Charlie Bit Me

Several of us from church were at a conference today and among the videos they showed was this one from Youtube. It is a must see... I've watched it about 6 times with our whole family; it is absolutely classic. Take a look...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM

FISHING is here!!!!

FINALLY! Tracy's Dad brought over the boat today and I took two of my kids out for about 90 minutes. We didn't get a single bite. It was incredibly windy, especially in that small boat. The dock wasn't at the landing which made the entry/exit a bit tougher. And it was AWESOME!!!! Just to get out onto the water was fabulous! We watched 2 eagles going back and forth grabbing fish from the water. When we got home, my daughter wrote out the big paper that show the Fredlund family fishing records from 2007 (top 3 lengths of each type of fish) and what will be for 2008. We, as a family, are stoked.... although we are off to a tough start.

Reproducing Transformation

I just finished day 2 of a 4 day conference in Orlando centered around reproducing churches. It has been a whirlwind of great information and great networking. I'm hanging out right now with 3 other church planters and have met a ton of people over the past couple of days. There are about 3,000 people from across the world attending this Exponential Church conference.

Over the past few years we have refined the purpose of New Hope, "To honor God by making passionate followers of Jesus Christ through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit" and our core value as "Transformation through Grace, Growth, and Generosity." This has really allowed us to focus what we are about and how we make ministry decisions. However, as we have been challenged to refine our vision to the point of making it portable, Andy Stanley challenged us. He asked, what is the vision of the "One" campaign that Bono is leading -- "To make poverty history" - sure, there are more details with that, but it is memorable and everyone knows what it is about. He asked, what the vision of Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Barak Obama were... the only one people knew was Obama's "Change" - everyone shouted it out. The point is that vision must be simple to remember and portable. As Pastor Bill and I have chatted about our already refined purpose and vision, we started dialoguing about a perhaps even more refined vision. We toyed with "Reproducing Transformation". The idea here is that we want to be transformed and to reproduce that transformation in other individuals (through mentoring), through small groups, and churches. We are about transformation and we are about reproducing that transformation in others. Perhaps this does not discuss all of the theological elements of it, but we need to be able to clearly articulate what we are about. "Hey, what is New Hope all about?"... "Reproducing Transformation."

What is small groups about? Reproducing transformation
What is mentoring about? Reproducing transformation
What is children's ministry about? Reproducing transformation
What is Sunday morning services about? Reproducing transformation
Why do we have adult sunday school? Reproducing transformation
What is mens, womens, seniors, young adults about? Reproducing transformation
Why do we plant churches? Reproducing transformation

What d'ya think?

Future at age 93

In New York, I listened to a 93 year old guy who was still incredibly spry and intense. He did a quick little history lesson of the stock markets, interest rates, and inflation and how the sub-prime mortage issue is the same yet different from other crises the U.S. has faced. He discussed the situation in the U.S. in light of the Japanese issue from a few years ago. At the end of the brief history lesson he said, "well that is the past; we need to focus on the future and where we go from here." It dawned on me that this guy recognizes that he is just part of an ongoing conversation; an ongoing story. Most older people I know can't get out of the past because they realize their past is the majority of their entire life; their future is such a small part of their entire life that they brush past it with the greatest of ease. However, in the light of society; of humanity; of generations... the future is significant. How can we all be like this gentlman and work to solve the problems of the future even though they may not impact us directly? How can we get tear down the walls of generations that limit our decision making to how it impacts only us and realize that "generations will reap what I sow" (credit Sara Groves)?

The other part I love about old people is that they can get away with saying stuff others never could (at least in the $2,000 suit crowd I was hangin' with). Someone asked him a question about how the sub-prime mortgage crisis could impact regulations and the overall tightening of the regulatory environment. He got heated. He said, "We have the regulations we need to prevent this. We just didn't have the regulators with the balls to do anything about it!" There was stunned laughter. It was great. I don't know if I totally agree, but it was a great comment.

Book Update 2

So, I'm sitting at the MSP airport waiting for a flight to NYC. I took the offer of a $300 voucher, first class on the later flight with a hot meal, and some airport food to get bumped to a later flight. It wasn't that tough of a decision, because I feel like I had a book breakthrough last night. I've been pounding out the book since Wednesday night (whenever I wasn't lured away by Tracy, the kids, Easter dinners, Game Cube, March Madness, or family movie night). OK, so I didn't write as much as I wanted... but I did write some. I finished about 54 pages (double sided) which I was pleased with. But last night, after talking a bit with my genius wife, I got an idea that I've been running with ever since. So this morning, the decision to wait on a flight to give me more time as well as bumping to 1st class (I've never ridden 1st class) to allow me to work on the laptop on the flight, was an easy decision. I'm cranking on the book write now like a little kid in a candy store. Who knows if this new approach (which is a different lens, but still largely the same information) will stick, but I'm excited to run with it. Thanks to those of you who have encouraged me by phone or email; I don't deserve friends like you, but I'm grateful. Your encouragement has helped keep me motivated. Latedr...