The critical question

I have been reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan and it has been rocking me for the last few days. When it comes to loving Christ, Francis quotes John Piper from his book God Is The Gospel and here it is:

The critical question for our generation and for every generation is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?

No matter who you are and what you do, as a christian this is a question that you will have to give an honest answer to yourself. You might be surprised at the answer yourself! This has definitely caused me to evaluate my life and love for Christ.

What about you?

Talk about ideas!

The saying goes "Big people talk about ideas, average people talk about things and small people talk about other people."

What category do you fall under? Talking about other people in not a bad thing all the time. It is bad when all you talk about is gossip and small talk about other people. If you talk about other people in the light of what they have accomplished or what they plan to do and how you can learn from it, it is a good thing.

For a little over a year I have had the opportunity to meet and get to know some great people who love to talk about ideas and talk about things most people are not even thinking about. This has helped me in many ways. It helps you grow personally and also lets you have a broader understanding of things around you. I also realized that once you start to talk about different ideas you will start liking certain subjects that you were not necessarily interested in before.

What do you think? What kind of ideas do you think about?

5 habits

I was recently reading an article 10 habits of successful people. Five of them really stood out to me and I wanted to share them. Most of them are "common sence" or things that you have heard before but I believe it is always good to be reminded of the basics, so here is the list:

1. Think long-term.
2. Talk about ideas, NOT people and things.
3. Learn to embrace change.
4. Take calcualted risks.
5. Continually learn and grow.

I know there have to be other things that can be added to this list. What are somethings that you would add?

Quote

"A man by his sin may waste himself, which is to waste that which on earth is most like God. This is man's greatest tragedy and God's heaviest grief." A. W. Tozer.

Kill the slogan?!

So after taking a econ final at school today, rushing home and then to airport, the flight to New York is delayed by two and a half hours. At this point I am hoping that I will reach New York in time to catch my flight to Dubai.

So in the mean time I thought I would just write this. I just read an article by Dan & Heath Chip about Killing the slogans dead in FastCompany magazine. Dan & Heath Chip are the authors of the book Made to Stick. 

In the article they ask managers and leaders to fight the urge to think in clever taglines. They talk about how it is important to connect an idea with stories so move people instead of just coming up with a good tagline and expecting the tagline to get the job done. I think this very well applies to preaching, presenting and giving talks. Stories connect with people much more than clever taglines. 

So to add to the 30 second rule, in order to get your point across and move people to action, have a story that they can connect with and remember even after you are done with your talk. 

Reading list

This is what I plan to read while I travel to India!

What are you reading?

30 second rule

The 30 second rule is pretty simple. If you are going to be giving a presentation or talk, you should be able to articulate the main point of your talk in 30 seconds or less. 

Most of the time we have too many ideas going through our minds and this often causes an information overload for the listeners. So next time try the 30 second rule before you present. 

What do you think? What are some ways that you get ready for a talk?

Did you know?

Here are some interesting facts

Honor

John Bevere was the guest speaker at my church yesterday. He did a great job teaching about Honor. There was a LOT of stuff that he covered from his book Honor's Reward. 

I just wanted to mention one of things that he talked about. He said that one of the definitions in the greek for the word dishonor simple meant "to treat as common".

With that in mind....

Who are the people in your life that you take for granted or teat as common?

Is it your wife, husband, Pastor, leader, father, mother, children, friend, employer, employee, teammates......? 

Do you properly honor the people God has placed in your life?

Take some time and think about it. Once you think of the people in your life, how do you plan on honoring them? How do you plan on making this a part of your lifestyle?

God's Love

Was true until...

I saw this on Josh's blog. 



I think its really well done!

Quick hits!

I have been pretty busy the last few days with school work and making sure i get everything done before I go to India for a short visit. 

Well my good friend Michael Ruffin who is a science teacher and a great guy to hang out with just started a blog and you can check it out here. 

I came across this really cool website on Shawn Wood's blog. The website is designed to help discover your purpose in life. I think you will really like it. 

I finally got on twitter today! You can follow me by clicking here. I also added a widget on this blog which will update my tweets. I am new to it so, still playing around with it and learning! 

You can follow Anthony here. Click here if you want to follow Matt Stakes!

and finally, Google's reader got a facelift today. Check it out!

Well thats it for now! Need to go to bed! Goodnight! (Good morning if you are on the other side of the world!)

What inspires you?

Economies of the world!

I got this from a friend of mine, so I thought you might enjoy it.

1. SOCIALISM:
You have 2 cows and you give one to your neighbour.

2. COMMUNISM:
You have 2 cows; the Government takes both and gives you some milk.

3. FASCISM:
You have 2 cows; the Government takes both and sells you some milk.

4. NAZISM:
You have 2 cows. The Government takes both and shoots you.

5. BUREAUCRATISM:
You have 2 cows; the Government takes both, shoots one, milks the
other and throws the milk away...

6. TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM:
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies,
and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

7. AN AMERICAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the
milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow
dropped dead.

8. A FRENCH CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.

9. A JAPANESE CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of
an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a
clever cow cartoon image called Cowkimon and market them World-Wide.

10. A GERMAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You re engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat
once a month, and milk themselves.

11. AN ITALIAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.

12. A RUSSIAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You
count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and
learn you have 2 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle
of vodka.

13. A SWISS CORPORATION:
You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for
storing them.

14. A CHINESE CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full
employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who
reported the numbers.

15. AN INDIAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You worship them.

16. A BRITISH CORPORATION:
You have two cows. Both are mad.

17. A KENYAN CORPORATION:
You have two cows. You eat both

Feel free to add more if you can....

He did it!!

My leader and friend has finally dived into the blogosphere! I think this is going to be great! He has a lot of wisdom and insight.

Check his blog out by clicking here.