American Idol - Alexis Cohen

I have to admit to being an Idol fan. It's hard to describe the emotions brought by the audition portion of the show... on one hand you feel good for the ones that succeed, especially the ones who come in humble and not flashy. On the other hand, you still feel good, because some of those people just make you glad you're not them. I realize maybe I'm channeling my inner Pharisee, but thats the truth folks.

That disclaimer aside, this is one of the funniest things I ever seen in my life! You must watch this.



"All rising," indeed!

I'm so glad I have that episode on DVR. That deserves a second watching.

A New Look

It's not easy being green... I thought I'd try black. What do you think?

BTW, I know I just introduced some of you to feed readers... but you're actually gonna have to click on the blog heading and go to the blog itself to see what I'm talking about.

Belief = Behavior

If you wonder why I do the things that I do, you can bet that if you believed the same things that I believe, you would do the same. The reverse is true as well. If I believed the things that you believe, I would do the same things that you do.

I'm not really talking about a macro level, although it applies... I'm talking about the very basic moment to moment beliefs that we have that determine how we act in an instant.

• "I believe that person intentionally cut me off in traffic, so I angrily honked and threw my hands up."
• "I believe that every little bit helps, so I recycle everything possible."
• "I believe that you are clearly wrong, I am clearly right, and that you are just out to get me, therefore I fired off that disparaging email."
• "I believe that I'm supposed to share and that the Salvation Army is a worthy charity, so I put a couple of dollars into the red bucket at Walmart."

You see how it works? The interesting thing is, we often label a person's behavior bad judgment, but in reality, they're just acting out their beliefs.

What does this mean? If I want to alter your behavior, I have to change your beliefs.

Heart Broken

My heart hurts. I hate Satan! I hate that the most effective of us are still cracked pots. I hate that a wrong decision can completely derail an incredible ministry. I hate that someone that I respect and honor is hurting big time and fighting for the survival of his family.

I don't know Corey personally, but I have friends who serve with him. I've been very influenced by what he's done and how he's done it up to this point. And even in failure, I learn from him. Thanks dude...I'm praying for you!

And two things if you are a church leader:
1) Sin is crouching at your door. Make sure you have accountability and guard rails in place that limit your ability to give in to temptation. Everyone will be tempted.
2) Take a lesson from Senior Pastor Mark Beeson: He's one of the best. READ THIS!

Happy Birthday!

Hey everybody go here and give a big Happy Birthday shout out to the man, Pastor Kevin.




(not Pastor Kevin)





I don't know if he's gonna have this much fun, but he deserves it!

Anticipation is "building"

This Sunday, NC3 will come together as a family to make a huge decision impacting the future of our congregation and what our impact on our community will be. We'll be deciding whether or not to purchase the building at 705 Washington.

It is completely conceivable that I could actually have my office in the same building as our worship space. THAT IS EXCITING! Maybe that's hard to understand if you're not a music person.

I believe that our congregation will say, "Go For It!" That has been the track record here. Our leadership team is unanimous that this is the right decision, so that gives me enormous confidence that it's the right move, and I believe NC3-ers are going to feel the same way.

Our mission is to Build Bridges to connect people with Jesus. Because of it's location, I think buying this building will be one more way to tell our community, 'You don't have to come to us... we'll come to you!"

Are there reasons not to make the jump? Always. But there is nothing that a group of people, sold out for Jesus, willing to give and serve sacrificially can't overcome. When the congregation puts their stamp of approval on this move by our leadership, it's going to be another step right into seeing our Vision come to pass, of being a Christ-centered community, loving and accepting people so that lives are changed by the power of God.

I'll see you on Sunday!

New Readers / Feed Readers

Welcome to all the new people checking out the blog. My site stats have really taken off in the last week.

I just wanted to make a suggestion to all the folks who are starting to read my blog or Kevin's blog or just beginning to read blogs in general: get an aggregator!

Now I'm sure that sounds like incomprehensible geek talk, but its actually very simple. Many of you are still reading blogs by going to the actual website, i.e. corbettreeves.com or kevinyandell.blogspot.com. There's an easier way. An aggregator is simply an application that lets you subscribe (for free, of course) to an individual blog via (warning: geek talk) an RSS feed. RSS just means Really Simple Syndication, that is... a really simply way to distribute information to lots of people.

Probably the two most common are Google Reader and Bloglines. It's pretty simply... you set up a free account with Google Reader or Bloglines, enter in the site addresses of the blogs you wish to follow, and then wait. Whenever you wish to see what's happening in the blogosphere, you simply log in to your feed reader and it lets you know which bloggers that you follow have new posts.

So instead of jumping around cyberspace, going to blogsites like Tonymorganlive.com and evotional.com and leadingsmart.com to see if my favorite bloggers have posted something new, I go to my google reader account (actually it pops up as a tab on my home page) and any new posts show up over in the left column. Very quick and easy. And I can read the posts right on my reader, saving me the time and effort of visiting their actual blogsites.

Give it a try! Subscribe to a few blogs you like and enjoy a new era of conveniently filling your brain with all of the info you could ever hope for... without leaving the comfortable confines of your aggregator.

Drop the rest of us a comment about how moving to an aggregator has worked for you!

You bit what?

As many of you know, I have a daughter, Katy and a son, Will. Katy is six and she's losing teeth. She's had a loose one in the front for several weeks but it never seemed loose enough to pull. I've been really ready for it to come out for a while now but I wasn't expecting the story that follows:

"Mom I lost my tooth!"
"How did it come out?"
"I just bit something and it fell out."
"What did you bite?"
"Will's butt."

The Bottom Line

During a prayer drive around town this morning (that's like a prayer walk, except for lazy people) I had a "what if" moment. What if people don't get on board? What if they don't see the benefit of what we're trying to do? What if they walk away?

You can call "what ifs" stategic thinking or you can call them a lack of faith or anything in between, but everyone has them from time to time. What if we're making a mistake? Then God laid an awesome thing on my heart... it all comes down to sticking tenaciously to the Vision.

The vision from God of where we are going is the only thing that can keep us focused in "what if" moments. It's the instrument panel when you're flying blind. Vision is what is left when you boil everything else away.

Stick to the vision; cast the vision to others; live in faith pursueing the vision; surround yourself with people who are sold out for the SAME vision; and set free those who seem to follow a different vision. If the vision is from God, he'll call the right people to pursue it.

What she said...

So we're in the car the other day and Tricia and I are having a conversation about something (I don't remember what) and my six-year old, Katy asked us a question (I don't remember this either) and I told her that it (whatever) happened while we were still living in Birmingham.

Katy asked, "Birmingham... isn't that where Jesus was born?"

Facility Opportunity

Well, it seems we have an opportunity to consider and a decision to make. If you're an NC3-er you know that we currently meet in an Elementary School on the weekends and have our offices in an office building in downtown Morris. We are currently in year two of a three-year capital campaign from which we are purchasing 20 acres a little north of Morris on Illinois Route 47.

A small church located near downtown (East of rt 47) has decided to sell its facility. The purchase price for this building and land would be very close to what we are currently paying for 1) mortgage on our office and 2) rent at the school.

Pros:

• 24/7 access to the facility allowing for mid-week activities, etc.
• Less time setting up, b/c many things could just stay set up.
• No more having to worry about how the political situation with the school board will affect our access to meeting space.
• Buying vs Renting
• Office space in the same building as the auditorium/class rooms.
• Ability to make class rooms warm and inviting, instead of institutional.
• Having a building could give us "credibility" in some peoples eyes in our community.

Cons:

• Parking is limited to on-street.
• Auditorium is a bit small...will need very big investment sound-wise to avoid taking a huge step back in sound quality.
• Stage is pretty shallow (nice and wide, though)
• The building is 40+ years old and looks it on the inside.
• There is NO foyer, currently.
• Children's area (1st - 5th) will be much smaller than what is available at the School.
• Perception that this building is our goal. (It's not...it's only a stepping stone on the way to a campus at Rt 47 & Minooka Rd.
• The amount of money and effort that would need to be put in to present a "WOW" factor with guests.

So talk to me about this. Let's have some comments. What are your thoughts on buying vs. renting... a traditional "church" building vs. a community center (elem school)... portable vs. stationary

Un-clogging

So I'm starting to think about why I let 23 days go by without blogging. I think I get clogged. I usually blog less when I'm taking in more. Now that strikes me as a little strange. If you know me, you know that I'm not one to keep much to myself. I love to learn and I love to share what I'm learning. So why do I clog up when I go into intake mode?

Perhaps I put too much pressure on myself to change someones life everytime I post. Maybe I'm waiting until my intake reaches a critical mass and has to escape somewhere...thus much of my "inspired" blogging is little more than a big "thought vomit." Hmmmmm... that's appetizing... pass me the chips.

I don't want to go too far down the road of bodily functions, but we all know that, at times, the longer it is before that which is taken in is released out can make a person not feel well at all.

All this to say, I'm going to try to post more often, even if that means blogging about thoughts and concepts that aren't completely thought out. I'll just keep putting it out there and see how it develops.

Signing off now... unclogged.