They say practice makes perfect. Well, that may not always be true, but, it does make you better at whatever it is you are practicing. I tell my kids all the time “get better” and then I say”how do we get better? ” and I say “practice”. So in my home we practice lots of things- reading, swimming, running, writing (I probably need to practice a lot on writing). Whatever we have the ability to do, we want to do the best we can.

I see other people practice stuff all the time – from athletes to lawyers and to doctors. Yet, the one thing I hardly ever see people practicing is on their relationships.  Look around you, listen to conversation, look at the statistics on divorce rates or just look at how many people no longer talk because of something silly. I guess you could say we practice relationships; we practice how to walk away from them.

We can all remember as a kid having someone do something annoying or distracting or hurtful to us. We would go and tell a parent or teacher and they would be say “just ignore them, they’ll stop”.  As a child hearing   “ignore them” over and over again has taught us to do just that. If someone does something we don’t like we just ignore them or just walk away.

The other day my kids got in to a “he pushed me, she pushed me” thing. So I got to the bottom of it and decided they needed to work on their relationship. They need to practice not ignoring each other but communicating with each other and resolving their conflict.   Not just apologizing but spending time together and practicing their relationship so they could get better.

So what started out as my daughter wanting to force her help on my son and then him not wanting it and pushing her out the way, ended up as them doing the following

Adriana   “Xavier do you need some help with that?”

Xavier   “ No thank you, but thanks for asking.”

Adriana “Ok, if you do, just let me know I’ll be glad to help.”

Xavier   “Thanks, I will.”

Let’s us get better at relationship let us practice relationships it’s never to late to start.

Share your thoughts do you practice relationships……………………….

Recently, I bought a pair of Vibram FiveFingers and admittedly they are some very different looking shoes. Almost everywhere I go people stop me and ask questions about them.  “What are those?”, “WOW! Are those comfortable?”, “Where did you get those?” and more. As you can imagine the questions just keep coming – all because my shoes look different.

That got me thinking. As a Christ follower we are called to look different. If we look vastly different from everyone else, then people should be asking us questions. They should be asking us “Why do you that?”, “Why don’t you act like that?”, “What’s that all about?”, “Where do I get what you have”, and on and on.   As a believer we should be living lives that look so different from the world around us that people stop us and just have to know why.

Think about it. Every time you do something different, get something different, or see things differently, people always ask you questions. So, let me ask you this… Are you being asked questions about your life? Does your life look different like my Vibrams or does your life look as ordinary as a pair of regular white sneakers blending in with the sneaker world around them? Do you stand out?

Please share your thoughts today about how your life looks different.

Doesn’t walking around naked sound like a great idea? What if we all walked around fully exposed for the world to see? Nothing hidden – no clothing to cover up what we don’t want each other to see. There wouldn’t be any control top anything or undergarments that make us look like there’s less of us. Things that pulled this up that down or over to the right. People would see us for who we really are.

At this point you might be laughing or thinking that I’ve decided to go pro-nudist. But, just think about it for a minute, what if we all  really did walk around naked?  People might be more apt to take care of themselves or at least they would be less likely to point out others flaws when theirs are so readily exposed.  I know the last thing you want is for everyone to be able to see your flaws. Of course, I’m not really talking about physical nudity. I’m talking about exposing our hearts and minds that we so often hide from the world. We hide our imperfections, our scars, our struggles, and our battle wounds in order to make others think we are perfect or at least to make them think we have it all together. But, when we hide our imperfections the light of God can’t shine through us. God wants us to expose our imperfection to each other and share our struggles and the not so good things we have done. It is HIS grace and mercy that has saved us, not our attempts at trying to look perfect for others. By exposing our imperfections He is glorified and others see He Is Good because they can see the work that He is doing in us.

Share your thoughts what do you think should we all walk around naked…………….

Well it’s not that I don’t like your pastor but someone does……..maybe. Now you’re wondering why I decided to write a post called  ”I don’t like your pastor”? Last year the great people at Leadership Network did an online conference called “The Nines” a one-day event that ask over 75 differnt leaders, “if you had just 9 minutes to share with church leaders what would you tell them?” it was met with great success.  So this year in preration for the event they put out a poll in what I can only guess is one of the tools they will use to help narrow down the list for this years speakers.

Now I think this is great idea asking the people who they want to hear from. The interseting thing is in this poll not only can you vote for someone  you can vote against them. Now I usely thought a vote for someone  was a vote againts another. Yet what threw me for a loop is that people actually voted against pastors. Now I can’t speak for every name on that list. Yet I’ve had the chance to either meet several of these pastors(great place to name drop but I want), read their books or hear them preach and I can say that they have a heart for God and are kingdom minded and truly want  to see changed lives.

I can’t speak to the hearts of those who voted agaist people or even their reason why. It could be anything from I don’t like there  doctrine to I don’t like their hair style.  It just reminded me of 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 . Did I mention that it actually shows you a pic of those who voted “against” oops!  Be careful voting against someone that’s on the same team.

Don’t forget to vote and check out “The Nines”

What do you think? Share your thoughts and comments……..

We’ve all heard that phrase, “Perception is Reality.”  It has been used since the beginning of time to explain the things people can’t explain.  Greek mythology is all based on what people perceived to be true.  We use to believe the earth was flat, until one brave man decide to explore it.  Throughout our history people have made up things to explain stuff they can’t explain.  The sad thing is we do this exact same thing with people.

It’s one thing to say the earth is flat and I could even see someone being scared to go find out.  A person might not come back if they find out that it is.  When we do the whole “Perception Is Reality” thing with people, we are to scared or to lazy to just ask the person for the truth or even worse, we just don’t want to believe someone.  Simply saying “Well you know, perception is reality…” Is this even true?

Lets look at one man, actually “The Man” Jesus.  If perception is reality, He is not the Son of God, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  See the Pharisees had perceived Jesus to be one way and that’s what the stuck with. Although Jesus came to give life, they perceived He came to threaten their way of life.  People to this day still don’t believe the truth of who Jesus is or why He came to this earth.  These same people don’t seek the truth, they settle for assuming.

The thing about the perceiving things that aren’t true is eventually we see the earth is not flat, we understand that its actually round.  If we take the time to go and explore the truth of who a person is and not what we perceive as truth, we will discover new things about them as well.

Seek to the truth!  Stop assuming that all lawyers are bad, all doctor just do it for the money, every pro athlete is a conceited womanizer…  Perception is not Reality, it’s just what you perceive, until the truth comes out.

What do you think?  Is Perception Reality?

I heard this story the other day and thought I have to share it. It hold so much truth to it on all levels of life.

There once was a farmer who grew award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won a blue ribbon.

One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors.

“How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.

“Why sir,” said the farmer, “didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.”

He is very much aware of the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbor’s corn also improves.

So it is with our lives. Those who choose to live in peace must help their neighbors to live in peace. Those who choose to live well must help others to live well, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all.

The lesson for each of us is this: if we are to grow good corn, we must help our neighbors grow good corn

What will you do with the gifts, talents and abilities God has given you.

Matthew 25:14-30

Last week when I was At the Exponential Conference. One of the session I sat in on was Dave  Ferguson and Jon Ferguson. In it they were talking about reproducing leaders and they shared this simple yet effective way so I thought I would share it with you.

1. I do        >   you watch  > we talk
2. I do        >   you help     >    we talk
3. You do  >   I help          >  we talk
4. You do  >   I watch       > we talk
5. You do  >   someone else watches

It seems like we all are waiting on something to happen before we start doing what we know we are supposed to do. Let’s think about it: Do you need to start working out? Do you wait ‘til the New Years day to try to stop smoking or say “I’ll just wait till I finish this pack”?  How about you need to study harder in school but decide to just wait tell next semester? This is one I hear a lot “when I get married I will start doing this or stop doing that”.

Why is it when we know what we need to do we choose to make excuses to start it later?  I image the conversation in our head goes something like this. “I know I need to get better, but, I’ll do what I need to do in a month or so”. What sense does that make?  That makes about as much sense as saying, “Look! A stop light!  I’ll stop when I get on the other side of it”.

When it comes to doing what we know we need to do, procrastination is not our friend, but our enemy. Let’s not continue to make excuse about what needs to be done and just do it!

What will you do today to get better? Now that’s a pretty vague question.  “Get better at what?” is probably what you’re thinking. See most of the time we think of getting better as something athletes do. Like, I won the bronze medal last Olympics so for the next Olympics I’m going for gold. See most of our lives we live to get to a certain place or goal and once we get there we stop trying to improve upon ourselves. When we get that job we wanted or when you get your PHD or now you are married.  Once the goal is reached we feel like we can stop striving to get better.

But what would happen if we were to look at every part of our live as a chance to get better?  Maybe you need to be a better husband or wife, perhaps a better parent or child, maybe a better leader or follower. How does one even know if they need to get better?  I’ll start by saying no one is perfect so that leaves the door wide open for us all to get better.  So let’s stop and examine our lives and see what we can do to get better.

All this week we will look at different ways that we can get better on a daily basis.

Have you ever driven a car with no brakes? I don’t mean brakes that aren’t working well, but one that has no brakes! Well I have and let me tell you it sucks. Let me tell you how it went down. About 9 years ago I had an 81 Grand Prix and it needed a brake job in every way – about 700 dollars worth of work. Yet I still needed to get to work which was on the other side of town like 14 miles.

I got to work that day just fine, yet, on my way home as I was  going  to slow down to get on the highway the brakes didn’t work! Not at all! Now, if you’re thinking I was freaking out you’d be right. I’m now on the highway doing 70 mph and have no brakes. I was thinking what do I do? How am I going to stop this car? We’ve all seen how this ends in the movies. I figured, I’m either going to run into something or drive off a cliff. Either way I wasn’t looking forward to it.

At this point I thinking I needed an exit that had a long ramp and drive off time. I remembered one  that was a few miles up. I was so blessed that traffic never slowed down and kept flowing. When I reached the exit I ran in to a problem – there where cars in the way! Somehow I managed to avoid them and find the field that I knew was right of that exit. I drove through the field and swerved back and forth until the car slowed down enough that I could just throw it in park.

In my entire life I’ve never met anyone who has driven without any brakes. Nor have I met anyone who did it and managed not to hit anything and from what I see in the movies it’s not possible. I would like to think it was the fact I’m a NASCAR fan and have great driving skills that help me out but I know it was God who protected me.

See, sometimes as leaders we are so busy going and going that the brakes of our lives give out on us. We don’t take the time to service our brakes. I could have spent that $700 and had working brakes, but instead I chose to keep driving until I had no choice but to get them fixed.  It’s the same in life, we NEED to take the time to rest in Him so that He can strengthen us and so we minister out of the overflow of our time with Him instead of just swerving in a field trying not to crash.