make a lot of head way in clean drinking water for 3 world countries. Who knew that a fat $2 straw could do so much.

Jars of Clay’s work with providing clean drink water is just as admirable project. Check out Blood: Water Mission to see what’s going on and what you can do to help.

As I said on Friday, I didn’t post much last week and I would explain that today. I can understand that I got butterflies telling our congregation yesterday, but getting them today will I tell the small, small part of the world that reads my blog isn’t quite understandable. After a month in prayer and seeking wise counsel my wife and I decided to resign from my position at Islands. God started the dialogue at the end of June and opened our minds to understand that His will is for us to move into focused ministry. As we have been praying for His will for the church, He started to send us more and more families with younger children and rightfully so the Elders and James asked me to step up my hands on involvement with our Children’s Ministry. God through prayer, wise counsel and Now, Discover Your Strengths showed us that He wants us to use our talents and strengths to focus on Student Ministry (Jr. and Sr. High). It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make. Part of being inside God’s will is knowing that sometimes hard decisions come and you have to face them and make the right choice and stay inside His will for you. You can kind of see looking back on my posts that I was going through the process of making this decision from this post, this post and this post. We love Islands are we harbor no bad feelings towards the church family. I didn’t get fired or asked to resign, we just feel this is where God is leading us and we better follow. My last Sunday at Islands will be August 28th. Please pray for the church to find the person who can come in catch the vision and help bring the church to the next level.

Things are a little crazy around here and so I’m not able to post as much as I would like. I’ll be able to explain more of that on Monday. I did how ever get a plug in for Wordpress to work and display what I’m reading on the left hand side. That’s pretty cool. I’ll post my Poverty post sometime this afternoon.

I rant every now again about not like Windows. Not the kind you look out the kind that crashes, freezes, and just plain stinks (some kids may read this). I really like standards. Web standards especially. CSS rocks, it fast, a standard and fun to script. You have to check out this website made to look like a WinXP desktop. Some of the icons work and the start menu is amazing.

We had one of those weekends that you want to talk about. We got a new puppy from the Coastal Pet Rescue on Thursday, which led to an interesting weekend of puppy activities. We had a Back to School Lock-In Friday night and the A/C didn’t work in our auditorium and Napoleon Dynamite watch. On Sunday morning I was walking around our upstairs Children’s Ministry classes and overheard a boy going into 1st grade tell his Sunday School teacher that he was still faster than her, what he meant was even on crutches he was still faster. Trevor degeneration disease in his hip and will be on crutches for 2 yrs while he is treated for it. Wow, what an attitude for a 6 yr old to have faced with not being able to do things 6 yr olds do. And last but not least my man Dan Marino was enshrined into the Football Hall of Fame. It was so great to see Dan together with Mark Duper and Mark Clayton. I remember watching them play together as a child. He threw his 48 touchdowns and 5,084 yards in one season. It was great to see all the Marino fans there and supporting him. I was bothered how ever by the fact that we throw huge celebrations for sports people, politicians, rich people, movie and music stars but not for people who make such a bigger positive impact on society like teachers, firemen, policeman, community volunteers and mentors.

This week I want to talk about a group called I.D.E.S., or International Disaster Emergency Service. They are a missions group supported by the fellowship of Christian Churches/ churches of Christ. Through the money they are sent each month by supporting churches they are able to help in some of the most destitute regions of the world. Linked here are the projects they are currently involved in check it out its truly amazing what can happen when we all put our little bit into the same pot and what God can do with it all. They are doing an amazing work to help fight hunger and poverty due to disasters all over the world.

I posted the other day about Marcus Buckingham’s book, Now, Discover Your Strengths. I really like this book. I’ve got through the explanation about why focusing on your strengths and I’ve discovered my Strength themes and learning about them and how they shape me and my work.

My themes are… Restorative- problem solver Relator- pulled toward building stronger relationships with people I already know Adaptability-flexible Input- crave knowledge Significance- don’t want to be mediocre, driven by goals and achievement

I’ve sat down and written a list of how I think my strengths play in my ministry. I am honing the list and try to make sure that I realize how all my strengths play into my work ethic, drive and personality. Again I really recommend this book for personal use and for people in management role.

Bruce Johnson over on hos blog talked the other day about hooking you audience in series of two posts (1 & 2). I know he is so right. I look at how I dive into a message and a hook is no where to be found. I have never really thought about it, hook my audience that is. It not that I just supposed that they would just jump into my boat, but I maybe thought that they wanted to hear what I had to say. Being constantly in a mode of changing to be effective, I am working to find my way of hooking my audience.

Message Check list: 1. Relevant Topic 2. Hook 3. God’s Word 4. Humor 5. Holy Spirit

I’m reading Marcus Buckingham’s book, “Now, Discover Your Strengths“. This is such a great book.

For personal use it great because it helps you discover your strength themes, and then how to devl0p them.

For a Senior Minister, Exec. Minister, Manager, Director this book is great because it shows you how to look at your people, their strengths and their position. Does this person’s strengths match this position? Can we hone his position to fit his strengths? And it forces you to stop thinking that you can send them for training in areas their not gifted or talented in and have them come back ready to perform excellent in that role.

I really encourage you to get this book, take the Strengths Finder Profile (you get one free profile with the purchase of the book) and read it. If you lead a staff have them all take the profile and them help them strengthen their talents and better serve your situation.