CoffeeWithChris.com

Since you're new here, you may want to take an extra minute to subscribe to the RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

All things considered this was a pretty good week!  No weight loss but I didn’t go backwards either and considering this past weekend was filled with the junk food of a jr. high camp and was also filled with the first sodas (probably 6-7 of them) that I have had in months it was a great week!  All of the down sides meant that I had to work extra hard on the bike.  I usually ride about 13 mi./day when I ride to and from the office.  This week, on my vacation, I have been riding 18 mi./day.

Here are the stats:

* Goal = 195
* Starting weight = 220
* After week 13 = 202.5
* This week = 0 change
* Total= -17.5

The proof:

OK, if you live in my neck of the woods you may know what church this sign is out in front of.  I am by no means trying to attack or degrade this church, I am just trying to get us all thinking about the messages that we are putting out in the public.

So with that said, check this out!  I saw it the other day when I was riding my bike and decided to stop for the photo today when it was still up.

I don’t know about you but I found that to be pretty funny.  Not really relevant to the culture (unless you are a hold over from the ’60s) but pretty funny.

A few new people might actually show up but I am sure they will be disappointed when they find out that the mass is actually on the lawn!

Wow! I can’t believe that I have been in this challenge for 12 weeks, 3 months!

Since I am getting closer and closer to my stated goal I am beginning to think about what is next for me.  I am pretty sure that I am going to start on the 100 Push Up program!  Not certain yet, but I think that the extra exercise will help in finishing off my weight goal and then giving a good solid strength goal to focus on next.

Anyway, this week was pretty good again!  Been riding the bike to the office (when it isn’t raining) and been doing pretty good eating healthy!

Here are the stats:

* Goal = 195
* Starting weight = 220
* After week 12 = 202.5
* This week = -2.5
* Total= -17.5

The proof:

It was a tough decision that my wife, Sarah, had to make on who was going to win the pre-release copy of Wild Goose Chase but she made that decision this morning. So without further delay… The winner was Awizabef!

(Sarah with the winning post!)

You can read the winning post on her blog, My College Life.

Sarah told me that the reason Awizabef’s post won was because she could feel the passion behind it, the post really seemed to connect with the kind of stuff that Batterson was writing about in the book!

Just finished with Mark Batterson’s latest book, Wild Goose Chase!  I have to strongly suggest that you get your hands on this book and read it! The book is being released on Tuesday, Aug. 19 so make sure you order it now so you can get it before the first printing sells out.

The first observation about this book is that it is obvious that Batterson is passionate about helping others experience life to the fullest through following the Holy Spirit, the Wild Goose.

I feel like writing too much will ruin the read for you so I’ll keep it short.

I love the metaphor of following the Holy Spirit through our lives as a wild goose chase!  Batterson isn’t talking about chasing silly things in our lives or even trying to do the impossible.  He is talking about engaging deep enough in our lives with God that we do what is only possible with Him and through following His Spirit.

Although it seemed like the book drew heavily from the teachings of some other pastors (like Chan & Giglio), and even from Batterson’s own teaching (Chase The Lion series at NCC,)  everything in the book is worth reading.

This book would be especially valuable for the college-aged, the person in transition, or anyone that has been feeling like there just has to be something more to their life than what it is now.

Note - Wild Goose Chase ends on the note of challenging the reader to think about setting some life goals.  Once you have purchased the book, you should know that you can go to ChaseTheGoose.com to download a free copy of goal setting guide that Batterson put together.

I really don’t expect to be posting much over the next two weeks.  I am going to be busy!  Here is what is coming up:

Jr. High camp

This means that all this week will be spent working out the details of games, lessons, gathering camping supplies, and getting food for the group!

The camp should be great!  We took SYM’s “camp-in-a-can” and we are really making it our own.  Adam & Nicole, our awesome jr. high staffers, are basing the entire camp around the idea that every one of the students can be a real life “action hero” based on this definition that they came up with:

Who is an Action Hero?  Someone who does extraordinary things, without extraordinary means, in the face of extraordinary odds.

I can’t wait to see how God works in the lives of these middle school kids!

Vacation

Then, starting on the 18th is vacation! I still don’t really know what I am doing on the first half of vacation but I am pretty sure that Sarah and I will be making the 4 hour trip to the closest in Philly!

Then, on the second half of the vacation time I will be traveling with my dad down to W. Virginia.  Once there we will meet up with my two younger brothers who are coming up from Charlotte, NC & Atlanta, GA.  So what are we doing in W. Va?

Here is the answer!

The four of us are going rafting on the lower New River!  It will definitely be a blast and I am sure to get some fun video from my Flip to share!

Check out the challenge here.

Lost another lb this week even though it has been the same old song with the weather preventing me from riding my bike as much as I would like to. This week I only got to make 1.5 round trips on my commute to the office. I suppose I should find another way to work out, especially since I won’t be able to ride in the winter but I am thinking I’ll figure that out when it comes along So without further delay…

Here are the stats:

* Goal = 195
* Starting weight = 220
* After week 11 = 205.0
* This week = -1
* Total= -15

The proof:

IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW! You can win a free advance copy of Mark Batterson’s Wild Goose Chase HERE

I decided to pick up unChristian because a youth ministry friend of mine is having Gabe Lyons come to speak at a youth ministry event this Fall and he invited me to bring a few students out to it.  I thought it might be worthwhile to actually read the book since I had it on my wishlist for a while.  So here is what I thought…

If you have not taken the time to sit down and digest unChristian by David Kinnaman & Gabe Lyons, you need to.  That is right, it is that simple, this book should be required reading for anyone interested in living out the Gospel.

The authors offer up pleanty of statistics and individual interview responses to make the point that the Church has a serious problem and it is the way that people that are not a part of the Church see it.  The research shows that people outside of the Church see the Church as unChristian.

Kinnaman, Lyons, and a host of others offer up some ideas on what it takes to turn this problem around but my conclusion is that we, as individuals, need just be real & loving people in every aspect of our lives.  I won’t give too much else away but you should seriously get this book if you don’t have it!

Just got word that I’ll be getting an early copy of Mark Batterson’s newest book (releases on 8/19/08) Wild Goose Chase (visit ChaseTheGoose.com!) and the publisher is sending an extra copy to give away to one fortunate reader of this blog!  So I decided a contest is in order!

**CONTEST**

How do you win? All you have to do is:

1. Write a post on your blog about a time in your life when you felt like you were on a “wild goose chase!” OR if you don’t have a blog, simply a comment!
2. Let everyone know that you are part of the contest here at CoffeeWithChris.com with a link back to this post.
3. Fill out the linky thing below so we can all check out your story.

_____________________________

I spent a ton of time just relaxing, reading, and drinking coffee over this past week on my vacation.  I read

Wide Awake by Erwin McManus and it was a great read.

I would have to say that it seemed like McManus began in a style that seemed like he was really working at targeting people that are not Christ-followers but then seemed to drift toward speaking to Christians, a minor issue but it did distract me.

Here are some of the highlight quotes from the book:

It’s curious that while our imagination is not limited, our thinking so often is.

The world cannot afford for you to choose the average or easy.

Conviction is a popular excuse for rigidity, but faith should actually make us more pliable, not less.

The great challenge for many of us is that there will be times in our lives when God will say, “I have done all this for you.  I have provided for you tremendously, but I want you now to give that up for the life you were created to live.  There’s more than this.”

You have to let even beautiful dreams die when they are not supposed to be yours.

Religion is an attempt to control people by controlling their desires and passions rather than awakening and unleashing them.

Don’t just dream about living; have the courage to live the life of your dreams

Here is a little of the stuff that Sarah and I got accomplished during our time up on Star Lake in the Adirondacks…

• A little relaxing

• A little reading

• A little kayaking

• And a whole lot of enjoying God’s creation!

Sorry for my silence here this week!  I’m on vacation through Monday but I’ll be back blogging on Tuesday and I should have a couple book reviews and some other stuff coming down the pike! This is what I have been doing instead of blogging, can you blame me?

We hear it over and over again, stick with your strengths and delegate everything else. The simplicity of this message makes a lot of sense when we hear someone else say it or we read it in a big time leadership book but to actually implement this idea into our lives, our ministries and businesses is a whole other thing! For example, the other day I was out at Home Depot to pick up a $5 item for a quick fix in my house. Upon exiting the store, I noticed this:

Did you see it? The orange box center-bottom…

Shop on Line
homedepot.com

Yeah, Home Depot should stick with providing stuff for your home and leave their internet sales marketing to a professional.  What could they have done better?

1. They probably would have been better off if they knew that when you access the internet you are not going “on line” you are actually going “online.”
2. Believe it or not there are still people out there that do  not easily read URIs,  instead of  “homedepot.com”  they would have been much better off with “HomeDepot.com“

I am willing to bet that these simple mistakes could have been avoided if Home Depot had a professional on staff to think these things through correctly or simply shelled out a few bucks to hire a competent outside firm.

Why do I bring all of this up?  It is crucial that as leaders we stick with what our strengths are and help to develop others around us to work within their strengths.  Leading in this way not only helps to get the work done well but it engages people in the way that God has wired them.  It is also crucial that our churches and ministries operate within the vision that God has given its’ leaders.  Keep it simple, stick with your strengths.

It seems like I have this thing figured out, although I am sure it won’t be for long because I have a strong feeling that as I get closer and closer to my goal it will be getting harder and harder to drop the weight.  I certainly do have room to increase the frequency of my workouts though.  Now it will be just a matter of actually doing it!  So how did the challenge go for me in week 9?

Here are the stats:

* Goal = 195
* Starting weight = 220
* After week 9 = 206.0
* This week = -1.5
* Total= -14

The proof:

Be sure to check out and encourage the others RagamuffinToppers from here.

So what is your blog / site all about?  Wordle is a fun new way to find out for sure!  It just takes the words that you use, drops out all the common filler language and then makes words bigger or small depending on how often they appear on your site!  You can also customize the look of your final product.  SO what is CoffeeWithChris.com about?

One of the biggest and most often overlooked aspects of youth ministry should be helping students to discover their true identity.  So many children become teens, then flounder through college, graduate, get a job, get married, get divorced, and never really connect with God’s vision for their life because they do not fully understand their true identity.

How does developing a missional community help students discover their true identity?  A missional community is, at its’ core, about the whole lives of the individuals in the community.  In being challenged to live out the Gospel for the world around, a student has to deal with four big aspects of their true identity:

• Family

We are daughters and sons of God

• Missionary

We are sent to share the Good News.

• Servant

We are servants of the King.

• Learner

We are disciples of Jesus

Right now I am working through just what my youth ministry should look and feel like so that we can help teenagers take steps forward in each of these areas so they can find their true, lasting identity.

I have been learning a bunch from the folks in Soma Communities, if you are interested in this stuff you should be checking them out.

The Missional Community in Youth Ministry - Part 1

Simple Church is basically the research based version of 7 Practices of Effective Ministry. Now, I am by no means saying that if you have read one of these, you shouldn’t read the other. In fact, I would strongly recommend that you read both of these books.

The basic premise is obvious and there is no spoiler here, Rainer & Geiger claim that their research shows that the simpler your ministry, the greater the impact. It is the “less is more” philosophy proven out in research. The toughest thing about this book will be as you are reading and you are realizing just how unsimple your ministry is and just what it will take to make it simple. Yes it will take some serious guts to follow through on this book but if you believe that God is longing for you to have a simple, focused, effective ministry then there is really no good reason to put it off. Get your hands on this book and prepare to take action on becoming more effective in ministry.

Over the past few months I have been praying, thinking, and planning out how the youth ministry that I lead can become more missional and less programatic.  By that I mean, I am trying to answer the question of “How can we lead teenagers in living out the Gospel daily instead of depending on something at church to do it for them?”

That is certainly a tough question, but I think it is one that most youth workers ask themselves on a regular basis.

I have come to the conclusion that teenagers (and people in general) are so conditioned to consumerism that even the most committed among us needs to have ample opportunity to practice living out the Gospel in a little more stuctured setting than “everyday life.”  I am thinking almost in terms of a rehab program for consumerism, a way to learn to live a selfless life.

I think that there are four crucial steps to creating this model, these are not new ideas, organizations like Young Life & Sonlife are just a couple that have based their ministries on a pattern that seems to emerge from the life of Jesus.  What is it?

• Model (You watch me)
• Practice (We work together)
• Experience (I watch you)
• Sending (Go out on your own)

Over the course of a few posts I’ll break down each of these aspects and try to explain how it is that we are working to implement each part of this model into our youth ministry (specifically sr. high.)

Before we go there though, what thoughts do you have about this ministry model?  How do you live out this model in ministry and in life?

I really had no idea which way this week would go. We had our annual pastors’ planning retreat and I had no control over the menu and I couldn’t ride my bike. I could however control how much I ate and tried to get some extra exercise in other ways like walking and surprisingly on the jet ski, that is a workout in rough water!
Here are the stats:

* Goal = 195
* Starting weight = 220
* After week 8 = 207.5
* This week = -2.5
* Total= -12.5

The proof:

As promised here is some of the video of my fun on the jet ski. Nothing super exciting because I couldn’t get any good angles while doing spins, just kept getting the handle bars!

Fun on Planning Retreat from Chris Szulwach on Vimeo.