Archives for 2010

10 Top of Mind Reflections from 2010

I sat down and typed out my reflections on the lessons I’ve learned this year just as fast as they would come. Here are the the Top 10. If you don’t like em, go learn your own! 1. You don’t really know who your friends are until you’re in trouble. Then they come out of […]

The Secret I Learned From Victoria

There is always a penalty for procrastination. Mine was that I had to step into a Victoria’s Secret to finish my Christmas shopping. A just punishment for putting it off until it was too late to order my wife something online. I braced myself as I walked the parking lot. This is no big deal. […]

Favorite Posts from 2010

Thanks to all of you who read what I write here. After just over 8.5 years of blogging, your encouragement keeps me going. Based upon the number of readers and/or my personal preference, here are my favorite posts of 2010 (in order of appearance):1. Unacceptable Email Drop-In2. Cursing Church3. Why Do Storyteller’s Embellish?4. The Hardest […]

Let’s Go Gigging!

When I was a boy, my family spent many of our Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays in Port Aransas, Texas. We were there for one purpose: to gig flounder. Every night we’d put on our waders and load up our equipment and head to the ship channel where we’d spend most of the night walking around […]

The Starbridge Novels

When I read fiction, I almost always read “guy fiction.” If spies, explosions, and covert operations aren’t involved, then I have a hard time paying attention. I’m shallow that way. Every now and then, I find an author who keeps my attention without blowing anything up. I love the Harmony Novels, and I’ll read just […]

The F-Word

In this post, I want to noodle around a bit with an idea and see what comes of it. Over the past few weeks, I’ve had several friends gently, lovingly, but forthrightly challenge my use of the word “failure” in a few of my recent posts. It seems that some have done so because they’re […]

A Way Closed Behind Me

The final lesson I mentioned in a previous post was that there are some things about yourself (and God) you’ll never know until you step out in faith and try something new. Many who watched Fulcrum from afar have had a hard time understanding what went wrong. We seemed to have everything a new church […]

Are You a Differentiated Leader?

Here’s a great summary of Friedman’s theory of differentiated leadership. Thanks to Mark Riddle for the heads up. I also can’t recommend Friedman’s Generation to Generation and A Failure of Nerve enough. Get em!

10 Lessons from a Failed Church Plant

I’ve promised myself that I’m not going to spend too much time on this blog rehashing why Fulcrum didn’t work out. However, I think it will be therapeutic for me, and hopefully beneficial to some of you, to share some of the lessons I’ve learned from this experience. Before I get into the lessons, let […]

You Gotta Know When to Fold Them

Yesterday I met with The Fulcrum Community Management Team in Midland, Texas. The team consists of representatives from the various churches and organizations that have been supporting us in this endeavor. The purpose of our meeting was to formally and officially bring an end to the Fulcrum Community. This came after several weeks of discernment […]