New Location

For my blog, new additional pages, and new interactive features, I'm taking a step up in the technological age (thanks to my wife) and discontinuing this site.

New location:
http://www.priorityjesus.org/

Enjoy!

Cut

All of this video is good. But this month, focus on just one principle, and how you can apply it in your life. My focus for this month is cutting the useless components. Devising a not to do list.

Enjoy!

Ending the vicious cycle

My last post was about the vicious Christian cycle. We get pumped for Jesus, fail and sin, wallow, then get rededicated and pumped for Jesus again. Then sin, and on and on we go. The end of this spiral is depression, melancholy and death.

The only remedy to end the vicious cycle is a healthy awareness of who this life is about. If the Christian life is about you, you're screwed! All hope rises and falls based on your spotty performance. And hence, "the cycle." But when you realize this life is about God and not you, then you can rise and never fall, because your life is based upon Jesus' spotless life. Always approach the throne of God with confidence, because this life was never about you in the first place. Always walk humbly with confession and repentance showing the way. It's about exchanging our life for a life that is "in Christ." (as Paul would say) You don't have to go through life anymore worrying about yourself, God has your life in His hand. Instead, spend your energy focusing on serving others and praising Jesus for His radiance.

The vicious Christian cycle

This short reading from "Grace Walk," is always useful to understand the common Christian struggle. I have used the concept before in messages, it seems to hit the nail on the head.

"I lived many years of my Christian life trapped in what I call the motivation-condemnation-rededication cycle. From the earliest years of my Christian life, I had a mental picture of what I thought I should be. In this picture there was always a wide gap between where I ought to be and where I was. Sometimes when I was especially motivated, I would feel the gap had narrowed a bit. When I was winning people to Christ or spending a lot of time praying and studying the Bible, I felt that I might actually one day be able to bridge the gap and be a victorious Christian.
But inevitably, my motivation level would diminish and my fury and fire would die down. That decline always led to a sense of condemnation. Even when I had done nothing wrong, I would feel guilty for not doing all the things that I believed I should be doing. The devil had a field day with me during this phase. Sometimes I would become spiritually indifferent. Other times I would wonder if I would ever be consistent in my Christian life. I would wallow in my misery until I couldn’t stand it anymore; then I would finally rededicate myself to God, confessing my spiritual slothfulness. With genuine contempt for my inconsistency, I would ask God to help me be more consistent. I would promise to read my Bible more, pray more, win more souls, whatever I thought it took to get back on course. I resolved to try harder than ever to live for God. Yet no matter how hard I tried, I never experienced real peace about my Christian life." "Grace Walk," Steve McVey.

Thou shalt not stuff powerpoint slides

Here is a great rule. Dare I even say a presentation commandment. Don't stuff your powerpoint slides with information overload. Cramming is prohibited. They're hard to decipher quickly and easily, and put audiences to sleep.

On ppt slides, never say with words what you can say with a picture. You're the speaker, so YOU use words, let your slides be your visuals. Some say no more than 6 words per slide. Think VISUALS, not WORDS, when crafting your next stack of ppt slides.

Powerpoint slides should be closely akin to the design of billboards. And what are billboards known for? Words or visuals? VISUALS! You're not driving on a highway hoping to catch 3 bullets with 25 words on it. You need something you can absorb in 3 seconds. So next time you're thinking ppt presentation think billboard method. Think 3 second glance by an audience member, and see if they can grasp everything you're trying to throw at them.

"Presentations are a 'glance media' — more closely related to billboards than other media.... Ask yourself whether your message can be processed effectively within three seconds. The audience should be able to quickly ascertain the meaning before turning their attention back to the presenter." — Nancy Duarte

Thinking Presentation Design

1) Connect with your audience:
Make a connection with your audience and their goals and their interests. This goal is supported by the principle of Relevance and the principle of Appropriate Knowledge.

2) Direct and hold their attention:
You must get and keep their attention and interest and let them know what is important and what is not. This goal is supported by the principles of Salience, Discriminability, and Perceptual Organization. Attention is drawn to areas that are perceptibly different, so leverage design principles such as contrast and make differences big and obvious.

3) Promote understanding & memory:
You must make it easy for them to follow, digest, and remember your material. This goal is supported by the principle of Compatibility, the principle of Informative Changes, and the principle of Capacity Limitations.

For more go here.
http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2007/08/i-spent-the-wee.html

Another great lesson is the timeless, "Less is More." Strip down and cut away. Clear the rubbish so that only the critical point shines through in simple elegant design. Great lessons are learned by design and transference of meaning in comic books. Amplification through Simplification!
"By stripping down an image to essential 'meaning,' an artist can amplify that meaning..." — Scott McCloud

For more go here.
http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2006/09/learning_from_t.html

Heaven is no goal

Many, young and old, think heaven is the goal. But, heaven is a lousy goal! It's an atrocious goal! It's a ridiculous goal! And I'm not even exaggerating! A couple decades of an evangelistic movement have left a terrible wake of ineffective and inactive Christians. Americans sit brainwashed, worshiping a god dangling the heaven carrot in front of them. (Think about all those old cartoons. The characters are always chasing the dangling carrot right in front of their noses but never getting it!) Unfortunately, when no one teaches differently, many come to believe in this cartoon picture. They think God dangles heaven carrots, and you get it when you die. I assure you, this is a woefully inadequate picture of the Almighty.

Who ever reaches the dangling heaven carrot anyways? Only dead people! Think about it!!! So, while you're living you can't even get the carrot anyways! Therefore, what a terrible goal to set for this life! So stop chasing it! It's not even a viable option for living people! So, what are a whole bunch of Christians waiting to do? I suppose die, so that they can cash in their Jesus chips for the prize.

How totally misguided and backwards! How about getting a vision for this life instead of waiting around to die to achieve the heaven goal. Get some goals for this life, don't sit on your hands waiting for the next! We can live aimlessly now waiting for a carrot, or we can make an impact for Jesus immediately!

So the goal properly defined is this. Union with Christ and union with our neighbor. This is a the goal for this life. To listen to God's voice, and for God's love to spill out of our hearts into other people's lives. The rest of the goals, are between you and God, and your specific community of believers. How has God specifically wired you? What are distinctive features of your community of believers that God desires to capitalize upon for His kingdom purposes? God has a mission for you and your co-laborers, and an assignment specifically tailored for you! Find your niche, and get to work! Now that my friend is a goal worthy of your life!

you know? really?

Christian lingo makes my skin crawl. However, sometimes it's almost unavoidable. It can act as a kind of shorthand, and get to the point quicker. That is good. But sometimes it's misleading. That is not good.

If you're a Christian, you're familiar with the almost password kind of question, "Do you KNOW God personally?" "Do you KNOW Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?" If you say "yes" then you can enter the inner circle. Whew, now I'm in, now I arrived! Or did I?

When did this language start to become in vogue? Now it has spread like a virus. Now we have everyone parroting this stuff without attending much thought to the substance behind it. This is troubling.

But what is more troubling is this. We can become presumptuous in our knowledge of God. We can assume knowledge flippantly. We can easily slip into irreverence. Immodesty can make a home in our hearts. I pray God will explode the shells of our hearts that contain a god too small. We can know small gods, but can we know the UNSPEAKABLY HOLY God?

Think of the incomprehensibility of God. Think of the otherness of God. Think of the holiness of God. We merely grasp at God with failing language. We must admit it's kinda hard to embrace a God who's shrouded in magnificent mystery. When we say we KNOW God, let us never become presumptuous thinking we have grasped and contained the uncontainable.

How can we know that which is Wholly Other?

Thomas Merton Quote

"Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony."

Pursuit of the inactive

Lessons come at us left and right from Jonah chapter 1.
Slowly reading the Bible allows us to linger over each thought and have a conversation with God where the biblical text intersects our life.

A few of the lessons from Jonah 1 follow.
1. Jonah disobeys God and runs the other way. Where are you currently running from God in your life?

2. Jonah falls asleep. The captain shakes Jonah to wake up. He calls out, "Wake up and call on your God, we are dying!" In what ways does God need to shake you and wake you?

3. Jonah's remedy for his disobedience is for him to be tossed overboard. What ever happened to the first logical choice? Jonah, first pray, confess and repent because you're being disobedient! When we are facing problems, do we first go to God? I know for many of us we struggle with this and instead of turning to God right away we first turn to friends "to talk" or chunky monkey ice cream. Or maybe you're the type that just sweeps it underneath the rug, and continues to distance yourself from God, acting as if there's no real problem. The lesson here, turn to God first, rather then leaving God as the last resort when nothing else works. How are you doing with this lesson?

Finally, if we think on a larger scale about Jonah 1, we see three main characters. God, the sailors, and Jonah. God and the sailors are both very active in chapter 1. Jonah however is inactive and sleeping, both physically and in his relationship with the Lord. Here is one sentence tying up Jonah 1. God pursues the inactive Christian.

Where are you at with God today? Are you sleeping on your relationship with God like Jonah did? Are you pressing the snooze button on God? Are you actively running from God? Are you apathetic and not carving out time for God as the number one priority in your life? Take comfort today, because although we all struggle with pursuing God, God is still pursuing you.

Every Generation

The senior generation can feel left out and then check out. They can feel as though they're on the back burner. We must encourage them, and integrate them once again into the church family. Every generation has something to learn, every generation has something to contribute.

Get lost

Get lost in something bigger than yourself. Get a juicy dream, a worthwhile vision, then go after it! With God on your side, and a tenacious heart full of compassion for others, nothing, absolutely nothing can stop you.

Get lost in praying for others. So on a Saturday night, when it's tempting to waste the night doing nothing important, get lost in something greater than yourself.

gotta love them politics!

Give a punch and make a point

From the pulpit, in the classroom, or in the business world, presentations need tapering. They need a pinnacle. A talk that bleeds and runs all over the place is a poor presentation. Keep revamping and revising until it's clear to you where exactly you need to bring your audience. Then cut everything else. If it lacks precision and exactness then the points are weak and liquidly. It's like repeatedly throwing wet noodle jabs without ever bringing home the strong forceful uppercut. So next time you speak, take some Pepto-Bismol, end the diarrhea spewing forth from your mouth, and make the killer point.

Dialogue seizes attention

If you can create dialogue in your presentation you have your audience glued. But I’m not talking here about dialogue between you and your audience. I’m talking rather about dialogue and interplay within the presentation itself. Your audience in these scenarios are the on-lookers of the embedded dialogue, exchange, and interplay. This method of presentation works very well, and you should look to incorporate it in creative ways whenever possible.

One reason why it works so well is because the audience is guessing and anticipating what’s next in the exchange between the characters. There is a ping-pong back and forth effect, which can captivate and mesmerize your audience. If you can do this, you have your audience, their attention, and everything else.

Example to illustrate: Look at the captivating effect of the exchange of the two characters from the MAC vs PC commercials. Dialogue seizes attention! Brilliant characters, brilliant exchange, great interplay. Creative, humorous. It’s got everything in 30 seconds.

Dropping PHAT philosophy on napkins

You wanna drop huge lofty dreamy complex PHAT ideas? Well, you need present them simply to be effective.

The gods of marketing, presentation, and design like Seth Godin, Dan Pink, Garr Reynolds, and Guy Kawasaki are joined at the hip. Wonderful stuff. Dan Roam's new book, "The Back of the Napkin," helps us to think visually to make a powerful connection with our audience. No need for fancy technology. If you know what you're doing, all you need are powerful simple ideas displayed visually on a napkin.

My points to bring the dreamy to the pavement.
1. Thinking visually and creatively so points can transfer and stick.
2. You do the complex and thoughtful background, but then, leave it at home. You bring your imagination and simple clean crisp design when you present.
3. Mission statements are run on German philosophers' sentences. Toss them and opt for mantras, and slogans. You can't remember mission statements, but you can remember mantras and slogans!