Notes on the Run

According to Patrick Lencioni in his new book The Advantage teamwork should be considered a choice, not a virtue.

The Advantage is about organizational health in businesses, non-profits and churches. His premise is organizational health is more important than any other discipline to move an organization forward. I just started reading/listening to it this week but I am already fascinated.

My biggest takeaway from the first few chapters is Lencioni’s thoughts on teamwork. He says most companies either provide lip service to the idea of teamwork or they underestimate what it takes to achieve it.

Lencioni provides an analogy for teamwork. He says most organizations that talk about teamwork are like a team of golfers. They all go off and play their round of golf and then come back and add up their scores. But healthy teamwork is more like a basketball team. All the players must work together throughout the entire game to come out ahead.

I am a big fan of Lencioni because I have read and, to some degree, lived out almost all of his books. His writing is solid. I look forward to reading the rest of The Advantage and posting more about his wisdom.

(I listened to this part while on a four mile run)

I ran today. While I was running I listened to Jason Miller teach at Granger Community Church. He was talking about how people, you and me, like to keep score. We compare ourselves to our friends, co-workers and actors on TV. We track our Twitter followers, Facebook friends and Klout score as if it was a measure of our value. Jason said the question we are all really asking is “Am I OK?”

I ask that question a lot. I don’t turn to my wife and say “Hey Amy, am I OK?”, I would never ask my friends or peers at work. I ask it by doing exactly what Jason talks about, I keep score. I compare myself to others and wait for their approval, encouragement and recognition. I don’t think I’m much different from you, you probably do it too.

What I know is our value is in our relationship with Christ. That relationship comes first, before our spouse, our kids and our friends. If that relationship is strong we don’t need to keep score. I guess I should spend more time on my relationship with Christ and less time keeping score.

Ephesians 3:16-19

This was filmed during a mini concert at The Guitar Shoppe in Auburn, AL. I can’t wait to see where Mike is with this talent in 10, 20 or 30 years from now. And more importantly, what he is doing with it to add value to the people around him.

Ok, maybe it’ll be more like 13 weeks to an Ironman finish. This will be my second try at Ironman Louisville, my first attempt ended before I even got to the starting line. I have a new training plan and you can see it here. I started this past Monday with 13 weeks to go and I feel pretty good.

The plan is designed for people who can only commit a limited amount of time to training. The biggest week is 12.5 hours with most weeks around nine or ten. I read several reviews and every one of them was positive when they stuck to the training plan.

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The Easter Story told through a series of tweets. It is worth the five quick minutes to watch this video.

If you have worshiped at Cornerstone Church you have seen our parking lot team. They help move the traffic smoothly in and out of our parking lot every Sunday morning. At first glance many may think this team is just a bunch of people wearing yellow vests telling cars where to go. They are so much more than that.

At Cornerstone we believe the worship experience begins in the parking lot. Statistics show that guests make a decision on whether or not they will return to a church within the first ten minutes of driving onto the campus. Our team is the first group of faces people see as they arrive on our campus. Their smiles and warm greetings should set the stage as our guests and attenders arrive to experience Christ.

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My friends Rob and Michelle Wegner from Granger Community Church have written a book. The book is called Share the Well and here is an excerpt from Rob’s blog about it:

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Our communication team at Cornerstone Church met yesterday for a mini-retreat. We talked a lot about social media and the role it plays in our communication strategy. We have been using Facebook, Ning, Twitter, email, text messaging and our website for several years. Now there are some emerging tools designed specifically for churches like SoChurch, The Table Project and Fellowship One’s Groups 2.0. Here are a few things we identified:

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The worship team at Cornerstone Church was excellent yesterday. They are every week and that is what made yesterday even better. Jon Myles led the team at all three services. He is the guy in the middle of the picture.

Usually Brian Johnson, Cornerstone’s Worship Pastor, is the guy in the middle. Brian wasn’t around yesterday because he was in Uganda on a mission trip. Apparently Brian has great leadership skills because everything was excellent without him.

It takes a mature leader to train the people on their team to be as good if not better when they are gone. It also takes a mature leader to be able to celebrate that success when they come back. Brian is that mature leader.

How about your team, do they fall apart when you go away?

I feel a new sense of direction. I discovered yesterday that my blogging strategy has fallen in the category of being an “opinion blogger”. I know that because I read this post by professional blogger John Saddington. I read through his list of 10 blogging personas and realized I didn’t fall in to the category of say a “citizen blogger” or an “educational blogger”. Through a process of elimination I clearly landed on being an opinion blogger.

Here is the basic description of an opinion blogger according to Saddington:

You have opinions and people listen. You may even love to hear yourself talk, and as a result you love to read what you blog! Ultimately, you love it when other people read your opinions and agree with them (or even challenge them!).

Granted there are a few things I need to work on like the whole “people listen” part. For instance when I give my thoughts to my 13 year old son he simply says, “Ya Dad, but that is your Oh-pinion” (stressing the letter “O”). I of course know that what he is really saying is “Whatever Dad, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Sure, some of the characteristics of the other blogging personas might drift my way and that’s OK. But for the most part I would say I’m an opinion blogger. But then again, that is just my opinion. What do you think?