That picture is a word cloud from wordle.com. You can go to the site and enter in a batch of text, and then voila….you have a word cloud. The picture above is a wordle of the sermon i preached at FBC august 3rd, which was about The Way of Jesus (notice the ginormous “way” at the upper right). Newspaper articles, song lyrics, bible verses, old papers from school…all of these work well for wordles.
Two posts about word fun in one day. C-R-A-Z-Y!
I recently renewed my love for taco bell when I discovered the 12 quarter meal. The 12 quarter meal consists of two 99cent items and one 79cent item…this all equals three dollars even.
Tomorrow, taco bell is giving away a free taco between 2pm and 6pm. Taco bell, how I love you.
Earlier this year, the fine folks at Dr. Pepper announced that they would give every person in America a free Dr. Pepper if Axl Rose released the long-delayed album Chinese Democracy. It seems that the wonderful soda from Waco has pushed Mr. Rose over the edge; the CD will be released November 23. If you register online with Dr. Pepper, you will receive a coupon good for 1 free 20oz soda. Not too shabby.
It seems as if there is a general assumption that delegating tasks is easy, and that by delegating your life as a leader will grow easier with every job you don’t have to do. I can’t say I’ve been a paid leader for that long, but I know enough to know that this assumption is false.
In fact delegation and giving the leaders who work for you the room to actually lead and flourish is much harder. You have less control on both the process and the output. Tasks that would take you minutes seem to drag on for hours. It would be so much simpler to just do the job yourself.
Learning to let others do what you could do seems like one of the toughest lessons of leadership. I can see so many places that I fail to delegate in the name of efficiency. But I have also had times in my life where I have been completely frustrated and stifled because I feel like I could do more. How those two truths can coexist side by side and not radically change my leadership style is baffling.
I think it’s because I want to do things the easiest way possible, instead of doing the thing that takes more effort. But I have this sneaky suspicion that if I would learn to put in the extra effort, my life as a leader would probably get easier. Go figure.
If you weren’t able to see David Beckham this summer, you might have missed your chance. According to The Sports Network, the buzzed Brit is close to landing a deal with AC Milan in order to help his bid for a spot on the English World Cup Team. He hasn’t been able to help his team make the playoffs, and I can’t imagine that he enjoys being a footnote in the American sporting universe.
In another (probably futile) attempt to watch trends and see what’s popular, I’m trying to explore the universe of Twitter (or Twitterverse). You can follow me and stay up to date on all of the exciting things I do as a youth minister in Athens, Texas! Yea!
I watched the final talk of last year’s Catalyst Conference by Andy Stanley called Systems. Fascinating. I can’t stop thinking about it. It explains so many things that are hard to put into words.
Andy says that systems create behavior. And he goes on to say that behaviors that are rewarded are behaviors that are repeated. Which leads to the question: what behavior do you want repeated in your family / church / life? Are there systems in place that encourage this behavior? If not, why are you surprised that those things don’t happen?
The House is almost ours. It’s like, right there. We close on Friday. That will be 31 days after we first stepped inside. One month, that’s all it has been. Life moves pretty fast.
I’m in Atlanta right now for Catalyst. Over the next two days, I’ll get to hear some of the best preacher-types in all of America, and I’ll get to sing along with Steve Fee. This conference is for next generation leaders from all across the world, they do so much cool stuff. I’ll be back on Friday night, so I will see you on Sunday morning as we continue the Road Signs series.
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