I’m on vacation. It’s been too long since Cheryl and I got away for some extended time to relax. I’m not good at relaxing, and for me, sometimes relaxing is being free to think about what I want to think about. (So quit responding negatively to my Twitters about my thinking!) Anyway, Cheryl and I are accomplishing a goal. We’ve traveled now to every corner of the great USA together. She and I had both been here previously, but never together. (I’ll blog some pictures later.)

I have other things on my “Still To Be Done List”. Here are the first ones to come to mind:

1. Write a fiction book.

2. Sky dive.

3. Live in a city of over 1,000,000 people.

4. Live in a city with less than 10,000 people.

5. Travel Africa.

6. Do mission work in Africa.

7. Travel Asia.

8. Do mission work in Asia.

9. Develop patience (Notice that’s near the bottom. If I never get there…oh well…)

10. Wrestle a bear. (Okay, I’m just kidding about that one. Sort of.)

What’s in your “Still To Do” list? I’d love to hear from you.

I love it when “iron sharpens iron” and someone helps me with my thought process.  I have changed my mind about summer.  It’s a good feeling.

I have numerous blogs on my Google Reader.  It’s rare that I get to play catch up with all of them, but I did a quick scan through my list today and was excited to read Carey Nieuwhof’s (Connexus Community Church) post Readjusting the Target of Preaching. 

I’ve been hating summer for two months.  Summer is when everyone in my church seems to disappear.  It’s when the finance guys keep saying we need to clamp down on finances and the student ministry is in their busy (expensive) season while the tech ministry is spending rapidly to gear up for fall.  It’s when the lake is more appealing than the Sunday service and travel ball and dance competition seems to rob us of all our young families.  The office is empty because of vacations and staff meetings happen sporadically.  Everything seems to come to a halt during summer. 

Carey’s post helped me gain a new perspective on the season I love to hate.  The post had nothing to do with what spoke to me.  It was the opening sentence.  Carey wrote, “I love summer because it’s a time for me to rethink, to recalibrate and hopefully see things through fresh eyes.”  

Then I realized what has been happening this summer. Our entire staff has been dreaming, planning, re-focusing, recruiting, and resting up for fall.  We are going to re-launch everything in our church in the next couple months with more enthusiasm than ever before.  We are kingdom energized, because of the lazy days of summer!  This summer has been great.  I just couldn’t see it! 

Thanks Carey for loving summer!  Me, too, now!

Facebook began as a social network site primarily for college students. It was fairly exclusive.  When I signed on I had to swear in blood that I actually ministered to college students. (Something like that.)  Now anyone can join; and anyone is joining.  The average age of my new friends is twice the age of a traditional college student or Facebook’s founder; whichever is younger. 

I think the same thing happened to Myspace when it went away from being a place for bands to display their music to the world.  I gave up Myspace earlier this year. 

I am still doing a considerable amount of ministry on Facebook. It is really the only way college and high school students ever contact me, but I wonder if the aging trend continues if Facebook will survive.  Will college students look for an alternative? 

If you do, let me know.  I and some of my friends want to come along. 

I  previously shared the Top 7 Needs of a Wife which are based on personal observation and experience working with married couples. Today I continue with the top 6 needs of a man. (Like it or not, we are more simple creations; not as beautiful, of course, but less complex. Okay, let that comment get me in trouble if it must, but just the fact that you may not like it doesn’t mean it’s not true.)

Here are the top 6 needs of a husband:

Respect

This is number one! Men are always lying if they say it isn’t! Ephesians 5:33“However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” God knew what He was talking about. Men want to know that they are revered by their wives. Men want to be honored in their home. The world puts a lot of pressure on men, as men do on ourselves, and we need to be successful someplace in our life. If we can’t feel that respect in our home, we will find that it somewhere else.

Admiration

Men want to be desirable to their wives. Are we strong enough; masculine enough? If our wife is always looking at the sexier man or the more successful man in the movies or just in the world we certainly will not feel admired. As an example, if a family struggles financially and the wife complains about it all the time the man hears that as “I’m not good enough.” Most men struggle to feel we measure up. The greatest assurance of the fact that we have “what it takes” comes from our wives.Men who don’t sense this will often quit trying.

Peace and Tranquility

Men want their home to be a place to prepare for the world; they want to be able to relax. That is never an excuse for laziness! (Laziness is a sin BTW.) This is an ouch statement, but men want their wives to be their wife, and not their mother!Plus, and this is so important to understand, nagging never accomplishes what the wife hopes it will. It may get done what you wanted done, but not with the heart or attitude you hoped to go with the action. (If you are raising boys, remember this!)

Commitment

Yes, men want this too! They want to know they are number one with you. Men don’t want to see their wife looking at other men or commenting on how wonderful another man may be. They want to know you are faithful only to them. (Can you women tell we have shallow egos? We do. I may blog about that someday.)

Acceptance/Participation

Husbands don’t really want a wife to try and change them. Granted many men need changing, but the Biblical way to do this is to pray about it and model the change for us.  Men also want our wives to appreciate our hobbies and interests, since it is so much a part of who we are. You don’t have to love golf, but to know that the lower score is the better is a great plus when we come home after a good game. He’ll need to brag to someone. He’s hoping that someone is you.

Be able to lead

Most men want to lead, but don’t really know how. The wife should allow her husband to make some mistakes and not criticize us when we can’t do something as well as you can, (which we know is many things!) If we take the effort to fix the bed, don’t go behind us and straighten the comforter (or at least don’t let us see you doing it.)  If we find we can’t compete in an area, we just quit trying.  Applaud what we do right and we’ll try harder to please. We really do want to succeed!

So, there are the top 6 needs of a man. This closing statement is tough to write, but so important to understand. I have believed for years in observing couples and through my own experience that if the woman, who is usually more relationally mature than the man, will respect her husband in these ways that the marriage will dramatically improve. (That, and the fact that I am a man, may explain why my explanations of each item are longer for men.)

The reason is simple. Generally, except in rare cases, the wife wants and understands what a good marriage looks like. Most men don’t. When a man feels respected, he will adapt and learn whatever it takes to earn and keep that respect. (If you watch closely you’ll see this quality displayed in other aspects of his life.) He will in turn become a great lover of his wife, fulfilling her greatest need. The combination of the two working together in marriage is powerful.

What would you add to the list?

In my years of counseling and ministering to married couples, mostly in distress, I have learned some principles that run fairly consistent within each marriage. There are some common needs most men and women bring to a marriage in order to make the marriage the best it can be. I have found that we really not that different from each other. We may label these differently; even put them in different categories, but the needs themselves remain relatively similar from marriage to marriage. Over the years I’ve kept notes and in these posts I’ll share with you my findings, which I have shared in marriage retreats for years.

I’ll be with the “ladies first” principle, so here are the greatest needs of a wife (in my opinion).

Love

Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” How did Christ love the church? 1 John 3:16 “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.”Do you love her above everything else including your work, your hobbies, your friends, family, and even the kids? Do your actions prove your words?

Attention

Wives want to be listened to (instead of the TV) and know that we believe what they have to say is important. Our wives would prefer to talk with us over other women, even though another woman might better understand.

Protection

Wives want their husbands to be the defender of the family; not just against the bumps in the night, but against all the threats in society. They want us to take the ownership in leading our family spiritually and in teaching our kids how to defend themselves and stay strong in an evil world.

Security/Commitment

Are you going to be there forever? Can she trust you? Wives see their visually stimulated husbands looking at other women. Does she know you won’t cheat on her? Are you going to be faithful always?

Appreciation/Value

Wives want to be valued for who they are as much as for what they do. Most houses wouldn’t run as well without the wife. Could anyone find all our “stuff”? But, wives want to know we see them with value beyond just what she does around the house. Is she more important than anything else? Is she still beautiful?

Compassion

Wives want their husbands to understand them as “weaker vessels”. Of course this doesn’t mean they are less than men, but that men and women are different. Women are going to respond differently to situations; cry more easily, take longer to resolve things emotionally, feel tired quicker. Also, wives want a little romance in the marriage. (For most of us, if we’ve been married over a week they already know that’s not going to happen with you.) We can all, however, be kind, loving, and occasionally romantic. We usually get good credit here just for honestly trying.

Partners

Most wives don’t want to do life alone. They want their husband’s participation in raising the kids, making decisions around the house and yes, sometimes even picking out curtain colors.

What would you add to the list?

Today I had a humbling experience. I’ve learned that humility is an art.  Pride is easier to attain than humility. Throughout God’s Word He tells us how much He hates pride. 

I have worked all week on my message for today, just like every week I’m up to speak. It wasn’t a difficult message.  We have been mirroring our children’s ministry all summer, so the passage was already laid out for me.  Today’s story was the resurrection; a message I’ve preached many times before. I could probably tell you most aspects of the story without my Bible in hand. The challenge is to bring freshness to a story most people think they already know.  I decided to go simple; realizing that because of the newness of our church that there are many who aren’t familiar with the story. 

I put together a scripted, verse-by-verse account from Luke 23.  Yesterday I did my final edit. What normally takes me 3 or 4 hours on Saturday to edit my Sunday message took only about an hour. I left frustrated with myself thinking it was a horrible message, but frankly I didn’t know what else to do with it at that point.  I went out to eat with friends last night complaining to the guy who is also in the ministry that I didn’t want to do this message. It just wasn’t that good.  I woke up at 4 AM this morning ready to scrap the whole thing and start over, because I didn’t feel it had anything to offer people.  I made a few changes, but really walked into church thinking this would be the worst message I’ve ever done at Grace. It’s still summer, I thought, maybe I wouldn’t scare too many people off and we could rebuild next week.  I even shed a few tears of frustration before I went on stage. 

Within five minutes of beginning today I knew I was no longer in control.  I’m not saying I had a great message; it may have still truly stunk, but I left knowing God used it in someone’s life today.  That’s a humbling, incredible, wonderful feeling.

It reminds me of a story told years ago about a young pastor fresh out of seminary who showed up to preach his first sermon at his first church.   He was so confident, but his message simply bombed and he knew it.  He walked off the stage deflated. A senior deacon in the church gave him some great advice, “If you had went up on stage the way you came down, you’d have come down the way you went up.” 

That’s a good principle for me to remember every week. 

Thanks God for allowing me to work for you and thank you for humbling me today!

Arrogant. Perhaps. Opinionated. Maybe. Critical. Sometimes. Aimless. Never.

People may call me lots of things, but one thing where most people will agree who know me is that I have a purpose to most everything I do; perhaps even to a fault. Playing a game of golf just for fun? Not so much. Playing a game of golf so I can build a relationship with someone or have quiet time to focus on something my mind has been racing about lately. Occasionally. (Actually about twice a year.) My life is usually aiming for something. I promise you I’m not writing this blog post just for “fun”. (What’s that?) So when I write about developing a life plan you can be sure it’s something I practice.

In my previous post 3 Questions to Help Formulate a Life Plan , I listed questions and a process to help a person think through what a personal life plan may look like for them. I want to continue that thought with some more suggestions.

This process was developed while working specifically with marriages in distress and then I began to apply it to the total life planning process. Therefore, it works equally well if used in a specific area of your life, such as marriage, parenting, career, or even your spiritual, physical and financial life.

As you work through the progressive questioning the answers become harder to attain. That’s intentional, because basically we end up striving for those things we really want in life anyway. If your life goals are shaped through a process you are more likely to work to achieve them.

Answer the questions truthfully; not how you think someone else would want you to answer them or even how you wish you could answer them. Again, we tend to work hardest for the things that are in our heart. Don’t try to make yourself something your heart is not into. Only God can do that.

Update your plan regularly. As life changes occur, you gain more life experience, or you simply mature, your answers to questions may change.

Don’t be hard on yourself when you don’t meet your end goal. Just evaluate, re-tool, and go at it again. You’ll most likely do this many times in life. The winners in life are constantly updating the vision for their life and they learn their best lessons through failure. (Someday I’ll post about failure. I know that subject well too!)

Some goals never change. The process to get there may, but the goal itself stays the same. Where you want to be spiritually and the type of family relationships you desire are examples here.

Business speaker Harvey MacKay said: “Failures don’t plan to fail; they fail to plan.” My encouragement to you is to have a plan for each area of your life in which you want to achieve success. (Please tell me that’s every area!)

One of the most common ministry opportunities I have is helping people discover God’s will and determine a life direction. I sometimes feel I get to be a sort of “life coach”. I believe strongly in having a plan of where you want to go and what you want out of life. “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18) Several years ago I started asking people three questions to help them begin to formulate their own life plan. The questions are:

Where do you want to go?

Begin to ask yourself some evaluation questions. You can think of your own, but here’s some to consider. (Don’t be afraid to dream and think big when answering these questions.)

• If you could see your life in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, what would you hope to see?
• Where would you live?
• Where are you in your career?
• What kind of relationship would you have with your spouse; with your children, etc.?
• What does your relationship with God look like?

How are you going to get there?

People are usually pretty good at answering the questions above, or at least they have general ideas, but we don’t always plan a course of action to get there. One truth we cannot escape is that we will most likely end up in the direction we are heading. So, we don’t usually meet the goals we set for ourselves unless we aim for them. Begin to take the answers to the questions above and write some action steps to meeting them. What would you have to do differently in your life if you want to end up someday where you say you do?

Are you willing to pay the price?

This is always the quickest question to answer, but if it’s answered truthfully it is always the hardest question. I hear men talk about wanting a close family, but they aren’t willing to place their family ahead of their career or hobbies. Someone says they want to advance in their career, but they aren’t willing to gain the education necessary. Achieving success at anything requires a certain level of sacrifice. Some people may want to attain the level, but they aren’t willing to invest what is required to get there. At some point you will have to determine if you are.

Spend some time wrestling with these questions and you will be on your way to developing your own life plan. For accountability purposes, share them with someone close to you and give them permission to periodically ask you how you are doing.

For a continuation of this post, see THIS POST.

Are you willing to give it a try?

Hopefully if you are in crisis-mode right now you are beginning to see the end of the tunnel.  I pray God brings you through this time quickly.  It’s important to know what to do AFTER the time of crisis has passed.  Here are 5 things to do AFTER a time of crisis:

1. Rejoice – Be thankful the crisis is over and a time of peace has come.  I have many times prayed fervently during the hard times, but forsaken my “God-time” when everything is going well. Don’t follow my example in this. 
2. Share – The Bible is clear that we are to use our struggles to help others in theirs.  Often because of fear or embarrassment we don’t allow people to see our past hurts.  This denies God the opportunity to use the experiences He has given us for His glory.  (Read 2 Corinthians 1:3-7)
3. Prepare – If you have lived long enough you know that seasons of crisis come many times in life.  During the quiet times when all is going well is when we should be preparing for harder times.
4. Rest – To borrow from the Cheers theme song, “Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot.”   Many people never enjoy the peaceful times because they are too paranoid about the next crisis that may or may not even occur.  We should prepare for times of trouble, but we should never live in a state of worry. 
5. Grow -   I have grown spiritually more during the hard times than in the easy times of life.  Crisis-mode teaches us valuable insight into the character and heart of God.  Use the down times to evaluate God, your life, and see how the two connect.  Work on the places you are out of sync with God’s will for your life.

 It would be nice if you never needed these blogs.  My sense is, if your life is anything like mine, that some of you will. 

In my last post I shared 5 things not to do in times of crisis.  I began with the negative, because in my experience that’s where most people begin when crisis occurs.  (Read: 5 Things NOT To Do In Times of Crisis)  We often tend to run in the opposite direction from where we should run.  Some of the worst decisions I have observed people make (including me) are during the crisis-mode times of life. 

Obviously knowing what to do in these times is equally important. So, here are 5 things TO DO in times of crisis. When crisis comes;

DO:

1. Stay – I love Seth Godin’s book “The Dip” where he explains how important it is to know when to quit and that time may come.  At the beginning of the crisis is not that time.  Until you have been able to evaluate the crisis from every angle and you clearly know there is no way out, stay the course.  Godin’s book also talks about how those who succeed learn to push through the hard times.  Stay in it long enough to know which time it is for you. 
2. Stand – Stick to your moral convictions and the vision you have for your life.  Don’t allow the crisis to keep you from doing the right things, even if that seems to be the quickest solution.  Stand with the moral and personal convictions you had before the crisis began. 
3. Glean – Learn from others who have gone through similar crises. Someone else’s past situation may not be identical to yours, but the emotional and decision-making process they went through probably will be.  Most people after a crisis can tell you things they wish they had done differently.
4. Examine – At some point you’ll need to ask yourself how you got in the crisis in the first place. If it was a matter of bad decisions, how can you keep from making those same mistakes again?  If you keep finding yourself in the same crisis, shouldn’t that tell you something?  (Sometimes the answer will simply be because we live in a messed-up world.  Don’t be afraid of that answer.) 
5. Learn – Allow every crisis to teach you something about life. If you go into the crisis with this mindset you will be surprised how different your approach to solving it and dealing with it emotionally will be.  God is always willing to use the hard times to teach us important principles about life, ourselves, and about Him.

I’ve got one more list to come about the times of crisis. Next post I will share 5 things to do after a crisis. 

(Note: I realize that these are general suggestions and your situation is unique and specific.  Hopefully the generic helps some, but as I wrote yesterday, don’t be afraid to ask for help.)