One of the largest attended and most watched televised events is happening this weekend — the NFL Super Bowl! It’s game time and everyone is excited. It’s about a competition to find out who is the best of the best each year. Personally, I wish we were watching the Houston Texans against the Packers or Steeler’s but there’s always next year!!!

So here’s my question ‘What can the church learn from the superbowl?’ Besides the emphasis of excellence, atmosphere, energy and so on… the NFL has built up an incredible following and fan base around this one huge weekend — it’s goal and purpose to determine the best team of the season and put on an incredible show for all the fans.

So let me state the obvious – we ‘the Church’ are not here to compete with one another and certainly not here to put on a great show. We are the body of Christ and are called to work together to accomplish one goal to share the good news of Jesus Christ, reach people for him and equip them to reach others who do not yet know what He did for all of us. This was God’s original vision for us ‘The Church’.

Pro football players understand they are a part of something bigger than themselves. Let’s employ every method and means to give people a glimpse of the vision of the Church that Jesus talked about when He was with us on this earth — an incredible team of people who love God, love each other and love life.

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Legacy or Leftovers Blog Post
What will you leave your family, friends and your community? A legacy or leftovers?

BIG Dreams Blog Post
Someone challenged me to define my BIG dream and asked if I still had it in me to go for it. Love it.

He Would Be Ten Today Blog Post
Remembering our three year on son Colby. We lost him to Leukemia in 2004.

Courageous Fighting Video
Myra and I sharing the tough times and mistakes we made in our marriage and why we chose to fight for each other.

America, Our Ever Present Past Video
This is the first time Myra and I talked about how we survived losing our son to Leukemia, her mom to Lupus and mine to domestic violence and what we did to keep our sanity during all of it.

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I often hear this about successful leaders and can’t help but wonder how true it is — “You don’t know what they sacrificed to get to where they are.” And I can’t help to ask this next question ‘Was it worth it?’

A friend recently shared the “balanced wheel” for measuring if he is on track to leaving a legacy. This isn’t about Klout — it’s about impact, health and balance. It’s about living a life worth remembering. Is what you hold as “successful” really how you want to be remembered? By your family, friends and colleagues?

The tool above is a great way to track and hold yourself and each other accountable. To use it mark on each axis your current impact, health & investment from 0 (lowest) to 10 (highest) then connect each mark. The end result will hopefully be a circle and the goal is that it would roll. If not where do you need to invest? Are you sacrificing important areas of your life to focus on one or two other areas? Is it worth it?

Download Balanced Wheel JPG — Post Feedback

Effects of No Internet (+ positive / - negative )

• Time with Sprint on-phone/ in-store (-10 hrs total)
• Progress on design/development projects (-10-14 hrs weekly)
• Stressing about project timelines (-1 hr daily)
• Television watching  (-1.5 hrs daily)
• Visits to Starbucks/Other for Wifi (+1-3 visits weekly)
• Chloe reading activity (+1-3 books weekly)
• Myra & I talking & hanging out (+2-6 hrs weekly)
• No Access to Xbox 360 LIVE (+1-2 hrs daily)
• Sleep (+6-10 hrs weekly)

Yes, we still would like to have Internet at the house, but it has been great in some ways to not have it available. The Internet or lack-of has changed the way we live. 

So what do you think? Good idea or not? To use such extreme content to get the attention of your audience? Was it effective or what would have been a better avenue? Smart content wins in my opinion — the CDC hit a homerun.

Is your organization primed to create good content? Comments

Part I – Us

I am working daily to clarify my BIG DREAM but as of right now it’s making sure our kiddos know they are loved and that they have a solid foundation for life. To find out how to consistently love my wife Myra in the way she needs. We are both so broken it’s tough sometimes. By broken, I mean we have survived excruciating loss. I’ll have to write a book on all that but trust me when I say broken for us is sometimes best described as a black hole. So the first part of my ‘dream’ is to get ‘us’ right. That’s a huge deal.

Part II – Connected 

I would love to start a “connected” community hub that integrates tech/design/new media & a mentor/relationship with real accountability for people who want to step off a path that leads to nowhere onto a path with possibility. Accountability for personal goals but also measurement for real world – real impact goals.

To underline that while we have this awesome time on Earth we also are a part of a larger plan. We were created to love Him and love others. To share His story of sacrifice for us. He could have come to this earth to destroy us… to punish us… which is what we have seemed to do very well on our own. But He chose to send His son to let us know there is a different choice, even in pain, hurt and wounds — we could still choose to love.

Part III – Discovery

I think my dream is to be what I have always wanted. A real encouraging, loving, friend. The issue, for me at least to is being able to look past my own void and actually be just that. Most of the time I am the exact opposite. Especially to those I love the most. Not cool but true.

That’s a start for me. What’s your BIG DREAM?

You know what I am talking about — you might even know what your next step is. Or maybe you don’t and that’s ok — but get busy doing something that will get you closer to where you know you are supposed to be.

If you need someone to slap you upside the head or even give you a digital high-five or hug or something, let me know. I can probably manage it. That’s it. Let me know how it goes.

There are so many things I have learned during my fourteen years of marriage and maybe I can take some time to list here, but one of the first things I learned during a very trying time was how we live in Relationship Zones.

I remember thinking yep, right now we are between conflict and disengaged and moving further out. This chart opened my eyes and a friend took some time to explain how relationships are like bank accounts, you are either making deposits or withdrawals – and eventually you will reap the rewards of a surplus or feel the pain of an overdrawn & negative account.

Right now I can honestly say we are right in the middle of the Intimacy zone, it’s not always been this way but we have both worked towards the goal of doing whatever it took to keep our marriage alive. The main thing we did was to make time for each other. We started focusing on each others positives. We  also committed to getting back to church regularly and focused on our priorities – God, each other, kids then everything else. Sounds easy but as you know, it’s not. But it’s worth it. It’s worth not being like our parents: living disengaged, disconnected and disinterested or worse. The tough part about trying to live in intimacy is you have to work through conflict, if you simply sweep it under the rug you will drift. Guaranteed.

So where are you? Are you willing do the work it takes for real intimacy? Or will you just drift.  

Recommended Books
Five Love Languages
His Needs Her Needs
Love & Respect

Download Chart:
Download Relationship Zone PDF

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Today marks a first. I registered online at Apple.com for the genius bar repair appointment. Seriously. The funny thing is I use to be one of “those people” who protested this process. I still kind of wish I could just walk on in and say “help please”, drop off my broken device and go run some other errands until I received a text or email that everything was all better.

So what processes do you wish you could ditch or are you at the point of adding new ones? If the end game is providing a better service then… fine, I’ll think about conforming.