Just some thoughts…

Don’t Let the Cold Stop You

Now, I realize that I live in Florida and I may not have a lot of room to speak to this, but in some ways, it’s all relative. I still have days that are way too cold for me to run (or at least to want to run). Here are some tips to help you keep up cardio in the extra cold days:

-    Dress right – with today’s fitness technology, there are a ton of products to keep you warm…get them. There are gloves, pants, hoods, beanies, sweatshirts, running shirts and just layering your clothing. All you have to do is dress appropriately. When you dress too warm or too cold, take note of the temperature outside and adjust. You’ll get it right.

-    The cold is a good time to do cardio – at least this is true for me. The cold will keep your body temperature down, and when that happens for me, I can just keep on going. It’s a great thing.

-    When you run or workout outside in the cold, people think you’re a workout rock star - That’s right, they drive by and think to themselves, “That guy/girl right there…they’re a rock star. I wish I would be strong enough and dedicated enough to work out when it’s this cold. They could probably beat me up in a fight.” Their thoughts are similar to that.

-    If you still don’t want to work out outside, try Tae Bo, Abs of Steel and any other work out videos - They may seem ridiculous, at least if you’re a guy, but you’re opinion will change when you can’t keep up with them (that’s how mine changed).

As we head towards the holidays and towards the end of the year, it would be easy to lay off working out (or continue to not work out) and lay into all kinds of holiday food. We could use all kinds of excuses about the holidays, not enough time, blah, blah, blah. But the truth is, we’re making a conscious choice to take a step in a direction that we really don’t want to go.

So, as 2008 winds down, hopefully this set of posts will encourage you to not let off the gas too much in your fitness. Also, I hope that I can give a few tips that will help as well.

This is just a mind dump of the things that are on my mind right now…

- I really want to get back into blogging regularly, but I’m having to use my best time for other things when I need to be creative and so when I do have time, my tank is too dry to put any good thoughts into things.

- Pray for the team in India…God’s going to do some cool stuff through them.

- We almost have our living trust (our will) done. So, we have a living trust and life insurance - not sure how else to prepare for the worst, so I hope that this is enough.

- My schedule is a bit crazy, but I can feel it slowing down a bit this week…should be better by next week. I don’t have any night meetings next week and I’m planning to keep it that way!

- I’m speaking at a church in Estero this week, Christ Community Ministries, as their lead pastor is on the trip to India with our church. I feel good about the message and I’ll probably preach it at NLC whenever I get the chance.

- Our Christmas series is going to be fun…it might be the first FUN Christmas series that we’ve ever done.

- I’m trying to work out my work out, ‘off-season,’ right now. I’m enjoying running a lot and ran 29 miles last week and am on pace for more this week (I’ve already ran 20 this week). I’m trying to determine if I should tone it down so that I don’t burn myself out.

- Annie and I are going to do the Turkey Trot 5k in Cape Coral on Thanksgiving morning - we’re going to push Karston in the stroller.

- Annie and I are going to do the half-marathon in January in Naples as long as I can miss that Sunday.

- I want to do a half-ironman in 2009. There’s one in November in Miami, so that will be the one that I aim for unless something comes up (last year, we had Karston and this year we ran a marathon in October).

- I’m starting to WANT to bike and swim again. I haven’t done either since April, so that’s a good sign. I still think that I’m going to wait until the first of the year to do either.

- Charlie needs to give me his bike trainer to borrow for 6 - 11 months.

- The leaders in the children’s ministry at NLC are ridiculously awesome! I’m blown away every week!

- I talked to Will, our amazing youth pastor, today and he got offered a youth pastor job in Oklahoma. We both agreed that we like it here better.

- Quantum of Solace is calling my name…

Outside of our town-home, we have a ton of plants called, “mother-in-law plants,” because of their sharpness…pretty funny.

What’s not funny is that I’m trying to kill the stupid things and they won’t die. I have literally pulled them all out of the ground and filled the holes that I pulled them out of with weed killer, and they still grow back. I have unintentionally killed 3 plants that I wanted to keep that way, but these little mother-in-law plants keep coming back.

So, I’m taking any ideas on how to kill them. I’ve thought about gasoline because I hear that it will kill anything. If that doesn’t work, I’ll set the gasoline on fire and set my whole area where they’re growing on fire…that will teach them.

Any ideas?

So, I haven’t been blogging very much lately, so I thought that I would post a couple of random thoughts on here. I really do intend to get back into a blogging rythm, which you could call a, ‘blothm,’ but I’ve honestly been too crazy busy to write too much or think about big thoughts.

With all of that said, I thought that I would just throw out a couple of random thoughts. Here goes:

- Ever since Barack Obama started running against Hilary to be the Democratic Candidate, I have referred to him as, “Baracker the Rocker.” I kind of hope that it sticks, yet doesn’t come off as disrespectful. Somehow, I need to get a lot of people using this phrase to take the edge off.

- I think that McDonalds missed it big by not naming multiple sandwiches throughout the campaign after John McCain. It seemed so right…

- We’re in the middle of hosting 4 church planters for, ‘r9′, a 9 day residency through the ARC and it’s been amazing. These guys are cool and God’s going to transform their cities through the churches that they started.

- I was able to spend lunch with Christopher Beard of the ARC and Layne Schranz of Church of the Highlands and they challenged me in a couple of areas that I really needed. I also talked to Layne one on one about some stuff that he helped me to see. They have great hearts!

- Karston was Tigger for halloween and was ridiculously cute. Everyone kept calling him, ‘Tiger,’ though, even though he wasn’t dressed up like a golfer at all.

- We love reaching out and helping new and growing churches. We’re praying that God gives us the ability to have a voice with churches under 250 people throughout America!

- This week, I heard that if a church plant hasn’t grown to 100 people within the first year, it has to do something drastic in order to keep it afloat…that’s crazy.

- I really love NLC! So many people’s lives are being touched!

- We have great leaders in the Kids Zone! Their love for kids and what God’s doing in families is amazing!

- If you didn’t hear last week’s message, you need to…it will rock your face off.

- I spoke at Collide, our youth group, last night. It was fun, but the real impact happens in the Small Groups!

- Twitter has changed my world. If you’re not following me, you should. Look up nextlevelmike.

Yesterday was the Columbus Marathon (Ohio). It was great and Annie and I both ran it, along with her brother and her sister ran the half-marathon.

I finished the marathon in 4 hours 5 minutes, which was about 6 minutes slower than my goal. Annie ran it in 4 hours 25 minutes even though she had severe cramps in her leg and hip…she’s a rock star. She beat her brother, so that’s all that really matters…:)

So, being strong runs in the family…here’s a video to demonstrate what I mean:

Two weeks ago, I did my last long run before the marathon - over 20 miles. This past Friday, LeAnne did her last long run - 21 miles.

Now, we taper. This basically means that our mileage decreases each week until our marathon on October 19th in Columbus, OH.

I wonder if, in life, we need to look at each big event like a marathon and plan our schedules leading up to each event so that we taper down to the big event. What if, leading up to Easter, the schedule of pastors actually decreased the couple of weeks before instead of increasing like they typically do? What if, for a big pitch at our jobs, or before our kids’ baseball season begins, or before a big move, or before a season of busy-ness, we actually tapered our schedules so that we were ready for the big thing that comes next?

I wonder how that would change our effectiveness. I typically gear up towards an event. What would it be like to gear down toward an event?

What big thing is coming on the horizon and how can you find time to slow down a bit and taper before your big event?

I don’t know where this came from, but this morning I was thinking about Halloween and about Karston’s really cute Tiger costume and I had a thought, “Do they celebrate Halloween at the North Pole?” Does Santa and all of the elves, on the 31st of October, dress up and go to parties and take their kids around to get candy from strangers?

I mean, Christmas and Halloween are very opposite, right? But, that wouldn’t necessarily mean that the elvish community wouldn’t celebrate Halloween, does it?

Do you think that Santa and the elves are ONE holiday snobs? When other holidays come, they turn up their chins and scoff. Do they avoid the Easter Bunny’s phone calls or tell make jokes about the Tooth Fairy collecting other people’s teeth because hers are so jacked up?

If, and this is a big if, Santa and the elves did dress up, what would they dress as? I have a couple of thoughts:

- Some of them get together and dress up as the 7 dwarves - They could even put one elf on another’s shoulders and they could dress up like Snow White.

- Munchkins, from the Wizard of Oz - they could all walk around welcoming people to, ‘Lolipop Land,’ or whatever song they sung.

- The creepy little guys in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Johnny Depp edition) - I would imagine that a bunch of elves wouldn’t have to work hard to be creepy, so these would be an easy costume.

- Little kids - do you think that the elves would dress up like little kids and make fun of them. Like, one could dress up like the whiny little kid who didn’t get what she wanted for Christmas. One could dress up like the kid who got nothing but coal for Christmas. You get the point…

- Another holiday icon - this would only work if they were on good terms, not if they acted as gangs.

- Santa could dress up like Goliath (the giant from the Bible), the giant from Jack and the Bean Stalk, or the Jolly Green Giant (this would be a great fit.  If nothing else, he could just dress up like Don King.

You’ll probably be thinking about this all day now…if you come up with some better theories, let me know.

Seasonal Church Attendance

It seems rare that God calls people to be at a single local church throughout their lifetime. Let me explain that thought.

If a church is moving and growing and strategizing on how to transform the world, the vision of a church stays basically the same, but the methods and negotiables of a church will change. A church who wants to reach the next generation will have to constantly change it’s music to stay at a level that will appeal to the next generation.

If a person is growing spiritually and strategizing how to transform the world around them, their personal vision will stay basically the same, but what they need at different stages of life from a church will change, what they can offer as service is different at different stages of life will change, and even what they believe is the best way to impact the world may drift away from what a specific church believes.

In 6 ½ years of working at NLC, I’ve seen a lot of people come and a lot of people go. I would say that MOST of the people that have left have done so not because the vision of NLC and their vision has simply drifted apart.

Here’s what I’ve learned about the seasons of church attendance:
-    When someone wants to leave a church after attending for awhile, most likely it’s because the two visions have drifted away from each other.
-    When people are mad at issues in a church, most likely it’s because the two visions have drifted away from each other.
-    Most people don’t recognize the two visions drifting away from each other, so they quantify the change that they’re feeling by thinking that something must be wrong with a church.
-    Thank God for people who recognize when their vision and the church’s has drifted and they leave well.
-    It’s not always easy for people to leave well. Some leave without letting you know and some leave with a blaze of e-mails or gossip, neither are good.

When have you experienced vision drift from a church?

Seasonal Parenting

This entry isn’t going to be very long because my son is only 10 months old and I’ve maybe experienced 3 season changes with parenting.

From having Karston, and watching my friends and family raise children, here’s what I’m learning about the seasons of parenting:

-    Sarah Keller says that there’s a reason why children are born so small and they do so little – because God’s slowly preparing you to parent more active children. If they came out walking and talking, we wouldn’t be able to handle it.
-    If you begin to get frustrated by one season don’t worry, it’s almost over.
-    If you really like a season that your child is in, take A LOT of video and pictures…it’s about to change.
-    Engage your role as a parent at every level. Even if it’s frustrating at times, they really need you to step up and push through that frustration.

What are some of the seasons that Annie and I can expect with Karston in the future?