I had a million reasons not to go.
It wasn’t in the budget.
I’m a busy dad with 3 boys.
We have a 5 month old baby.
I go to a very large church. Plenty of other people will sign up.
I am in the middle of a huge implementation project at work.
I don’t have many vacation days saved up.
But we leave first thing tomorrow morning. For far too long, I had used my reasons as excuses to ignore God’s calling. For some reason, I didn’t let a million reasons not to go stop me from going this time around. Next stop is San Jose, Costa Rica.
Our team of 25 from Woodlands Church will be spending several days helping the people of La Carpio, an impoverished community near San Jose, Costa Rica.
I’m excited about stepping out of my comfort zone.
I’m nervous about what I might see.
I’m looking forward to getting to know our team as we serve together.
I’m planning on sharing our journey with you via this blog.
I’m praying that God will use our short trip to make a big difference.
Will you pray for our trip and the people of La Carpio?
Be sure to check in here at livingthedash.tv over the next few days for updates from Costa Rica.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to join the pastors and staff of Woodlands Church in a lunch session with Roger Berry, Senior Vice-President & CIO of Walt Disney Parks & Resorts.
I strongly believe that the business world and the church world have a lot to learn from each other. The outstanding session with Roger was a great example of such knowledge sharing.
He shared some information about the role that technology plays at Disney, presented some of his thoughts on IT governance and strategy, and challenged the church to leverage technology to enable transformational experiences.
Here are some of my notes (more paraphrase than direct quotes) from the session…….
- At Disney, technology doesn’t make the “magic” happen, but it does enable it.
- God has given everyone the gift of technology. It is our responsibility to learn how He wants us to use it.
- When things are good, the demand for technology goes up. When things are bad, the demand for technology goes up.
- IT must have a seat alongside Finance, HR, and Marketing at the governance table.
- IT must be a part of the decision making process. If not, it is a formula for disaster.
- His 5 points of focus: 1) Stability & Performance 2) Talent Management 3) Segment Strategy 4) Total Cost of Ownership 5) New Technology & Innovation
- Disney knows everything about their customers. They are a trusted brand and, therefore, people willingly share lots of personal information.
- We are more alike than you think. Disney has Intenders –> Repeaters –> Worldphiles. The church has Seekers –> Members –> Disciples.
- You don’t have the resources that Disney has, but you do have power that Disney doesn’t have.
- I believe technology is given to us by God, but it is also a tool of the devil.
- Does your technology plan align with the mission and vision of your organization?
- Are you continually leveraging new technology?
- Will technology change your brand?
- Iteration is important at Disney. We release then release then release….improving each time.
- When I was at Campbell Soup, consultants told us that bad marketing decisions 15 years ago caused us to miss an entire generation. Don’t be late.
At Woodlands Church this weekend, Pastor Kerry (@kerryshook) kicked off a new message series titled Talking Donkeys: Strong Principles from Strange Passages.
Pastor Kerry used the story of Balaam from Numbers to illustrate 4 wrong paths that we often take instead of the right path that God has for our lives.
4 Wrong Paths
1 // The Path of Peer Pressure
2 // The Path of Personal Gain
3 // The Path of Pride
4 // The Path of Least Resistance
In my younger years, I often found myself following others on the wrong path of peer pressure. These days, I find myself drifting down the wrong path of least resistance.
Which wrong path do you sometimes find yourself on?
Did you know?………
- Half the world’s population lives on less than $2 per day
- More than 1.1 billion people don’t have access to clean water
- Every 5 seconds a child dies from hunger-related causes
- Every 15 seconds a child dies from water-related diseases
- 78% percent of malnourished children live in countries with food surpluses
- 963 Million people suffer from hunger today and that number grows by 4 million each year
- 25,000 people lose their lives every day due to hunger and poverty
- More than 60% of chronically hungry people are women
Be The Message is a cause looking to do something about that next week.
Here are some details from the bethemessage.com website……..
Be The Message is an ongoing effort of Woodlands Church to reach out and impact the world for Jesus Christ. Join us for our 5 Days of Rice, Beans & Water campaign this May 11-15 as we eat and drink as half the world does every day with sparse and monotonous meals consisting of beans and rice. In addition, we will pray for all those around the world who struggle with hunger and thirst every day.
Here’s what you can do to help……..
1) Participate in the 5 Days of Rice, Beans, & Water campaign next week. You can sign up here.
2) Follow on Twitter // @bethemessage
3) Chat it up on Twitter // use hashtag #bethemessage
4) Invite a friend to participate via email. You can do that here.
5) Put a Be The Message banner on your blog. You can grab the code for the banners here.
6) Donate. You can do that here.
7) Pray for those around the world who struggle with hunger and thirst every day.
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. - James 1:22-24 (NIV)
This weekend at Woodlands Church, we continued a series titled Where The Wild Things Are: Capture The Wonder of an Untamed God.
Pastor Kerry talked of the Wild Love that God has for each of us and the Wild Love that we should have for others.
One of the characteristics of Wild Love is Beautiful Feet. I think that is what the above verse from James is referring to. Beautiful feet. As Kerry said, “having beautiful feet is putting feet to your faith.”
In the middle of the service, Pastor Kerry invited people to come forward and leave their shoes on the stage.
And they did. 4,380 5000+ pairs of shoes!
1 church on 1 weekend basically wiped out the homeless shoe problem in Houston.
So cool to see all the shoeless people leaving church that day.
OK, now it’s your turn. It’s my turn. Let’s put feet to our faith. Let’s show everyone our beautiful feet.
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