I’m currently reading a great book on networking by Keith Ferrazzi called “Never Eat Alone”. Aside from the fact that he’s originally from the same hometown I am (Latrobe, PA), he presents some incredible thoughts on being a connector and networker. Here’s a short excerpt:
From my earliest days growing up in Latrobe, I found myself absorbing wisdom and advice from every source imaginable – friends, books, neighbors, teachers, family. My thirst to reach out was almost unquenchable. But in business, I found nothing came close to the impact of mentors. At every stage in my career, I sought out the most successful people around me and asked for their help and guidance…
…Later in life, as I rubbed shoulders with business leaders, store owners, politicians, and movers and shakers of all stripes, I started to gain a sense of how our country’s most successful people reach out to others, and how they invite those people’s help in accomplishing their goals.
I learned that real networking was about finding ways to make other people more successful. It was about working hard to give more than you get.
How are you at networking? Are you selfish or selfless when connecting with others?
The Super Bowl every year is more then just a football game, it is the world’s greatest commercial platform and consequently has some of the best and most creative TV commercials. Below I listed some of my favorites from last night:
#1 – E*Trade’s Baby Ad: I love these! I think they’re hilarious!!
#2 – Punxsutawney Polamalu: Troy Polamalu is the new commercial favorite of the Steelers!
#3 – Dorito’s Funeral: This was created and filmed by people from Mosaic Church. Great job!
#4 – Google: I really liked the simplicity and ability to tell a story all through text.
#5 – Hyundai’s Brett Favre Commercial: This was classic! I was pleasantly surprised at Brett Favre’s willingness to crack a joke on himself!
Favorite Commercial That Didn’t Air – “Kid’s These Days Dorito’s Commercial”: This was entered in a commercial contest by Dorito’s and was one of the finalists, but didn’t make the final cut.
Least Favorite Commercial – Boostmobile Shuffle: I’m sorry, but this was a bad attempt at a humorous commercial.
What were your favorites? You can watch them all here.
In my small group last night, we were talking about the idea of trusting God in your current season of life. This can be such an impacting idea if we could just get our minds around.
We all go from season to season experiencing the good, the bad and the ugly. Tonight we focused specifically on relationships, and when it comes to different aspects of our lives, relationships can be one of the most obvious. Whether we’re single, dating, married, or have kids, they have such a huge impact on our perspective and ability to do different things.
In each of these ‘relational stages’, we are presented with obstacles that can seem so overwhelming. Maybe as a single person you sense an inability to relate with your married friends. As a married person, you miss some of the freedom that comes with singleness. Whatever the stage, there are always obstacles. Things that seemingly hold us back from all we desire to experience. Along with those obstacles, though, comes unique opportunities. Opportunities that could not be explored in any other stage of life. Imagine trying to pack up all your things and spend 3 months serving in an orphanage in Southern India when you’re married. Or imagine trying to relate and minister to a small group of preschool mom’s as a single girl. Every stage is unique and allows for unique experiences.
With this said, understanding the ‘relational stage’ you find yourself in, what opportunities can you explore now that you could not be done in any other stage? How is God calling you to trust Him in this stage to do what couldn’t be done at any other time?
Life can often throw us a curve ball. It’s true that bad things happen to good people, but in reality bad things happen to all people. So why is it that some people are able to rise above bad circumstance while others are overwhelmed by them? Well, the answer is all in our response to what happens. Now I understand there are some terrible things that can happen that bring more pain and sorrow then any person should encounter. For the purpose of this post, I am not addressing devastating circumstances, just everyday difficult ones. In light of these type of circumstances, we can respond in one of two ways: 1. As a victim. 2. As a victor. Here’s a quick comparison of these two responses:
VICTIM
Focus is always on the past.
Will often miss the roses right in front of them because they’re searching for the thorns.
Failure is a near guarantee because they close their eyes to the possibility of success and anticipate eventual disaster.
Although this person can be very talented, their talent is neutralized by their lack of confidence.
VICTOR
Focus is always on the future.
Even in the worst of situations, they always seem to find the light at the end of the tunnel.
Failure is not an option for this person. The hope they possess is too great to settle for what is, to miss out on what could be.
Although this person may be very talented, their greatest attribute is their perseverance in the face of adversity.
At one time or another, we can all fall into one of these two categories. The first can be such a destructive perspective on life and leadership. If you find yourself always taking the role of a victim, let me challenge you with this thought: Although life might be tough and seem unfair at times, remember you are still given the choice of how you will respond. I believe that how you respond to difficult circumstances will actually impact your success in life more then the skills or abilities you possess. So regardless of what is happening to you today, keep your head up. Take the role of a victor and rise above!
For this week’s Sermon Sunday, I have a portion of a great message/lecture by world renown speaker, Ravi Zacharias. He is a man of not only incredible intelligence, but a unique ability to explain the complexities of life and Christianity to the everyday person. This specific topic is a on the topic of ‘What Does it Mean to Be Human?”.
He challenges speakers with the idea that to be fully human is to understand the Imago Dei – that as God’s creation, we posses the image of God.
This past Wednesday in our monthly MCM Network Catalyst Gathering with all our pastors and staffs, Jeff Leake shared a powerful talk on ‘Encouragement’. Below is a portion of his recent blog post on the topic:
I think there are at least five things that must be built into the culture of a family, a church, or an organization in order for there to be this life-giving atmosphere of encouragement. It needs to be…
AFFIRMING - Barnabas sought out unlikely people and projected the potential that he saw in them. No one believed in the Apostle Paul in his younger days as a believer. But Barnabas sought him out and invited him to be an Associate Pastor on his staff when he was leading the church in Antioch. No one believed in John Mark after his failure on the mission-field. But Barnabas stuck with him.
COACHING - Barnabas did not just say, ‘watch me do it.’ He said, ‘do it with me and I will help you improve.‘ Eventually, Paul surpasses Barnabas as the lead missionary, which shows incredible security and humility on the part of this man who was willing to invest in the success of another.
BLESSING - this may be the most important ingredient. The choice to speak in faith and in grace. The choice NOT to respond to criticism with criticism, or insult with insult, but rather with blessing. A culture of encouragement involves selective speech. It is teaching people to speak honestly, yet to coat their words with kindness.
EXPERIMENTING - There was freedom under Barnabas’ leadership to fail. He took risks with the people he chose. He was pastoring a church in Antioch that was very unorthodox. There needed to be a high grace leader in place for the church to grow and become the missionary-sending center of the NT era.
RELEASING - Acts 13 gives us an account of the church that Barnabas was leading (Antioch) – being willing to sow its very best leaders into Kingdom work. He leads his church into incredible generosity in what they chose to give.
Following our Catalyst Gathering, we also recorded a short 10 minute interview with Jeff on this topic for our upcoming MCM Podcast, which will be posted to iTunes soon. If you interested in getting an early glimpse of the interview, you can download it here.
As we close out the first month of the year, most church leaders have taken a portion of this month to pray, dream and plan out this new year. Many have envisioned great things for their church/organization in this year and hope to close out 2010 having completed those great things. This is, however, where the breakdown often takes place for leaders. Most leaders are decent at the ‘envisioning’, but not so good at the ‘enacting’. In this new year, I want to challenge you as a leader to not simply be a dreamer, but to be a doer. Put feet to your dreams and who knows, you might just change the world!
Here’s a few thoughts on enacting the dreams you have for this new year:
Once you’ve established WHAT you want to do or you want your organization to do, you need to quickly establish HOW you are going to do it. If you never move past the what, your dream will never be anything more then a good intention. Your organization, and especially a church deserves better then good intentions. Create clear, realistic action steps to accomplish the what.
Once you’ve PROMPTLY established the how, set-up accountability to make sure it is completed. There are figurative junk yards all over our nation where great ideas that could have transformed the church as we know it now rest. These ideas never became reality simply because one or more leaders did not see the vision through to completion. Once you start a good idea, you must finish it for it to truly be good! This accountability might be colleagues that you share the vision with or it might be outside coaches/mentors. Whomever it is, this is crucial. As the popular saying goes, you will live up to the level that you inspect, not the level that you expect.
Involve OTHERS in your dreams for this new year. Identify what you need to accomplish your vision and start to engage people that can help you. These people may not even be in your organization, but if they have something to offer in the pursuit of the dreams for your organization, don’t be afraid to engage them. Look for experts to offer wisdom, advisors to offer direction, and volunteers to offer energy and effort.
I hope you as a leader are as excited about 2010 as I am! It has the potential to be an amazing year, but my prayer for you as a leader is that when December 31, 2010 rolls around you will be able to look back on this year without regrets and knowing that the dreams you had for this year were tried, some were realized but all were met with more then thought, but action!
We are happy to announce the launch of our new MCM Network website! This site is designed to be a resource to pastors and church leaders. There are a number of features to this site that we are so excited about. Below I have listed a few of those features:
Listing of Upcoming Events/Trainings within the Network
Ministry Openings at our 16 MCM Network churches
Bios about each of our MCM churches
As a Network, we are committed to seeing our pastors, churches and church plants reach their full-potential. Our churches are community-driven churches that strive to not simply build their church, but to build their community. If you’d like to visit our new website or get more information on the MCM Network, visit MCMNetwork.org.
In about a month and a half I’ll be flying with a team of 25 people from Allison Park Church to the nation of Haiti. What’s amazing is this trip has been planned for a number of months and the timing couldn’t be more perfect. We have the opportunity to make an incredible impact in a place that has been so devastated. One of my strong beliefs is that where there is great need, there should be great service from God’s people.
As millions are praying and supporting various quality organizations and campaigns to provide support to the nation of Haiti, I have two simple requests of my blog readers:
Please keep our team in prayer. This trip is not going to be an easy one by any means. It’s going to be a stretch for us all both physically and spiritually. This is not a ‘I hope you prayer for us’, but a ‘we really need you to pray for us’. And please don’t just pray for us, but pray for the people of Haiti. God will do more with His people on the ground in Haiti as His people are on their knees in America.
As you could imagine, this trip is not a cheap one. I would feel so honored if you could pray about financially supporting either my trip personally or our team. We each have to raise $1500 for this trip, and when you multiply that by 25 people, that’s a whole lot of money. As you pray, if you feel led to support myself or our team, you can do so in one of two ways:
Allison Park Church
2326 Duncan Ave.
Allison Park, PA 15101
*If you are giving support for my personal trip (and I would so appreciate that!), make sure you put “Nick Poole 0310-Haiti-24″ either in the Designation Box online or the Memo Line on your check.
In addition to the church plant being launched this fall by Pittsburgh City Outreach, the MCM Network will be planting LifeStone Church in the South Side community of Pittsburgh. Jack and Jamie Thomas moved to Pittsburgh last year to plant this church and they have seen God do some amazing things already. Their small Neighborhood Group has now grown and transitioned into a good-sized launch team, and in fact they have their first ‘Practice Service’ this Sunday.
To give you some perspective of where LifeStone is in the scope of planting, here are the different stages we utilize for our MCM church plants:
Neighborhood Group: We start a small outreach group in a potential community that meets weekly and goes through a curriculum that equips group members for evangelism. In addition to the weekly meetings, they also do an outreach/service project each month. The goal is to simply serve the needs of the community and be a blessing to those within the community.
Launch/Street Team: As the Neighborhood Group grows and it becomes apparent a church plant is not only possible but purposed by God, we connect the group with a church planter and the month before we start monthly ‘Preview Services’ we transition the Neighborhood Group into a Launch Team, or Street Team. This team now divides into different ministry teams for the purpose of the services (hospitality, kid’s, security, worship, tech, etc.).
Preview Services: Usually 4-5 months prior to the Grand Opening of the new church plant, we will begin holding monthly preview services. These services serve multiple purposes:
To give the various ministry teams the ability to work out their processes and systems for the sake of excellence at the Grand Opening.
To provide opportunity to build momentum in the church & community toward the launch.
To give the team leaders opportunity to build their teams bigger, which in turn establishes a bigger base from which a larger launch is possible.
Grand Opening/Launch: This is an exciting day when the church officially goes public with weekly services. At this point, the church may not have all the bells and whistles of an established church, but they are doing one thing well: providing a weekly worship service that not only is done with excellence but is impacting the spiritual climate of that community.
If you are, or have been, part of a church plant. Are there other stages you utilized or you would add?
