I need a couple people who live in Atlanta area that have three days to spare from October 8-10 and want to go to Catalyst for FREE.

We have a top secret marketing plan that we need help with for promoting Mad Church Disease. You’ll get a free copy of the book, and a very moooving experience. And again, you’ll get into Catalyst for free.

Interested?

Email Zondervan Marketing Genius Chris for details @ chris.fann@zondervan.com. I promise you will never experience anything like this any other time in your whole entire life ever forever.

This message will self destruct…

this should be posting at 7:10 am CST on wednesday, which is the time my flight from nashville to oklahoma city will be departing. this is the first of many, many trips over the next six months.

i’ll be speaking (well, it’s more like leading a discussion) at ministrycom08 on thursday and friday on burnout…and i would love your prayers. i have said it a million times and i’ll say it again…the whole speaking thing makes me really nervous!

please pray that god will use this time to really bring an awareness of need to the people who listen…that we need to continually stay connected to him, that it’s okay to say no, and that if someone is burned out, that they’ll receive some wisdom about what to do.

it’s not a super fun creative topic, but it’s necessary and i am praying that god will use the information we present in a meaningful and unique way.

updates to follow…i’ll be updating my twitter frequently, i’m sure. so follow me if you’d like!

i am reading this amazing book right now.  here are some things i’ve highlighted so far…it’s truly enlightening. i realize it’s a bit long, and it takes a little time to read, but it is so rich, i really recommend you invest a few minutes in absorbing this.

• technical civilization is man’s conquest of space.  it is a triumph frequently achieved by sacrificing an essential ingredient of existence, namely, time.  in technical civilization, we expend time to gain space  to enhance our power in the world of space is our main objective.  yet to have more does not mean to be more.  the power we attain in the world of space terminates abruptly at the borderline of time.  but time is the heart of existence.
• there is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.
• we have often suffered from the degradation by poverty, now we are threatened with the degradation through power.  there is a happiness in the love of labor, there is misery in the love of gain.
• many hearts and pitchers are broken at the fountain of profit.
• to retain the holy, to perpetuate the presence of god, his image is fashioned.  yet a god who can be fashioned, a god who can be confined, is but a shadow of a man.
• time to us is sarcasm, a slick treacherous monster with a jaw like a furnace incinerating every moment of our lives.  shrinking, therefore, from facing time, we escape for shelter to things of space.
• the bible is more concerned with time than with space.  it sees the world in the dimension of time. it pays more attention to generations, to events, than to countries, to things; it is more concerned with history than geography.
• the sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of the sabbath.  it is not an interlude but the climax of living.
• it must always be remembered that the sabbath is not an occasion for diversion or frivolity; not a day to shoot fireworks or to turn somersaults, but an opportunity to mend our tattered lives; to collect rather than to dissipate time.
• labor without dignity is the cause of misery; rest without spirit is the source of depravity.

and i am only 18 pages in…

this is what gets me though

• two things the people of rome anxiously desired — bread and circus games.  but man does not live by bread and circus games alone.  who will teach him how to desire anxiously the spirit of a sacred day?

the answer? it’s supposed to be us.

this jacks with me big time.

because we can’t teach how to desire something we don’t ourselves yet desire.

i need your story. more importantly, others need your story.

they need to know they’re not alone.

so…i need your video.

nothing fancy. you and your iSight and YouTube or vimeo.

i am putting together some clips of church leaders who have burned out, think they might be, or have recovered for a small workshop i am teaching. what do you feel? what are the pressures you experience? do you miss your family? your relationship with christ?

or, are you a spouse of a church leader and you’re afraid your husband or wife is burning out? please share, too…

videos will be shown and only your first name will be used.

please shoot me an email or leave me a comment if you think you could sum up your story in about a minute’s time. i’d need these by next friday.

i would really appreciate it.

thanks!

have you heard of wordles? what you do is copy and paste in any amount of text and it will pull out the most commonly used words and organize them in size, largest (most used) to smallest.

i thought it would be fun to see what words i used the most in mad church disease, so i copied and pasted in the entire manuscript. almost 50,000 words.

and here are the most commonly used words (click to see full size):

hopefully this gives you a little sneak peek into the major themes of the book…they are working on the interior design of the book right now, and i’ve got to say i can’t wait to see the final layout. they are implementing some really cool design ideas!

anyhoo, just thought i’d share.

last night, i asked you what you’d like to hear if you were attending a breakout session or workshop about burnout.

“how do i say no?” was probably one of the most answered responses.

so…now i get to ask you, why can’t we say no? should we say no? how can we discern when to say no?