a little bit different

Fat Pastor Friday: The Turkey Trot

Rob — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 14:00:36 +0000

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and rewarded yourself a little bit (but not to much) with some turkey and cranberry sauce. Odds are if you have implemented some kind of exercise routine you skipped it yesterday, it’s ok everyone deserves a day off and they are very good for your body. But don’t let a day off become the first day you decided to stop exercising. Do something today to exercise, take a walk, climb the stairs, do some pushups, whatever, but don’t loose the momentum that you’ve been building you’ve worked to hard to throw it away now. Take a turkey trot around the block and plan out your next season of living a healthier lifestyle!

Stop looking for loopholes and just do what the Bible says.

Rob — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:20:28 +0000

The other day I was listening to a conversation about whether or not the Bible allowed someone to do a certain thing and I just had to laugh. People are always looking for a loophole in the Bible, they read something that they do not like or that challenges them to live a certain way and we try to reason our way out of doing it by finding a loophole ex: who is my neighbor? how many times do I have to forgive? Could you imagine what the Bible would look like if the authors had to write out a defense to all the different loopholes we try to super impose into the scripture? Here’s a thought…Instead of trying to find a way around everything in the Bible we don’t like why don’t we just do what it says? It won’t be easy, it may be uncomfortable, but I wonder how different our lives would look if we actually did what it said?

Question: What loopholes are you looking for in the Bible right now?

Stop looking for the old Tiger Woods and the old You, THEY’RE NEVER COMING BACK!

Rob — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:14:48 +0000

I am a huge golf fan, I play it, I read about it, I watch it on TV, and I even dream about it (sad I know) Even if you’re not as addicted to the game as I am odds are you have heard about the saga of Tiger Woods if by some chance you have been living under a rock for the past year or so let me catch you up. Tiger was caught having multiple affairs while married which resulted in him getting a divorce, loosing most of his sponsors and basically throwing away a legacy in the game of golf that was indescribable. Ever since everything came out about Tiger his golf game has been atrocious he has gone from the top of food chain to the absolute bottom of the barrel. One of the biggest questions revolving around Tiger is whether or not we will ever see the old Tiger Woods again.

Everyone wants Tiger to get back to the way he was before everything happened, when he used to walk on the course and just about be guaranteed a win. I would argue that the old Tiger is NEVER coming back nor should we want him to. The common thought or practice when someone goes through a tough time or experience is to “try to go back to the way things were before ___” People do this all the time in life. They go through a rough spot and they say over and over, “If I could just get back to the way things were I would be so much better off.” So they try to recreate everything they had when they felt like life was good. The problem is life wasn’t good and that is why they ended up in the situation they are in. What if instead of trying to recreate something we need to allow God to create something new in us? Something better than what we had before.

In Isaiah 43:18-19 it says “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” We can’t look to the past and try to recreate it. There is a reason you are in the spot that you’re in right now, instead look ahead at the new thing God wants to do in your life and work towards that.

Question: What new thing might God be trying to do in you today?

Do you suffer from Messiah syndrome?

Rob — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:31:32 +0000

Yesterday I read a quote from Perry Noble that said: “when a leader refuses to allow his experts to be the expert…he will eventually have no experts left.” A big danger we face as leaders is believing that we are the only ones who know how to do everything. In my opinion the messiah syndrome is one of the best ways to stifle the creativity and passion of a team of people, and ultimately you end up putting God in a box because you do not allow Him to work through the other people on your team because your to concerned with coming in to save the day.
The best thing a leader can do when they see a person on their team struggling is come alongside that team member and minister to that persons soul. Fill up their leadership tank with affirmation that you believe in them and support them as a leader and trust them. Don’t just try to swoop in a rescue everyone, let the expert be the expert.

Alright God you hide and I’ll seek.

Rob — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:45:28 +0000

I was reading this morning in Proverbs where it says “if you seek me, you will find me.” I know for me there have been times in my life where I was playing hide and seek with God. I think we’ve all been there at some point in our lives. We are going through something and we look for God and it seems like we just can’t find Him.

Well, we see all over the bible that if we look for him we will find him, I think the problem happens when we look for him for a few minutes/days/weeks/ etc… and if we don’t find him right away we give up looking.

Let the bible be the hope that we need that if we keep looking for him we will find him.

Question: How can you look for God today?

Fat Pastor Friday: Necessito Agua

Rob — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 14:34:41 +0000

One of the most important things to remember when trying to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle is that staying hydrated is key. Drinking water will allow your body to flush out the garbage inside of you and keep you feeling rejuvenated. If you are feeling hungry during the day…

there is a good change you are dehydrated. Dehydration disguises itself as hunger so before you reach for a snack try drinking a glass of water.

The old adage is to drink 8 glasses of water a day, I’d say go for at least 16. It’s not as much as you think and as you go through your day you are loosing water by going to the bathroom, sweating and even breathing. So be sure to keep replenishing your water. Carry a water bottle with you wherever you go, if you wait until your thirsty to drink water your to late. Hope this helps!

Plug and play

Rob — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:00:05 +0000

Yesterday I talked about how your relationship with Jesus is going to be unique and that we need to be willing to look for Him and experience Him in a lot of different ways instead of just trying to fit Him into a form or mold. But then I also said that your methods might look different but the principles of a relationship with Jesus are the same for all of us. Here are 3 principles that we should all practice daily in our relationship with Jesus. Again, how you practice them is between you and God.

Renew – Romans 12:1-2 talks about being transformed by the renewal of our mind. We need to be sure that we are taking time daily to allow God to renew our mind. There are tons of things that will drain us and if we want to truly live out our relationship with Jesus we need to be sure that we are allowing him to renew us.

Reveal – Philippians 3:12-15 tells us that Paul knew what he knew because God had revealed it to him, and he encourages us all to allow God to reveal himself to us. This is the time for us to recognize the creative and artistic God we serve. Observe everything around you and recognize that God has created it all. Take the time to allow Him to reveal his greatness to you in a variety of different contexts.

Reproduce – Ephesians 4:11-16 tells us that we were all given different gifts to build up the body of believers. In order for us to grow our relationship with God we need to be building into others around us. Never be afraid to share with and help others in regards to their relationship with Jesus. It will sharpen you and encourage them.

Question: how can you implement these 3 principles into your life in a way that will allow God to express his greatness to you?

Amoeba God

Rob — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:15:17 +0000

One of the most important things someone must realize about their relationship with Jesus is that it will look different for everyone. God is simply to big and to artistic to put all of our relationships with Him into a structure or a mold. We need to look at our relationship with Jesus more like an amoeba, an amoeba doesn’t fit or hold to one specific shape it changes and free forms as it moves.

When you try to fit God into a structure or form of some kind you are essentially robbing yourself of experiencing one of God’s best qualities: his creativity.

God reveals himself to us in all ways in all circumstances and it will look different for everybody. So don’t try to fit your relationship with Him into a format or structure He is just to artistic for that. Now here is the catch: there are certain principles that we should see in our relationship with God no matter what, the methods that we implement will look different but the principles will be the same, but more on that tomorrow!

Question: What is one way you can let your relationship with God out of the format or structure you’ve put it in today?

Do as I say AND as I do

Rob — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 18:59:55 +0000

Something that I am constantly challenged with in leading students is the idea that I need to be modeling the type of relationship with Jesus that I am challenging others to have. It is very easy to get up in front of people and TELL them how they are supposed to live but it’s a lot harder to SHOW them. The Apostle Paul his letter the church at Philippi challenged them that whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or SEEN in me – put it into practice…Paul knew that it was about more than just telling people how to live it was about modeling it to them. We should learn from his example and be sure that the relationship with Jesus we are challenging others to have is something that we have for ourselves. We can not hold others to a level that we are not willing to be held to ourselves.

The crucial question every leader must wrestle with…

Rob — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:56:11 +0000

There is one critical question for anyone in a leadership position to wrestle with and answer if they are truly serious about becoming a better leader and the question is this: “Do I have access to the type of leader I want to become?” As leaders we should always be striving to become better at what we do but we are never going to be able to do that if we don’t have someone (or a group of someone’s) in our lives who can show us the way.

Our talent can only take us so far in our roles and we definitely don’t know everything there is to know about leading, so if we truly care about becoming the best leader we could possibly be we need to be sure that we have access to the type of leader that we want to become. If we don’t we will never achieve the results we want in our leadership roles. Take some time today and define the type of leader that you hope to become, and then wrestle with this question. If you don’t have access to this type of leader then do what needs to be done so that you do.

Question: do you have access to the type of leader you want to become?