Final blog from this post

Due to a mistake made while setting up this blog, I've been forced to open up a new one. Here's my new blog address: www.HVCCBrian.blogspot.com

Please jump on over to my new blog and bookmark it.

Thanks,
Brian

Creativity Conference Coming Soon

Some of you know that every year, I pick a theme that I want to study. Last year, it was the theme of creativity. I read some of the best books on creativity last year and then I've spent tons of hours going back through those books and making notes. I call that "Book Reporting" a book. It's how I glean the best ideas from the best books so that I can implement those ideas and incorporate them into my life. I think I had 28 pages of notes by the time I was done.

Now, I've been transferring all that information into a conference that I plan to teach sometime in the next six months. I'm having a BLAST putting it all together and it's coming along quick. I hope to teach it to the staff this fall. If that goes well, I'll open that up to the entire church.

A BRILLIANT BOOK!!!

Want to read just one great book this summer? Go get a copy of Henry Cloud's book "How people grow." Unbelievable! I'm going to have to do a book report on this one. My mind was stretched! I have never marked up a book so much. Wow...

Time to rest

I'm off on vacation...actually, this first week is not vacation. I'm actually preaching five times at a camp. It's a great Christian camp just over the border in IA called Village Creek Bible camp. I'm preaching on marriage and family for five days. Then we come back and we're going to do something we've never done before. We're going away for a week and leaving the boys behind! They don't enjoy sitting on a beach reading books all day anymore. We were a little reluctant to leave them until we realized that they are both one year away from leaving for college. Gulp! I guess it's just time to trust them and see what happens. We'll have lots of people checking in on them :)

I plan to read a LOT of books on "emotional intelligence" this summer. It's the ability to learn how to really listen to another person. I have a friend who is a professional counselor in this field and he says it's supposed to be the #1 key to success in life. That definitely made me curious!

George Mueller - why I'm writing about him...

Way too many people don't know what is possible with God. This man's life is a great example of what God is willing to do through anyone who will trust in Him.

You can live an amazing life with God if you are willing to develop your faith.

Today and next week at HVCC, we are talking about how to build your faith muscles. You can listen to these online for free any time you want at www.hiddenv.com Look under the Cardiac 9-1-1 and open the two middle messages.

George Mueller - How to strengthen your faith

In giving advice gained through daily trials of his faith, this father of the orphans laid down rules for Christians to follow by which they might also strengthen their faith. These rules are:

1. Read the Bible and meditate upon it. God has become known to us through prayer and meditation upon His own Word.
2. Seek to maintain an upright heart and a good conscience.
3. If we desire our faith to be strengthened, we should not shrink from opportunities where our faith may be tried, and therefore, through trial, be strengthened.
4. The last important point for the strengthening of our faith is that we let God work for us, when the hour of trial of our faith comes, and do not work a deliverance of our own.

"Would the believer therefore have his faith strengthened, he must give God time to work," he declares...

George Mueller - Hear more about his life here...

http://hiddenv.com/maudio/20051120.mp3

George Mueller - How to discover the will of God

Many asked Mr. Muller how he sought to know the will of God, in that nothing was undertaken, not even the smallest expenditure, without feeling certain he was in God's will. In the following words he gave his answer:

1. I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter. Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the Lord's will, whatever it may be. When one is truly in this state, it is usually but a little way to the knowledge of what His will is.
2. Having done this, I do not leave the result to feeling or simple impressions. If so, I make myself liable to great delusions.
3. I seek the will of the Spirit of God through or in connection with the Word of God. The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the Word, I lay myself open to great delusions also.
4. Next I take into account providential circumstances. These plainly indicate God's will in connection with His Word and Spirit.
5. I ask God in prayer to reveal His will to me aright.
6. Thus through prayer to God, the study of the Word and reflection, I come to a deliberate judgment according to the best of my ability and knowledge, and if my mind is thus at peace, and continues so after two or three more petitions, I proceed accordingly. In trivial matters and transactions involving most important issues, I have found this method always effective."

And did this plan work?--one asks. Let Mr. Muller's testimony answer.

"I never remember," he wrote three years before his death, "in all my Christian course, a period now (in March 1895) of sixty-nine years and four months, that I EVER SINCERELY AND PATIENTLY sought to know the will of God by the teaching of the Word of God, but I have been ALWAYS directed rightly. But if honesty of heart and uprightness before God were lacking, of if I did not patiently wait upon God for instruction, or if I preferred the counsel of my fellow men to the declarations of the Word of the living God, I made great mistakes. (Italics his.)

How to really get ahead

Came across this today in my message prep. I love it!

Author Malcolm Gladwell shares his research that shows few people get to the top of their game without putting in at least 10,000 hours of preparation.

"The closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play."

Whether it's Bill Gates, Michael Jordan, the Beatles, Yo Yo Ma, Mozart, or Warren Buffet, it appears no one gets to the top without putting in their 10,000 hours. If you put in 40 hours a week, that's 5 years. If you only find 20 hours a week to work on your area of excellence it will take 10 years. If you're just squeaking out 5 hours a week - it's going to take 40 years. Talent will only take you so far; it's the hours of work that will separate you from the pack.

The problem is that we have become an "instant" society. We have been spoiled with email, cell phones and microwaves - and become impatient with the nanosecond required to load a new web page. College graduates expect the $100,000 job and the $500,000 house instantly. Talented musicians and athletes expect fame and fortune long before investing 10,000 hours in practice. Writers give up after writing their great novel in a weekend and after a month of searching for a publisher. Christians are often confident their idea came from God, thus assuming success will be easy and instantaneous.

So where have you put in your 10,000 hours? If you are in a job that you hate, have you been investing hours in an area of excellence that will give you a new opportunity? Or do you just waste the hours away from work, hoping for something more fulfilling to appear? If you are a writer, a musician, a landscape designer, a web designer or a husband, have you put in your 10,000 hours of concentrated preparation to be great in that area?

I trust this is an encouraging bit of information. You don't have to regret having average talent, or not having the highest IQ, or being born into the wrong family. Just find your area of excellence and put in 10,000 hours of preparation. You'll bypass those with more "advantages" and find success that others only dream of.

What are of your life are you pushing on? Where are you striving and driving to excel? I just spent hours of my life condensing a book on creativity down to 28 pages so that I can now turn it into a conference on creativity that I hope to teach in the fall. I love reading things like this because they inspire me to keep working.

Follow up to last Sunday's message

Interesting. I came across this video today while doing research:

Youtube: Dateline: The power of faith

Again, it simply reinforces what we talked about on Sunday.

Sunday update

Did you know we had 140 more people in Church on Sunday compared to one year ago?

We had a blast on Sunday talking about a humbling topic. Wow. I needed a nap after that one.

Some great stories from yesterday again. We had a visitor from out of state who came up to me with tears in his eyes to tell me how much the service meant to him. Cool!

Jamie Johnson is on vacation so Todd ran the entire service on Sunday in Richland Center. Way to go Todd!

I'm SO excited already about this series. Wait until you hear what we're talking about the next few weeks. By the way, the invite card titles are wrong...sorry about that. Once I got into the topics a little more, I just fell in love with one and decided to stretch it into a two week deal. I rarely ever do that, but it fit so perfectly for this week.

If you have a friend who's faith is struggling a little bit, don't let them miss this Sunday in Dodgeville (or the week after in RC). Trust me. You won't believe what you see. One of the videos being prepared is an amazing TRUE story.

Are Christians using their brains?

I to an email today that said this:

Christianity can withstand intellectual scrutiny. The problem is that most Christians cannot.

So said apologist Josh McDowell in a recent talk to a gathering of men's ministers. Over the past 17 years McDowell has asked over 4,000 pastors, leaders, and parents why they believe the Bible is true. The result? According to McDowell only six "came close to giving an intelligent answer."

Even worse, McDowell reports that many Christians suggest Christianity is true merely because they believe it. "That's voodoo thinking," McDowell says. "Where did we ever get that crazy idea that something is true just because we believe it?"

I can't stress how much I agree with this. Christians seem lazy intellectually today. Whenever we do a series on Sunday morning designed to help Christians answer the tough questions of life, our attendance falls. Nobody seems to care if they can answer the questions of life. Very strange.

For those of you who want to start, go google the websites of Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel. Watch some of the videos and start learning more about what you believe.

The most embarassing moment ever...

Ok...Have the children look away from the blog for a moment...

I read a book last weekend called "Transforming church in rural America." It had one of the funniest stories I've ever read.

A couple was into role-playing in...um...certain situations that are appropriate for husband and wife relationships. Nuff said. Anyway, the husband was dressed up like superman and was "flying" from the dresser to the bed to rescue his wife who was handcuffed to the headboard when he got knocked out cold by the ceiling fan. Out of reach of the phone, all the wife could do was yell for help from the neighbors, who called the fire department, who broke down the door and found them, well...yeah...you know how they found them.

There's a lesson there!

Pastor's down

Whoa. Look at these stats.

* 23 percent of all current pastors in the United States have been fired or forced to resign in the past.
* 45 percent of the pastors who were fired in one denomination left the ministry altogether.
* 34 percent of all pastors presently serve congregations that forced their previous pastor to resign.
* The average pastoral career lasts only fourteen years—less than half of what it was not long ago.
* 25 percent of the churches in one survey reported conflict in the previous five years that was serious enough to have a lasting impact on congregational life.
* 1,500 pastors leave their assignments every month in the United States because of conflict, burnout, or moral failure.

No wonder the church in America is dying. When the leadership is being destroyed this fast there is no way for the church to be healthy.

Atheism versus Religion - Part 2

Here's the other more interesting part of that article:

Vox Day notes concerning atheism and mass murder:
“ Apparently it was just an amazing coincidence that every Communist of historical note publicly declared his atheism … .there have been twenty-eight countries in world history that can be confirmed to have been ruled by regimes with avowed atheists at the helm … These twenty-eight historical regimes have been ruled by eighty-nine atheists, of whom more than half have engaged in democidal acts of the sort committed by Stalin and Mao …

The total body count for the ninety years between 1917 and 2007 is approximately 148 million dead at the bloody hands of fifty-two atheists, three times more than all the human beings killed by war, civil war, and individual crime in the entire twentieth century combined.

The historical record of collective atheism is thus 182,716 times worse on an annual basis than Christianity’s worst and most infamous misdeed, the Spanish Inquisition. It is not only Stalin and Mao who were so murderously inclined, they were merely the worst of the whole Hell-bound lot. For every Pol Pot whose infamous name is still spoken with horror today, there was a Mengistu, a Bierut, and a Choibalsan, godless men whose names are now forgotten everywhere but in the lands they once ruled with a red hand.

Is a 58 percent chance that an atheist leader will murder a noticeable percentage of the population over which he rules sufficient evidence that atheism does, in fact, provide a systematic influence to do bad things? If that is not deemed to be conclusive, how about the fact that the average atheist crime against humanity is 18.3 million percent worse than the very worst depredation committed by Christians, even though atheists have had less than one-twentieth the number of opportunities with which to commit them. If one considers the statistically significant size of the historical atheist set and contrasts it with the fact that not one in a thousand religious leaders have committed similarly large-scale atrocities, it is impossible to conclude otherwise, even if we do not yet understand exactly why this should be the case. Once might be an accident, even twice could be coincidence, but fifty-two incidents in ninety years reeks of causation![10]

Again, read for yourself here: http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_Mass_Murder

Atheism versus Religion - Part 1

I read this online today...very interesting:

Concerning atheism and mass murder, Christian apologist Gregory Koukl wrote that "the assertion is that religion has caused most of the killing and bloodshed in the world. There are people who make accusations and assertions that are empirically false. This is one of them."[1] Koukl details the number of people killed in various events involving theism and compares them to the much higher tens of millions of people killed under communist atheistic regimes.[1] It has been estimated that in less than the past 100 years, governments under the banner of communism have caused the death of somewhere between 40,472,000 to 259,432,000 human lives.[2][3][4][5][6][7] Dr. R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii, is the scholar who first coined the term democide (death by government). Dr. R. J. Rummel's mid estimate regarding the loss of life due to communism is that communism caused the death of approximately 110,286,000 people between 1917 and 1987.[8]

Koukl summarized by stating:
“ It is true that it's possible that religion can produce evil, and generally when we look closer at the detail it produces evil because the individual people are actually living in a rejection of the tenets of Christianity and a rejection of the God that they are supposed to be following. So it can produce it, but the historical fact is that outright rejection of God and institutionalizing of atheism actually does produce evil on incredible levels. We're talking about tens of millions of people as a result of the rejection of God.[1]

To read the whole thing and check the footnotes, go here: http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_Mass_Murder

Another Pastor quits

I heard about another Pastor who quit recently. It's a very common thing. Lots of Pastors quit every year. Usually the reasons are always the same:

-Ridiculous expectations
-Low pay
-Little support/encouragement
-Constant conflict
-Church politics
-An impossible schedule
-Rising demands of members (all demanding different things)
-The pain of leadership

...and on and on the list goes. However, what I was told about this one that left was a little more humorous. Here's the quote I was given:

"I'm a fisher of men and they wanted me to be the keeper of the aquarium."

Too funny! I can't say I've heard that one too often, but I sure know how he feels. In my first Church, it was all about "Let's just keep things as they are" despite the fact that they were going under. They didn't care about that and didn't want to change anything. So they didn't and now they no longer exist. I'm always amazed how many churches will cling to their traditions right to the grave.

Brian

Fail fast and fail cheap

In an earlier blog, I talked about how much I LOVE this saying. I found it in an article we were reading and discussing at staff recently and since then, I have been unable to get it out of my mind. Now I think I know why.

Many of you know that I do monthly mentoring phone calls. I find churches that are healthier than HVCC and I write the Pastor and ask permission to interview them by phone. Some say yes and some say no. Last week, I struck gold. I had a 90 minute interview with a guy doing rural, multi-site. I learned so much I came out of that interview bouncing off the walls with excitement! He showed us how to "fail fast and fail cheap" in our multi-site experiment. It has led to MANY hours of discussion already among the staff and leaders as we process what we learned and make plans to implement it. It's highly possible we could have five sites in the next year. Of course, it's also possible we could only have the two we currently have.

I'll continue to give you more details as the plan unfolds, but it's pretty exciting right now. The possibility of reaching out to even more people far from God has me completely jazzed! What if we were able to reach 1000 people in SW WI with the good news of Jesus? Amazing.

On a side note, is there someone you need to call for your own mentoring interview? Someone who could help you learn a key piece that would improve your marriage, parenting relationships, business, ministry or life? Take the risk! Most of the time, people are flattered to be asked.

Sunday update

Another amazing day at Hidden Valley for so many reasons.

*We broke 700+ again in combined attendance.

*We're now averaging over 500 every week at Dodgeville.

*I spoke with a woman who's son was a satanist, but now is attending Hidden Valley and LIKES IT!

*The band knocked it out of the park with their version of Revelation Song.

*We made some new updates to the stage and camera to improve the quality of what we're sending to HVCC-RC.

*We had TONS of kids on stage during both services singing to the mom's and they stole the show.

Way to go everyone! Thanks for all the hard work you put in each week.

Brian

Why men hate church part 2

I really enjoyed David Murrow's book "Why men hate going to church". The last post I wrote reminded me about some of the things I learned from that book:

*The typical U.S. Congregation draws an adult crowd that’s 61% female, 39% male. *This gender gap shows up in all age categories.
*This Sunday almost 25 percent of married, churchgoing women will worship without their husbands.
*Midweek activities often draw 70 to 80 percent female participants.

Depressed yet? You can go to his website to read more: http://churchformen.com/ I REALLY encourage you to watch the two minute clip he put on there.

The target of the average church in the USA appears to be 50 year old women. As Murrow points out, in many churches, we talk often about how Jesus wants to have an intimate, passionate, love relationship with us. Those are awkward sentiments for a man to make toward another man. The book was very interesting.

Only 35% of men attend church...why?

The gap between men and women attending church continues to widen. A magazine I was reading had a story about a man going to church at his wife's request for the first time in a long time. Here's what he experienced...

"...he pulls into the church parking lot and reads the message title on the marquee: Matters of the heart. Brock feels a cool sweat forming near the back of his neck as he scans the bulletin in a back row seat. Meals ministry. Book club. Bible Study. Develop a servant's heart. He finishes, drums his fingers on the seat, and looks around. Mauve trim. Quilted banners. Paintings of Jesus the baby and shepherd and donkey rider. And then someone invites him to stand up and sing. Brock never sings except in the shower -- maybe classic Dylan blaring form the iPod -- so he mouths the words on the screen. Mostly love songs to God and ballads. The pastor, a man in a robe, begins his message by painting a story of a shepherd who sets out to find a lost lamb...

See the problem?

Another great day at HVCC

Despite a perfect day outside, we nearly broke 500 again in Dodgeville. 491 here and another 211 in Richland Center.

We had some technical glitches at our Video Venue in RC. Whew. I'm always amazed when I hear how many churches are thinking about starting a VV. The amount of work and the amount of technical knowledge you need to gain is amazing. It's sure a lot more than just grabbing a camera and making a movie. However, I think we got everything fixed again on the camera.

I had a wonderful conversation with someone who was only here for the second time today. She had been considering coming for a very long time, but finally pulled the trigger when she went through a personal crisis. She loves it so far.

Do new businesses last?

This is a quote from Dan Miller's book "48 days to the work you love":

"According to Dun and Bradstreet census of 250,000 businesses, almost 70% of all firms that start in any given year are still around in some form 10 years later. The study pinpointed the true failure rate at less than 1% of all businesses per year."

I'd never heard those stats before. Very interesting! Of course, I love starting things. I bought a book on how to write business plans just because I'm so interested in that kind of thing.

By the way, this curriculum was really good! We all learned a lot. If you want to take the course at either Hidden Valley location, we'll be relaunching those groups in September.

Listening to a leadership seminar online

I'm listening to an online leadership seminar on innovation. He just said something hilarious about how innovative churches view failure. He said we need to "Fail fast and Fail cheap." I love it! The first one means you are attempting new things and the second one means you don't bet the farm on every risk. Is this a part of your life? Do you fail fast, fail cheap? Do you fear failure? To explore this further, you can go online to www.hiddenv.com and listen to the message from 4/25/2010. We talk about this very idea.

An amazing video

A friend just sent me a video that you have to go watch. Go to youtube and search for ESPN + Ed Thomas. It's almost 14 minutes long, but it's one amazing story.

Why do advertisers hate men?

Can anyone explain to me why advertisers hate men? Why does "Progressive" continually portray men as wimpy, mousy, soggy push-overs? Now American TV has a new commercial with the same thing. The dad is a total idiot, but thank God for the brilliant wife and kids. What's the deal? Are we intentionally trying to destroy the image of what it means to be a man? Just a question...

CLASS 101

Just finished a late night with a huge CLASS 101. This is a great class that explains all you need to know about HVCC. Very fun!

Hiring secrets from a genius

As I mentioned earlier, I love Jack Welch's book "Winning". His section on hiring is the best I've ever read. Here are some of the highlights...

The first test: Integrity
The second test: Intelligence
The third test: Maturity

Not too earth-shattering so far, but then he said some other things. At their company, he looks for the 4-E's and the 1-P.

E - Positive Energy: This is the ability to go and thrive on action. They relish change

E - Energize others: They get other people revved up! This takes knowledge and persuasive ability

E - Edge: This is the ability to make the tough yes/no decisions of leadership

E - Execute: The ability to get the job done

P - Passion: These people just LOVE to do the work

Great stuff! I learned a long time ago that you should ONLY hire "get it done" kinds of people. You throw in the ability to energize others and passion and you will really have something.

There's more, but I'm tired of typing. I'll give you the rest later.

Another great day at Hidden Valley. We broke our all time record for a non-Easter day at both locations again. 527 in Dodgeville and 245 in Richland Center.

After the service today, I spoke with lots of families. One man has been coming for the last several weeks and it's the first time he's been to church in years. He loves it!

Great book to read

I loved Jack Welch's book "Winning". Great section on hiring.

My first post

This is something that I've been asked to do for years. I'm going to give it a try and see what happens.