We are starting our Ruling the Roost Parenting series next week. Here is our mailer front illustrated by Yenipher Chung.

Here is the copy to hook interest.

Today, kids have taken over the pecking order and are calling the shots on family schedules, commitments, and priorities. Join us as we learn how to gain back healthy control and produce confident, successful kids.

We are stacking several things into the series including:

• -A huge Ruling the Roost parenting forum where we introduce an 8 month Intentional Parenting Experience. 
• -Beverly Hillbilly’s videos where Granny gets the best of Jethro discipline wise
• -A Cosby clip where Theo parties with the people
• -Interviews with two of our lesser onstage staff members/wives who have raised great kid
• -Some great tunes Brent found on parenting
• -Teams (our small groups) using Raising Kid’s By the Book and Revolutionary Parenting as curriculum
• -A family campout
• -Begin “selling/recruiting” our Haltom City Home Makeover to impact economically challenged families. We try to mobilize at least 800 of our folks for the intense 24 hour home restoration project on 4 houses.

We have found that stacking multiple reinforcing elements helps us to gain real momentum in our number of guests and their assimilation into NorthWood. Our Man Up series was one of our best this year because of this.  At NorthWood, we do a large “seeker push” (for lack of an adoption of my better term “the sought”) in January and in September. The gospel will be presented very clearly in these series as well as biblical wisdom on parenting. Without the gospel, it becomes Oprah or Dr Phil, a sort of mini-law that no one can keep with the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit anyway.

Cristian, our director of technology and media, would have been the kid mocking on the green team. I would have been the overly analytic, win-at-all-costs green team coach. Chris, our college producer and videographer, would have been fullback on the green team.  David, our graphics designer, and Brent, our other worship pastor, would have been on the losing team, and gotten the last laugh except Brent would have had an ice bag on a self-inflicted injury and David would have missed the McDonald’s because he would have disappeared as he does every time lunch approaches and we are ready to eat.

Yesterday, a pastor from a nearby church was driving by with 4 college interns and curiously entered our office lobby. He said he was fascinated by our new building so I decided to make his day and give him an 8 minute behind the scenes tour. Their mouths dropped when they saw some of the new tools we had and I could tell they were envious. I know the feeling. For 9 years we operated on shoestring technology. But we were able to use that technology as simple as it was in very creative ways.  We hacked it and stretched it to its limits well beyond what it was intended to do….

This story illustrates the concept perfectly.  6 pound test line are you kidding me.

Wild lessons in faith are learned when a whole church goes skydiving.

Found this in a bookmark I had set some time ago….

Summary:

• Rule #1: Always have clear lines of ownership. Know exactly what you are supposed to do and ensure others know that exactly.
• Rule #2: Always have your act together. You can’t know everything, but what you can know try to know it well.
• Rule #3: Under promise, over deliver. You will always come out on top.
• Rule #4: Never make yourself indispensable. If you do you’ll stay where you are because you are, well, indispensable.
• Rule #5: Credibility is king. Period.
• Rule #6: Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. You can teach anyone anything, you can never teach right attitude.
• Rule #7: If you find yourself in a hole the first thing to do is stop digging. Old cowboy saying.
• Rule #8: “Skate to where the puck is going, not to where it is (or where it has been).” The Great One, Wayne Gretzky.
• Rule #9: At the end of the day always remember that it’s just a job.

For more elaboration, check out Occam’s Razor. Pretty thoughtful stuff (though being in ministry I see where #9 could be taken in wrong context. It is more than just a “job” even though there are some “job” aspects to it). Simple but good.

I am a track guy. Period. I love the smell of the starting gun and the incredible pain of 10,000m. So I am highly ticked. Yes at the athletes but also at the infrastructure behind them. As to the two drops amongst otherwise dismal performances, 4 x 100 member Mechelle Lewis said the two dropped batons were “a big, huge, unfortunate coincidence.” Maybe not Mechelle.

• 1. The United States Track and Field organization in an Olympic year was leaderless at the helm from January to July when they hired their new CEO, Doug Logan. Very poor timing on a leadership vacuum. The former CEO quitting when he did would have been like me stepping down right before we moved into our new worship center…not good even if I would have wanted to. Stick it out until a transition year.
• 2. “USA” written in Sharpie on our bibs in the men’s 4×100. Good organization.
• 3. They trained in what one NBC broadcaster called the “lap of luxury” however all the athletes were not there to participate. Thus, Patton and Gay got no relay exchanges at camp. Maybe its time to go more “back 40″ in our training methods like Mr. T did when he fought Rocky?
• 4. Logan and others have said (paraphrased), “But we have done okay in the non-sprints.” It’s A.M.E.R.I.C.A., dude. We are supposed to kick the rest of the word around in the sprints. That would be like me as a worship leader missing every chord on a song and saying, “But we served great coffee at the coffee bar.”
• 5. In a time when USATF predictions were that track and field would explode in the USA it might be headed for the toilet. Drug scandals, doubts about every winner doping, and abysmal performances aren’t the way to grow a sport. They need to have a lifetime ban on anyone caught using. And I do know the stress of going to a doctor with the dreaded list of 1,000 banned substances as a former semi-pro triathlete.
• 6. Coaches should coach the fundamentals even if these guys are seasoned pro’s. In my working with high school athletes as a consultant, we never dropped the baton once. And yes, we ran in the rain. I am not perfect nor were my runners, but 100+ exchange practices sure helped.

I know you just arrived Mr. Logan, but something must be done. Something soon. Vent over.

*I am also a swimming guy having competed and coached it. What a contrast. Solid training camp and gutsy performances. One stupid drug scandal that shouldn’t have happened but Torres and Phelps in the-mother-of-all-voluntary-additional-test-me programs. Way to go guys. Maybe 2012 you should do a joint camp with the Track folks…or maybe not.

I thought google analytics was broken. Why? Because in a single day my traffic grew (no joke) 867%. I am processing what that says about us as a culture. Yes, we were one of the earlier blogs with the Healer song/Gugliemucci story. And yes, my insights were strongly opinionated and drew some reaction. But what is it about us that makes us have a love/hate relationship with controversy? We seem to be so sad to hear it but so hunting down information on it….the newest tidbit. Is it because we feel slighted by Mr. Gugliemucci because we bought into his story? Is it because of our own voyeurism as seen in the reality TV phenomenon? I am processing and would love to hear your insights. That increase is ridiculously high. The closest bounce we have seen is when we give free tools away. Your thoughts? Maybe I am wrong?

It is no secret the world is globalizing. And the Olympics serve as a microcosm of a larger reality. Being big and little is and isn’t relevant at the same time. China is a supergiant in the economic realm and now in the Olympics. Yet little Jamaica, smaller than some U.S. cities, is dominating track and field. And American cannot be as arrogant as to think we can coast to greatness. Go Phelps, but a dismal 0-6 in the sprints and softball disappointment. The world is truly globally connecting and the playing field is leveling.

The good news is that in eternity, there are no gold medals nor economic superpowers, but only worshipers from every tongue, tribe and nation equalized at the foot of the cross.

Anytime I interview someone for a paid or unpaid position (even vocal team, etc) in a confidential and personal way, I ask:

Are there any skeletons in your closet you want me to hear about first from you rather than others?

Amazing how many people will graciously disclose past failures so you don’t get surprised by them later.

Brent just came in and showed me this article claiming that Guglielmucci story behind the song was a fraud.

Shocking to some, yes . . . sad that sin is so pervasive that nothing surprises me anymore. In our search to create ever deeper experiences, sometimes people get sucked into a lie thinking that anything that justifies the experience is okay. And worshipers so desperate for another mountaintop experience follow guys like Todd Bentley. There are days I am grateful that God designed me a little more “head-wired” than “heart-wired.” I don’t mean that faith is all mental with no heart, but I tend to live more out of a “biblical rationality” (ala the Puritans and Westminster Confession) than the buzz of current experience, though I do have experiences with God. Sometimes I hear of other’s ever present mountaintop or mystical experiences and get a bit jealous God didn’t wire me differently. Then day’s like this, I don’t. Steady, obedient and even keel, even if it is a bit less glamorous…

As to the song itself, one thing is always true. We ALL get healed in the Resurrection….PERIOD!!!

Any takers?

I live and die by the GTD Vitalist system with two accounts. One for my own stuff and it also the the perfect complex delegating system for my guys allowing me to add tasks for them, dialogue with them on the task, re-prioritize, and for them to update me and easily check off when it is done. As good a personal task manager as it is, it is even better as a team task delegation system. I would croak if vitalist croaked. (Okay, actually I would demand our own Cristian Candia, founder of groopik, design a cloned system we could run in house.) There had been an eerie silence on their blog and in their forums but they are back….

from their founder, Robert:

We are finishing up with the sharing and delegation functionality in our beta. This is the last major piece of functionality left to add. The new beta release should be an option for all user’s accounts within about a week.

Additionally, we will be overhauling our iphone web version to make it quicker and easier to use. This will go along with a native iPhone app which we have just begun to create.

A great article on a friend of mine from Hanoi who has “sat in” with our NorthWood worship band on keys and melodica. He is in a very unique situation that God has orchestrated. I am proud of you, man. Keep the faith.