RockTheDesert

Creating WOW Product Experiences

Please read this article. I found it on Michael S. Hyatt's excellent blog "From Where I Sit." It will change the way you create worship experiences, product experiences, and life experiences!! I recommend printing out the main points and posting them where you can read, re-read and begin to internalize. This is one of the best articles I've read in a long time!!

Creating WOW Product Experiences

As I have said before, we don’t need more books. Instead, we need better books. Specifically, we need books that “wow.” But what is wow and how can we develop it?

The first step is learning to recognize it. Most of us have experienced wow moments. We just haven’t taken time to think deeply about them.

Dr. Livingstone, I Presume

While we were in Burundi, I couldn't help but feeling like I had reached literally "the ends of the earth." Burundi is a remarkable place. Beautiful. Rugged. Extremely poor but with great dignity. On our "tourist" day, we drove about 20 minutes outside of  Bujumbura to a beautiful overlook area. There was a large, if unremarkable, rock with an inscription carefully chiseled on it - as soon as we exited the bus to check out the rock, a mob of kids swarmed around. Half a dozen armed guards wandered over to see all the commotion. We took pictures, shared the Evangecube with the kids and the guards, then we left.  Here's a picture of the rock - the inscription isn't very clear -- this is the very spot where Mr. Stanley found Dr. Livingstone! I've included a very informative article just to refresh your historical memory! 
David Livingstone arrived in Africa in 1840 with two goals: to explore the continent and to end the slave trade (see Livingstone Discovers Victoria Falls, 1855). In England, his writings and lectures ignited the public's imagination regarding the "Dark Continent" and elevated Livingstone to the status of a national hero.

In 1864 Livingstone returned to Africa and mounted an expedition through the central portion of the continent with the objective of discovering the source of the Nile River. As months stretched into years, little was heard from the explorer. Rumors spread that Livingstone was being held captive or was lost or dead. Newspapers headlined the question "Where is Livingstone?" while the public clamored for information on the whereabouts of their national hero. By 1871, the ruckus had crossed to the shores of America and inspired George Bennett, publisher of the New York Herald, to commission newspaper reporter Henry Stanley to find Livingstone.

The Swing Of Things

My friend and fellow blogger, Dan Perkins, wrote this great article called The Swing of Things. I encourage all to read and digest this article. The following is an excerpt. Click HERE to read the rest of the article.

I've spent a good part of my morning and afternoon with my jet-lagged butt parked on the couch catching up on reading blogs about our time in Europe and our friends who traveled with Compassion International over to Uganda. Both groups, the Uganda team and Tom, Mario and I, arrived back in the US yesterday. The votes are in and consensus is we have way too much in light of real need and poverty seen in much of the world. Ironically, the spiritual and social uniquenesses of the two regions we visited are vastly contrasted but our reports created the same sense of embarrassment or humility when imagined in the abundance and comfort of our homeland. Don't get me wrong... I'm grateful, as is everyone I read this morning about their return home, to have a life in this great country. What I am saying is we are having a difficult time digesting what we experienced and returning to a life "that is" differently than a life "that was."  In other words, going about business as usual without compromising our experience's desire to change us will not be easy. But then again, it just might be too easy.   

10 Questions for the New Year

I found this on Nancy Leigh DeMoss's website. I heard Nancy speak at a conference a couple of years ago. She was dynamic and very real and extremely humble. Click HERE to go to her website for resources, devotionals, radio broadcasts, etc.

Once, when the people of God had become careless in their relationship with Him, the Lord rebuked them through the prophet Haggai. “Consider your ways!” (Haggai 1:5) he declared, urging them to reflect on some of the things happening to them, and to evaluate their slipshod spirituality in light of what God had told them.

Even those most faithful to God occasionally need to pause and think about the direction of their lives. It’s so easy to bump along from one busy week to another without ever stopping to ponder where we're going and where we should be going.

The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up, and get our bearings. To that end, here are some questions to ask prayerfully in the presence of God...

Listen

I just posted this article at the Fellowship North website.

We all have friends and family members whose voices we instantly recognize when they call, even without verifying with caller ID. Their voices might not be particularly loud or raspy or have a fancy accent, they just have a familiar cadence and tone and a certain way of saying "hello." Is it possible to instantly recognize and know God's voice when He speaks directly to us? Is His voice loud like thunder? Or is it quiet like a gentle rainstorm? Is it raucous and rowdy like a sports announcer, or is it loving and tender like a mom singing a lullaby? When we gather for worship on Sundays, I believe an important part of our time together is the time we spend listening for God's voice...

Click HERE to read the rest of the article!

Burundi is in East Africa

We are going to East Africa. Burundi is in East Africa. I was reading a few other blogs today and one link led to another until I found these posts on a blog called "Journey Mama". They summarizes her recent trip to West Africa. I've included the articles here because I like her writing style...descriptive...real.

        [You may find yourself in a small village market far away from any evidence of the twenty-first century. You might take photographs of women more beautiful than any you have ever seen, women who have never before seen a photograph of themselves. You will bless your digital camera again and again, because you will witness the disbelief and hilarity of women who find an image of themselves for the first time. They may grab you, grab their friends, laugh uproariously, direct you to the next person to photograph...] click HERE to read "When You Go To West Africa."

        [You think that you won’t forget, but you do. When you are there you feel that the red dust has crept all the way inside of you, that you will never look again at your world of wealth with the same eyes, that your ribcage holds a whole new heart.] Click HERE to read "Coming Back."

Corporate Worship

I found the following article posted on Rich Kirkpatrick's blog. It is long. Read it and absorb it and think through how this impacts all of us who are striving to be fully-devoted followers and worshipers of God.

Following Jesus:  How corporate worship and the local church really matter

I believe that there is a correlation to how we follow Jesus and the idea that the local church plays a huge role in that process.  I believe that small groups indeed, as an ideal, certainly are seen as modeling the intimacy that Jesus had with his twelve.  But, what about our weekend crowds?  Jesus spent a lot of time with crowds, too.  Our corporate worship in the church certainly is a crowd.  The activity of the small group and of the crowd can be done uniquely in a local church like no other institution.  I call the crowd our “corporate worship” for the sake of argument.  In the crowd you have both the committed disciples of Jesus and the uninitiated.  This looks a lot like many of our churches, especially the church I serve. Click here for the rest of the article...

I'm 1 Week Behind

So sorry for this belated post - I've been super busy with Thanksgiving, church, family, etc. I'm working on a new post, but for now, check out my latest post at Fellowship North's website - it's called "Come In."

Engage

Our Worship Team's mission statement is: Engage. That's it. Engage. This one little word is rich with meaning and just begs to have an on-going dialogue about all that it implies.

When I was trying to define Engage using my own words, I took several rabbit trails. First I landed on engage, as in engaged to be married. That led to thoughts of my daughter getting married.

I posted this article at the newly re-designed, interactive, informative Fellowship North website. Click here for the rest of the article...

Do Not Call List

Read this article then take action!

Download do_not_call_list_about_to_expire.doc

Worship Planning

Randy Elrod, creative guru, wrote a great article called "Using Community To Help With Worship Planning". Read the full article here.