Bay Shorts

Our new youth leaders had a moment to sit down & ask a couple of questions with Pastor Danny.

Last night my buddy Tim (architect extraordinaire) sat down & dreamed about what the Bay Shore Rehoboth could look like. He took the original structure files, & just messed around with the possibilities in his 3D Modelling program.

(Again, this is NOT what it’ll look like.  We just had fun dreaming of the possibilities for this spring / summer)…

I’m SO excited.

Are you?

We taped a weekly video on Bay Shore’s Kids website featuring the “verse of the week”. Matt wanted to shoot it on the roof.  I was scared.  Here’s some behind-the-scenes footage:

Was listening to 7-Practices of effective ministries podcast from Andy Stanley.  Loved this little chunk:

“Focus is giving yourself permission NOT to do everything, and to stay on what you do best.  It lets you stay away from a needs-based approach.

“So-and-so NEEDS this, or we NEED to do a student retreat.”

“We feel responsibility to have to meet any need that comes our way.  Because this person has a need, we feel compelled to be the ones to meet it.  But Jesus never did that.  Jesus did not allow the needs of the people to drive his time, his schedule, his attention.  Jesus didn’t pull away from the crowd when the needs were all met,  or the desires were all satisfied, he pulled away to spend time with his Father.”

“I always picture Jesus tiptoing around all those people at the pool of Saloam to reach one person, but there are many more that didn’t get healed.”

Dang.  All true.  Any thoughts?

Got a chance to set up & mess with the monome this weekend, really loving it.

Monome Experiment #1 from Andrew Mason on Vimeo.

With help from some stand-up folks  (You guys know who you are…Thanks!) We produced something semi-original. We decided to call it “The Big Idea.”   What’s the “Thing” or “Things” we want people to know, & what do we want them to do?

The music was beatmatched Fergie & Vanilla Ice (not even sure why….but it worked for us).  Made in Cinema 4D.  A TON of advice from people way smarter than us helped make this:

The Big Idea from Andrew Mason on Vimeo.

…If you like it, we’ll make the c4d project file free, coming soon.

If you missed it, you can catch Part 1: 7 Habits & Karate Kid.

Remember that scene from “The Nutty Professor” where Sherman suddenly “gets it”?  And he starts to realize that if his life is out of control, he’s the only one responsible for changing it?  Out of all my notes, these two quotes are really the crux of how my mindset’s been changing.  These are my “Sherman Clump” quotes:

“…We find two ways to put ourselves in control of our lives immediately.  We can make a promise – and keep it.  Or we can set a goal – and work to achieve it.  As we begin to make & keep commitments, even small commitments, we begin to establish an inner integrity that gives us more awarenes of self-control and the courage & strength to accept more of the responsibility for our own lives.”

“Be a light, not a judge.  Be a model, not a critic.  Be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.  Look at the weaknesses of others with compassion, not accusation.  It’s not what they’re not doing or should be doing that’s the issue.  The issue is your own chosen response to the situation and what you should be doing.  If you start to think the problem is “out there,” stop yourself.  That thought itself is the problem.”

And I just realized:  “YES I CAN.”

Dang.  How many times have I looked through the lens of blame out the window, when I should’ve been looking in the mirror.

What about you? Is there anything this new year you should take more initiative on?

One of the things my church has decided to do was change the stage for the new year.  It’s a blast serving & working at a place where stuff is always improving!

Here’s a Time-lapse of our first day remodeling the stage.  Excited about where this is headed!

What about you?  What are you doing for the new year?

I’ve been slowly trudging through the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People at a friend’s recommendation, and it’s systematically kicking me in the teeth.  Most of what I thought I knew about leadership was wrong.

I guess step one is admitting you have a problem.  Stephen Covey seems to be the Mr. Miyagi of leadership, and it feels like he’s telling me to wax old cars.

It’s like Covey’s saying, “You want to learn leadership?  Step one is to realize you know Jack Crap about it.”

Anyways.  Here are a few quotes that have me thinking:

“Happiness can be defined, in part at least, as the fruit of the desire and ability to sacrifice what we want now for what we want eventually.” – P48

“On a ten-point scale, if I am at a level two in any field, and desire to move to level five, I must first take the step toward level three.  ‘A thousand mile journey begins with the first step’ and can only be taken one step at a time.” – P37

“If you don’t let a teacher know at what level you are- by asking a question, or revealing your ignorance – you will not learn or grow.  You cannot pretend for long, for you will eventually be found out.” – P37

“How can we remember our ignorance, which our growth requires, when we our using our knowledge all the time?” – P37

And there’s tons more.  My scrivener notebook is chock full of one liners, each one I wish I could spend a 1-day retreat on.  What about you?  What books are you reading to grow & learn?