Once again I find it amazing the way that God speaks to us and it seems that I’m not the only one. First I’ll start with my story. My wife and I and another couple are going to get together each week to discuss a chapter of a book that we’ve previously read.(Side note to any of you that know me, I hardly EVER read, so this must be a God thing for me to agree) Last night we we’re deciding what book we start off with and I had picked one before we got over there that I would bring up if no other books we’re mentioned that I liked. Well we get over, watch the end of Survivor, and then get to book picking. Of the first two that my buddy lays out in front of us, is the book I want to read, that awesome. I usually blow that off to coincidince but still thought it was cool. Then today I open my bloglines to find out that this is an epidemic, GOD STILL SPEAKS! So I start off with Brian Orme and his post God is up to Something, hmmm a quote below:

I also think that it’s wild that God gave us two gift cards from two different people and two different places to connect with one person in a 24-hour period. I would say it was an accident, but that would go against everything I believe. God is up to something.

Next I head over to good ol’ SC boy Perry Noble and his post Holy Cow this is Awesome, a quote from that:

There may be a skeptic or two out there that say that what I experienced is merely coincidence. Sorry–with a Sovereign God reigning in this universe–there is no such thing as luck or coincidence!!

I don’t know about the rest of ya, but I’ve finally learned that if God wants to speak to me, I’m going to shutup and listen.

Filed in: stuff church

One of the most difficult things I see for church staff is how to effectively get and utilize volunteers. This seems to be one of the most difficult areas for me and because of that I’m always trying to find ways to get better at that whole area of ministry life. One of the reads that I’ve kept hidden in my Bloglines are these posts from the Agile Ministry blog. Here are the post in their original posting order:

• Volunteers Have Higher Priority

• Recruiting Volunteers

• Targeting the Right Volunteers

• Interviewing Volunteers

• Integrating New Volunteers

There’s some great stuff in all these but I’ll start with Volunteers have higher priority in my to-do list for the remainder of this week. James makes some great points that I know I some time take for granted in the fact that while this is our job, this is normally above our volunteers jobs and is them giving of their free/self/family/sleep/etc-time that they can just as easily being doing something else with. My main group of volunteers that are here each and every week actually thank me for allowing them to help and minister to the church, WOW that’s awesome! I want to work towards allowing all of my volunteers to be able to realize this amazing part and feeling serving. One of my goals is make my volunteers my highest priority when they are serving because without them my days would be much longer, but even more importantly I want them to realize the joy of sevice. That means above other staff, lunch, projects, etc if they need me I’m here to serve them to allow them to better serve our Lord.

Filed in: volunteers church churchtech

I heard of this awhile back but was reminded when I visited eministrynotes.com the other day and read this post which told us to check out some cool free software from Google, appropriately known as Google Pack. This includes the following free software:

• Google Earth
• Picassa
• Google Screensaver, Desktop, Talk, and Toolbar
• Firefox
• Norton AV 05
• Ad-aware SE Personal
• Adober Reader 7
• Gallery Player
• Real Player
• Trillian
• and keep everything up-to-date with Google Updater

Again we should all be afraid Google will take over the world, but at least they’re giving us free stuff

Filed in: stuff technology

Everyone love’s free stuff and I’m no different and I got the email today that says I’m getting some free stuff. If you haven’t checked out the InBubbleWrap blog it’s worth a look. They specialize in giving away business books, actually they say it best so I’ll quote:

iBW is a site dedicated to giving you the opportunity to win FREE business related prizes. Each day (Monday – Friday) brings a new contest with new prizes for you to win. All prizes are business related whether it’s the latest set of business books, nifty office supplies or advice from a business book author.

Their give aways usually lean towards leadership that can easily be applied to our dealings with the church. So give it a try, it’s free! Plus it really does come in bubble wrap, again they say it the best:

Did we mention that everything is sent in Bubble Wrap? What could be better than free prizes and an afternoon of bubble popping entertainment? Just a note, when in an office cube, try to save all bubble popping until after office hours. Or wait until your coworker falls asleep on his desk as it would make for a good wake-up call (please, for the sake of your career, do not try this with your boss in hearing range).

For those of you playing along at home I won Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want, I guess next I’ll be doing a book review.

Filed in: stuff business

For some reason there have been quite a few posts recently on answering Yes or No. To start off here are the various posts that have come across by Bloglines:

• Let your yes be yes from Mark Batterson who quotes his coffehouse manager who said, “I don’t want to say yes just because it’s hard to say no.”
• Then there was Our default answer is yes over on The Appian Way blog where Clif guy states “Our job is to find a way to say ‘yes’.” “No” is easy.”
• Clif then references Dave Ferguson on his blog and his Want Innovation? Lead with a “Yes!” post where he says we need to “Develop a ‘yes’ reflex” and then goes on to say “‘Yes’ gives you time to figure it out.”
• In another post Dave references Katherine Hudson, the President and CEO of W.H. Brady Co. who is quoted saying, “When someone offers you a challenge, don’t think of all the reasons why you can’t do it. Instead, say, “Yes!” Then figure out how you’ll get it done.”

Well, after all that I don’t really have anything profound to say but my thoughts are that I’m still going to answer “Yes”, “No”, and more than likely I’ll even throw in a “Maybe” now and then.

Filed in: church random