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This past January  Jenessa and I had the incredible opportunity to attend an event in Nashville, Tennessee called Dream Year Weekend. Dream Year is a year long program that my friend Ben Arment started a couple of years ago to help people turn their dreams into sustainable realities. Dream Year Weekend is a 72 hour, fire hose on full throttle, condensed version of this program, designed to be done in community with others in the room and around the table.

The next Dream Year Weekend is June 3-5 in Washington D.C. The event will be hosted at the ultra cool Ebenezer’s Coffee Shop (recently voted best coffee shop in D.C.). Attendees will be navigating, dissecting, clarifying, and monetizing the dream that is floating around in their hearts and minds.

My experience at Dream Year Weekend was pivotal. It gave me the clarity I needed to pull off an amazing event, and the confidence I needed to know that I can survive in the world as an entrepreneur someday.

No matter the size, scope, or context of your dream, I can’t encourage you enough to find a way to make it to Washington D.C. in early June to learn from Ben and several other incredible leaders. Act fast. The event is limited to 70 attendees, and the cheapest registration rate ends this Friday (April 29th). Visit the Dream Year website to learn more and register today.

*This was not a solicited post. I mean every word of what is written above. So don’t go getting any wild ideas.*

I had this thought a couple of weeks ago. I meant to blog it then. I went to Southern California and forgot about it (SoCal has a way of doing that to you). I saw something today that reminded me about this thought.

What does it mean to be a leader? I’m not even sure that’s the right question… maybe it’s: “What does it mean to be a servant?” or “What does it mean to live?” I dunno… in the context of my faith community, the question would be: “What does it mean to live big?” We have this thing… we talk about living, giving, loving, serving BIG. We believe a big life is the reason Jesus left heaven, came to earth, and did what he did.

Anyway… let’s just roll with the idea of leading. My theory is that leadership means discovering whatever it is that you do best in life (the things that God has most wired and gifted you to do), and figuring out a way to leverage that for the forward motion of others. Leadership at its core is about moving others (individually or organizationally) forward right?

Well, I think living is just as simple. If you aren’t leveraging what you do best in life to move someone else forward to a better place, then you simply aren’t living. You’re dying…selfishly.

This is what I saw today that reminded me of this. It’s a simple concept, just a guy who recognizes that God has given him a unique set of skills and passions, and has decided to use those things to help others. He is living, leading, serving, whatever he’s doing… I like it, and I want to do similar things.

Click here to read all about Help Portrait. Watch the two videos below to understand it fully.

Well, today is a very special day for our country… for our world even. Special because today we will swear in for the first time a President that is not a caucasian male… yes. Special because there are over 2 million people gathered in D.C. to witness this history… yes. Special for many reasons.

In my opinion though, today is special because it’s just like all of the other inauguration days in our country’s history. What a wonderful country we live in that we have such peaceful and graceful transitions of leadership. For at least this one day, many many people put aside their political stance and celebrate how wonderful and enduring our country is.

I’d like to take a moment to say hello to one man, and goodbye to another.

Hello President Obama. I don’t know much about you yet. I know that you are a very gifted speaker, and you appear to have a stoic presence in front of the camera. I know you are very appealing to my generation, and that you have created an intense interest in American politics for many who were disinterested before. I look forward to getting to know you. I will be praying for you and the tough decisions you will need to make. I hope in four or eight years we have great things to say and write about you. I hope the Change you have advertised will be a beautiful thing that will further embed our nation with the values, morals, and upstanding character that has made it such a great nation all along.

Goodbye President Bush. Eight years ago I was 16 years old and was not too concerned about the political process. Nine months into your presidency, everything about my world, our world, our country changed. From this day forward when I think back on your Presidency, I will forever remember the image of you standing on the rubble of the World Trade Center… I will remember you throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium…. I will remember you standing tall and making tough decisions that you knew would not be popular with many people. I applaud your determination to lead for eight difficult years. You had the weight of the world on your shoulders, and although you were not always graceful in speech (sorry, had to), you were always graceful in character and stature. I wish you well as you leave The White House. I am happy for you that your time in office is over… you deserve retirement… you deserve to relax on your ranch in Crawford… you deserve to sit back and watch someone else take the heat for once. Thank you for your service. Enjoy the grandkids.

“Don’t Be That Couch” Closing Session

- Around the church, programming begins as an answer to a question, over time it becomes part of the organizations culture. The problem with this is that as culture changes, many of the questions remain the same, but the answers don’t. The tendency is to institutionalize our answers. If we institutionalize an answer, the day will come when it is no longer a valid answer.

- We must continue (or begin) to be more committed to our mission than to our programming or our model. Over time, sustaining the model can become the unrealized mission. Over time, the model can work against the mission.

- In the for-profit world, any product that does not have a significant market/buyers will be taken off the shelf in rapid fashion. Yet in the Church we have spent (and continue to spend) enormous amounts of time & money on programs & products that have no meaningful market.

- “If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what would he/she do? Why shouldn’t we walk out the door, come back in, and do it ourselves?” – Andy Grove (Only the paranoid survive)

- We can not afford to fall in love with dirty old couches. The message & mission is too important to allow something to block it.

‘Creating Personal Spiritual Momentum’

- “The way I was doing the work of God was destroying the work of God in me.” – Bill Hybels (via Craig)

- The single greatest thing you can do to create momentum in your church or ministry is to bring about spiritual momentum in your personal life.

- I will do TODAY what I can do TODAY, to enable me to do TOMORROW what I can’t do TODAY!

- Four things to do today:
1) Do something to defeat your dark side (your sinful self).
2) Create artificial ministry deadlines.
3) Delegate what someone else can do.
4) Do something only you can do.

- (On delegation) You can have high control and low growth, OR you can have low control and high growth.

- Pastors who don’t take time off do so for two reasons: Pride & Poor Leadership.

- If you come to these events, and see these big churches, and think that all of this success comes from anything other that a deep burden born in the heart of a leader to see people enter into relationship with Jesus, then you are severly missing the point. (WOW)

*Craig knocked it out of the park on this talk. He closed by saying: “If you have put the success of the ministry above your relationship with God, and/or your family, then you need to repent today.”*

“Busting barriers with mindset changes.”

- The longer your ministry is stalled, the more dramatic & drastic the mindset change will need to be.

- “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” – Romans 12:2

- Think differently about these 5 things: Church culture, Programming, The Mission, People leaving the church, and Limitations.

- Think different about your church culture. What needs to change about your church culture?

- Your people will not go where they are not led.

- A church will always be a reflection of the key leader(s). Their character, heart, generosity, passions, dreams, goals, etc…

- The old school thought is that we have to do MORE to reach MORE. Maybe a better model is; We can reach more by doing LESS things, and doing them with excellence.

- “Do the thing(s) that you are uniquely called by God to do.”

- We can’t allow a good/nice/loving person to hold the church back from fulfilling the mission of the church. “You have to love the mission of your church enough to make the painful people decisions.”

- Go DO these things, and make these changes. It’s good to pray about them, and talk about them, but you MUST DO them.