What I’m teaching at CPC
I’m teaching two breakouts at the Children’s Pastors’ Conference. I am pumped about both of them. They are back-to-back on the same day and in the same room. Here’s the Orlando schedule. Both breakouts are in Yucatan 1. Seating is limited. EVERY attendee will get… Workshop Booklet Discount Code for Curriculum, etc. Chance to Win [...]
Raspberry Island
All of Willie’s life he wanted to get to Raspberry Island and live there. He was a beaver and more than anything else, beavers love raspberries. Willie could see the island across Mighty Stream but he couldn’t get there. The raspberries were bigger and juicier than the ones in his forest. Willie knew this because [...]
What’s the Book About?
Here’s a quick summary of what my new book, Jumping the Track, is about. BUY NOW For more information about the book, go to Jumping the Track web site
Goals Gone Bad
Long term goal setting is the best way to miss open doors. I don’t set long term goals. They say I should, but I don’t. Not because I am lazy, but because I flat out don’t believe in setting long term goals. Someone recently asked me, “Roger, where do you see yourself in five years?” [...]
The Third Choice
The Christian social justice advocates present two choices: 1. Preach only the Gospel thereby ignoring human physical needs in favor of eternal spiritual need of salvation. 2. Make a difference concerning the injustice of human suffering in a way that makes the Gospel relevant to physical life here and now. The choice—presented that way—makes the [...]
Have You Had Your Popeye Moment?
In 2005 Bill Hybels spoke at the Leadership Summit at Willow Creek on leadership. He observed that all leaders come to a defining point in their lives BEFORE they become leaders. They come to a point where they can’t take it anymore. There is something they can no longer stand. He flashed back to the [...]
What Buzz the Horse Taught Me
In 2007 we bought a small horse farm. We then bought three geldings: Woody, Wilson and Zeb. For you city folks a gelding is a male horse who has been…shall we say…modified. I am a city boy. I didn’t know about this until we started buying horses. My wife, Tammie, educated me. Then we bought [...]
Tis Trivial
I struggled with math in college. It didn’t help that my second year calculus teacher at the University of Kentucky was a swinger from South America. This middle-aged man wore silk shirts half-buttoned and gold medallions on chains that bounced around in his chest hair while he lectured. If an attractive girl walked past the [...]
The Immensity of the Sea
There’s more to God than we can fathom. We have not yet figured Him out. He is bigger than our doctrines, bigger than our plans, bigger than our songs. You only have to consider the universe, the earth and seas to realize His vastness defies comprehension. The greatest disservice in ministry we can do is [...]
Ministry is Messy
Ministry is a lot of things, tidy is not one of them. It messes with your plans, your family, your relationships, your time, your mind. It even messes with your faith. There is nothing about ministry that is safe, predictable or orderly. Where no oxen are, the trough is clean; But much increase comes by [...]
Who is Harry Whatif?
Who is Harry Whatif? He looks rather harmless. He’s not very big. He doesn’t try to get attention for himself. So who is he? Harry is part virus, part troll. He lives inside your brain and has only one purpose in his miserable life: to stop you from doing anything productive or rewarding. He is [...]
3 Potent Words
It is interesting to me how Jesus handled the Devil when he tempted Him. The temptations were real, otherwise they would not have been, well, temptations. They did apparently require a strategy. Jesus could have dealt with the Devil many ways He chose one way. He did something that is sometimes considered old school today. [...]
The Uprising
The Uprising is a cool, one day conference hosted by my home church, Quest Community Church in Lexington, KY. This year Erwin McManus is the featured speaker. Come hang out with me in the exhibit hall at the Kidz Blitz booth. The Uprising is very affordable, well worth the time and money. CLICK HERE to [...]
2 Things That Will Crash Your Ministry
And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. (Colossians 1:18) Ministry is about connecting with people and leading them into a vibrant relationship with Jesus. Simply put, the Christian faith is about Jesus. [...]
Ministry Freeze
My ministerial life has been a journey to discover and acquire everything from God that is real without getting anything that isn’t real. For me to believe/do/teach something, I have two rules: First, I have to see it in the Bible for myself. Second, it has to have the potential of impacting real life. That [...]
Screaming Across the Chasm
Ministry is ultimately about influence. How do you influence people for God? How do you shape an effective ministry? Or to put it more bluntly, how do you get people to listen to you? The great distinctive in modern ministry is the little fact that people don’t believe anything you say anymore. Nothing. They have [...]
Uprising
Join me at Uprising! The Uprising Conference is a super-cool event put on by my home church, Quest Community Church. Pete Hise and Erwin McManus are both amazing leaders who will enlarge your vision for what the church can be. It is a one-day conference with some pre-conference stuff the day before. Kidz Blitz will [...]
The Problem with Goal Setting
Goal setting causes missed opportunities. This is the mistake train companies made years ago. They had goals: build more trains; lay more tracks; increase passengers by x percent. When the Wright boys invented a whole new way of getting from A to B, the train companies still had their heads down, laying more tracks. Consequently, [...]
12 Secrets for Developing Creative Ideas
1. Grasp the power of a single idea. Always be on the lookout for a better way of doing things. 2. Be a sponge. Observe everything. Look at colors, shapes, ideas, etc. Read interesting books. Never stop learning. Relish the fact that there are always cool ideas to learn. Read something that will kick your [...]
Failure is Essential
If you want to do something remarkable you have to be willing to risk failure. You can talk and plan, talk and plan, talk and plan. Eventually you just have to try. Your idea will probably fail. That’s OK. Make the adjustment and go at it again. Formula? Test fast; fail fast; adjust fast. You [...]
How to Hunt Prairie Chickens
–the fallacy of trying to change the world– Everything I need to know about ministry I learned while hunting prairie chickens. Okay, that is a stretch but…I did learn a significant lesson. We are not called to change society; we are called to convert individuals. Changing society is a worthy endeavor, just not worthy enough. [...]
Matter of Life and Death
Christianity is not about good and evil, but about life and death. Jesus did not come to make us good but to make us alive. The difference between a believer and a non-believer is not that the believer does good things and the non-believer does bad things. The prime difference is that the believer is [...]
Be Something
I was a young, inexperienced lead pastor of a small, rural church in Kentucky. Knowing very little about what it took to grow a healthy church, I read everything (as in EVERYTHING) about church leadership that I could get my hands on. Hungry to know how to spiritually lead a group of people, I developed [...]
Spit in the Dirt
It’s not the art of the performance, it’s the art of the participation (Edwin Schlossberg) Do tell. Why would Jesus spit in the dirt, make mud and then smear it on a blind man’s eyes? Read John 9:6-11. Then, Jesus told the man something He certainly wouldn’t have to tell me, “Go wash it off.” [...]
