Sky Blue...

Check that SHIP out kids.

That's right, SHIP.

All 24 rockin' feet of it, racing downwind (15-20 knots dead-astern) dodging thunderstorm systems (three of 'em) with my smokin' hot wife at the helm in her bikini.

I gotta' say, our fist 'real' open-water trip (to the Toronto Island Marina and back in three days with the whole family) was quite the experience.

We even had puking over the rail (due to 8-10 foot rollers from the NE) on the way back, no joke.

It was real, it was awesome, it was a dream come true.

I'll write some on it and post some more pics tomorrow, but I wanted to get the wife up there and give her her props before turning in.

GREAT morning at THE WELL this morning BTW. I feel like 'Fall Momentum' is starting to build. Gonna' be real interesting to see where our wee church is at come Christmas-time.

I got a one year anniversary (for TW) just around the bend and, besides all my 'fall planning' this week, I've got to get ready to shoot 30 high-end interviews in Hollywood next week and prep a pilot and try to start booking some new biz for our snazzy new downtown studio.

Lots happening.

Feeling grateful, challenged, afraid, nervous, excited, tired, focused, hopeful, bewildered and motivated all at once.

See you tomorrow.

T

Slowly building momentum...

I realize I talk about THE WELL a lot but haven't posted many images (really) that communicate the stage we're at.

The one above (by my friend Chris Stacey) captures what our Sunday morning worship environment looks like.  Truth be told, Chris' shot makes the room look quite a bit 'cooler' (on-screen) than it does in-person.

But the point is, it's starting to look like something.

The black backdrop you see and the runner and the staging behind me we install each week. The screen and projector and lights we purchased and had permanently installed. Took us eight months or so to pay it all off. The reason was, the room we meet in is a rehearsal hall, and a very homely one at that.  The problem with that is people don't really relax into an ugly room and if they're not relaxed they typically don't experience worship or preaching in the way in which they would if they were.

So you gotta' work with what you got.

That's transferrable to your life and work, no?  

Work with what you got.  You might not have the most awesome room to begin with, so make it as good as can and keep improving things as your ability to do so increases.  We made do with a crappy folding screen until we could afford the snazzy big one.  Our sound system is still small and simple but it'll do. We didn't do much 'art design' in the space to begin with and still don't do THAT much, but as we added skilled people with the will to use their skills to help grow the church, we plugged them in and got them doing things that we could actually DO.

Baby steps.

Do the best you can at every stage along the way and work with what you got.

The challenge is to not stress out or beat yourself up along the way for being as 'bush league' as you are (at any given moment along the journey) so that you don't rob yourself of the hope you're going to need to keep going.

'Cause, if you don't keep going, you're never going to get where you want to be going.

Right?

T

Good to Great...

Is rocking my World.

Seriously.

Now, I realize that many of you will have already read this book, but with *only* two million sold I also realize that there are some of us out there who are coming to the G2G dance a little late.

You should get dancing.

The book is seriously life-changing.  I'm not quite finished it yet but am going to read it again as soon as I do.

Yesterday included the chapter on 'The Hedgehog Concept' (you'll have to read it) and here's my synthesis of it:

1) You need to come to understand that thing that you do (or can do) that you have the potential of being one of the best in the World at.

2) You need to understand how to monetize that thing ie: what is its economic 'engine'?

3) You need to *do* those things, and only those things, that you are deeply passionate about.

That's it.  Three overlapping circles and in the middle of it your *thing*, your 'hedgehog concept' or, as I've always thought of it, your *calling*.

What is your calling?

Lemme' tell you, I've been doing some serious thinking as a result of this book and this concept. On the one hand what I'm finding (as I think about my life and calling) is that I'm not *that* far off-course but I'm certainly off course.  

The hard part (as he discusses in the book) is being ruthlessly honest about what you're gifted and NOT gifted to do and then finding the strength, courage and discipline to say 'no' to those things that you *could* do but are outside of what you are *supposed* to do.

Heavy.

He also says that most of the companies he researched for the book took FOUR years to 'discover' their *calling*.

Four years.

Eerily similar to what I've been going through the past half-decade.

It's not that I didn't know what I was called to do, it's that I got distracted (by any number of factors) along the way.

Time to re-focus.

Thank you Jim Collins.

T

Reflections on an Ordination...

Okay, so there's a few ways to look at this...

1) It's going to KILL my showbiz career, 'cause--I mean--who wants to hire a REVEREND to write or produce their next movie?

2) It's going to really HELP my church career, 'cause--I mean--with my showbiz career tanking I'm going to be forced to (after 17 years of trying to be bi-vocational) put all my eggs in one basket.

3) It's just a TITLE, I've been doing the same work forever, doesn't MATTER what you call me.

So why couldn't I stop crying yesterday?

I dunno'.

Part of it was me 'resigning' myself to simply being who I feel like God told me to be (whoops, there goes the showbiz career again...) when I was 11. Part of it was just the typical reaction I have when the Holy Spirit shows up palpably in a room. 

I dunno'.

It was a special day.

We PACKED (almost) THE WELL out.  It was really nice to see the room full.  We had people scrambling to go get more chairs once the service started 'cause people just kept filing in.

A sign of things to come, I thought.

Worship was sweet.

I preached well.

The Ghost (GodtheGhost) was there in a way you could feel.  I could see people crying all throughout the sermon.

A special day.

My Grandpa (the saint) read Scripture like it's meant to be read.  My brother and sister led worship. My Dad prayed my Ordination prayer and had to stop twice he was so overcome.

My wife and kids were there with me.

It was a nice day.

I could 'feel' like the people in the room, the people (visitors excepted) who are starting to make THE WELL their church home, were 'feeling' what was happening and feeling like it was something special and that their baby church is gonna' be more than just alright in days to come.

I felt tired today, 'cause of yesterday.

Very tired.

Didn't get much done.

Gonna' go to sleep early so I can get up at 5:50am tomorrow and starting working like a man with a 'title' to defend.

Rev. T

Watching...

Huge day this past Sunday.

Yes, Church was good, but not huge.  We're still summer-bound.

But the WIND and, especially, the waves (after church) were.

HUGE.

Took the fam' out into full-on ocean conditions.  The rollers coming in from the East were at least five to maybe seven feet and the wind was a steady 12-15 knots. We'd approach one wave, pitch way up, then come crashing down the backside sending spumes of spray up from the bow, some of them reaching all the way back to my family, who were perched on the rail, taking it all in.

They were watching for the waves.

Waiting for the next one to come and take us for a ride.

Just like me.

Waiting for the wave.  Waiting for all the momentum of my life to amount to something.

And here's the point for me today. My kids (and wife) were squealing and laughing between the waves, enjoying every minute of the ride.

That's what I should be doing.  Enjoying the ride, squealing with delight at every new twist, turn, pitch and yaw.

I *do* feel something coming, I don't *know* what it is, but I feel like it's almost here.

T

Dancing in the Minefields...

Okay, so I realize I've already blogged today.

But you've got to watch this VIDEO...

Here's why.

1) If you're married, thinking about getting married, or pondering quitting being married I'm sure that song *spoke* to you.

2) I'm really encouraged by a trend I'm seeing in media.  See, for many years those of us who happen to be 'People of Faith' have been pigeonholed by some in the 'mainstream media' who think that to love Jesus means to create subpar art. Now, granted, much (if not most) of the crap created by 'Christian Media' in the past twenty years (especially in TV and Film) has been CRAP. I 'get it' and will give you that.  Decades of white-suited televangelists and poorly written, horribly acted, end-times C-list movies have rightly made most people think 'Christian' equals 'Cheesy' or 'Propaganda'.

But recently some of the work I've been seeing, in the visual and sonic arts, has me feeling like the pendulum is swinging.

If you love music there's no way you could've not loved that song up there. It's just great music. Yes, its message is ultimately Biblical, ultimately rooted in the songwriter's *experience* with 'The Son of Man', (the reference to which in the song itself is AWESOME) but that's no reason to write it off.

Because...

No artist creates in a vacuum.  Every piece of art is a mini-sermon.  It's just that for years the Christians have been outputting sub-par art for fear of compromising 'the message' or 'muddying the waters' of their faith as the honesty of the(ir) human struggle intersects with the majesty of the Eternal story.

What that demonstrates (from where I sit) is that any 'person of faith' who creates art from a place of fear, worrying that if they really say what they're thinking or feeling it might take away from the glory of the truth, hasn't really encountered the glory of the truth to begin with.

Nicely done Andrew Peterson and thanks Dave Carrol for drawing it to my attention.

T

Still got room to grow...

That was me and my brother-in-law on Sunday.

FLYING across Lac Brome (Quebec, Eastern Townships) in a Laser 2 doing close to twenty knots at one point, in near-storm conditions.

It was Sunday morning and, instead of preaching at THE WELL we were 8.5 hours away on our first weekend off in ten months.

And I wasn't happy.

See, when you plant and pastor a Church it grows into this 'thing' that consumes much of your time, talent, treasure and mind-space.  Once you actually commit to the thing (which, for us, took about eight months) it becomes a 'part' of who you are; you connect to it in a way that doesn't really ever allow you to have *actual* time off.

Unless you're so far away you CAN'T get back in time and you have something to do that'll take your mind off the fact that you've GOT to get back in time.

Something like (for me) sailing.

See, I'd woken up totally grumpy that morning.  I knew church was getting ready, knew I wasn't going to be there and it had me in a state.  My sweet wife (who knew what was happening to me) grabbed my arm at one point. "Look at that wind..." she said.  "I know..." said I, "It looks crazy..." 

Then she smiled at me.

"Why don't you go out in it with Aaron?"

Why don't I?

You don't have to ask me that question more than once.

Before you knew it I was out the door, down at the beach, rigging a Laser 2 getting ready to go out in wind so big if you weren't an expert you were sure to capsize in seconds.

(sure enough, some 'non-experts' tried and had to be rescued...)

Aaron came down, looked at the wind, then looked at me. See, he's new to sailing.  Loving it, but new to it.  "Will we be alright?" he asked.  "Alright?  Dude, it'll be much better than 'alright', trust me..."

And off we went.

Into what turned out to be a top five (in my entire life) sailing experience and I've been sailing since I was a kid.

Wicked.

And here's what I remembered as a result of the experience:

First, even though you might be middle-aged (or approaching that season in life as I am...) you still have many great experiences ahead of you and many great things to learn and apply.

See, I'm a very experienced sailor, as a result of a lifetime of being involved in the sport.  If I hadn't had that experience I wouldn't have been able to *have* that experience on Sunday.

POINT: your life experience to this point hasn't been a waste.  It may not be applied all the time but the time is coming when it will, so be encouraged.

Secondly, I had to use all of my experience to survive that sail. It was that intense.  This means I haven't 'arrived' yet as the uber-sailor of uber-sailors.

POINT: remember to stay humble and excited 'cause (despite your experience) you've got lots to learn and that should keep you eager (at the same time) for 'more', 'cause you've got more coming.

And, yes, I forgot about church for two hours.

POINT: there is hope even for us ('focused', 'sold my life to this thing') types that we might reach a place where we can have fun, relax for a minute, forget our 'life mission', act like a kid and rip it.

Now go do it.

T