The Way

Some of you know that I have been training to complete an IRONMAN competition. Some of you know it all too well. I have posted to Twitter and Facebook incessantly and you have endured those posts. What you may not have known is that the reason I post my silly workouts is because there are many folks who hold me accountable to do the workouts. Twitter and FB are the easiest way to keep those few informed. Thanks for enduring. If you have known me for awhile, you have known that I enjoy being outside; I enjoy physical exercise; I like to set some goals that I just cannot go out and accomplish without some pretty strong disciplined and regimented plans; and that I am a tad bit obsessive. (I may have understated that last statement.) I have a friend at work who has completed 8 IRONMAN competitions and a couple of years ago I went to support him at IRONMAN Florida. I wrote about it here if you are interested. It was at that event that I realized that I believed I could finish one of t...

Confession time for me here. I have been a leader, minister, staff person for many years in local churches in MO, TX and TN. I have led 100s of training conferences for student ministry and discipleship leaders in almost every state and in 12 or 13 countries. I have encouraged leaders who were about to quit due to frustration, depression, burn out; leaders just getting started in a new venture; and others who are on the backside of their sweet spot in ministry years and people in between. But . . . this past weekend I got a fresh, new perspective on how to treat volunteers. IRONMAN Chattanooga took place on Sunday, 9/28 with about 2600 participants and who knows how many volunteers. I would say a whole bunch, would be a pretty accurate number. Each volunteer was given a green shirt with all the appropriate IRONMAN Chattanooga and sponsors logos plastered on it and a huge VOLUNTEER written on it. Volunteers served the races in many various ways from water stops to handing out bags, c...

So the last two weeks have included a lot of in the car trips. Since I was driving I got to throw my bike in the back so even though I did alot of driving, I did some a couple of fun rides as well. Morgan and I headed out to Chattanooga for a World Changers project and enjoyed some time together along with visiting some great ministry sites. I host Ben Trueblood and Eric Geiger for some of the sites and really enjoyed spending time with them. Both of those guys are great guys who got to see students in action helping others. It was alot of fun. Over the weekend, our family met up in Rome, Ga for Shelbi's 23rd birthday and we had a great weekend. I got a nice bike ride in over to Berry College and Winshape, we ate cake, Mark and I played a little golf and we attended church together on Sunday. It was such a blessing for all of us to be together! On Sunday, I headed towards the mountains of North Georgia to meet with a great church and help their staff work through some cla...