You want style points, go watch figure skating...

Many of you know I'm a huge LSU Tigers fan. I just read a great piece at an LSU blog -- And The Valley Shook. If LSU/College Football interests you, check it out:

Delusional Optimism Is Not Disappointed

Fox Sports currently ranks LSU as the "fifth most disappointing team" in the country. Here's what they say:

The Tigers are 2-0, but it took the NCAA's microscope to neutralize their first opponent (North Carolina) and the best possible draw from the SEC East (Vanderbilt) to get them there. As luck would have it, their next two games are against Mississippi State and West Virginia, two teams that have floundered so far this season. Is Les Miles really this lucky? No. Alabama, Arkansas and Auburn should get three L's for the Mad Hatter and put him officially on the hot seat.

As the founder of the Delusional Optimism campaign here at ATVS, I'm officially sick of this crap. It's not that Fox Sports, an entity that has consistently proven through their horrid bowl game coverage that they know less than nothing about college football, is ripping on LSU. It's that this is a consensus view.

The dominant storyline on LSU is always the most negative one the media can find. Is it because ESPN FoxAlabama bloggers the Illuminati the Eastern Media Conspiracy everybody hates LSU? Of course not. It's because the media is lazy. Once they find a storyline, or a meme, the media simply makes every fact fit that storyline. And the media meme is that LSU isn't that good.

T Kyle King, a pretty bright guy and a great Georgia blogger who I'm positive has no anti-LSU agenda, left LSU off of his Blog Poll ballot. Why? Because LSU still has to prove something to be ranked. Remember, LSU is a team that finished 3^rd in the SEC last year, won 9 games, finished in the top 20 in every poll, and played in a January 1^st bowl. This year, all LSU has done is been one of two teams to beat two BCS teams in its first two games (and the only one to do win both of those games on the road). Now, what exactly does LSU have to prove just to make the ballot?

And this is not to say Kyle is wrong. He could very well be right. Besides, he's absolutely entitled to rank whoever the hell he wants, so please don't read this an attack on his ballot - that is 100% not the point. The point here is that a fairly neutral fan has an extremely negative impression of LSU, and I don't think his opinion is an outlier. It fits the narrative.

And it's a narrative LSU fans largely control. LSU beat Vanderbilt by TWENTY FOUR points. LSU fans have largely treated the game as a nail biter, and the nation at large has followed our lead. Oh, but it was close in the third quarter? Fine. In the UNC game, LSU was beating the Heels by 20 points in the fourth quarter. A young team lost focus and let UNC back in the game, needing a stop on the last play to seal a victory that, frankly, should have been sealed an hour before. Was this portrayed as a young team letting a team off the mat (which is hardly a flattering narrative anyway)? Of course not. By and large, it's been portrayed as a nail biter as well, and many outlets stated that UNC outplayed LSU. Which, I guess is true if you only watched the fourth quarter.

However, the most negative storyline was adopted not just by the mainstream media and most neutral fans, but by LSU fans. Think about how a 17-14 LSU win over Mississippi State, keyed by several drops by wide open receivers, would play in the media. Think what the message boards would look like. Hell, you don't have to imagine, take a gander at what they looked like last year. Then contrast that with the largely positive reaction to Auburn's win over MSU.

LSU is 11-4 over it's last 15 games. There are eight BCS conference teams who have a better record over the same span. Eight. And one of them is Cincinnati, who just got pantsed by NC State. Fifth most disappointing team in the country?

Only if you're disappointed by wins. You want style points, go watch figure skating.

Lessons Learned Sailing

A few weeks ago, my friend Mark took me sailing. Probably I listened to too much Jimmy Buffet growing up, but I’ve always thought that I would make a good sailor. I’m sure Mark would tell you I have a lot still to learn but I believe there are many life lessons to learn from sailing.

Something I learned on our little adventure is that your destination dictates your methods. For the most part, we weren’t heading anywhere. We went out onto the lake and for the most part we sailed wherever the wind would take us. Our sailing was much less about trying to get anywhere specific and more about keeping the sail in a good position to build as much speed as possible. There wasn’t a lot of wind that particular day, so we often found ourselves waiting for a “puff” of wind to catch the sail and get us moving. Now our destination was very important when it was time to go home. Speed and the perfect heel were less important than successfully arriving at the boat slip from which we departed and our actions reflected that… namely Mark took back the helm. ;-)

Here are a few conclusions I drew from our trip that I believe relate to our every day life.

• You can do a lot of work and cover a lot of ground, but without clear goals and/or destination, you’re probably not accomplishing much. I see this in my own life as I navigate through a very busy ministry season and an increasingly complex home life… if I don’t set clear goals for myself—both at work and at home—I’m mostly ineffective.

• You can’t make the wind blow. God’s Holy Spirit is compared to a wind in the bible and just like that day on Saylorville Lake, we can’t make the wind blow, but we can raise and position the sails. We can build disciplines and routines into our lives (prayer, worship, bible reading, solitude, etc.) that position us for movement when the Holy Spirit “blows.” We can’t make it blow, but we can become ready for when it does.

I hope this is as meaningful for you as it has been for me. Who knows… maybe we’ll pass each other on the lake sometime.

Bugatti Veyron vs. Euro Typhoon Fighter Jet

This is worth watching if you like fast things!

Upception - Trailer

I haven't seen Inception yet, but this clever mash-up makes me want to see it more than the actual trailers do...



Props to Scott Hodge for sending this along.

Doing What You Should

How important is it to be well-rounded? I feel I’ve lived over half of my life with that goal… becoming well-rounded. Today, I believe that was a poor goal because it caused me to spend less time on the things I’m good at and more time on the things I’m not… and will never be. Instead, I want to spend more time developing the skills in which I already excel and less time performing tasks for which I have small aptitude. Perhaps you should consider the same.

Now it seems that if we all just stopped doing those things we either don’t like or are not good at, the whole world would come to a screeching halt and there’d be total chaos and anarchy, and there’s truth to that. But if we commit ourselves to prioritizing those activities through which we contribute the most value – and at the same time allow those around us to do likewise – we’ll eventually find that we are more productive and that more gets done.

There are things that I’m great at that you might struggle with. In the same way, there are activities at which I’m completely inept that you could do with no problem… you might even enjoy it. In the book of 1st Corinthians, the bible compares the local church to a “body” in which there are many different parts – all very important. The best results come when eyes function as eyes, feet function as feet, and so on. If the feet aren’t on the job, our knees and elbows can fill in, but a 10K race may be out of the question. Your organization is no different – when all of the players are in the right positions; when everyone is sitting on the right seat of the bus (to borrow from Jim Collins in "Good to Great") our organizations are primed for success. The secret, then, isn't to become well-rounded, but by allowing everyone to function where they thrive (or in their "sweet spot" as we say at Crossroads) we develop a well-rounded organization.

What does that look like for you?

• What are you doing now that you should begin looking for an opportunity to delegate?
  
• What are the areas at which you excel that you should begin to spend more time developing?
  
• Are you comfortable focusing on what only you can do, or do you need a packed calendar to feel productive?

Peace,
Corbett

p.s. For a much better and in detail presentation on this topic, I recommend “The Next Generation Leader” by Andy Stanley.

A look behind-the-scenes

(this article was originally posted on the Crossroads blog and e-newsletter on July 9th)

This morning I watched a video of a ridiculously cute 2 year old belting out the Lord’s Prayer. Amazing!! You can watch it here. Music means a lot in the life of most churches and Crossroads is no exception. Our Creative Arts team often gets comments and suggestions regarding Sunday music, so I thought I share a little behind-the-scenes look at how the music for Sunday gets chosen.

The Big Idea
First, it’s all about the sermon. The message that’s being preached from the pulpit is the linchpin of everything else we do. Pastor Glen supplies our team with his message topics as well as scripture references and themes in advance, so we start there. What is the “Big Idea” that we’re trying to get across. We look at what other service elements are planned for that day, for example drama sketches, videos, communion, baptisms, etc. Every single element – including the praise songs – needs to point people toward the Big Idea of that day.

Song Selection
There are currently about 70 songs on the Crossroads song rotation list. They can be categorized by Theme, Tempo & Key. We first look at the list, pulling out songs that seem to speak to the theme of the day. Now this is subjective, of course, so we depend on a lot of prayer for this step. We ask God to draw us to the songs that will help people worship Him and be open to His word. Next, we look at the Tempo of songs. You’ve probably noticed that we generally start things out upbeat. That’s on purpose. We want Sunday mornings to be a celebration of all that God is doing and has done. It’s hard to celebrate to a dirge. Depending on what other elements are involved, we often let the tempo slow down a bit as we approach the message. Our hope is that every Sunday, there can be times when people can forget about words on screens, forget about the band, and just feel alone in the room with God. Worship is very personal and everyone approaches it differently, but we strive to create an atmosphere where people can approach God with their defenses lowered and focus their attention and affection on Him. And finally the Key a song is played in factors in as well. Without going to deep into music theory, I can tell you that certain keys “lead in” to certain keys better than others. If you have a music background, you may be familiar with the “Circle of 5ths.” This is one tool we use.

What makes the cut
One thing that you may have noticed is we don’t worry about how old a song is. It really doesn’t factor in at all. We try to choose songs that are going to resonate the most with our crowd. Sometimes those songs are relatively new… sometimes they’re over 100 years old. We have at Crossroads adopted a “modern style” of music, because we believe it resonates best with the guests that we hope to draw in. We also will constantly be looking for new songs to use as we worship our unchanging God. But there’s no way we could ever ignore the wealth of incredible songs that have been penned through the ages… there’s too much value there. The challenge then is taking songs that were written for a different culture, and making them meaningful in our culture. Some make the transition relatively unchanged… some receive a higher degree of tweaking.

Well, there’s a lot more that could be written about this process and for some of you, this may have created more questions than it answered, but I would love to say “THANK YOU” to the incredible Creative Arts teams at Crossroads who invest so much into making Sunday mornings meaningful. If you have more questions, I’d love to talk about what we do. Call or email and we’ll get together… Starbucks is my personal favorite!!

In Christ,

Corbett

Ministered or Ministers

Who makes up Crossroads Church… (A) the ministers or (B) those who are ministered to? If you answered (B), I think we’re suffering from some misconceptions.

Now don’t misunderstand me. I’m not suggesting that Crossroads is all about Glen or myself or any of the other staff. In fact, it’s the total opposite, but I believe that far too often, we equate ministry with “that stuff the pastors do.” If the church is growing and an area has a need, we hire another staff. Too many teens – hire more staff. Too many hospital visits – hire more staff. A church-wide desire for outreach – hire a staff person.

A church should never hire staff to do ministry!

To do so takes us right back to the Old Testament where the Levites and priests were the only ones with access to God. It’s a very unhealthy dynamic and it’s un-biblical as well.

The bible certainly speaks about vocational clergy, but in Ephesians 4:11-12 it narrowly defines their purpose: “It was he who gave some to be … pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.”

The bible describes it as

[Pastors Prepare] --- [God’s People Minister]

As a Pastor, when I DO ministry, instead of training or preparing someone else, I’m stepping outside of my job description and I’m stealing an opportunity for one of God’s people to fulfill their calling. Ministry is for the Body.

So to answer the original question, the answer is (A). Crossroads is all about the ministers… YOU ARE THE MINISTERS!!

Peace,
Corbett