Found You!


When I run I use my phone to keep track of my running. Before it can log the info about my run, it first must find me (my location). Sometimes I am moving or there may be something in the area that interferes with the signal and the ability to find me.

As is in our lives...many times we allow distractions to distance us from God. Where did he go? He never leaves us and as soon as we STOP and listen we will hear His still small voice. This changes our perspective and we are then able to move forward!

So this morning...I got to the starting point of my run...I stopped and within a few seconds the application found my location and then I hit start and headed off on my run!

Remember when you can't seem to find God...STOP and LISTEN and you will hear Him!

Analogy-One Step at a Time

I got up late this morning and was really debating with myself whether or not I was going to run, but if there is one thing I have learned while training for this marathon is your mind must tell your body to keep going even when your body wants to stop…so I could find no logical reason not to run this morning…so I ran. The first part of my run is mostly uphill…some hills are smaller than others, but it is generally uphill…I was looking right in front of me and just telling myself to take one more step…then one more step…made it through all the hills and as I was coming around the corner by Rampart where you can see the expanse of the mountains the song “God of this City” started playing…Yes… you are God of this City and you are going to do amazing things, as we take one step at a time! Then I continued running…looking way ahead of myself I started running with all the confidence in the world, as I was now going to be on level ground or even some downhill, but then God brought an analogy to mind and that was that so many times in our lives we call on Him when life is hard and we can barely take one step forward, but then when things are going good, we go about life thinking we have this well under control…He wants to guide our every step the easy ones and the hard runs…so for the remainder of the run, I ran looking just one step in front of me and I had the best run yet since I started my training...in fact I even beat my yesterday’s record…my new pace is not 11.33, but 11.14-Thank you Jesus for reminding me to allow you to guide every step in my life!

We Fall Down and We Get Up…

Before leaving on my run this morning, I asked God to reveal whatever He wanted me to hear today! He has been teaching me different life lessons through my running and today was no different, though it would have been nice to learn this lesson without it being so literal! I was about 3 minutes into my run, when I recall my phone leaving my hand and I slowly began to get closer to the cement…I actually had a moment to think about what was happening and what ran through my mind was…I am falling and there is really nothing I can do to stop this from happening…at that moment my knee scraped against the cement and my wrist did the same. I got up and my first thought was…well guess that does it for my run this morning…Really Cindy, you are going to give up that quickly…so I checked out my injuries, squirted some water on them and I finished my run, asking God to just help me finish…He did that and more…He taught me another life lesson…In life we will fall down, but He is right there to pick us back up. In 2 Corinthians 4:8-10 it says, “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.” When you get knocked down…don’t let the enemy have his way…allow God to get you back up!


Evidence of my lesson today....

Stand Up

Leadership Summit 2011

Session Three
“Stand Up” by Cory Booker

*Regardless of the storms in our lives, we must be willing to stand.

*You have a choice: will you grow dumb, fat and happy as you feast on what was provided for you OR, will you metabolize your blessings and stand up and use them for what they were intended for?

*Don’t let the world tell you who you are…You were born unique.

*Don’t let the world defeat you or seduce you into mediocrity.

*You have access to untold opportunities…you must claim them.

*In the midst of people who seem to be reaching higher than you, head for the roof!

*The world you see outside of you will always be a reflection of what you have inside you.

*Never let the world outside of you dim the hope and courage inside of you.

*Be the change you want to see in the world.

*The only way to make a change in this world is for it to start with one’s self.

*If it is to be its up to me.

*Before you tell me what you want to teach or preach, show me first how you choose to live and give.

*There are so many distractions from the profound potential to do God’s work in this world.

*Right now, in this moment, YOU can change the world.

*Don’t miss the opportunity God has put right in front of you to show your truth to the world.

*We have one choice every second of every day… to accept life’s circumstances as they are or to take responsibility for changing them.

*We are stars…if we don’t live life brilliantly, we won’t leave a legacy of light and illumination.

*Stand up and bring light into the darkness. God gives us the power, but we get distracted with our own stuff.

*Don’t trip over people God has put in front of you. They are there for a reason.

*Let us now STAND Up. Let us STAND and tell our truth to a world that is yearning for it. Let us STAND because people stood for us, fought for us, bled for us. Let us STAND…In this world we don’t get everything we pay for, but we must pay for everything we get. Let us STAND, because of what Martin Luther King said… change will never roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but it is carried in on the backs of soldiers who will stand and fight for it. Let us STAND, because those five words… “Liberty and Justice For All” cannot just be a pledge, they must be a purpose and a passion every day and in every way. Let us STAND UP with all of our courage and our dignity and our love and if we STAND like this we the people will find a way to get to the roof!

Action Trumps Everything

Leadership Summit 2011

Session Two
“Action Trumps Everything” by Len Schlesinger

Getting our vision from the reality of the Here to the possibilities of the There…

*Martin Luther King… “I have a dream”
-It took Martin Luther King 3-4 years of smashing the Here (current reality) to get to the 

There (energizing people with the vision of what could be)

*We must be clear about the aspects of Here before we can go There

*We get a vision…We are excited about a reality that does not exist and those whom we are sharing our vision with are quite happy right where they are at…so how do we move them from the Here to the There? You must show people how unacceptable current reality is before you can move people to a new, unknown reality.

*Entrepreneurship has the power to go a long way in providing for the kind of future we aspire we want to have.

*Believe in the future by creating first.

*Most stories being told about successful entrepreneurs are complete nonsense…not a little, but complete.

-Many entrepreneurs who write a book about their success are actually telling a story they would like to read about their life
-Many do not start out with a Big idea
-Many do not have a sharply defined vision
-It is not genetic

*Entrepreneurship is a discipline and can be learned

*We are all entrepreneurs, but too few of us get to practice it.

*We must reinvent ourselves at least 3-5 times in our career.

*Entrepreneurs realize that they cannot predict the future.

-If you can’t predict the future than create it.

*Start with things you care about
-Not where are the good opportunities, but rather what do I want to do…what am I passionate about.
-You see, in order to get from the Here to the There, we must have a passion for the vision we want people to get excited about.

*Entrepreneurs see what is available to them and then they act.
-You can sit and think, but in order to move to the There, you must act upon your thinking
-pay for only what you can afford and want to
-take small steps forward with what you have at hand

*We all have the capacity to make a difference

*Have friends and resources nearby to help

*You can sell people or you can enroll people

Why don’t people move?

*They are caught up with what they are trying to do…Don’t worry about what you want to do and start worrying about what your next step will be.

*We don’t want to take action cause we are afraid of failure.
-60% of “smart” people fail
-failure=learning things that no one knows
-failure=try again with experience
-more ventures fail then succeed

Do you want to be an Entrepreneur?

*Know what you want
*Stop obsessing with what you need to do and start with the means at hand
*Be alert and make reality your friend
*Take steps according to your means and what you can afford to pay
*Bring other people with you
*Be flexible with what you want and how you do it

This system…

Gets more people trying to do things and gets them to do things sooner and gets them to do it more times and gets them to failing sooner, which enables the start of another attempt and gives people the opportunity for multiple simultaneous adventures.

“Action Trumping Everything…you get more times at bat in the same elapsed time, thus making your personal success much more likely and sooner and increasing the aggregate number of successful ventures for society as a whole. Thereby taking us all on an incredible powerful journey from the HERE’s that we have smashed to the THERE’s that we would like to live with.”

Five Critical Questions

Leadership Summit 2011

Session One
“Five Critical Questions” by Bill Hybels

     1. What is my current challenge level at work?                                     

*Under Challenged – don’t have much of a to do list and so don’t get much accomplished at work…spend time ordering things on the computer, spending time on facebook for fun not ministry related, count the minutes until it is time to go home…

*Appropriately Challenged – have a to do list and get most of it done; able to be there for the family in the evening

*Dangerously Over Challenged – upon getting up in the morning you wonder how in the world will I ever get through my to do list in the next month let alone today; when you get to work more things get added to that list and you end up not accomplishing much of anything; you are so stressed that you are no good to your family or anyone around you…very dangerous place to be.

So, where is the best place to be? Bill stated that the best place to be is right above Appropriately Challenged.

MY THOUGHTS: I would have to agree, cause if we stay at Appropriately Challenged then we could become stagnant…we are getting things done and we are serving our family well, but it may not be stretching us to move to the next level and to grow.

We must be challenging ourselves in order to be good leaders. We are no good to anyone if we live in crazy land. We must take time to replenish our leadership bucket.

Could there be times when our job requires us to live in crazy land for a period of time (Bill's example: we have 22 services on Christmas Eve/Easter…lol)? Yes, but try to prepare youreselves for those times and get out just as soon as you can.

What will replenish your bucket? These should be moments away from your work…maybe doing a hobby. This reminds me of the question that Matt asks us on WVC staff, Emotional Goal…What is it that recharges us emotionally?

Organizations could also fit into these categories…offering too many things or not offering enough.

MY THOUGHTS: Especially in a church, I believe we must be offering an Appropriate amount of activities that will keep people involved, moving to the next level and growing in their walk with God and in the calling that He has upon their life.

2. What is the plan to dealing with challenging people in our organization?

*You must determine who those people are. Sit down with the managers of your company and have them put down each person on their team in the order of who they would let go of first if they were told that labor must be reduced by 50%.

*KEY to our future…Keep and Maintain FANTASTIC people and deal with those who are not fantastic anymore.

*How long will we allow people to have bad attitudes? We must deal with this as soon as we see the pattern develop. Once you have sat down and talked with the person than a good time frame could be…in 30 days there must be a change of attitude.

*How do you handle under performers? We must sit down with the person as soon as we see this pattern developing. We coach them, come up with a plan to assist them, encourage them and then decide the time frame to when this must be resolved…possibly 3 months.

*How do you handle a situation where the capacity of a role changes? This happens when the gifts and talents of a FANTASTIC individual no longer has the necessary elasticity in the role. The requirements are above what they are able to fulfill. It is not that they have a bad attitude or that they are an under performer rather it just means that the job they were in has changed and is not a good fit for them with those changes.

Challenging people are not happy people.

If you don’t deal with challenging people then you will discourage the positive and FANTASTIC people and you will lose them.

       3.     Are you naming, facing and resolving problems in your organization?

*Life Cycle Diagram – Accelerating, Booming, Decelerating, Tanking

*Evaluate each ministry to see where it fits into the cycle

*A few that Bill mentioned that they were in the part of Decelerating were…Volunteers, Stewardship, Evangelism…kind of reminds me of where Woodmen is as it relates to Volunteers and Stewardship.

*Bill stated that they put together a team for each of these areas and those teams brought to the table new ideas in order to take them back to Accelerating.

MY THOUGHTS:  What ministries at Woodmen (or in your organization) are moving towards the Decelerating part of this cycle? What events/ministries inside each of our core ministries(OSP; Human Resources; Commarts; Experience Department(Men, Women, Small Groups, Sports & Rec); Students; Children’s; Pastoral Care; Worship Arts) need to be evaluated? How are we currently working towards making sure that some of these things are not headed for the end of the cycle-tanking?

      4. When was the last time that you re-examined the core of what your
       organization is about?

*Is our vision clear?

*What’s at the core of what we do?

*Bill gave an example of a car dealership…The manager sat down with all the employees and asked them what they felt the core of their organization was about. Some of what they started to say…sell cars; sell and fix cars and then one person stated that it was to provide a transportation solution to people. That then became the core of their company.

MY THOUGHTS: This caused them to provide many other services, making them a successful company not only financially, but in how they responded and cared for the needs of people.

*Churches are in the people transformation business. Describe in 5-words, using no hyphenated words and no “God” words, the central message of the good news of Jesus Christ…

Example given by Bill…

1           - Love

2           -Evil

3           -Rescue

c           -Choice

5           -Restore

First and foremost we must love people…there is so much evil in this world and we are in need of a rescue, however we have to make that choice and when we do we will be restored to the person that God has called us to be.

      5. Have you had your leadership bell rung lately?

*Leaders rarely learn anything new unless they have had their bell rung.

*We are tired of being stuck, but we have lost our boldness and our faith, which would allow us to move forward.

*When we are sick and tired of being stuck, it is then that we will bring action in order to move forward.

*Bold solutions to Stubborn problems

*There is too much at stake in this fallen world to be leaders in a fetus state.

*Bill gave an example…He takes the other 4 Founders of Willow Creek for a time away…They were celebrating 35 years…One of them mentioned the thought of who might hang it up over the next 5 years…who will make it to 40…then one guy said…what if we made the next 5 years the best years?

MY THOUGHTS: Why can’t my next 5 years be the best years? Why can't the next 5 years be your best years? What will it take to move you forward?

Goals

Just a little over a week ago, on Memorial Day…the first day that we were to begin putting action to those goals we gave to Matt…I was on a morning run and God spoke very clearly…I spent most of that day putting down those thoughts!

Last fall my son and I were talking…we were talking about his dreams and goals for his life and some of the things he wanted to do…He spoke these words to me and they have been a milestone for me as I moved forward from that point…they gave me a new perspective and got me thinking/dreaming/setting goals…He said, “Mom you are never too old to dream and don’t wait to pursue those dreams/goals when you have your life all together.” Those may not have been the exact words, but that is the message that I received…

Okay…so I began thinking and processing and dreaming and God revealed a project that He wanted me to work on that was directly related to my passion in life. As I worked through this project there were times I really felt that I must have gotten the wrong message from God because this was just too difficult…it was at those moments that He said, put down the pen and let me write and He did just that…He wrote-it wasn’t me-it was God working in me and through me!

Then came February and we were getting ready to launch several Foundations classes and one was on Heaven and Hell, taught by Andrew Hess. I really felt that God wanted me to actually participate in this class…okay, but would this be a class on Theology and if so do I really need this in my life right now? His answer was yes you do…Oh yes, did I ever need this in my life…it was anything but Theology…in one sentence…It changed my perspective on life Forever!

I could continue giving you example after example of things God has done in my life…moments with Him on my runs…moments with Him during my quiet times…moments with Him in the car… but what I want to share with you is what God gave me on that Memorial Day morning while I was running.

In Philippians 3:12-14 it says… “I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”

I googled the word “goals” and this is what I got…

-A goal or objective is a desired result a person or a system envisions, plans and commits to achieve—a personal or organizational desired end-point…

Then I googled the phrase “definition of goal” and this is what I got…

-synonyms…aim, PURPOSE, target, object, objective, end mark

-The PURPOSE toward which an endeavor is directed; an objective.

So from the above here is my thought on goals…Goals have a purpose in our life to move us toward an objective. Without goals in our life, we can become stagnant and miss the “more” that God has for us.

If you have been on staff at WVC for any length of time you know that Matt asks for our goals several times a year and one time being around the end of May for the summer season-Memorial Day through Labor Day. I don’t know about you, but too many times I get that email and think to myself…how can it be time to do goals again…I can barely remember what my last goals were, which probably means that I have not come very close to accomplishing many, if any of them. Why is this not more important to me? How do I expect to grow if I don’t set goals and then work towards accomplishing them? What steps do I need to take to change this? I began to think through these questions and began to pray about the goals God would have for me for this season.

That is great, but I have done this in the past…I would pray about it and then life’s distractions would take over and then before I realized it the due date was either here or gone so now I had to get something on paper, which meant it was something pretty simple and something I thought would be reachable…it didn’t really stretch me and since it was just done as an assignment I never took ownership of those goals. They got printed and filed away in the back of my journal…

No, not this time…they are not getting filed away…and I want goals that will stretch me for it is when we are stretched that we grow. So I started early and I started with the first goal…

Spiritual Goal…What will make me a better person? What will help me in my ministry and in my family? What will stretch me? Solitude and Fasting along with continued prayer and journaling. While all of these require a commitment…Solitude and Fasting for me requires much more of a commitment as I do very little of these right now…in order for me to go deeper and grow, I felt like these must be present more in my life. I am dog sitting for a friend for a couple of weeks in June and I am looking forward to some of this solitude time, but the challenge will be when I return to my normal routine…I must figure out a way to make more time for this…I must change my normal routine in order to grow and go deeper. How about you…what needs to be in your life to stretch you and help you grow? What will help you in your ministry…in your family? What will make you a better person?

Physical Goal…For me this was easy this year…I have been running on and off most of my adult life and I love it! For the past 10 + years I have wanted to run a Marathon. Since I am all about dreaming and setting goals…I figured it was time…it was time to put action to this dream I have had for too long…I knew this would take some time to train for and that I would need to change my eating habits, but I was really hoping to accomplish this in 2012… so after almost giving up on my search for a marathon towards the end of the year and in a warm location and hopefully a somewhat flat area…I found it…The Cocoa Beach Marathon 2012 in Cocoa Beach Florida on November 25^th…here was the description they gave… “Experience one of the most beautiful waterfront courses on the east coast. 14 “space” themed aid stations along a partially shaded mostly flat course”…Thank you Jesus, just as I was about to give up looking He came through! How will this help me in my ministry? How will this help me go deeper? How will this help me further His kingdom? Well this requires great commitment…there will be times when I want to give up, as is in our ministries and in our own lives…it will require perseverance, which is required in our ministries and in our lives. This will help me be a stronger person not only physically but also mentally to be able to experience the “more” God has for me and carry out His calling in my life! What physical goal will help you carry out God’s calling in your life?

Emotional Goal-I am refueled emotionally as I see my progress with the other goals! How about you…think about it…what refuels you emotionally?

Relational Goal-Relationships with others, whether that be family, friends, co-workers or strangers, are all important and sometimes we get so caught up in the “being”-being with God-that we forget that our other relationships are important to our calling as they are part of the life God has called us to. So who do you need to spend more time with? To help me accomplish this goal and to hopefully develop a more consistent pattern of spending time with the important people in my life I have committed to spend every day for the month of June with at least one other person…husband, kids, grandkids, friends! This idea came to me after receiving several emails from restaurants & stores on June 1^st. They could be redeemed for the entire month of June (my birthday month). It is going well and I am making wonderful memories, but it is challenging too, as there are days that I don’t want to do anything…remember it is when we are challenged that we grow!

Reading Goal-This was an area that I really felt that God wanted to stretch me in…in the past I would just look on my bookshelf and pull a book or two off the shelf…I think I have had the same book on my goals for several times. That would be okay, if I was actually making progress but that was not the case.

This will be a challenge for me, though I love to read…I find it difficult sometimes to make the time. The time must be before 9pm, at least for me…I will need to be very intentional about scheduling this time. I wanted more challenging books…books that made me think…again going deeper and growing. So one pointer here, never go to Rob if you want help finding a book to read, as he gave me one book then another and then another and then yet another, at which time I said thank you so much and I will be going back to my office now!

So, I now have four great books on my reading goal. I may not get through all four, as I don’t want to just read them to say I read them all, but rather I want to grow deeper in my relationship with God as I read them…so I will do my best!

All this said…Even though you have already turned in your goals-at least I hope you have-I want to challenge you to really look at those goals you have set for this season. Just because they have been turned in doesn’t mean you can’t change them or adjust them. Ask yourself some of the touch questions…pray about each goal…are you stretching yourself…are you stepping out of your comfort zone…will your goals cause you to grow? Change them…adjust them if you need to and then move…work hard towards accomplishing those goals and watch what God will do in your life! And remember it doesn’t have to be giant steps as you seek to accomplish them, but rather every step taken forward is a step in the right direction! You can do it!