But apparently, in terms of DNA, every bee in the colony is identical. They all start out the same: jobless, genderless, larvae.

And when the time comes for a new queen a larva is chosen (again, no different than the ones around it). This larva is given a larger honeycomb cell in which to grow, and slathered in something called ‘royal jelly’. (yes, royal jelly!).

Soon, that ‘royal jelly’ triggers, inexplicably, the development of a hyper-fertile queen bee. She was just like all the rest, but then, because she was given room to grow and more of that mysterious ‘royal jelly’ than she could ever eat, she becomes queen!

I watched Blake Griffin dunk a basketball last night…it was one of the most incredible physical feats I’ve ever seen.

He can do what I could never do, no matter how hard I tried. In terms of raw talent, he’s just vastly superior. And he will be praised, literally, for the rest of his life for that dunk. Superior genetics goes a long way (not to discount, in any way, his determination and hard work).

And it’s true in virtually every field. The cream rises to the top.

But that’s not how God works. He doesn’t need superior genes or heightened skills to make greatness…he’s got ‘royal jelly.’

I’ve been studying for a teaching series about some jacked up heroes. God seems to like taking regular folks, or even especially jacked up folks, and doing great things through them. He puts them in situations where greatness is required (a larger honeycomb), and then he slathers them in ‘royal jelly’ – something that only he can give and that no one can earn.

He creates heroes out of under-performing rejects.

Limos don’t age well. I drove by an older one a few weeks back. It looked terrible. And not for reasons you might think:

• It had been maintained well.
• It was clean and free of dents.
• It was driven by a professional-looking, kind-faced chap.
• It wasn’t even that old, actually (it was probably newer than the pick-up I was driving).

But it still just looked sad.

As it turns out, antiquated and slightly out of fashion doesn’t look good on vehicles crafted to project the height of opulence, luxury and superiority. That sad looking 40ft Lincoln Navigator that I saw cruising down 411 looked more like a hearse than a status symbol.

Limos are all about making somebody feel better than everybody else. However, once they loose their luster they’re pretty much worthless…and even a bit pathetic.

And it got me thinking: Are there any ‘limos’ in my life? In what ways am I spending time, energy, money, and opportunity to make myself look better than other people?

I want to find those ‘limos’ and cut them out now, because it won’t be long before those efforts just look sad and pathetic.

One more thing:

The real problem with ‘limos’ is that, from an eternal perspective, there’s just no way to win.

• If they fail in making me look good, then I just feel that much more inadequate.
• But on the other hand (and this is worse), success accomplishes nothing more than making other people feel bad, and feeding the great enemy of my soul (pride).

What are some of the more common ‘limos’ in our culture? Help me find my ‘limos’ by leaving a comment, and adding to this list (or, if you’ve got the guts, sharing yours!):

• success at work
• gadgets
• style/fashion
• family/kids
• …

Vineyard Labs is my way of crowd-sourcing. I want to hear your thoughts on stuff we're considering doing at the Maryville Vineyard Church. Please feel free to weigh in.

We’re always kicking ideas around at the Maryville Vineyard. At the moment, we’re working on how to create more and better digital giving options.

We have online giving available via PayPal. People are using it more and more, which is cool. Some folks give from their paychecks with an automatic withdrawal that comes to us in the mail. This is becoming more and more common.

We don’t have direct deposit available at the moment, but I think that’s coming soon.

People are using these options more and more because carrying cash and writing checks have gone the way of the red-back hymnal. There are lots of folks in our church who don’t own a checkbook and don’t carry cash. Some only write checks to the church, and for every other form of payment they’ve switched to a more convenient and often automated option (my family is in this group).

E-GIVING, E-HERESY?

For a group of early-adopters like us, we are uncharacteristically behind the times on this one.

Here are a few reasons why: 

1. We’re really carefully, and even a bit paranoid, about the church looking ‘greasy’ as it pertains to money. It’s about worship, not about tactics or bottom-lines. We know the church at large has a crappy reputation and we want desperately to be a part of the solution, not the problem.
2. Automated options (which would undoubtedly increase the consistency and ultimately the amount of giving) may effect the physical act of worship and obedience that faithful giving should be.
3. It’s not free. And we LOVE free!
4. What if people use credit cards irresponsibly and we contribute to the debt problem? We want to help people get out of debt, not help them into it!
5. Where? We’ve got space problems at our church. If we set up some kind of giving kiosks, where would we do that?
6. The stubborn pastor has been ‘praying about it’ for five years now.

Some of my more recent thoughts about those things:

1. We’re really carefully, and even a bit paranoid, about the church looking ‘greasy’ as it pertains to money. It’s about worship, not about tactics or bottom-lines. We know the church at large has a crappy reputation and we want desperately to be a part of the solution, and not the problem.
• I need to get over it. The church also has a crappy reputation for being behind the times and out of touch, and now we’re adding to THAT problem. It’s not ‘greasy’ it’s thoughtful and convenient.
2. Automated options (which would undoubtedly increase the consistency and ultimately the amount of giving) seem to effect the physical act of worship and obedience that faithful giving should be.
• This is a dumb concern, and I’ve been legalistic about it. The worship is found in the generosity and in the sacrifice that comes with living on less money in order to support the Lord’s church. 
3. It’s not free. And we LOVE free!
• This part still stinks. But it’s cheaper than ever (about 2.5%), and studies show that giving generally increases much more than that when these options are made available.
4. What if people use credit cards irresponsibly and we contribute to the debt problem? We want to help people get out of debt, not help them into it!
• This is fear-based, pharisaical and comes from a refusal to give godly people the benefit of the doubt. I’m a bit embarrassed that I was hung up on this one for so long.
5. Where? We’ve got space problems at our church. If we set up some kind of giving kiosks, where would we do that?
• The cafe moving upstairs (soon!) will help this a lot. I’ve got a few ideas about under used spaces, too. You got any ideas?
6. The stubborn pastor has been ‘praying about it’ for five years now.
• I’m over it now.

Now here are a bunch of questions for you:

I’m really hoping you’ll leave a comment and help us answer them (whether you’re a vineyardite or not!):

1. What’s your opinion? Is this a good idea?
2. If we set up direct deposit, would you use it?
3. If we had a giving kiosk that took debit/credit cards would you prefer that option?
4. Does your employer offer automatic withdrawal, and do you think that’s a good way to give faithfully?
5. Will you forgive me for not trusting you enough to let you use your own credit card?

But what constitutes a fringe?

Look at the circle below. What portion of it would consider to be the fringe?

I know, it’s not very scientific…but come on, play along.
I picture something about like this:

Close to what you pictured?
But here’s the deal, in terms of area the larger circle is actually 50% bigger than the smaller. 50%! If there are 150 people in that circle, I just called 50 of them fringe. If there are 3,000 people in that circle I just slapped that label on a thousand of them.

The world we live in is more diverse, more pluralistic, and more varied than it’s ever been. The fringe is growing. It could be time to target the fringe.

Do you buy that logic?
Any ideas about how to target the fringe? Leave a comment.

Therefore:

• Spit on the dirt: you sin!
• Spit on a rock: you’re good.
• Try to spit on a rock, but miss and hit the dirt: You’ll have to plead your case before an Almighty God!

That’s dumb.

I used to work at a shelter counseling teenage runaways and at-risk kids in foster care. They had a fairly strict dress code and I thought it was dumb. Still do. I didn’t buy the premise that I could best relate to troubled teens by dressing like an old rich guy.

And guess what: I broke the snot out of that dress code. At the very least, I bent it every day…and I flat out broke it more often than not. As it turns out, I’m a lot more likely to break rules that I think are dumb.

Now for the real confession:

Occasionally I come across one of God’s rules that I think is dumb. I know that the rule isn’t dumb! God wrote it! I’m dumb! Nevertheless, I have the hardest time following the rules I least understand.

What about you?

There are lots of rules that are routinely challenged, or even discarded as dumb. Have you ever called any of these into question?

• Little white lies?
• Keeping a sabbath?
• Not stealing anything (even stuff like music, software and ideas)?
• No coarse language?
• Rejoice always?
• Hold every thought captive?
• Not even a HINT of sexual immorality?
• Fasting?
• Sacrificial generosity?

…and so on..

Ask yourself what rules you have the most difficult time understanding. And then, ask yourself if you’re more inclined to break them. Leave a comment and let me know that I’m not the only one. What other oft-questioned rules could be added to the list?

Last night the warm peace of Jesus came over me and held me tight…I KNOW HE is with me and will heal Kyle in His time. That is hard for me to accept, but GOD IS IN CONTROL!

She’s incredible.

The Mules family are dear friends to us, and dear friends to our church.  We’ve wept, we’ve ached…we’ve prayed until we just ran out of words.  Like everyone else who knows Kyle or hears about his condition, we’re longing to help.

We’re collecting money and gift cards to help out the family through a need-meeting ministry of our church called The Box. Kelly is unable to work right now, since she’s spending all of her time with Kyle.

If you want to give, click here to visit The Box Update. Thanks for being generous!

FYI: We’re sharing updates on our facebook page just as soon as we get them.

A few months ago I read David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done (GTD).  It was four times longer than it needed to be, but still great.  It’s a much lauded system of time management, designed to boost productivity.   Then I purchased Omnifocus for my iPad and iPhone (a very robust, feature rich program designed to implement the methods in GTD).  Then I decided to completely buy into the system (partial buy-in would never work) and implement it fully.

Almost everything changed.

• Part of it was pleading with God to help me change.
• Part of it was sheer determination to grow more efficient.
• Part of it was the fact that I read several others books on productivity…

…but for me, GTD worked.  With the church growing and with major changes imminent, I had to do a lot more work, I had to do better work, and I had to do it in a lot less time.  It worked.

I now work an average of 45 hours per week.  I’m getting significantly more done than before, working 60-70 hours a week.  I’m closer to my kids and my wife than I’ve ever been.  It changed almost everything.

Maybe it will work for you too. It’s not a magic bullet (I’ve worked really hard to do this right).  And maybe the results won’t be nearly as dramatic (I recognize that this is an admission of my being extremely if not pathetically unproductive in the past).  But if you’re at a loss for how to fit it all in…and you’re willing to work hard to change that, this would be my recommendation.

But I’m not worried about us…I’m worried about the church.  Casey, and people like her, make churches go. You see, people come to churches for all sorts of reasons (a sincere invite, they like the music, heard the kids ministry was great, etc.), but they stay because of Casey.

People come to church for all sorts of reasons, but they stay because of Casey.

They stay because Casey…

• greets them sincerely,
• then invites them to her LifeGroup,
• and then cooks them a meal,
• and then shares her testimony with them,
• and then helps them out when they’re in a jam,
• and then brings them along for karaoke night,
• and then rejoices with them when they rejoice,
• and then mourns with them when they mourn…

I happen to know that Casey’s done all of those things in the last week.

So it’s an all call: I figure it’ll take 5-10 people to replace her.  5-10 people who are willing to serve others ahead of themselves, in the name of Jesus, for the Kingdom of God, no matter what it takes.

Maybe 15.

“What are church bands going to do when it’s not cool to rip-off U2 and Coldplay anymore?”

There’s plenty of debate about whether or not the iPad’s a big deal.  But as a pastor, it’s been a pretty big deal for me.  Here are 9 ways I use it to do ministry that have made a significant difference:

1. Teaching notes.  Sometimes I need nothing more than an index card for sermon notes.  Sometimes I need page after page.  The latter creates problems.  It means I’m stuck in one spot, referencing notes that have to stay right there, which means I do too. But with the iPad my notes are portable, whether I’ve got one page, or one hundred.
2. That whole “in season and out” thing. I recently went on a ministry trip to the UK with one of my heroes.  I knew I’d be speaking several times…but I didn’t know when, to whom, or how often.  With my iPad in tow, I literally had hundreds of sermons ready to go.  No scrambling to find a printer, no force-feeding an irrelevant message to fit an audience because it’s all I had prepared, and no panicking about a change of context.  All without using a laptop that needs a stand, and a good charge, and looks pretentious. My iPad (with case) looks like a standard folio, and wasn’t distracting (even at the peek of iPad craze in a country that didn’t yet have them available).
3. Interactivity. My iPad is starting to change the way we do church.  This past Sunday we did live sermon Q&A, and my iPad was at the center of it.  We had people text questions to the church’s phone # through Google Voice.  The texts populated in the Google Voice inbox, which I read from my iPad.  I could read them privately, determine which were most important/relevant, edit for content (if someone used potty language–they didn’t), and ignore the texts sent by pranksters who just couldn’t help themselves (we did have some of that!).  Best of all, it was anonymous. People could ask questions without fear of looking stupid, or something coming out wrong.
4. Illustration. This coming Sunday I’m using my iPad as a telestrator to illustrate a point.  This is something we’ve been trying to figure out how to do since thee day I got an iPad.  Fortunately, thanks to a nifty little app called Air Sketch, and the functionality of Pro Presenter 4, it’s actually pretty simple.
5. Mobility. I wrote about a third of this week’s message sitting in the shade on a park bench downtown.  Inspiration just comes easier outdoors…and interaction with real people comes a lot easier when I’m not sitting in my office.
6. Organization.  It’s a frantic world, and pastor’s aren’t above the fray.  This job has forced me to be more organized than I care to be.  Paper organization methods don’t work for me, never have.  Desktop applications don’t work for people on the go, and the iPhone interface was just too small for me to make it work visually (smart lists are complicated, things would get buried 6 screens deep before I could get what I needed–my brain couldn’t keep track).  For me, the iPad hits the sweet spot–now I can actually follow through with the GTD method that I’ve been in love with, but always seemed out of reach.
7. Reading.  I’ve read more in the last three months than I did in the last year.  The interface is beautiful and simple, the highlighting and note-taking functions make my workflow far faster (specifically: getting info from the book, and into a message), and my library is always with me.  This is probably the biggest single impact of the iPad on my ministry.
8. News.  Karl Barth said we should live “…with a Bible in one hand, and a newspaper in the other.”  Those are important words for preachers: awareness, and relevance go hand in hand.  My iPad makes this easier than ever.  Much has been said about the iPad’s ability to make news consumption fun and simple so I’ll save you the speech.  Suffice to say, the iPad and some of the amazing news apps (Reuters and BBC are my faves), along with RSS readers like Reeder, make getting the news you want from the sources you want, super easy.
9. Meetings/counseling.  I have meetings all of the time…like everybody else.  Having a portable note-taking solution is huge!  In a formal meeting (where note-taking is expected) it goes way beyond a note pad, because you have access to all of your files and the internet for reference/research.  It’s creepy to take notes in an informal meeting, but as soon as they’re done I pull out my iPad and make a note of what I want to remember from that meeting.  And in counseling, where notes are expected, the iPad is awesome because it’s far less obtrusive than a computer, it sits on your lap or desk like a notepad.  For premarital counseling we use Prepare and Enrich, and the rather large digital reports it generates can sit silently on my lap for reference without causing distraction.

There are literally hundreds of other uses, some professional, and some personal.  These are the ones that have made the biggest impact on the way I do ministry/business.