Dan's Movie meme

My friend Dan's a pastor up in Iowa and invited me to a meme he created.

Here are the rules:
" a list of my top ten favorite films (in no particular order). The only rule, if you're tagged, you've got to post and tag 3-5 other people."

Mark's top 10 Movies of all time:
American Beauty
Tombstone
No Country for Old Men
Fight Club
Heat
Crash
Gladiator
Saving Private Ryan
Pulp Fiction
Good Will Hunting

Ok. I tag you.

Speaking at NPC

I've been invited to speak at the National Pastors Convention in San Diego next February.
Here's their blog post announcing it. Dang. Humbling company.

More NPC 2009 Speakers!

Bill Hybels
John Burke
Leighton Ford
David Kinnaman
Gabe Lyons
Mark Riddle
William Webb

Link
and here's the link the whole list of speakers so far.

Today: Question God out loud

Ask a tough question that you really struggle with out loud to someone today. No need to follow up with a deep conversation. Simply get it off your chest. See how it feels to say it out loud. Sometimes questioning God is the most faithful thing you can do for God.

Today:Do something that scares you.

Start a conversation with a total stranger.
Try a new food.
Attempt to balance your check book.

Don't let the day go by without taking a risk.
Risk is often where the new life happens.

Exception: Ballparks

Link

Homeless Running club

For some reason this story came to my mind driving home from my workout today so I thought I'd post a link and part of the piece here. Maybe one day when I'm in better shape , and can actually run more than around the block something like this will materialize.

Anne Mahlum is a 27-year-old marathoner. And on her predawn runs in Philadelphia, she kept passing a group of homeless men.

An ex-football player is walking cross-country to raise money for 9/11 heroes.

"They would say, 'Hi' or they would say 'Hi Anne' or 'There's the crazy runner.' 'How many miles are you doing?'" Mahlum recalled. "And they would smile and sort of applaud and cheer for me, while I would start my day."

But one day in May, Mahlum said, "I looked back, and I was like, 'I am cheating these guys. Why am I just running past them and leaving them there?'"

"Running is so simple you know. You really only need a pair of shoes. You don't need a lot of equipment. You need heart and dedication," Mahlum said.

Anne thought to herself, "Maybe running could make these guys feel as good as it makes me feel."

So she decided to start a running club for the homeless and started asking businesses for help.

"I sent out an e-mail to a bunch of people, and I just said, 'I'm starting Philadelphia's first homeless running club. I need your shoes. I need your clothes,'" Mahlum said. "And the support that I received back is so astonishing."

Nine homeless men signed up right away.

"The guys had so many questions. They were so curious," Mahlum said.

The men didn't know what to expect, and they asked questions about how to stretch and what to do. But they were willing to give it a shot.

Mahlum was not intimidated by the men.

"I wasn't scared. People are people. And I feel like if you treat them the way you want to be treated, that's the best you can do."

"If anything would happen," she joked, "I figure, you know, they can't catch me anyway."

Mahlum's group, called Back on My Feet, has grown since then. They were out on the Philadelphia streets this morning at 5 a.m.

"People started showing up in the morning," Mahlum said. "This circle that we had just kept growing and growing, and the smiles got bigger, the hugs got tighter, and we started to develop this team, this family."

This story makes sense to me on so many levels. My hope for Tulsa is that people will take their passions and make a difference in peoples lives like this. It doesn't need to be a running club. But religion that is institutional and controling in nature must be abandoned for more life giving experiences like this.

Tomorrow: Deck of Cards.. who's in?

Ok. so tomorrow is one of my favorite workouts. anyone want to join me? I'm going tomorrow at 11am.
I've started doing crossfit 5 days a week. We'll see if my body can handle it. right now my shins and feet are killing me from jumping rope on monday and the "clean and jerk" today.

Here's what the deck of cards is:
"Deck of Cards"
Start with a fully shuffled deck of cards. Each card requires a set of pushups (red) or squats (black), depending on the color. Perform reps of the following:
Face cards (Jack, Queen, and King) have a value of 10. Aces will have a value of 11. Number cards will be face value (ex. 7 of spades = 7 squats).
Jokers are burpees, and are set to a value of 15.
Work through the entire deck as fast as possible and don't forget that card games are fun.

Art and the Church

The quote below is from nakedpastor's post on how poorly churches engage the arts.
One of my hopes for our new church is that we will be a people who embrace artists and the art that they create.

Here's the quote:

The church is generally a censorious community. In this environment art is sanitized, tame and conformist. It is still art, but functions as a reinforcement of the system. Expression is controlled and edited from start to finish. This kills art because it kills creativity because it kills freedom. Instead, allow people to be free without scrutiny. (I even hate the word “allow” because it assumes it needs to be given when it is already ours.) In due time, after people begin to realize that they are loved and accepted unconditionally, the creative spirit will surface and artistic diversity will abound. This is the harder but more genuine way. It means taking care of the roots. If the root is unfettered freedom, then fruitful and artistic living happens. It is the diversity of human expression of personality that makes the artful life. Until this is nurtured art will be repressed.

Link

Workout for the Week

Wednesday:
Ring Rows (feet on 16 inch box)
Dive Bombers
21-15-9
For time.

My Time was 4:34 (It's sat. and I'm still sore from this)

Follow it up with 4 minute Bottom-to-Bottom (B2B) Tabata Squats and you'll be good to go.

Thursday:
Bench Press
155 X3 195 x2 205 x1 225 x1 235x1 (failed) I hadn't benched anything since college. this was fun.

Friday:
Bicycles
Mountain Climbers
100-80-60-40-20 reps for time.

My time: 21:40

This one you can try at home pretty easy. but it's harder than it looks.

"Reaching new people"

So Kurt likes Craig's quote. I like it too, but would say it a bit differently.

Here's the Quote Kurt likes:
"To reach people no one else is reaching we must do things no one else is doing."
- Craig Groeschel; founder of Lifechurch.tv


So it makes sense right? I actually like Kurt's thoughts when he says,

"Andy's big thought related to this quote was that obviously the majority of things church's are doing must not be what most people are interested in because most people aren't going to the things church's are doing! Even a super cool worship service must not be what most people are interested in because most people aren't going to super cool worship services...they are doing a bunch of other stuff instead."


My thoughts:
I don't know the context of what Craig was saying, so I could be misunderstanding. But this sounds like the formula he's proposing.

Do different things that people like and more people will come.


I can go with him a bit on this. But what I'd prefer was that we were actually different people. That we encouraged expressions of church that were born out of people who were actually different rather than just trying to market Jesus differently. Marketing is easier than being different.

Don't do different programs. Don't try portray yourself as slick or cool or even different. Simply be yourself. Be a different people, a people created to love God with deep diverse expressions of faithfullness. Then be ready for different looking churches to spring up with different looking doctrine who are faithfully following God and connecting with people like themselves.

So yes I agree with Craig, we must be willing to do things differently and it must authentically come from who we are.

What do you think?

Seth on Charity or Bargain Hunting

Seth Godin has a great post today on Charity and giving.

Here it is:

Marketing the charity auction

By Seth Godin

How much would you pay for a twenty dollar bill?

In tough times, many schools and non-profits rely on charity fundraisers, and a popular one is the auction. The method is simple: supporters donate things, and then they're auctioned off, with all proceeds going to charity.

If you have a vacation house, the thinking goes, the incremental cost of donating a week is low. And wow, I can buy a week at that house for way less than it's worth. Everyone wins.

If you have a friend who works on the Letterman show, you can get two VIP tickets for free and donate them and someone at the auction gets to go to the show for not so much money.

This bargain hunting is fine as far as it goes, but it never leads to a wildly successful auction, because the story that's told is too small.

If you're only willing to bid $19 to buy a $20 bill at this auction, you're not doing charity, you're bargain hunting. There's nothing wrong with bargain hunting, it's fun, but it's not philanthropy. I think bargain hunting for a good cause is just fine, but wouldn't it be great if the event could raise far more money and change the way people view the organization?

The Robin Hood Foundation raised more than 24 million dollars at their last auction, because people competed to overpay. And that's the secret. The story the charity must tell is: "don't pay $19 for this twenty dollar bill, don't even pay $30, we need you to pay $40!" The satisfaction of overpaying (whether you overpay anonymously or in public) is what they sell, not a bargain.

This is not the easy path. It is much easier to sell your public on bargains than it is to sell them on generosity. The good news is that once you get over the hump, it scales. Bargains scale downward... better bargains are lower-priced bargains, which means you scale to zero. Philanthropy scales upward... better overpaying is more overpaying. A public auction is always a public competition. The challenge is to create social approval for what would otherwise be bad auction skills! Enlist a few stooges in the audience in advance, then start by auctioning off that $20 bill. When it goes for $45 and the winner gets an ovation, you've set a tone.

The goal of a non-profit seeking money needs to be to create an environment in which the community congratulates itself on overpaying.

All I Need

Link

(thanks to Jim)

Beauty in Action...