• I don’t think I will ever be accused of over-communicating
• How am I contributing to my 6-year old daughter’s melt-downs?
• How do I avoid my 6-year old daughter’s melt-downs?
• Why does my 6-year old daughter melt-down?
• How do you create anticipation around a weekly occurrence?
• Wish I could find a blog, book, podcast, etc that challenges my thinking about volunteers
• Am I seriously listening to a song about how to go to the toilet, what to use to wipe yourself and how to get the ’stuff’ to go down the toilet?  And my 2-year old is dancing to it.  Nice

Hope your weekend is great, friends.

Take some time… rest… and take your kids pastor a Starbucks this Sunday morning. 

whether you know it or not, we all have our own rules of engagement.

we all have expectations of how people approach us.  our own set of rules.

i’ve got a few of my own.  two days ago i thought i knew (clearly) what they were.  yet, another rule cropped up and hit me upside the head yesterday.  i didn’t know it was my rule.  but my reaction set me straight.

what’s the rule?

“don’t put me on the spot with details.  give me advance notice”

by nature, i am NOT a detail person.  though i’ve trained myself to pay attention to details, i don’t naturally gravitate to them.  i need time to gather.

this rule came about from several years of being put on the spot by my leadership asking for details.  it never seemed to matter how many details i equipped myself with… he always managed to ask questions that exceeded the extent of my details.  in the end, there was little purpose to it other than to prove that he was capable of asking an innumerable amount of questions.  i had no idea how raw this nerve was until my friend (and leadership) called me to ask a few questions.  though the rule was not intentionally breached, my perception was that my friend crossed the line by placing me in the position of addressing details i was not prepared to address… on speaker phone… with other peers present.  i didn’t respond well.

is there baggage?  clearly… i’ve got to shed that.

i found myself apologizing later.  think i need to take my friend out to sbux and share my rules of engagement with her over a java chip. 

In my walk with Jesus, I’ve learned the key factor to intimacy with Him is sharing the final 10%.

A friend of mine introduced me to that phrase a while back.  Applied to an accountability relationship, it’s sharing the details we’d prefer to keep to ourselves.

The details that reveal more about you than you wish.

The details that alter perceptions of you.

Apply this attitude to your relationship with Jesus, it’s the same details.  Only Jesus already knows them.

It took me years to be completely transparent with Jesus about my deepest fears and my darkest sins.  I figured, “Why talk to Him about it?  He knows.  Just allude to them, ask for strength and grace, then move on.”  There was no doubt I was broken.  No doubt I was grateful for the grace of Christ.  Yet my lack of honesty hindered my intimacy with Jesus.  My desperate attempts to hide from them only gave the enemy room to work.

Rather than those sins/fears fading off into the depths of my past they always seem to surface in difficult times. Not knowing what to do with them, I’d stuff them further… shut myself off from them and pretend they didn’t exist.

But Jesus knew they were there. He was just waiting for me to face them.

A few years ago I got gut-level honest with a friend. I shared the final 10%. And the enemy lost a little grip.

Over the past year I began facing those fears and sins with Jesus. I know He’s not surprised by them. I know He’s already forgiven them. But the honesty has allowed me to identify the actions that feed my fears… the missteps that fueled my sins.

The challenge seemed insurmountable. The process was exposing. The freedom was unexpected.

I don’t want to end this post with the ‘pivotal question’ that tosses the ball in your court in hopes that you’ll comment.  I’m not concerned with comments.  But I wonder how many of my blogging friends have been there. How many are there now.  How many continue to hide from the skeletons in their closets.

Let me encourage you. When things remain in the dark, the enemy has opportunity to work. When things are brought into the Light, the opportunity is lost and the enemy has no control.  You were created to experience Life.  Life in abundance.  Today.  Life is found in Christ where there is no condemnation.

If this post hits home at all… find your accountability partner, open the closet door, and share the final 10%.

As a leader, I admit to the undying hope of entering a hard conversation believing it will end in a win-win situation.

All parties leave happy.

Logic takes the front seat, pride takes a backseat and everyone willingly comes together for the best solution.

But, in the heat of the moment…

Logic hops in back, pride calls shotgun, and each person’s ‘best solution’ is totally subjective.

I continue to learn… not only does ‘win-win’ rarely happen but it’s rarely the best outcome.  Why?

whose to say…

one of my LifeKIDS left CrossTown Saturday night telling his mom all about how Jesus healed the 10 leprechauns.

i know we’re getting somewhere. i just didn’t think it involved little men in green suits.

Sitting in the McDonald’s drive thru waiting to order a highly nutritious meal for my kids, I’m amused by the pictures on the drive-thru menu.

A perfectly assembled hamburger on a dinner plate sitting next to a bowl of fries. An elegant, sit-down meal.

It would be funny if it weren’t so ridiculous.

It’s the same smushed, less-than-picture-perfect, quasi-meat burger that’s about as healthy for you as a tapeworm.

Does sticking it on a dinner plate change anything?

You can put a pig in a gown and it doesn’t make it a princess.

It’s still a pig.

…when ordering a cup of straight, black joe from starbucks is unusual
…when customer service at the local tag agency is worse than wal-mart
…you laugh more at your jokes than your kids
…you spend an hour making dinner… 30 minutes listening to your kids complain with every bite… and the next 2 hours listening to them whine about being hungry

i’m just sayin’.

makes me want to do things i’m not trained to do.

by the time this is over i’m sure to pull something out of whack.

Was having one of my super mom moments last night.  Kids splashing in the bath.  Laughing and playing.  Got one head washed with minimal tears.  Got the second head scrubbed.  While rinsing out the suds, I just didn’t pay much attention to the toddler repeatedly saying, “EEEWWWW!” holding his finger in my face.  Just kept scooping up cups full of water to pour over the thick head of sudsy hair on my daughters head.  Each scoop of water pouring through the hair and all over the face.

That’s when the “EEEWWW” causes me to pause.

I look at Connor’s finger.

I look at the discolored spot next to him on the bottom of the tub.

Trying to discriminate a shape among all the bubbles and toys hovering just above it.

Oh my heavens.  How long has THAT been in there!!!

And how much of that water did I just pour on my daughter’s head.

I can’t believe it’s been an entire week since we returned from LifeKIDS Summer Camp 2008. I’ve put together a series of posts to share the main teaching points we focused on with our kids. It was a great week and the teaching content was the best we’ve seen so far. Here are the goods…

Every night of camp we have a Main Event packed with worship, teaching, scripture memory and a little bit of high-pitched screaming competition.  What’s the fun if you can’t have a little friendly competition? 

At the first Main Event, we listened to Kendra Golden talk to us about what we treasure.  This was the best line of the night…

“What you talk about, where you spend your time and where you spend your money reflect the things you treasure.”

When talking with my group, I could have stuck with the standard questions… but my kids know the standard answers to every question.

What do you treasure?

“Jesus!”

How do we show Him He is our treasure?

“Read my Bible”,  “Pray”, “Give to the poor”, etc, etc

Those aren’t the right questions to ask.

But these questions…

What do you talk about all the time? Where do you spend your time?  Where do you spend your money?

These questions don’t leave room for the ‘pat’ answers.  They force us to look at the reality of our actions rather than the hypothetical, biblical circumstance.

Wanna’ know some of my girls responses?

• Hannah Montana
• Softball
• Soccer
• Friends
• Abercrombie and Fitch

These were great answers… these were honest answers.  This gives us something to go  off of.

How would you respond?