Category: People

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Blogging God People

Exponential Conference Orlando Tossed Salad

DAY 1 – Tuesday April 22ND 2008

1. This is the first of three editions in a row of the ‘Exponential Conference Orlando Tossed Salad’ – one edition for each day of the conference. These ‘Tossed Salads’ are being written more than two days after the fact based on my personal recollection of the events that were experienced and the material that was presented with strong support via a whole bunch of crib notes written shorthand style on three full sheets of letter-size scrap paper. I’m not one of those instant laptop notetakers that can type all of his or her notes just as fast as the speaker can speak it and then instantly publish it into a blog for the entire world to see. No offense to anyone who has that wonderful skill. I’m actually envious of those of you that can do that – such as my own Lead Pastor !  You’ll have to check out his blog if you wish to read his ultra-descriptive notes from the conference. Give yourself a good hour to read through all of it. You’ll feel like YOU ARE THERE !

2.  The First Baptist Church Orlando hosted the conference, and their sanctuary is MASSIVE. Anne J. inadvertantly referred to it as a ‘convention center’, but that’s pretty much what it was in this particular type of setting. I know that it’s the largest church sanctuary that I’ve ever been in that wasn’t at the Vatican. I’m sure that there are countless others here in the U.S. that are much bigger than this one, but you’ve got to remember that I was saved just 20 months ago, and I went more than 30 years before I walked into a place of worship for the first time as an adult (in January 2007). The experience of being 1 of about 2,800 in attendance praising and worshiping Him in unison to a LIVE rock band is an experience that will forever remain in my mind as one of the most awesome ‘rock show’ experiences in my entire Life.

3.  Church planting is an extreme team sport that is the greatest work on the planet in that we link together human lives. We obviously have plenty of church planters. 2,800 of us were in attendance at the conference. Now we need the movement to occur. We need churches to plant. We need to be more kingdom oriented. We need the kingdom of multiplication to spread. We need the kingdom to be exponential.

4.  Because of their ‘thinking-outside-of-the-box’ innovation smaller churches are more likely to plant spinoff churches than bigger (mega) churches. The fact of the matter is that churches should actually be born ‘pregnant’. Non-denominational local neighbourhood churches make the best plants. More unchurched people would go to church if there were a church that was conveniently located just around the corner right there in their own neighbourhood. Healthy church plants include a durable and dependable support network. It should really be within the DNA of every church to be alive and be able to multiply. If we can successfully reproduce disciples and leaders then we can successfully reproduce churches.

5.  I’ve been a fan of Chris Elrod‘s blog for quite awhile now, and he himself co-hosted a breakout session on blogging with Todd Rhoades and Scott Hodge. (I added Scott to my Blogroll a couple of days ago, and I just added Todd’s ‘Monday Morning Insight’ to it.) A blog is essentially an electronic extension of the person that is writing it. People all over the world will know you through your blog even though they have never met you in person. As a blogger you should always expect the unexpected. What you think will be a runaway smash hit on your blog could actually be a dismal flop. The unsuspecting blog entry that you don’t think that much about could actually be the one that pops big-time on the search engines and drives rush hour traffic straight to your blog en masse. (Don’t I know that !)

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Career Driving Food God Internet Life People Travel

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

1.  I drove from Homestead to Orlando this morning with a crew of about 16 (including kids) from Life Pointe Church. We took 4 vehicles with us (including mine). This is the longest one-day road-trip my car has been on since the first couple of weeks of March 2007 when I drove all the way up to the northwestern suburbs of Atlanta Georgia for a work-related conference.

2.  I paid a record-shattering $3.799 per gallon for gas along Florida’s Turnpike. 10.660 gallons of it went into my car, so that came out to a mind-boggling $40.50. I never thought that it would cost over $40 to fill up my fuel-efficient Saturn with less than 11 gallons of gas !

3.  Venus pointed out to me several times that perhaps my driving is just a wee-bit on the conservative side for her personal tastes. In fact she hinted that I drive like an old retired Floridian. She stated that she likes to hang out on the road with her ‘speeding buddies’. I inquired as to why she’s always late for everything if she’s always speeding. I also suggested that she leave much earlier to get to her destinations so that she wouldn’t have to speed, and she would arrive alive on-time. 

4.  To ‘rubberneck’ is to unnaturally turn your head at pretty much a 90° right angle and essentially stretch your neck so that it looks like it’s made out of rubber. When you’re driving along and everyone drives real slow so that they can examine the aftermath of a bad accident along the side of the road most people stretch their neck and hence ‘rubberneck’. Venus and I discussed that for a few minutes as Anne J. took a well-deserved nap.

5.  This is the first time since November 2006 that I’ve been here in Orlando. Once upon a time in a previous life not quite so far away I used to visit this city 3 or 4 or 5 or more times per year. Orlando used to be my playground – my home away from home – my South Beach – my Panama City Beach – my Cancun.

6.  Actual proof that it’s been awhile since I’ve been here in Orlando is the fact that I’ve made the wrong turn on at least 3 or 4 separate occasions right along the north end of International Drive – a road that I used to roll on quite frequently during a decade of fun.

7.  I’m attending the 2008 National New Church Conference here in Orlando. It’s also known as the ‘Exponential’ Conference – subtitled ‘The DNA Of Reproducing Churches’. I took a whole bunch of notes ‘chicken-scratch’ style during the first afternoon of sessions. Eventually I will decipher my notes and then transpose them into a separate blog entry that is most worthy to be included within the prestigious ‘Tossed Salad’ brand name here on this blog. Judging by how many raw notes I took this afternoon alone this may turn out to be a multi-part mini-series of ‘Tossed Salad’ editions rather than one big one. It’s all good. There’s a lot of learnin’ goin’ on here, and the funnest part of learnin’ is sharin’ the knowledge. Knowledge Is Power !  Power Is Fame !

8.  Pastor Travis and Pastor Paul are recording their notes from the conference via the new and modern way – directly onto their laptops on-site – and in Travis’s case – directly onto his blog and-or his Twitter. Believe it or not in the specific breakout session that I personally attended on blogging we spent a good 10 minutes talking about Twitter. That word – ‘Twitter’ – must have been uttered at least 50 times. Before P.J. introduced the entire Twittering concept to me and his tens of fans via his blog I had never heard that word spoken before in my entire Life.

9.  Our entire crew met up at Giordano’s for dinner over in Lake Buena Vista (very near the far-eastern entrance to Walt Disney World). We ate a bunch of their ‘World Famous Stuffed Pizza’, and in no time flat we were pretty much stuffed, walking funny, and making wacky sounds with our bodies. I took my Lipitor a good 5 hours later than normal. Better late than never – especially after this potentially heart-damaging meal !  Paul – Remind me to give you my Doctor’s business card upon our return back home to Homestead.  🙂

10.  I couldn’t possibly have more genuine fun here in Orlando than I did today, or on any other day that I’ve spent here in Orlando over the past 15 years. I am so totally humbled and blessed to be able to participate in this wonderful experience along God’s fantastic journey.

Categories
Food People

The Chris Day Club

This is not me. I am not the Restaurant Director of this fine hotel restaurant in the heart of midtown Manhattan.

I can’t cook. Virtually all of my food comes out of a restaurant or in a box.

This edition of ‘The Chris Day Club’ is sponsored by ‘Bachelors For A Better Meal’ (‘B-FAB-ME’).

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Animals Food God Health Life Music People

The Major’s Walk-A-Thon

Sky: Partly Cloudy
Temperature: 67°F
Relative Humidity: 80%
Winds: E 3 MPH
Barometric Pressure: 30.05 Rising

My thoughts:

1.  I ate a MASSIVE breakfast at the Cracker Barrel in Florida City this morning during the six-o-clock hour. A stack of warm and buttery French Toast was totally drenched in authentic maple syrup and accompanied with scrambled eggs with melted American cheese and hot smoked sausage. P.S. I weigh 165 pounds.  😉

2.  After the feast I came home to do the walk during the seven-o-clock hour. It was another record-tying 2.2-mile walk, and I did it in less than 41 minutes (compared with 42 minutes last Saturday morning). I guess I walked just a tad bit brisker this week than last week.

3.  During the first quarter of the walk I totally frightened a woman who was carelessly walking her dog. As I walked my continuous straight line along the left-edge of the street a lady walking her dog was approaching from the right-side of the street. She was crossing the street, but she wasn’t looking where she was going. She was looking in the completely opposite direction. Her dog was going nuts, but she was totally oblivious to it. I swerved around her so that she wouldn’t walk right into me, and as I walked behind her that’s when she noticed me. Pedestrians get killed by oncoming vehicular traffic when they pull stunts like that. Ironically, “Wake Up” from KJ52 and Toby Morrell was rockin’ my iPod Shuffle at the time.

4.  I may not have big muscles to show for it, but I am the most physically fit today than I have ever been in my entire life and Life. I am in far better shape today than I was during my late-teens and early-to-middle-20s when I had to run a mile-and-a-half every year in the Air Force.

5.  Tomorrow morning at Life Pointe Church I get my weekly workout from 7:30 AM to 8:30 AM lifting, carrying, moving, and setting up objects in the main lobby of the movie theatre as we transform it into a setting that is suitable for our church family. I’ll be sweating again. It’s all good. It’s all for God.