You can CLICK HERE and check out the worship service from Sunday, October 4th.  Scott Hamilton was teaching and my wife, Neva, was leading worship in our main venue, The River.  I’m not sure how you will respond or what God will reveal to you through this worship and message, but here are some of the things that happened to me today:

• during worship I removed my sandals from my feet, something I do somewhat regularly.  I am reminded of Moses and his encounter with God as a burning bush in which he was instructed to remove his sandals as he was standing on holy ground.
• I couldn’t keep my hands in my pockets or at my sides today either.  More so than normal I was compelled to raise my hands as high as I could in complete surrender to God.
• When it came to giving our financial gift to the church I was eager and joyful to do so today…something I haven’t felt in quite some time.
• Scott positioned a wooden cross at the front and center of our stage as the service concluded this morning and we were invited to come and rest at the foot of the cross do business.  It was cool to see people respond and come and pray at the front.  I didn’t expect what happened next.  At one point there were 3 women all praying down front and the Spirit began to speak to me and I can remember my body literally beginning to shake as I felt overwhelmed.  His message: there are 3 of your sisters-in-Christ doing business with God and you need to go and pray protection over them as spiritual warfare is raging all around them.  I moved.  And as I walked down front I began crying and walking faster as my body felt like it wasn’t my own.  As I got down front I just remember praying alound over those 3 women as they were at the foot of the cross dealing with whatever they were dealing with.  As I prayed I literally felt as if there was a shield of protection surrounding them as they prayed…not because of me and what I did, but God’s presence literally providing them a shield.  As the time went I couldn’t help but smile and feel overjoyed as the worship continued.
• As the band played the last few songs I felt as if I sang louder than I have ever worshiped before.  It was amazing!

His response, “Daddy, we HAVE to do that!”

So this past Wednesday my son and I headed to school 30 minutes early so we could pray at 7am.  I was hopeful that there might be others, but my son goes to a K-8 school so I wasn’t sure if any middle school kids might be there.  As it was, my son Christian and I were the only two there and it didn’t bother him a bit.  We prayed together for his school and that he would have the opportunity to share the Gospel with his friends.  We also asked God to provide him with other Christians at his school who would support him in his quest to reach his campus for Christ.  As we said “Amen!” a friend from our church who is a teacher there showed up and was saddened that she missed our gathering.

That day when I got home Christian shared with me that the teacher saw him later that day in school and took a moment to pray with him in the copy room in the school office.  As a dad, I thought that was totally cool.  Thank You God for providing my son a support system at his school.  May you continue to bless him with boldness and a zeal for the Gospel of your Son Jesus Christ!  Would you grant him success over the next 5 years to reach his campus with Your Good News!

Amen.

Dare 2 Share’s amazing Marketing Team has been hard at work developing new, cool resources to promote the Blaze conferences! You will find everything from posters, flashbanners, a letter to parents, logos…it’s all found at this link:

http://www.dare2share.org/conferences/resources/

Have fun using these resources to promote the conference in your city and with your teens!

Don’t forget to throw out your guesses as to the two cities we might be considering for the 2010-11 conference tour!

All of that being said, I had a team member approach me a few weeks ago and mentioned to me that I was doing a great job celebrating the top performers, as I should, but I was missing an opportunity I used to take advantage of in celebrating everyone on the team that hit their Call Activities as well as their Sales Numbers.  Example: last month 6 of 7 Ministry Advocates hit their Sales Numbers for the month but only the top performer was rewarded with our trophy for Registration Sales. 

Then this morning I was reading Sales Caffeine by Jeffrey Gitomer and his article was on rewarding those who have earned it.  It hit my right between the eyes that by rewarding my two top performers (sometimes the same person) I was doing a good thing, but by not acknowledging the individual team members that also did their job and hit their numbers, I wasn’t doing a great thing.  He also mentioned blogging about it so here I am typing away!

All of that being said, I am still going to reward my top performers for their successes each month, but I also want to encourage and reward anyone on my Sales Team that go the job done and hit their numbers as well.  Trust me, they will still be fighting for the trophies – they are sales people and they are passionate about what we represent!

August Sales Awards

Registration Sales Trophy – Joni Scudder, Ministry Advocate to Chicago
Curriculum Sales Trophy – John Musil, Ministry Advocate to Columbus

100+% to Sales Forecast – Joni Scudder, Ministry Advocate to Chicago; John Musil, Ministry Advocate to Columbus; Jamie Stanley, Ministry Advocate to Phoenix; Adam Cedillo, Ministry Advocate to Seattle; Chuck Acker, Ministry Advocate to St. Louis.

Exceeding Call Stats – Brian Conn, Ministry Advocate to Denver; Joni Scudder, Ministry Advocate to Chicago

*                    *                    *                    *                    *

Congratulations Team on a great August!  I look forward to celebrating our efforts and success in September!

CLICK HERE to RSVP to attend the Youth Leader training closest to you!

In addition to these great trainings we are offering this fall, make sure to get your teens out to our Blaze conference tour this year!

CLICK HERE to learn more about this year’s conference tour and to get your FREE promotional DVD!

Why the Wii? I almost didn’t go this route simply due to the fact that the Wii doesn’t play DVD’s.  Neva, my wife, and I have had several conversations about turning the TV off in the evenings and spending time together as a family.  The goal was to unplug from mindless TV watching and do something interactive and fun as a family on a regular basis.  The plan is once homework and dinner are done we head down to the basement and have a little friendly family competition on Wii Sports and Wii Play.  Let’s not forget Guitar Hero!

So we broke it in over Labor Day weekend and had a blast.  Christian and I had a blast laughing at Neva (who is a worship leader at our church and well versed in singing, guitar, and piano) as she couldn’t figure out the timing of the guitar on Guitar Hero and was the cause for several failed songs.  Christian also edged her out in bowling by 2 points but he couldn’t stand the likes of me.  Although, he owned both of us at Tennis. 

A great weekend with great memories and promises of many more family nights to come!  I want to be careful to not over-spiritualize buying a video game unit, but I don’t want  to under-estimate the value of spending quality time as a family laughing and playing together either.

1. Every time you ask for a raise you get reminded that your treasures are in Heaven.  If they paid more now we’d get less in Heaven…I’m beginning to think Heaven is going to be good enough as it is.
2. You are guaranteed to spend the majority of your day in meetings.
3. When you complain about too many meetings, you are invited to a meeting to discuss ways to reduce the numbers of meetings you are in.
4. After so many meetings you can’t find time to get the work done that was discussed in all of those meetings.  The solution, have more meetings to discuss how you can get more done with less time to do things.
5. What do I care?  Greg’s already fired me 7 times in 2009 anyway!
6. #1 Favorite quote from superiors, “We realize that we are asking you to do twice as much as we told you we needed you to do when you were hired… No, we can’t hire additional staff to help you with that… No, there aren’t additional resources to get those things done…Yes, you have to get it all done in the same amount of time…I’m sorry,  I don’t understand what the problem is.”
7. #2 Favorite quote from superiors, “Where are you going this evening?  I didn’t know you’d already worked 16 hours today?”
8. Did I mention that I probably get asked into another meeting for posting this blog.  I anticipate being fired for the 8th time in 2009.
9. Time stood still when I was in grade school waiting for the final bell to ring.  At Dare 2 Share, the clock actually moves backwards.
10. All of your great ideas are credited to Zane.   Why do you deserve the credit anyway?  No one’s ever heard 8,000 teens scream for you when you walked into an arena.  I’m sorry, what was your name again anyway?