FlowerDust.net

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
Where there is hatred,
let me sow love;
Where there is injury,
pardon;
Where there is error,
the truth;
Where there is doubt,
the faith;
Where there is despair,
hope;
Where there is darkness,
light;
And where there is sadness,
joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled,
as to console;
To be understood,
as to understand;
To be loved
as to love.

For it
is in giving
that we receive;
It is in pardoning
that we are pardoned;
And it
is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

St. Francis

chris and i are headed out of town for a few days to a location where WE KNOW NOBODY. we will meet with nobody and eat with nobody and just hang out…just the two of us…like we did seven freaking years ago.

[sorry, can you tell? this is much needed.]

i hate leaving our cats alone even if it’s just for a few days, but i know they’ll be fine. all of this blog is to say…

are you a cat person or a dog person?

i personally hate dogs…unless they are smaller than cats.

[image from nataliedee - not for the younger eyes]

i’ve had the opportunity to meet some amazing people over the last month…some of them have spoken into my life in crazy and unexpected ways.

last night, i had a conversation with a pastor who i really don’t know very well, but i wanted to hear some more of his story. by the end of the phone call, the objective of the call turned around and he had asked me about some of my story…and had me literally weeping as i sat in my car by my house. i was able to share some things with him that i rarely share…and he was able to speak into those things with truth, objectivity and love.

it’s weird, and maybe it shows how messed up i am [how messed up we are?] when it’s easier to share some of the most ugly, painful things with people we don’t know, but we keep those things hidden or tucked away from the people in our everyday lives. i’m not quite sure why that is. or if it’s bad. or good. or neutral.

all i know is i am really glad we never know how god can use someone regardless of how close they may be to us in either proximity or intimacy.

ht: bs/sg

last saturday, chris and i went with some friends to a ghost tour in franklin. franklin has quite a history behind it, especially during the civil war era. who knew?

i never really believed in ghosts until i was in eighth grade. my family had just moved into a house in abilene, texas, and my friend julie was spending the night. we were up talking and out of nowhere my bed sheets and comforter were ripped off of me. not in a casual, fall-off-the-bed kind of way, either. it was like someone had grabbed them, yanked them off full force, and threw them in the closet which was at the foot of my bed.

julie was directly across from me the entire time. it freaked the both of us out and i slept in the hall for months after that happened.

whether or not it was a ghost - i don’t know…i didn’t physically see anything, but i know something out of the ordinary happened that night!

so, what about you? any ghost stories? or do you think it’s a bunch of hullabaloo?*

—

*you gotta give me some love for using the word hullabaloo in a sentence.

i need a small army who is willing to sign up, sight unseen, for a secret mission.

only those who sign up will get the details (and you’ll have the option of saying no once you do sign up). the rest of you lurkers will just have to wait until november 10th to find out.

three facts about the mission:

1) you want to help provide dignity and safety to those who are living in poverty by using social media

2) you need to have a blog and/or a trusted list of people you can email or message somehow (absolutely no spamming)

3) you are not afraid of audaciously scary big goals. like really big.

if this sounds like you, leave me a comment below (make sure to include a good email address in the email field) and by wednesday night i’ll be in touch with further details.

i am so excited about this mission…it’s unlike anything i’ve ever seen before!

it was in the wall street journal a couple weeks ago* and it was covered by the tennessean this weekend.

churches using mystery shoppers. or is it mystery worshippers?

eh, call it what you will.

from the tenneesean:

The person sitting next to you in church today may look like an average visitor, but be careful, he might be taking notes.

A growing number of churches are using mystery worshippers, consultants giving congregations the same kind of unbiased, unfiltered feedback that secret shoppers give retail stores or restaurants. The mystery worshippers give churches the kind of honest responses that newcomers almost never do. From angry parking lot attendants to boring sermons, they let the churches know what they are doing right and wrong.

you can read the rest here.

honestly, i have mixed thoughts on this. fresh eyes are a necessity. what does your sunday gathering communicate? is it consistent with what god has called your unique church to be? or are you missing the mark, but too close to see it?

on the other hand, is it necessary? if you’re fully relying on what you sense the holy spirit is leading you to do, and trusting he will bring the right people, the right connections all together at the right time, do you need a stranger coming in with critical eyes to tell you the letters on your signage aren’t big enough? i think back to churches in the united states, in europe, and in africa that i have visited - some with all the right signage and people in place but had no sense of community or spirit…and some with what we would call terrible “first impressions” but god was clearly moving with no regard to the out of tune guitar or the uncomfortable seats or stuffy worship center.

i’m not saying it’s right or wrong - i think this is a potentially subjective matter. but i do think it may be one that could be wrapped up a teensy bit too tightly in a layer of modern consumer mentality if we listen to everything we’re told or feel pressured that we should do.

jesus was confident in the way he went about his work, and as long as we have the same confidence, no mystery church shopper (or long time member, for that matter) should be needed or able to influence us away from that.

your thoughts?

—
*please note that my boss man was misquoted in the WSJ article — cross point church has never used a mystery shopper.

my weekend is friday and saturday. and i cherish these days. especially when i am not traveling to speak or having to work on authory kinds of things.

this weekend is just that: two down days. no real plans (except sharing some meals with friends)…and that is it. it has been a weekend of sleeping in, eating cookies for breakfast, indulging in a law and order marathon, and reading.

the book of the season is the fine line by my new friend kary oberbrunner.

now, at this point, i am guessing several of you are familiar with “the blog tour” that surrounds pretty much every new release. some have written saying this is an unfair pimping of new books - using blogs as a cheap and easy marketing tool, thus disengaging the true community aspect these blogs hold.

in some cases, i couldn’t agree more.

so i wanted to clear something up with you before i participate in blog tours, because sometimes, i think blog tours are a very fair way of sharing new books that are seriously life changing.

(raises up right hand in vowlike manner)

i promise you i am not going to do a “blog tour” just because somebody asks. the blog tours i do are for books and for people who i personally know and personally believe in.

i met kary at catalyst and got to hang out with him a little bit on wednesday. he’s one of those people i wish lived closer to nashville because i know i would be picking his brain all the time. his book has already captured me.

so, there you have it. my promise to you. i won’t pimp books i don’t believe in or for people i don’t know. i know there is an element of trust you and i share and i don’t want to violate it.

i’ll be writing a more thorough post on kary’s book after i finish it…but wanted to turn you on to it (and get this blog tour idea discussed a little).

you can see the full list of blogs kary will be stopping by here. and you can read more about his book here. and get to know kary here.

===

what do you think about book blog tours? useful information about upcoming books? shameless pimping? turn you on? turn you off? i’d love to hear your feedback.

===

in the “things you can’t say in church” post, i thought it would be fun to figure out how many words were in the comments. verdict?

22,822

the deadly viper book is under 20,000 words. mad church disease comes in at about 43,000.

so seriously?

you guys just wrote a book.

on one hand, i feel badly because i know a lot of time and energy went into some of the comments that maybe didn’t have such a good return on investment. on the other hand, i think a lot of good issues and conversation was had. so i’m torn.

it’s one of those blogging dynamics i just don’t know where i land…does something like that provoke and waste peoples’ time and energy? or is it worth it to have a healthy discussion?

someone emailed me yesterday with this question and i thought hearing you guys discuss it would be a great way to provide a well rounded answer.

“When does someone become a Christ follower?”

1-2-3, go.

a few months ago i had a post titled “keeping your mouth shut” and asked people to contribute things they would never feel comfortable saying in church. we had over 200 comments…some were funny things like pastors and their flies being down and then we had serious stuff where people were afraid to say they were lonely or addicted.

since we have quite a few more readers several months later, i thought i’d reintroduce the post, keeping all the original comments in tact.

so what’s something you feel like you can’t say in church?

comment here on this link…

i had another post scheduled to go up today (which i will in turn put up next week)…but after i woke up this morning felt the need to open up the comments for your prayer requests…

how can we pray for you? don’t forget to come back and pray for those who have posted after you…

could you imagine?

it all started with a woman named annette. she’s a single mom who lives in six-by-six room with her five kids (sometimes a sixth stays with them too).

i had seen poverty before, but from my 32″ TV inside my trendy little house. i read about it online, saw books and magazines dedicated to photodocumenting those who have the least.

but, i had never touched poverty until i took a seat on that bed in annette’s house.

i had never smelled poverty until we walked through the slums where she lived.

i had never tasted poverty until the combined smells of sewage, cooking, and poor hygiene combined and entered my mouth as i inhaled deeply.

before my trip to uganda, i cared about the poor, but i didn’t love them.

if i loved them, i would have done something, plain and simple.

and i hadn’t.

in crazy love, francis chan writes

lukewarm people do whatever is necessary to keep themselves from feeling guilty. they want to do the bare minimum to be “good enough” without it requiring much of them…they ask, “how much do i have to give?” instead of “how much can i give?”

it took about a month of struggling through my emotions (which i had shut down because denial is easier to handle than the pain of reality) and i finally realized if i am truly a follower of christ, truly a believer, i must change.

i must act.

there is no excuse for us not to love - and therefore act - on behalf of those without. without food, water, healthcare, or freedom. the bible does not give us an option. we are told over and over again what we need to do, but we get lost in our burden of wealth and we forget.

we compartmentalize “poverty” and “injustice” as causes and don’t integrate serving those trapped in them in our minute-by-minute living, as our continual act of worship.

In the 19th century, Robert Murray M’Cheyne wrote,

I fear there are many hearing me who may know well that they are not Christians because they do not love to give. To give largely and liberally, not grudgingly at all, requires a new heart; an old heart would rather part with its life-blood than its money.

today is blog action day and bloggers are posting about poverty. which me writing a blog and you reading it is all fine and dandy, but it’s blog ACTION day.

there are thousands of kids who need sponsors through compassion international. for what you would spend seeing a movie or buying a new shirt or going out to eat with a friend once a month, you can release a child from poverty. the math is easy. and if you think you’re too poor to do anything, and you’re reading this on your computer or your phone in america, you’re not too poor. and forgive me, but you need to stop thinking that you are.

if you already are showing the love of christ to someone less fortunate and you’re sacrificing then with all my heart i say thank you.

if you’re not, you can start today.

i don’t like talking on the phone for one reason: i don’t know how to say goodbye.

“see ya?”

“…awkward silence…”

am i the only one with this problem?

on the flip side, i’ve noticed some people say the exact same thing whenever they say goodbye. after playing phone tag with a particular person for a while, this person always closes with:

“seeya later, bye”

which doesn’t make since because he and i:

a) have never met

and

b) will likely never see each other

how do you say goodbye?

tithing has been a popular topic on this here ol’ blog a few times in the past.

one night after catalyst last week, my hotel roomie and i were discussing tithing and different ways churches track (or don’t track) individual giving.

most churches keep a tally for contribution statements to be mailed out for charitable giving. and to me, that makes sense.

where it can get subjective is when churches track in order to reward those who make large donations. or when they use it to see if and how much key leaders or staff members are tithing.

to further demonstrate this, one time many, many moons ago, i was literally cornered by a staff person at a church i was involved in because their records showed chris and i weren’t tithing and we were key leaders.

what they didn’t know is that we were giving faithfully in cash, not to only their general budget, but to their building campaign as well.

so…where do you think the line should be drawn? should those with decision-making power in churches track tithing, or should it be done by a finance person within the church or even a third party? is it fair to look at somebody’s track record and draw assumptions based on such?

sometimes, i think i’m really smart. i did well in school, i use polysyllabic words, (i can spell polysyllabic), and know not to put metal things in the microwave.

sometimes though, i’m not smart. these moments usually involve two things.

1) choice of shoes (i.e., wearing high heels to run around large arenas for conferences)

2) directions, maps, roads, streets, or anything involving a “point a” and a “point b”

following a tragic day of wearing very high heels, in attempt to check into my hotel and change shoes before the evening events of the first day of catalyst, i fell victim to the street naming system of atlanta.

everything is peachtree road.

for example, my GPS directions to find my hotel included:

Go NW on Peachtree Rd NW
Take a slight left on Peachtree Rd
Turn left at Peachtree Ind Rd
Make an immediate right on NW Peachtree Rd*

after driving around in traffic for an hour and a half, i finally found my hotel, quickly changed my shoes, and at unheavenly rates of speed drove back to gwinnett for the deadly viper session.

arriving a few minutes late, my catalyst friend ben and i managed to find a two empty seats in the very middle, very upper, very back, very highest possible spot. during some of the transition times, we conversed on some catalyst things, some blogging things, some life things, and then he asked the money question:

“have you ever thought of shutting your blog down?”

i might as well have kept my high heels on, because it would have felt much more comfortable for him to have taken one of them off and then punch me repeatedly in my eye than for him to have asked me that question.

there was no good answer. i had thought about shutting my blog down once, but it lasted approximately .0002 seconds.

what would happen if i shut down my blog?

that question has been in my head for the last few days.

i imagined doing it. shutting it down, deleting my facebook account, my twitter account, then disappearing altogether from social networkland.

and after i recovered from hyperventilating, i pushed the thought out of my mind.

far out of my mind.

because there are many good reasons not to stop blogging - the community and the influence and change that this community has brought to issues of poverty and justice and faith.

but there is one reason my social media butterfly self couldn’t vanish.

and i wish i could say it’s valuable or worthwhile or noble. i couldn’t because if i did, i wouldn’t know what to do anymore.

i couldn’t…be.

i wouldn’t know who i am.

and i realize this is all my flawed thinking. my insecurity. my need for affirmation and worth and, dare i say, even attention?

it’s not pretty.

i’m not shutting down my blog. but wow, has that question challenged my motives.

======

*disclosure: GPS directions are represented with slight literary exaggeration

a week from today i’ll be out in LA speaking at bel air presbyterian church at an event called breakaway. my talk is titled “escaping from our true love.”

breakaway is from 9am to 2pm and is for women only, so if you’re a girl in the LA area and want to attend, you can register here.

i love SoCal…and will be out there a few times in the next couple of months. really can’t complain about that!

it’s been a fun week. i have no voice left because of all the amazing conversations that have taken place over the last few days and if i tried to list and link to every person i met and adored it would be, well, impossible.

my free time has been spent keeping up the catalyst backstage blog and tonight i added a few new videos. in case you haven’t been following it, you can see some interviews we did with steven furtick, perry noble, tony morgan, tim stevens, seth godin, pete wilson, jon acuff, dino rizzo, bongos breaking, and auto-flushing urinals.

you can also catch up on people’s thoughts about the sessions, their tweets, and blogs that have been rolling in automatically.

so drop over to the place i’ve called home this week and say hi.

this has probably been one of the most incredible weeks of my life (and i really didn’t even get to attend the sessions). there are so many wonderful and lovely people doing so many wonderful and lovely things. it was an honor to meet you all…

i know, i know…blah blah blah catalyst, blah blah.  is anne ever going to write on her blog again?

yes!

i will still be tracking the events of catalyst at the backstage site, but am saving this dear blog for some more personal reflections, should i have any along the way.

i noticed the comments have slowed down died on here lately and i’m sorry for not inviting more conversation.

ask my husband and he will tell you the amount of time i have poured over every outfit, every accessory, every scent of deodorant i may wear as i have planned for catalyst. 

this opportunity that i have is like an IV push of those most influential in leadership (if you define influence as speaking to a large group of people in some medium or another).

everyone-all-at-once-wham!

me?

i am just a newbie author with a blog with flowers meeting these pastors, authors, and speakers for the very first time. 

it makes me nervous.

and i became obsessed with making the best first impression.

one author in particular, who i was extremely nervous and excited to meet, is william paul young, who wrote the shack (which as irony would have it, on amazon, our books are paired together for a great bargain!) 

now, in full disclosure, i have not actually read the shack yet. 

but i will. 

and in the mean time, i have highly regarded and admired mr. young’s ability to start discussion.  it’s nothing short of amazing.

tonight, as i pulled into the hotel (disheveled, sweaty, rained upon, and gross)…clothes over my arm, earrings falling out of my ear, as i attempted to press the elevator button with my elbow, a voice behind me says,

“i’ll get it.”

together, we hop on the elevator, he asks me what floor.

“two, please.”

i ask him if he is here for catalyst.  he says yes.

“my name is paul.”

“i’m anne jackson.  i’m hosting catalyst backstage.”

“oh,” he says.  “i’m the author of the book, the shack,” he continues, unassumingly.

he leans over to give me a hug (me - disheveled, sweaty, rained upon, and gross) and we talk about some of the upcoming events on our calendars. he graciously fills me in on his schedule.

we arrive at floor two, and i head to my room.

(disheveled, sweaty, rained upon, and gross).

my first catalyst first impression. it wasn’t what i had in mind.

but it was beautiful.

i’ve posted a couple of videos from the road over at catalystbackstage.com…you must see the massive car i am driving.  watch out, ATL! :)

hop on over and check ‘em out!

back to I-24…almost to 75!

my friend matthew paul turner’s book comes out today!

check it out here.

MPT and i go to church together and i have so much to learn from him as an author.  he freaking rocks, and so does this book, so i urge you dear brethren, go get a copy for yourself!

i am out driving to atlanta today, so…i’ll have some fun videos to post later this evening!

see you then…

A free chapter download anyway.

Chapter 11.

Next to the last one.

All nice and pretty.

Download.  Share.  Repost.  Reprint.  Enjoy.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE.

….but not now.

I will announce the secret URL tonight at 8 pm CST on the videocast at CatalystBackstage.com.

just a little incentive…

(p.s. - the interior design ROCKS!)