Cause to Pause

1. First and foremost, our veterans. Everyone who has served, supported or lost someone who served our country. Thank you.
2. This post by Michael Hyatt. If you are not following Michael on twitter and reading his blog, you are doing yourself and your ministry a disservice. His twitter stream is a good blend of "going out for a run, really enjoy the early morning mist" and "10 ways get email under control".
   If your ministry
   • uses blogs
   • is thinking about using blogs
   • or you are trying to explain to senior leadership that "blog" really is a word
     the above post will come in handy in setting up policies and guidelines. Thomas Nelson Publishers "get" social networking.
     Mr. Hyatt’s copyright info can be found here. Please respect his wishes.
3. This post by Jason Reynolds on supporting someone who has lost their job . There is a lot of common sense wisdom in there that is easily overlooked by well meaning people.
4. This post on the new Outlook tool. (Shameless Plug). The original post did not have this video attached, but thought I would include it here. It is cheesy and low budget to demonstrate simplicity.
5. A self-proclaimed, "unashamed, flagrantly Patriotic service highlighting the Christian roots of our country". That is what our pastor said to describe this weekend’s services at Christ Fellowship West Palm Beach. They printed out this list of quotes from our Founding Fathers in case someone tries to tell you they weren’t “Spiritual men”. Dr. Tom Mullins can “bring it” when he wants to. The kind of “bringin’ it” that would make the Rev. Billy Sunday say “that boy can BRING IT”. Services are at 6:00pm Saturday and 9:00 and 11:00 am Sunday. They are all broadcast live for you “out of towners”. Just hit the link about the right time and let your browser do the rest.
   If this guy is fired up a week ahead of time, you better fasten your seatbelts!

1. Derek Berg, his wife and the whole crew from Woodland Community Church who are either going or sending on a mission trip. Yes, I posted about it earlier. Shameless Plug Friday.
2. This post about becoming “Search Literate”.
3. San Marco Rolls Saddle. If you are a road cyclist, get one of these. I ditched my fancy carbon fiber, ti railed job and dug this worn out trusty dusty:
   Yes, it weighs more. But you can go faster, longer by being more comfortable. And don’t give me that “there’s no cut-out for my-well-youknow” line. All the pressure is on your “sit bones”. Everyone will be just fine.
   They really are that comfortable. I need to find a new one with a smooth cover.
4. Kudos to the Iranians for finding any way possible to get the word out. Never thought you could get hauled off to jail or executed for sending a tweet.

Been a few weeks, but here are a few things that derserve a shout out:

1. Andy Andrews and his book The Noticer. That review I have been promising is  coming. Honest. However, the short version of the review is that so much of life is about “perspective”. I once saw a cartoon that said “I’d have a more positive outlook if a lot of good things started happening to me.”
This book shows that not only are good things probably already happening and you are just overlooking them, but by intentionally noticing them, you can can have a positive effect on others.
2. Wes Harris from Extend Support. We have an image on our site that has an irregularly shaped border. When the image displays, it would have the faintest of gray outline box. After double checking photoshop to see if it was part of the image, I called our CMS and got Wes. We found out it only happens only on certain high resolution monitors-none of which were his or his co-workers. Inspite of not being able to duplicate the problem we did find a solution.
The reason Wes makes the list is even though he couldn’t see the problem, he was NOT going to let it go. I really appreciate it when customer service people are tenacious. It’s the difference between “the soup is on aisle four” and “let’s walk to aisle four together and I will help you find the type of soup you are looking for”.
Lord, help me to be like this.
3. Summer break. Seems like I can get so much more done!
4. Tweetpsyche.com. Plug in someone’s twitter name and it gets the last 1000 posts and gives you a psych eval on them. Interesting to see how many of us in the church world talk about “upward motion” and “positive emotions”.