Look.  Here is the deal.  You or I don’t want to be another story of another Christian trapped in an addiction.  We need accountability in this area.

Do you have a filter on your computer?  Does your spouse or a close friend get a report of what you use?  During the Song of Solomon series we have been doing at Seacoast Church I have been reminded again of the beauty and potential destruction of sex.

So why don’t you join me in adding an internet filter to your computer today?

Here is a link to a free month trial of safe eyes - the xxxchurch and daveramsey.com recommended filter of choice.

http://bit.ly/c0hypu

There is a huge gap that exists between ideas and execution.
That gap is fostered by a few things.

1. Turf Wars. Who owns the space that the gap lies in and who will get to the other side. Silly.
2. Dissonence between the “what” and the “why”. @toddhenry talks about this on accidental creative quite a bit. Avoidable.
3. Laziness. A shame.
4. Fear. Seth Godin calls this anxiety “experiencing failure in advance”.
5. Crossing over the “excellence line”. This is that point where things are excellent enough and getting anymore excellent will be a waste of valuable time, talent and treasure. We spend so much time that we never get to execution.

These things as well as others can cause of to let ideas sit until their shelf life is gone.  An idea that does not ship sits and spoils.

What ideas do you have?

What are you doing to execute?

This post was originally published on www.throwmountains.com – a pro church speaking tour that you should have at your church!

Somewhere across America a few weeks ago young “followers of Jesus”, probably wearing a “Jesus is my homeboy” shirt and a pair of TOM’s declared their agreement with well know author and fairly new Christian Anne Rice.

If you were too busy watching the Big Brother live feed to know what I am talking about, here is what happened.  Anne Rice announced on her Facebook page that she “quit being a Christian”.  At first blush there were a few different reactions I personally had and a few things I learned and maybe you did too:

1.       “Oh No we lost one of our famous people!” There is an obsession in American Christianity with anyone who is famous coming to Christ and I often buy into it hook-line-sinker.  It’s like there is this belief that if we could just get Christopher Hitchens, a couple of baseball players (come on we all know the NBA is just too far gone) and a rock-star then maybe Jesus could finally be famous too.   Then I remember that Jesus could have picked any men in the world to start this whole thing with and he picked a bunch of normal, not-so-famous twenty-something.  I hope and pray that all famous people come to Jesus and really follow him, but now so sure Jesus needs them for his PR.

2.       “Well she probably was not a Christian anyway”. This is the “you didn’t break up with me because we were never really dating response”.  Let’s be very clear Anne Rice stated explicitly that she is still very much in love with Jesus and she did not quit on Him.  She is as Mark Driscol said in his Washington Times article on the same subject, “in a season that many, if not all, Christians experience: the great joy of coming to personally embrace the love, forgiveness, and new life that Jesus offers is then followed by the troubles and trials of learning the teachings of the Bible and living with fellow Christians. Truthfully, both are difficult.”

3.       “Yes, Yes, Lets all hate the church”. It’s pretty hip to hate the church.  Lots of people are making a name for themselves with this opinion and I must admit it is often a temptation.  But then I remembered two very important things:

a.       Jesus loved the church.  He actually called it his bride and it’s rude to tell someone you really like them but their bride is butt ugly.  Just sayin. Dan Kimball says it this way, “ Jesus loves the church.  Yes the church is imperfect and we have made mistakes.  But if we love Jesus then we will love what Jesus loves”.

b.      The church is like an extended family.  My extended family ticks me off sometimes.  They are weird and crazy and sometimes I would like to “quit” being a part of the family.  But then where would I go…another family…you see the problem is I would take me and that is more than half the problem.

Living in community is hard, and I imagine that Anne Rice, like many of you are dealing with that.  I don’t know Anne Rice and I don’t know you bit here is what I would encourage us all to do.  Don’t give up on the church, because you are the church and that would be giving up on you.

I want to invite you to join me on Thursday, October 14 from 11:00 am – noon (EST) for an online creative coaching meeting. I’ll do my best to answer your questions from my experience at Seacoast and from connecting with other churches. We’ll also have some other Seacoast staffers online (and maybe even some other church communication proffessionals) to help field questions. I find that a lot of us are asking the same questions, this will be a great way to connect with other churches, get some answers and maybe if we are lucky even some more questions.

There is no cost for the meeting, but you will need to sign up in advance. I want to keep the size of the meeting pretty small so we can have space to get to everyone’s questions and learn from one another.

Apply Here

Finding our identity in the Cross of Christ and the Cross alone is one of the most freeing moments in a believers life.
I know for me I often have attatched names to myself.  Names like fatherless, distracted or maybe even unsuccessful – what are your names you have assigned to yourself?  If  you are curious you can see the names you have for yourself too here —–> http://www.yoursecretname.com/test/

My friend Kary Oberbrunner knows that our identity is also one of the most important moments in the life of a Christ-follower and he takes us on a journey of identity location in “Your Secret Name“.  In fact Iam believeing that because of this book many will begin that journey of being a Christ-follower because they find their secret name.   Kary has written a book that every believer needs to read (and then give to a friend who is far from God) because every believer needs to know their secret name and find the freedom in that name.