The Imperfections Curve…

How have you seen this play out in your organizations? In this crazy economy your churches, business, etc… are feeling the crunch. What creative things are you doing to keep both ‘Values’ at ‘amazing’ while living with the reality of less in this season??

Mentoring & Donald Miller…

I definitely have a heart for mentoring. I can, unswervingly, say that I am where I am today because of the men and women who have mentored me and are mentoring me in my life (my parents get big props on this too)!! I am so convinced that mentoring is the key in finding holistic success in our lives. I believe we all need at least one mentor in our lives if not a few. Beyond personally being mentored, I think it’s imperative that we are mentoring others at some level. We all have experiences, we all have a story and we all have ears. One of the most important elements in mentoring is listening. I know it’s not always easy, but, sometimes just through the process of listening we can learn about where people are really at and it gives us the opportunity to speak clarity and direction into the life of another person. Mentoring is a gift for all parties involved.

So, if you’ve thought about having a mentor, stop thinking about it and get one. Find that person that you respect and trust in your circle and ask them if they’d ‘mentor’ you. Find a professional mentor for your career ambitions, find a spiritual mentor to speak into your spiritual life or find someone that might have it all wrapped in one package. There’s no formula for how it can work best for you, but, just get started in being mentored.

If you’re ahead of the game and you have some mentors, well, why don’t you pursue someone to take on as a mentoring project. Find that kid you know that doesn’t quite have it all put together. Maybe there’s a son or daughter of a widow that you can just enjoy some hang time with or take to a ball game or just invite them into something you’re doing. If you’re capable of loving, you’re capable of mentoring. If it doesn’t come to you…well…then pursue it.

I can tell you that mentoring someone else can be one of the best things you’ll do for your own personal growth. Taking a step out of the life of YOU and investing yourself into someone ELSE will grow you in so many ways that cannot be explained, but, only experienced. Trust me!!

Donald Miller, who is a communicator and writer of whom I have a DEEP respect in, is taking on a deal called the Mentoring Project and he’s in the process of ramping this whole thing up alongside a group of people at The Mentoring Project. I wonder if you would just help spark this movement along with Donald by blogging about mentoring, starting to following his project, posting one of the videos or engaging in mentoring at some level.

The Mentoring Project is specifically helping to mentor fatherless boys through the means of the local church, which I believe is essential to the future and a commandment of Christ Himself. It’s time for men in the church to chunk out some time in their schedules to start mentoring guys that don’t have a dad. Women, why not take the charge too? Maybe you know some young ladies that need a female in their life to encourage, pray and invest in them. Let’s get after it!

What are your experiences with mentoring? Do you have a mentor? Do you wish you had a mentor? Do you mentor anyone? What has mentoring meant to your life? Do you wish you knew more about mentoring? Does the process scare you at all? Talk to me…I’m curious if this is something you’ve adopted in your life.

Watch the video and Click: ‘The Mentoring Project’ for more information!

Catalyst West Coast – April 22-24, 2009 – Newport Beach, CA

I’ve got two exciting things to announce about Catalyst West Conference that is coming to Newport Beach, CA on Aprill 22-24th, 2009. I’m not gonna share both of them in this post, however, you do get one of the pieces of news. The first bit is kind of fun and if you’re still undecided about going maybe it will motivate you to commit. The line up for this conference is absolutely ridiculous. You will be learning and drinking in from some of the most prolific Kingdom-minded leaders in the world during these days in April. Check out their website. Line up includes:

Worship by Hillsong United, Steve Fee, Aaron Keyes and Joel Auge
Speakers include: Andy Stanley, Craig Groeschel, Rick Warren, Guy Kawasaki, Ravi Zacharias, Francis Chan, Brian Houston, Erwin McManus, Perry Noble, Catherine Rohr, Jud Wilhite, and Luis Palau

ANNOUNCEMENT – PART I

I’ve been given the ability to help you and your team get SPECIAL PRICING on the conference if you reference my name and blog. You have to contact Aaron Foster who is leading the charge on the sales end at Catalyst to get the deal. All you need to do is mention that ‘Brian Wurzell said you’d hook us up’ and he will give you a price that I cannot print. You can contact him at aaron.foster@catalystspace.com or on his direct line 678-225-3501. TELL YOUR FRIENDS TOO!

Bring your team, sleep on a family members floor, if you have too, take a day or two off work, but, don’t miss this epic leadership summit. Aaron will take care of you if you call him soon, but, they’re almost sold out so I would try and call him this week to make sure you don’t get left out.

check out my – announcement part deux

Unexpected Tragedy…

Today is one of those days where you remember the precious gift of your very breathe. I write this note as I’m just about to go to bed on this Friday the 13th, 2009 (a little weird). As I was winding down tonight the news popped on with a story and reported that a commercial plane had just gone down in the Buffalo, New York area. Oddly enough, I flew today and I also had 2 friends flying in to New York this evening too.

Immediately, when i heard the news of the crash, I had that ‘oh wow, what if that was their plane’ feeling. That’s a heart wrenching moment when your not expecting it. I shot out a text to my buddies right away and awaited a response. I finally got one back just a few minutes later. They had made it safe. Praise God!

The irony of the story is that I flew today too and so did 49 other people. The difference is for those 49 people their news wasn’t in favor of tomorrow for them. Their news was met with unexpected tragedy. For the friends and families of those lost in this wreckage it’s the beginning of a process of hurt, pain and restoration. My heart breaks for those people who now have to walk this painful journey of loss because of today. If you’re a friend or family of one of the victims and you’re reading this right now, just know you’re being prayed for in these days.The beautiful thing is that, if we’re willing to find it, there is great beauty in our brokenness. It’s actually a place where our relationship to God can become so simply, yet, articulately intimate.

This incident reminds me, as I get ready to shut my eyes for the night, that my days on this earth are numbered and I want to live my life in the fullness of who Gods made me to be in the Kingdom. While I have this life, I want to love well, play hard, work hard, cry hard, serve well and be an agent of change well!

I needed this unexpected reminder tonight. I’m bummed for the way I’m reminded, in the midst of this tragedy, but, I’m reminded that I want my life to count for great things here and now! What a hope I have in Jesus though. It’s a hope that rings out the anthem, as Louie Giglio says, that ‘even in death we win’ when we’re on the mission with Jesus. May my life reflect Him more today in this reminder and may the peace of God hug these families/friends so close as they wonder how to get through today.

Let us not forget:

Genesis 3:19 – Remember, O man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return

Pray For The Lamberth Family!

On Friday I had heard the news of Mark Lamberths motorcycle accident through Carlos Whittakers twitter. I was bummed to hear of such a young guy with such a young family fighting for his life. I got a call on Saturday morning from one of my awesome vocalists, Mandy Lamberth, to which she informed me that she wouldn’t be able to sing this Sunday because one of her family members had been in a bad motorcycle wreck. 2 and 2 came together and I realized this was the same story.

Anyways, I just wanted to encourage all of my readers to pray for the Lamberths and leave them a comment of encouragment if you can. I don’t know Mark or Angie, but, it’s in these moments that the outpouring of encouragement can help carry some of the weight. You can find out more on this story through a blog that the family is keeping up to the minute about what’s happening with him. In the meantime, pray for his wife Angie and their son Nolan. They really need God to do a miracle in his body and these are critical hours.

Classic WOW!

So back in August of 2007 we did a ’sex’ series here at Cornerstone called ‘Bringing Sexy Back’. It was a blast. We just explored Gods heartbeat for sex in our lives and tried to take the silent issue in the church and bring it back to life. It was a powerful series in which we saw marriages healed, people with porn sites struck with the grace of God to the point of shutting down their lucartive business, sex addictions being confronted and dealt with and a whole list of other amazing God stories.

Anyways, I just found out about this little video today and all I could do was go, oh well.  It’s, sadly, a bit humorous when people take things out of context and try to prove a point. This group of folks or individual sliced up some video of our Pastor and put in their commentary overlays to ‘call him out’. Pretty effective. Ha!

I just wish the Kingdom of God had some more peacemakers. I had a guy recently tell me to ‘STAND UP AND FIGHT FOR SOMETHING YOU SPINELESS CHRISTIANS’…this has been thrown at me before, but, it just simply isn’t the way of Jesus. What if we really could have adult conversations about how we approach topics like sex in the church. What would happen in the case that even if we did disagree we could still have the capacity to say things in a loving way. I know this is like the impossible dream, but, this video just reminded me that in or out of relationship with Jesus we will disagree. I just think we can do that with dignity. Anyways, with dignity, I think this video is a great example of how I disagree with taking things Pastors say WAAAAYY out of context.

Anyways, you just have to watch it. It’s pretty interesting (the commentary). What are your thoughts?

Phone Calls or Text Messages?

well…what about you? what do you use more phone or text? i found this survey on digg and the survey says:

 

September 22, 2008 4:51 PM PDT

Americans text more than they talk

American cell phone users are sending more text messages than they are making phone calls, according to a Nielsen Mobile survey released Monday.

For the second quarter of 2008, U.S. mobile subscribers sent and received on average 357 text messages per month, compared with making and receiving 204 phone calls a month, according to Nielsen. The new statistic is a clear indication that Americans have jumped onto the SMS text bandwagon.

   

On average, American teens send and receive 1,742 text messages a month.

(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CBS Interactive)

In the first quarter of 2006, Americans sent and received 65 text messages per month. The number of messages sent and received today has increased 450 percent. But even though people are texting more, it doesn’t mean that they’ve stopped talking on the phone. According to Nielsen, the number of phone calls that people make and receive each month has remained relatively flat over the past two years.

The wireless industry’s trade association, CTIA, recently noted the explosion in texting in its own report. It recently reported that for the month of June, American cell phone subscribers sent about 75 billion SMS text messages, averaging about 2.5 billion messages per day. This represents an increase of 160 percent over the 28.8 billion messages reported in June 2007.

Short Message Service, or SMS, text messaging first became popular in Europe and Asia, because it was much cheaper to send short text messages than make an actual phone call. In countries such as the Philippines, the cost of sending one text is less than a penny. And in Europe where cell phone users are still penalized with high roaming charges between countries, texting is still a more economical form of communication.

But in the U.S. texting is proving to be a cash cow for carriers. Over the past two years, the cost of sending and receiving individual text messages without a special text message package has gone up 100 percent with individual text messages costing 20 cents per message. Carriers are now offering unlimited cell phone texting plans that cost an additional $20 a month, which makes sending texts more affordable for heavy texters.

The surge in text messaging is being driven by teens 13 to 17 years old, who on average send and receive about 1,742 text messages a month. Teens also talk on the phone, but at a much lower rate, only making and receiving about 231 calls per month. The report even suggests that tweens or kids under the age of 12 are also heavy text users, averaging about 428 messages per month.

Uncle Boogers BUMPER DUMPER!

well…

sometimes you just need to have a good laugh and well let’s be honest if you’re kind of into weird stuff this might be for you. i walked in to the infamous ‘green room’, last sunday, after leading the opening set of worship and what was on my computer…yes…this… (note – beware of those who linger in the green rooms while you’re not around. NEVER leave your computer open. hahaa)

anyways…maybe you’ll be interested in Uncle Boogers project, especially if you have an irritable bowel. SO AWESOME:

 

Leadership Summit – Catherine Rohr

I learned of a new ministry and opportunity for us to reach those that Jesus reached. namely, the imprisoned! Catherine Rohr from an organization called Prison Enrepreneurship Program (P.E.P.). Let me just say it’s a fantastic organization and if you don’t know about it…get to know it!!

Starfield Tickets

this is courtesy of my lovely lady Promise. check out her blog. she’s by far my most favorite designer and artist. she just creates such beauty within that brain of hers and somehow she outputs those creative thoughts on computers, canvas and photos. anyways…if you can’t tell im smitten, but, check out these tickets she did for our upcoming Starfield concert. i love how she stayed within the design of what they’re doing on their myspace/website. very sharp. when’s the last time you’ve seen such amazing concert tickets?