Podcasts
Jun 30, 2009 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
On Facebook yesterday, someone asked what podcasts I listen to on a regular basis. It wasn’t until then that I realized that my Link Love area was terribly outdated because I only update my podcasts in iTunes. So, I figured I’d post a list of my favs here in the order they appear in iTunes.
Francis Chan – Wicked smart pastor from California who teaches with a brutal honesty and a big smile. Infectious to watch and challenging to listen to.
Coverville – If you know me, you know I love cover tunes. Nuff said.
The Gospel Coalition – I love this sentence from their “Who Are We” page: “We want to be robustly biblical, richly theological, constantly elevating what God himself in his own Word makes central.” Yeah buddy.
In Our Time – This is a BBC broadcast on the history of ideas. Good stuff to chew on.
Mark Driscoll – Pastor from Seattle who people tend to love or hate. I love his faithfulness to the Word and his keen eye on culture.
Mashup Town – If there’s one thing I love more than cover tunes, it’s mashups.
Erwin McManus – Very artsy pastor from California. I love how he is such a great story teller.
Radioclash – Another mashup podcast, this one focusing on long 1 or 2 hour shows instead of single songs.
Rocketboom – Eclectic news and special interest stories presented in a very unique fashion.
Ted – Fascinating interviews on all kinds of different topics.
So, what am I missing? Who / what should I be listening to that I am not?
Live Carefully
Jun 29, 2009 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
This morning, I was reading today’s Bible passage at Text.RivChurch.com and one verse really jumped out at me:
Ephesians 5:10 Carefully determine what pleases the Lord.
It was the first two words that really struck me: “carefully determine.” I tend to be a person who makes quick, snap decisions. I live that way, I lead that way, it’s how I’m wired. The best thing for Riv is that we have other leaders who are better at “carefully determining” and they keep me from taking the church off a cliff.
But they don’t live my Christian life–that is between me and God.
And so it is my responsibility to “carefully determine what pleases the Lord.” To me, that is a reminder that I need to take time on a regular basis to stop, slow down, and reflect on my life and ministry. One of my friends takes an hour a day, a day each quarter, and a week each year to do this sort of thing. I remember hearing him talk about this and wanting to do the same, but not wanting to slow down at the same time. Reminds me of the flesh v. spirit battle Steve talked about this weekend.
Maybe it’s time for me to get a bit more careful.
Funemployment
Jun 24, 2009 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
In light of last weekend’s teaching on work, I thought this was an interesting article
Michael Van Gorkom was laid off by Yahoo in late April. He didn’t panic. He didn’t rush off to a therapist. Instead, the 33-year-old Santa Monica resident discovered that being jobless “kind of settled nicely.”
Week one: “I thought, ‘OK . . . I need to send out resumes, send some e-mails, need to do networking.”
Week two: “A little less.”
Every week since: “I’m going to go to the beach and enjoy some margaritas.”
What most people would call unemployment, Van Gorkom embraced as “funemployment.”
(Thanks to Lisa for the link to For the ‘funemployed,’ unemployment is welcome – Los Angeles Times)
So, what do you think about funemployment?
Ephesians
Jun 23, 2009 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
Today at Riv’s Text Project, we are starting the book of Ephesians. Here’s a little video recap of the book to get you started:
The Team: Shelley Hrapkiewicz
Jun 22, 2009 The Team
It’s been a few weeks since I have heaped praise on a Riv team member, so I thought I’d do so again today.
This week’s victim is Shelley Hrapkiewicz. Go ahead…try to pronounce her last name. Want some help? “Rap-KEV-Ech” Try saying that ten times fast. Or even worse, try spelling it one time slowly. I’m just delighted there is someone at Riv with a harder to work with last name than me!
Shelley has other redeeming qualities besides her last name. Namely, that she is our Operations Genius around these parts. She is an accountant by trade and that’s what we initially hired her to do. To our benefit, she quickly outgrew that position and she now helps keep all of Riv’s expanding Operations aimed in the right direction. Here are some interesting facts about Shelley:
- She once had to fight to keep from giggling while telling our staff we were cutting the budget.
- Her idea of leisure reading is the “2009 Clergy Tax and Compensation Guide”
- If you want candy, just wander into her office sometime.
- Kids wander into her office all the time.
- She is really really really into good food. Did I mention “really?”
- She makes me cowboy coffee.
- She once turned a two-page food policy document into a better 3 two-sentence food policy document.
- She is always down for a good practical joke, usually done from a human-resources angle.
- She laughs a lot.
- She’s like the mom around here.
Partnerships
Jun 19, 2009 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
One of my favorite things to do as a pastor is to connect with other people doing ministry around the world. The next week for me is going to be a lot of fun, because I’m going to get to hang with people from two groups we are stoked to be affiliated with:
GCM is an organization that trains, employs and serves missionaries around the world. Riv’s entire campus team is on staff with GCM. Today I am in Indianapolis at the GCM board meeting. Please be praying today as we review GCM’s last six months of work and plan for the future. Also, please pray for me as I lead our partnership committee which connects with other churches, networks, and movements.
Acts 29 is a church planting organization that hopes to plant 1000 churches in the next 10 years. Next week, Grace and I will be in Vail, Colorado with a couple hundred Acts 29 pastors and their wives. Please pray as we connect, relax, pray and play with these guys. The main goal of this time is to network, chill, and get a little R&R. I’m super excited about this since I have rarely been to this part of the world and I love getting time alone with my wife.
Penguins
Jun 18, 2009 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
This past weekend, I found a way to subtly remind everyone who won the Stanley Cup. If you missed it, here’s a little video for ya:
Tags: penguins
Galatians
Jun 17, 2009 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
Last night my daughter and I were talking about the book of Galatians (which we are reading right now at Riv’s Text Project). It dawned on me when we were talking that I never posted my summary video here. So, here it is.
How to Be a Financial Stud
Jun 15, 2009 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
This past weekend I taught at Riv about “Craving Everything We See.” The main issue there is an issue of idolatry, but one of the main indicators of a problem is how we think about money. In the spirit of this, I encourage you to check out How to Be a Financial Stud.
Here’s an excerpt:
Throughout a man’s life, he is presented with opportunities to leave his mark. The title that all men desire and hope that their name is mentioned in the same breath as is the unmistakable title of “Stud.” In grade school, being a stud was making the starting five of the basketball team and being the first to french kiss a girl. In high school, it was cruising around in your slick hot rod, leading the football team to state, and landing the hottest cheerleader on the team. College introduced the beer bong and how much cooler your parties were than the one down the street. After graduation and well into your career, the next studly phase of your life begins. At this point in your life, women don’t care how much you “could” bench press, the fact that you did 21 shots in one night (and lived to tell about it), or that you almost won the state championship in 2004. They want a man who has control of their finances and has a plan in place. They want a financial stud.
Technological Moderation
Jun 12, 2009 Uncategorized Hodge Podge
Last weekend at Riv, I talked about moderation as a method of dealing with our Craving for Experience. One of the big questions I have received several times since then has been about technology. Apparently, people know what a tech-geek I am, so they want to know how to be moderate in their use of tech.
I don’t claim to have all the answers, but since this is one of the areas that can get out of control in my life I thought I’d share some things I do. I’ll break this post down into the categories I have wrestled with the most.
Correspondence in Moderation
Because of email, texting, phones, voice-mail, etc, we are constantly barraged with correspondence. Much of it is spam, much of it is brainless drivel (i.e. – nearly anything forwarded), and a bit of it is useful or necessary. Here are the steps I have taken to live with moderation in this area:
- I turned off all “notification” and “push” services. Just because your iPhone / Crackberry / Google Account / Twitter has the ability to alert you every time you get a new message doesn’t mean you have to use that service. Turn it off. Every time you get interrupted by one of these notifications, you waste precious time and it takes a long time to get back to what you were doing.
- I set up two email accounts. This may be one of the most important steps for me. I have a personal email address that I change from time to time that only a handful of people know about. Once too many people know about it, I change it. Simple as that. All other email goes to a public account that is checked first by my assistant. She responds to what she can, and sorts the others into folders based on the content of the email and how quickly I need to get to it. If you don’t have an assistant, you can use filters to do the same thing (although not quite as well).
- I set specific times to check my email. I check my public email account twice a day. I check my personal email more frequently, but I never ever leave either account open if I am not working on email. That way I don’t see email that I feel I have to respond to right away. Ignorance is bliss.
- I try to keep my email responses to 7 lines or less. The more you type, the more the person will type back. It’s a non-scalable system. A quick note lets someone know you got their message, and often that is enough.
- I don’t give out my cell phone number. There are some people who need my phone number and a small handful of friends who I want to have it. Other than that, I keep it private. I also set up the feature that blocks my Caller ID when I am calling someone. I don’t do this to be rude but to keep me sane. My phone barely ever rings now.
- My outgoing voice-mail message at the church refers people to my assistant or email (which goes to my assistant first anyway).
Reading blogs in Moderation
I am addicted to reading blogs. I could easily waste my day with them so I have had to set up a very strict system. It all starts by using Google Reader to manage the blogs I read. In fact, you can see all the blogs I read regularly here. I have them set up in very specific categories, starting with:
- Daily Reads – These are the blogs I don’t want to miss. I read through these one time a day, usually right when I get into the office.
- Daily Skims – I buzz through these pretty quickly looking for anything that peaks my interest.
These are the only blogs I read on a daily basis. I have hundreds more set up in different categories and if I need a break or it is my day off, I will take time skimming through them.
Facebook / Twitter in Moderation
These great social networking tools can suck you dry if you let them. Don’t let them. One of the key steps is turning off the notifications like I mentioned earlier. Here are some other steps:
- Create custom feeds on Facebook’s home page – This allows you to see only the posts you want to read. You can always switch over to the standard feed when you want to catch up with everyone.
- Block any app request you get in Facebook – I get a bazillion requests in Facebook to install some dumb app or another. I click “Block this Application” every time and slowly but surely the requests dwindle away.
- Use a Twitter app (I use Tweetdeck) to sort the people you follow - This is the same principle as the custom feeds in Facebook.
Computer / iPhone use in Moderation
It is a constant struggle for me to be “present” for my family when I go home. I try simply to leave my computer in it’s bag and my iPhone on the piano as soon as I get home. The instant I pick up one of them up, it is all over. I am locked into it and ignoring my family.
Anyhoo, I hope this helps a bit for you. Please post any other suggestions you may have here. I would love to be able to learn from you.
