Letters to a young pastor. I’m reading this book right now and it is a great book for young pastors, tons of wisdom.- Phil Cooke on the secret to great teams.
- Porn blamed for children’s sexual behavior.
- Dave Ferguson on What stats a church should count.
- Russell Moore answers “Should I marry a man addicted to porn?“
- Start – Stop – Continue. Great advice for pastors and leaders.
- Teens & porn: stats you need to know.
- Dave Kraft on The importance of picking the right people for the right teams.
- Forbes on Girls for Sale! Changing the Conversation on Exploited Kids in the U.S.
Tag Archives: scott hodge
Links of the Week
- Perry Noble on What the church could be like.
- Tony Morgan on Top 11 Leadership Challenges.
- Give Carlos Whitaker a caption for this picture. Too funny.
- Scott Hodge on Valuing the journey. I always say, “God is more interested in the journey than the destination.”
Links of the Week
- Scott Thomas on 20 qualifications of a church planter
- Ben Witherington on Should we redefine marriage? (Ben puts some interesting questions into the ring of this hotly debated issue, really thought provoking)
- Skye Jethani on Mission and Recession
- Scott Hodge on Sacred reminder
- Alan Hirsch responds to Dan Kimball’s Missional Misgivings
Top Posts of October ’08
Here are the posts that generated the most traffic in the last month:
- 30 Day Sex Challenge
- Conversation with Scott Hodge
- What They Really Mean
- What’s Your Message
- The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative
- Interacting with the Opposite Sex as a Pastor
- Sex, Romance and the Glory of God: What Every Christian Husband Needs to Know
- What Vision Does
- 88 Ways to Take Action Against Poverty Right Now
- Sexy Car Wash
Saturday Night Mind Dump…
- Awesome night tonight
- This was our 5th night as a church and we have more than doubled in that time
- The band was great tonight
- We experimented with a live Q & A at the end of the service, I thought it went well, a little uncomfortable, but a good time
- A little hard to answer questions on the fly, but a lot of fun
- Tonight, we laid out the 30 day sex challenge, should be fun to see what happens!
- Here is an interesting article about a couple who had sex everday for 101 days (I don’t condone all the things they talk about, just be forewarned), but I think it’s worth checking out
- I had several wives tell me they got a lot out of tonight, which is good since the topic was sex and intimacy
- Guys are already engaged, so good things it connected with the ladies
- Great conversation this past week with Scott Hodge, my head is spinning from some of the things we talked about
- He was very encouraging about what has happened at Revolution, what God has done and what God is doing
- It makes me feel good when other leaders who have walked the path I am tell me we are on the right track
- If you need some creative dating and sex ideas, check out simply romantic nights
- We had an awesome time at the community food bank today for our missional life project
- Had some great conversations tonight, God is really stirring in people through this series
- I had someone come up to me tonight and tell that they feel like this series has saved their marriage, awesome to see the way God is working
- A lot of videos tonight, don’t know if that worked, but we did it anyway
- Excited for another day of watching football tomorrow, sadly, the Steelers are on a bye
- Fantasy football is going well
- I’m rocking my 3 leagues (4-1, 4-1, 5-0)
- The Red Sox game is still on, that’s crazy
- Good game though
- Katie looked smokin hot tonight
- I gotta go now, the 30 day challenge is calling!
Conversation with Scott Hodge
I had a great conversation with Scott Hodge today. Scott is the Lead Pastor of The Orchard in Aurora, IL and a big blogger.
I first discovered Scott from an article he wrote on church transitions for Leadership Journal. From that point on, his blog was one I followed. About a month ago he posted about “Leveraging your size” which was all about how to lead where you are, while leading for where you are going. These two things really struck a chord with me.
The story of the transition they went through at the Orchard and what we experienced at Beginnings/Revolution are very similar. My goal was to get some ideas about leading where I am right now, while still moving our community forward. Because I tend to be a big picture thinker, it is easy for me to get 5 steps ahead of everyone (which is important for a leader), but it can be difficult to stay with everyone at the same time.
Here are the questions I picked his brain about: (1) What was the journey like in transitioning The Orchard? How did you handle losing people? (2) How do you lead the size church you are a part of right now, while still looking ahead to where you are going? (3) When transitioning a church, what was your biggest learning? What went right? What would you do differently? (4) Creating a church culture.
Here are some things from our conversation:
- A leader has to decide that they aren’t here to be liked by everyone, but to be a change agent
- The cost to change is great
- Are we in any way positioned that someone could sabotage this or do we have a good leadership structure to protect the church?
- You can’t become who you are going to be without losing people
- A slow transition can confuse people because you are saying, “We’re kind of this, but we’re hoping to become this”
- There are some people that as long as they are there, you can’t get to where you are going
- Some people really want change, but they aren’t sure how much they want to change
- Culture is not created by one or two things, but by multiple things
- The only person who can get the culture to where it needs to go is the lead pastor
- In the beginning, you know more about what you don’t want to be than what you do want to be
- The leaders need to reflect the culture
- What are some things you can do now that you won’t be able to do later
- The sooner I can help someone determine whether this is the church for them, the better
Saturday Night Mind Dump…
- Awesome night tonight
- Paul and the band did a great job
- There is so much energy and excitement each night at Revolution, we have had 60 first time guests in the last 4 weeks
- I love that people feel comfortable and excited about bringing people with them to church
- The reason this is important is because everytime I meet a guy who says his wife is not meeting his needs sexually, he is probably not doing a good job at pursuing her and giving her affection
- Every guy in our church needs to read C.J. Mahaney’s book Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God: What Every Christian Husband Needs to Know (I took a lot of ideas for my talk tonight from this book). This is such a great book, wives, get this book for your husband, it will make such a difference.
- Here is a list of date night ideas
- We’re having a drop in to meet Paul and Jennifer tomorrow, you definitely want to be there if you haven’t met them yet
- It has been awesome spending the weekend with them and seeing them interact with our community
- I have a phone call with Scott Hodge this week, I’m really excited about picking his brain about leadership, church and being missional
- We have an ultrasound this week, it is getting closer
- Next Saturday, we have our next missional life project at the community food bank
- I was reminded tonight about the way God is working at Revolution by hearing the stories of how this series is changing lives and marriages
- I’m really excited about our series in December, “Advent Conspiracy”
- I’m trying to narrow down my topic for my dissertation, stay tuned
- I’m excited to watch football tomorrow and watch my fantasy teams win, I’m 4-0, 4-0, and 3-1 in my 3 leagues
