loveisgreaterthan[dot]com

one of my favorite rss feeds in my google reader is lifehacker.com. i don’t remember how i found the site, but friends, i’m serious… this site helps me every day. the site is all about tips and tricks on how to do life, but do it better.

they recently released a book, and i found some sample chapters on mud puppy’s blog. one of which i was particularly interested in, the section on managing your email. i quickly read through the entire sample section, and decided right then and there i wanted to incorporate this email system into my life.

i receive around a hundred emails every day. honestly, apple mail (and my direct push enabled smart phone) owns my life. at least it used to. something had to happen or else i was going to lose my mind. yes, ladies and gentleman, i am a recovering email-aholic. my apple mail automatically checked every minute, and every time i received an email i would stop doing whatever i was doing, check it, and sometimes handle it. it’s amazing i’ve gotten anything done the last four years at work!

two days into this, i am maintaining a zero-inbox. which is to say, everything is dealt with and has a place, there is nothing that needs immediate attention, and people are getting responded to in a much more timely fashion, even though my email now checks itself once every fifteen minutes (lifehacker recommends every hour, i’m slowly working my way up to that.)

i’ve gone from 5128 emails in my inbox, to zero… in a little under forty-eight hours. two days in a row i have completely rocked my to-do list, probably working more efficiently than i ever have. it truly is nothing short of amazing.

so, it goes without saying that i highly recommend any of you who struggle with GTD (getting things done), to-do lists, email, or whatever, to check out lifehacker and their book.

not sure why i’m up so late, but i am… so whatever.

i was reading through some blogs and i found this one on ragamuffin soul. it absolutely broke my heart… click here to read, or check out a quote below:

One week ago David Trotter, pastor of Revolution Church in Long Beach CA and a blog acquaintance of mine wrote this on his blog… …That was the last post he wrote on his blog.

Just 2 days prior he informed his church that he was taking a sabbatical because God was nudging him to figure some things out.

Two days after he wrote that post, he left his wife and 2 kids for another woman.

i would be straight-faced lying to you if i sat here and typed something about how i can’t imagine how guy could do this. no joking here, really… we are ALL one or two steps away from making a HUGE mistake in our lives. not a single day goes by where i do not face some sort of temptation, whether it be from the opposite sex, alcohol, or any other of a number of ways to screw something great in my life up.

there used to be times where i absolutely resented some of the rules we have in place at cedarcreek to help safeguard the employees against sexual sin. i was going to link to them here, as i thought we still had them displayed on our website, but unfortunately i cannot find the link on our site. luckily, i did find them on saddleback church’s (we adopted it from them.) here are the rules i have to live by to work at cedarcreek… some of you may look at them and freak out, some may not… check it:

1. Thou shalt not go to lunch alone with the opposite sex. *
2. Thou shalt not have the opposite sex pick you up or drive you places when it is just the two of you.*
3. Thou shalt not kiss any attender of the opposite sex or show affection that could be questioned.*
4. Thou shalt not visit the opposite sex alone at home. *
5. Thou shalt not counsel the opposite sex alone at the office, and thou shalt not counsel the opposite sex more than once without that person’s mate. Refer them.
6. Thou shalt not discuss detailed sexual problems with the opposite sex in counseling. Refer them.
7. Thou shalt not discuss your marriage problems with an attender of the opposite sex.
8. Thou shalt be careful in answering emails, instant messages, chatrooms, cards or letters from the opposite sex.
9. Thou shalt make your co-worker your protective ally.
10. Thou shalt pray for the integrity of other staff members.

* The first four do not apply to unmarried staff.

this is not a joke, we take it very seriously. why? because we are well aware of the temptations we all face. again, i would be straight-faced lying to you if i said that i thought myself above this. and honestly, who amongst you can say otherwise? these rules, while i admit to resenting them at times, are there for a very good reason and i have grown thankful for them. they’ve been around for a few years now, and honestly i barely even notice them anymore.

a lot of us, especially the guys, even go so far as to have accountability software installed on our computers (x3watch for most of, myself included), the internet is a very tempting place!

but this is just one aspect… just one way to “fall.” even these rules cannot protect me all the time. even with these rules times will come where i will have to take a step back and acknowledge that maybe i have to change a behavior or a relationship. it’s difficult, i am not going to lie… but it’s worth the trouble. my wife, my life, my career, are all worth the trouble.

what about you? what lengths… if any, do you go to to help safeguard yourself from a “fall?”

six years ago was roughly the last time i can honestly say that i was a part of group of friends that met and hang out regularly. by regularly, i mean at least once a week, but more likely two to three times.

i miss this.

don’t get me wrong, i understand completely that these were also the days where i didn’t have a real job, a home, and most importantly, a wife. still, there are parts of that era of my life i would love to get back. an argument could be had over whether or not the relationships i had during that time were truly authentic, but i choose to believe that they were.

my life now consists of work, wife, home, pets, and SOMETIMES family. please know, that i am not complaining about my place in life. i love my wife something fierce, and love almost every moment i get to spend with her. i think she would even agree with me though that lasting, real, and authentic relationships is something we both wish we had in our lives.

it’s hard for me, for a variety of reasons. i don’t really feel like i can open up to the people i work with… there just seems to be an invisible line of what is an appropriate work relationship and what is not. i don’t expect everyone to understand this, maybe i’m just weird, but i’ve never been one to become good friends with someone i work with. it’s just uncomfortable for me.

past that, my life is so busy with everything i already listed, that i seldom have opportunities to meet new people, and honestly i wonder if i really want to go through the hassle anyway. there’s something unnerving about meeting new people, getting to know them, and more importantly letting them get to know you. if i were to be honest, it’s almost like an un-winnable scenario. i want… nay, crave authentic relationships, but i don’t want to go through the trouble of forging new ones.

these are just a few reasons why i was so happy to hear that my old friend john was moving back home. even though he moves back under some pretty crappy circumstances, selfishly it still made me happy to have him home. still, it’s unfair for me to place this “i need a real, authentic relationship with someone who will never be afraid to call me on my crap” burden solely on his shoulders. regardless of whether or not he would accept it… the real issue here is whether or not that i’ll carve out time in my schedule anyway.

life has certainly gotten complicated here in this “quarterlife” section of my life. there are very few easy decisions anymore. thankfully i’ve at least got the career and marriage aspect of my life figured out, which albeit are two BIG, if not the BIGGEST parts, but i still feel like there is something seriously missing.

now, my cedarcreek-homies may be quick to point me to a “life group.” this is an issue all on it’s own. i can’t be in a life group with staff members and truly open up for reasons i already listed above, and i really don’t think i can connect personally with people who attend cedarcreek due to the fact that i am on staff with the church they attend and look to for spiritual guidance. for the most part, people who don’t work in ministry, or have never worked in ministry, can not possibly understand what it’s like. and it’s a HUGE part of me. even my wife doesn’t understand it fully. this isn’t to say i will never be in another life group, i fully recognize the fact that ryanne and i SHOULD be in one, possibly even leading one… i just don’t know if i’ll ever be able to be truly authentic in one.

there are times when i give honest thought to just picking up (if my wife would ever go for it) and hauling our lives straight out of town, starting over somewhere else far, far away. with each passing year, the roots to this part of the world get deeper and deeper, and i feel the door of relocation closing faster and faster. even if i were to do that, there is no guarantee it would fix anything. quite the opposite, really.

what do you do (if anything) to keep authentic relationships a priority in your life?

sorry for the slow day. not really a whole lot going on. just trying to clear out a huge freakin’ to-do list. being out from work for a while (i was sick) lends itself to a whole lot of work once you get back.

well… until i can think of something better to write. enjoy this video.

• watching shawshank redemption. i’ve seen this movie so many times i’ve lost count, but it’s still good every time.
• i haven’t ate a single thing yet today. i feel like i should. it’s not that i feel like i can’t eat, i just don’t really have any desire. for whatever reason, zoup! sounds really good. i must have saw a commercial or something, because i have never ate their food (or in this case, soup) before.
• really looking forward to patrick henry hughes coming back to cedarcreek in february. he will be speaking/performing just two weeks after his “extreme home makeover” appears on national television. should be a great weekend.
• i hope i feel better tomorrow morning when i wake up, i really can’t afford to stay sick for much longer.
• god bless my wife, i think she had a tougher night than i did and she still managed to go to work today. good for her, but i’m a wimp.
• really wanting to get out and take some pictures… i’m feeling the urge
• hillary signed papers saying she wouldn’t campaign or appear on the ballot in michigan or florida… yet she did both anyway. great start on building trust.
• edwards dropped out, should be interesting to see who he endorses (along with his 56 delegates). i think the kennedy endorsement of obama would shield him a bit if edwards decided to endorse hillary, but i don’t see that happening. edwards was too much of a “change” candidate to endorse someone whom he often referred to as the “status-quo.”
• i really can’t wait till super-tuesday.
• about three weeks till i’ll be in the carribbean on a cruise. looks like i’m going to miss my goal getting to 320 by february. that saddens me.
• i really wish i could afford a treadmill/bike/elliptical… some form of exercise inside.
• i really wish i could afford (and have the tenacity to use) a gym membership.
• this last weekend at church was outstanding. we showed a dave ramsey video for our message. i love dave ramsey… i long for the day when i can shout “i’m debt-free!”
• ryanne’s and my previous landlords finally mailed out our deposit check back to us. unfortunately, they forgot to take out the $315 we owed them for the remainder of december’s rent… so the check is roughly twice as much as it should be for. does it make me an awful person that i seriously thought about cashing it and just not saying anything?
• we did end up calling and letting them know the problem though… haven’t heard back yet.

links to the full sets of these photo’s are here and here.

how do you do church?

i’ve been in oklahoma for about twenty-four hours now, and i’m already in love.

it’s sixty-three degrees outside, and i’m currently sitting in my new favorite coffee shop (vintage timeless coffee on 150th street, edmond oklahoma) enjoying a cup of fair-trade, orgranic brew. this place is really quite cool, and it came to me as a recommendation from terry storch himself. i love the coffee cups. they just have a hodge-podge of crazy coffee mugs they use for in-store drinks. there is a college basketball game playing on a hd lcd in the corner (yes… sports in a coffee shop), and the whole place has more of a trendy bar feeling than a stiff, jazz’d out, retro coffee bistro. free wi-fi is always a plus as well.

having a conversation with the female barista was quite enjoyable. not sure if it’s the job or the people, but everyone i’ve ran into down here is quite friendly. it’s a bit of a departure from the “screw you, i’ve got my own crap to take care of” attitude that seems to prevail in northwest ohio. i’m not ready to say i’m in “the south” at the moment, so i’m not chalking it up to “southern hospitality” just yet.

last night, brent and i were looking for dinner and found our way to los arcos, an authentic mexican restaurant just down the street from out hotel. the recommendation came from a random stranger on twitter who must have seen my post about looking for a place to eat in edmond. i google’d the place once i received his message, and it had a couple positive reviews, so we decided to go for it. it was probably the best mexican food i’ve had to date. my wife would have loved it, my chicken enchilada was absolutely smothered in a creamy white cheese concoction. and not only do they give you chips and salsa for free, but they through a cup of queso into the free munchies mix too.

so far, i’d say this trip has really proved to me the power of the internet and it’s communities. the two favorite places i’ve been so far (other than the memorial of course) have come entirely from recommendations of people whom i have never met face-to-face, and one of which i have never spoken in any fashion to before. i’m not one for the “tourism” track. i don’t want to go to the places the tourists go, i want to immerse myself in the culture of where i’m at, thus i want to eat where locals eat, drink coffee where the locals drink coffee. starbucks and applebees is great for traveling and quick stops, but once i’m somewhere for a few days, i want to know where people really go.

thankfully brent has indulged my “fly by the seat of my pants, take advice from strangers” traveling style.

the barista-lady has recommended us a local authentic new york-style deli for dinner that we’re contemplating. we really wanted to just eat fast food for the remainder of the trip to cut costs, so i’m not sure we’re going to pursue it. that being said, brent’s comment leaving the hotel this morning was “i’d totally be up for hitting los arcos again.” so who knows where we’ll be eating tonight.

today we’ve got some time to kill (hence the coffee house tour). we plan on arriving at the edmond campus of lifechurch.tv at 4:30pm. we’re meeting with the internet campus people for their production of the 5pm service, and then we’re hightailing it to the oklahoma city campus to actually attend a service, check out the kids area, take some pictures, and then off to dallas.

tomorrow is going to be a whirlwind, not a whole lot of time to dilly-dally. we have to be at the grapevine location of fellowship church by 9:15am for a meeting that was set up for us by our web-guy; will (who just happens to be the sound guy at the downtown dallas campus for fellowship as well) with their streambox “king” cody. from will’s email, it sounds like he’s going to answer some questions for us, and then we may be able to sit in on a service from the production booth… which i am PUMPED about. then, it’s off to the downtown dallas location to see a service, and then a late lunch with will.

it should be a really good day. i’m pretty sure we’ve decided on taking off after lunch, and heading back some of the way towards toledo on sunday night. if we can at least make it back to springfield, missouri… it should make the driving on monday a little less annoying. there is a possibility i’ll even be back in town for the national championship game, which would not be a terrible thing at all.

don’t know when i’ll be able to post again. if i’m not too tired tonight, then perhaps i’ll post a few pictures from todays adventure. if not… the i suppose this will be the last you’ll hear from me till at least monday evening. so, pay attention to the twitter feed to the right, as i’ll continue to update that.

oklahoma, you and your people have stolen my heart. could i please get that back before i leave?

my business trip to dallas was cancelled a couple months ago. it’s been rescheduled.

for any of you down that way, or anyone else who cares to know, here’s the plan…

• depart from lovely northwest ohio on thursday, january 3rd… bright and early
• drive the whole way, or stay somewhere in between to keep drive time manageable
• arrive in oklahoma city/edmond late thursday evening or midday friday, depending on where we stop
• visit lifechurch.tv’s edmond and oklahoma city campuses on satuday
• maybe a “little” sightseeing on saturday as well
• leave for dallas saturday evening
• attend fellowship church, two campuses on sunday
• hopefully have some face to face time with some of the tech guys at both churches

the point of the trip, is to do some serious research on the multi-site model of church, and how it affects production, as well as on a piece of equipment known as the “streambox,” which allows online streaming of live video.

anyone in those necks of the woods want to get together? we have a little free time, so let me know!