Archive for October, 2010

APPreciation

by Tim Schraeder on 10/29/2010 in Just For Fun with 2 Comments

So yesterday, after months and months of being off the bandwagon, I finally got an iPad.

[I know, what took me so long?]

So pretty much all of last night [minus time spent watching the upsetting season finale of Project Runway] I was downloading apps, setting up my Mail accounts and everything else. I also ordered a DODOcase a few weeks ago and it arrived yesterday… perfect timing!

I asked for some help from all of you via twitter and Facebook about what apps I should download and you all gave me some great feedback:

danielgertson
RT @gerrytrue @IIryanIIbrownII @timschraeder flipboard. Evernote. Zumocast // no doubt!! Evernote & Zumocast have made my dock…

garypetro
@timschraeder flipboard is my favorite app

chuckscoggins
@timschraeder Flipboard

isaacdowning
also – Reeder for RSS. Instapaper. Kindle rather than iBooks: cheaper & has 200x more titles. Lots of free book promos too.

isaacdowning
 Dropbox. Simplenote. don’t bother w iWork unless you must. Too much $, barely used, & awkward/painful to type that much.

dhepburn
Cut the Rope HD, Twitter for iPad, NewsRack, Dropbox, IMDB, Angry Birds HD, Instapaper, to name a few. :-)

jeremysexton
Dropbox, Evernote, all the ebook apps, Penultimate, Netflix, GoodReader, VLC

coreydylan
popplets!

casslangton
…flip board for sure, instapaper, cut the rope, penultimate, writer, goodreader, plants v zombies, …start there???

nlamarre
angry birds!

muntz
Kindle and iBooks for sure. #iPadApps

dave_blanchard
goodreader, twitterific, and kindle

felicitywhite
Netflix gets the most action on my iPad! : ) Flipboard is fun, too.

samjessup
Netflix, youversion are both great.

So, what else am I missing? What do you suggest? What do I *HAVE* to get?!

Monday Mind Dump, California Edition

by Tim Schraeder on 10/18/2010 in Just For Fun with 4 Comments
  • Greetings from San Francisco. I’m wrapping up a weekend trip to the Bay Area for my sister Amanda’s wedding.
  • The wedding was such a beautiful mix of cultures and family. Our family is Mexican, his is Assyrian… so there were many traditions and new experiences to be had. America has no culture when it comes to weddings… Assyrians know how to party!
  • One of the highlights of my trip here, other than seeing my sister married, was driving past the facebook offices in Palo Alto. I shed a tear or two driving past and I’m pretty sure I saw Mark Zuckerberg’s BMW in the lot. The sun was in my way trying to snag a picture but you get the idea.
  • Prior to coming to San Fran I made to trips to the ER. I was having terrible migraines and had to have a spinal tap, CT scan, etc. Everything came back clear but now I have a terrible sore throat and swollen lymph nodes, so I’m headed to the doctor as soon as I get back to Chicago. Hoping to get to the bottom of this and get better soon!
  • Last week I sat in my first conference call as an official board member for the Center for Church Communication. I’m humbled by the opportunity to serve alongside so many men and women who have made a significant impact on my life and journey doing church communications. Definitely standing on the shoulders of some giants.
  • Catalyst was incredible. If you missed it, I blogged all of notes here. Standouts [to me] included Craig Groeschel, Christine Caine and Seth Godin. Huge thanks to Brad Lomenick and his team for consistently creating one of the best leadership events for young leaders!
  • Speaking of Christine Caine, I’m really loving her message and her heart for the Church. Check out this message she did on being in the world but not of it. Some great thoughts and challenges in under 10 minutes. Well worth the time.

  • I’ve been emailing back and forth with Ben Arment about Story 2011 and am so excited about what’s coming together already!
  • HillsongNYC started this weekend. I so wish I could have been there! So excited we FINALLY have a Hillsong Church in the USA. I am excited to see it grow and influence NYC as well as to be an inspiration to churches here in the US.
  • Two great FREE events to put on your calendar… The Power of a Whisper webinar with Bill Hybels & Jim Mellado is coming up on October 29. I’m just finishing the book and can’t wait to hear Bill’s thoughts on having the guts to follow God’s voice. Also, check out the Leadership and Influence Summit, November 3-4. An unbelievable lineup of people and you don’t have to travel, just tune in online.
  • TOMS Shoes and charity:water are at it again. This time I’m going to get a pair before they sell out!
  • And finally… a thought to leave you with from one of my heroes: “The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it.”

Andy Stanley, Round 2 :: Catalyst 2010

by Tim Schraeder on 10/08/2010 in Catalyst 10 with 1 Comment

Andy Stanley is a pastor, communicator, author, and founder of North Point Ministries, Inc. (NPM). Since its inception in 1995, North Point Ministries has grown to from one campus to three in the Atlanta area and has helped plant over twenty strategic partner churches throughout the U.S. Each Sunday, more than 20,000 adults attend worship services at one of NPM’s campuses: North Point Community Church, Browns Bridge Community Church, and Buckhead Church. Andy’s books include the newly released The Grace of God, as well as Communicating for a Change: Seven Keys to Irresistible Communication, Making Vision Stick, Next Generation Leader: 5 Essentials for Those Who Will Shape the Future, The Principle of the Path: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, and How Good Is Good Enough? Andy lives in Alpharetta, Georgia, with his wife, Sandra and their three children.

  • The local church should be the best run organization in your city.
  • The people in the marketplace should be asking how we get such great people to do such extraordinary things with such extraordinary passion.
  • The organizational side of our church should be extraordinary.
  • All truth is God’s truth.
  • It takes us time to find chapter and verse, but it’s all God’s truth.
  • We all have opposable thumbs… it enables us to do things that no other thing in creation can do.
  • With our thumb and four fingers we can exert pressure to lift things.
  • What allows us to make progress is that we are able to exert the right amount of pressure for the right amount of time.
  • Pressure and tension happen every single day in our organizations.
  • Tension is a necessity for any organization that wants to make progress.
  • Unresolved tension is a part of any organization that is making progress.
  • Great leaders don’t solve all of the problems and don’t resolve all of the tensions… they learn to use the necessary tension of organizations life for the sake of progress.
  • If you try to solve all of the problems and all of the tension, you lose the ability to make progress.

Every organization has problems that shouldn’t be solved and tensions that shouldn’t be resolved.

  • There are many tensions and problems inside of our organizations.
    • The tension between excellence and careful stewardship.
    • The tension between research/development and sales.
    • Tension between management and leadership.
    • Tension between local and global outreach.
    • Leading people versus developing people.
  • We have a temptation to try to come up with a system or solution for our tensions.

If you resolve any of those tensions you will create new tension.

  • You create a harsher climate for getting things done.
  • If you try to solve tensions you end up wasting a lot of time and energy and impede progress.
  • If you cut off your thumb you feel the effects immediately.

If you resolve any of those tensions you put a barrier on progress.

Progress depends on the successful management of tensions.

To distinguish between problems to solve and tensions that need to be managed, ask these questions:

1 – Does this problem or tension keep resurfacing?

  • Do people keep asking the same questions?
  • Do the same issues keep coming up?

2 – Are there mature advocates on both sides?

3 – Are the two sides of the tension really interdependent?

  • Are they leveraging each other to be a tension in the first place?

The role of leadership is to leverage tension for the benefit of the organization.

  • Tension results in progress when leveraged properly.
  • Identify the key tensions to be managed in your organization.
  • Create terminology.
  • Inform your core.
  • Continually give value to both sides.
  • Our words, as leaders, weigh 1,000 pounds.
  • We must get into the habit of methodically speak value to both sides.
  • Don’t weigh in too heavily based on your personal biases.
  • Our goal should be to make sure the important progress-critical tensions never drop out of sight.
  • We can accidentally win the argument, trump opinions and cut off our thumbs.
  • Understand the upside of the opposite side; understand the downside of your side.
  • We have to make sure tension remains and learn to manage the tension.
  • Don’t allow strong personalities to win the day.
  • It’s not a win when somebody wins.
  • You need passionate people who will champion their side but you need mature people who understand this reality.
  • Don’t think in terms of balance; think rhythm.
  • Leadership is more art than science.
  • Don’t be a fair leader, just do the right thing.
  • As a leader one of the most valuable things you can do for your organization is to differentiate between tensions that need to be managed and problems that need to be solved.
  • Learn to leverage your tensions… they can be key to the growth and progress of your organization.

TD Jakes :: Catalyst 10

by Tim Schraeder on 10/08/2010 in Catalyst 10 with No comments

Bishop T. D. Jakes is founder and senior pastor of the legendary 30,000-member Dallas-based church, The Potter’s House. In a short number of years, his motivating messages have reached the world through best-selling books, award-winning music, critically acclaimed plays and record-breaking events. Named by Time magazine as “America’s Best Preacher,” Bishop Jakes’ message of healing and restoration is unparalleled, transcending cultural and denominational barriers within the church and beyond. His weekly television outreach, The Potter’s Touch, is a favorite throughout America, Africa, Australia, Europe and the Caribbean.

  • As a leader you want to lead people as God leads you.
  • As He takes you further you take them further.
  • Our country is changing, our world is changing.
  • As the world changes we have to change.
  • The business world is changing.
  • The understand you can’t cater to one people group, you have to cater to everybody.
  • Being a leader means keeping up with the trends.
  • Leadership is having the foresight to see where you are going.
  • God has given us the challenge of reaching the world.
  • God said, “Go into all the world…” but we act like He said, “Go into your community…”
  • Our responsibility is to speak to all people and share what we have in an incredible way.
  • We have the answer to the world; the solution to every problem… so why do we only share it with our community?
  • As you contemplate great leadership, you may have to be prepared to take the risk of getting out front.
  • If you get out front you’ll get shot at.
  • They’ll pick you out if you are out front, not if you are in the crowd.
  • We need to take the risk of being shot out because God has called us to be forward-thinking people.
  • We can’t hold our treasure to ourselves.
  • People who hang on the corner have a limited world view.
  • We have to learn to lead outside of our comfort zone.
  • Stay off the corner.
  • What God has for us is not in the separate nuances of our comfort zone surrounded by everything we understand.
  • What a tragedy to hide what we have!
  • We need to get out into the thrust of things where the grass is green and where the harvest is plentiful.
  • Our churches will become obsolete if we stick to our corners.
  • Jesus told us to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.
  • As leaders God is going to do a new thing in your life.
  • Our world has changed dramatically.
  • The death of civility is present everywhere.
  • It’s easy because we can hide behind a computer
  • Our job as Christian leaders is not to allow anything that happens around us to force us back into our corners.
  • If Ruth would have gone back to her corner she would have missed Boaz.
  • You can’t change the world from the corner.
  • God put His tabernacle, His glory, in the center of the tribe.
  • The Tabernacle of God in 2010 will not be hidden from people that need it, we are going to put it down in the center of the camp.
  • When people retreat because they can’t get jobs, etc… they retreat back into what’s safe.
  • People who play it safe are not leaders.
  • You can’t play it safe and be a leader.
  • You have to get out front.
  • You will be shot at.
  • The angels of the Lord encamp around those who fear them.
  • Greater is He that is in you than he who is after you.
  • We have a broad reach today but are we armed with the language that reaches the masses… or does our language alienate the world?
  • Does our language reach people or alienate them?
  • The disciples had the challenge of taking what happened on the cross and translate it to the culture of the world around them.
  • You can’t reach the world if you aren’t a multi-cultural person.
  • You have to take the risk of bringing people into your life who are not like you.
  • Leaders are forward thinking people that are stretched.
  • You can’t be stretched and but insulated privately.
  • Tension is good.
  • Run the risk of saying something stupid.
  • The only way to learn to not say something stupid is to say something stupid.
  • We need to know the language of the masses to reach the masses.
  • God can speak to anything or anyone.
  • Who can you speak to?
  • You can tell who you speak to by who you draw.
  • If you want to know who you draw, do the cell phone test… see who’s in it. If every name in your cell phone is pretty much like you, this is the year to break the rule.
  • Every culture has a language.
  • Businesses and organizations spend time and energy researching and learning to relate to different cultures.
  • Only the church doesn’t take the time to learn the language of the masses… we expect them to understand us.
  • If you always do what you’ve always done you’ll always be where you’ve always been.
  • Fish grow to the size of the tank you put them in… why are so many of our churches like small aquariums?
  • God wants to release us into the ocean.
  • Until we are willing to be uncomfortable we can’t grow.
  • If people are always looking to you for answers, get out of the room.
  • Get out of your element.
  • God wants us to sail out into the deep… not drop us over a 10 gallon fish tank.
  • ON YOUR MARK, GET SET, GO!
  • GO needs to get so down in our spirit that we go to places we look at on TV that make us uneasy.
  • We need to GO not just to teach but to learn.
  • Every great speaker is a great listener; every great teacher is a great learner.
  • If you cannot hear in the Spirit it affects how you speak.
  • We need to listen and learn.
  • It’s growing time.
  • Our world is changing and Jesus knew it would change when he told us to go into it.
  • Go nervous. Go praying. Go scared. Go uncertain.
  • For God’s sake, just GO!
  • What you will find is that people are hungry to know you.
  • People are starving to be known.
  • People want to be understood and loved for we are sharing the same air… dealing with the same stresses, fighting the same battles.
  • God does not dwell in the corners… His House is in the center… all of the tongues, tribes, and nations gather around Him.
  • When they all get together we will see we were created in His image and His likeness.
  • No one people group represents the totality of who God is.
  • When we all gather together, we reflect who God is.
  • God does not allow sameness to procreate.
  • Fruit is born when differences come together.
  • Fight the fight of your differences.
  • The differences bring truth.
  • Diversity brings the blessing.
  • This is the time for us to be more fruitful than we have ever been before.
  • The only thing you must avoid is chicken.
  • The reason the Bible talks about eagles the most is because the have the propensity to soar above the storms.
  • Chickens can’t fly… everything they do is in one dimension.
  • As you begin to grow and come out of the corner you have one decision to make: will you be an eagle and soar above the storms or will you be on the ground trying to get high?
  • We need to spread our wings as far as they can reach to overcome the storms, hostility and lack of civility of our times.
  • Let it push us up, not down.
  • People need to irrigate our thinking with fresh perceptions of what is happening in the world around us.
  • They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength and rise up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not be faint.
  • Stretch beyond comfort, familiarity, and the mundane.
  • You have to prepare the people around you for the changes you are about to make.
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