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CIV: What’s Your Story?

Monday, January 31st, 2011

An expression I used a lot, two-plus decades ago, was “What’s your story?”

It wasn’t typical, so some people looked at me befuddled. What does that mean?

How are you? What’s going on? What’s new? Etc.

I still like that expression, because it’s open to interpretation when responding and everyone has a story.

Yes, we all do.

This is one of the many reasons I love bringing in the Barry Blacks (coming to ECA, 5/7/11), Todd Blackledges, Clay Crosses, Clark Kelloggs, Michael Franzeses, and partner with Cedarville University to hear experiences from the Will Schencks, Dan Cathys, Mac McQuistons. They have a story that will impact you.

Dan Cathy’s company Chick-Fil-A just put out a great 2.5 minute video that capsulizes this well: http://tinyurl.com/29jxgwh (a must watch!)

I read a great quote about our life change/growth in Christ recently.

“Discipleship is when our story meets God’s story & becomes more like His!”

Some men I have the pleasure to work with have stories too.

One business owner recently had some healing from his parent’s suicide two decades past, that he had suppressed.
Another businessman has had significant victory over his battle with pornography as he and his dad work through some forgiveness issues.
Another public figure has been standing on God’s promises and victory as he feels beat up over the last several years of his work life.

As these tidbits of a story has been shared, men rally to one another, encourage, pray, lift one another up, and we are engaged in the process of becoming whole.

Guess what? Becoming whole will only happen as the last page of the story is turned. Let your whole book be read and absorbed, there is no turning to the last page.

Congressman Jim Jordan will be speaking @ www.ecaoh.com this THU & comedian Jeff Allen will be performing there on 3/12/11 (contact Jessica Dewey, jdewey@ecaoh.com or 390-3777, for more information)
2 weeks left in our DESIRES Lunch Series - http://tinyurl.com/2fa77ap - guys. We are averaging 40/week. Please RSVP by WED afternoon!
SAVE THE DATE: US Senate Chaplain Barry Black will be here for our 4th Annual Outreach Event (a dinner, not a breakfast) @ www.ecaoh.com on SAT, 5/7/11!

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CIII: Gathering Data, Gathering Numbers

Monday, December 6th, 2010

Not sure about you, but as a man I get asked often about my job.

“So what do you do?”

“Tell me about the Gathering.”

“What is this Gathering thing all about?”

I get this more in non-profit world than I ever did as a sports writer, banker or college recruiter.

So, let me do a little “by the numbers” for you, which is good to share at this time of the year, as many folks think about year-end giving to non-profits. (Sure, we’ll call that a hint!) Math was my favorite subject in school!

The Gathering of Greater Springfield ~ By The Numbers

1 ~ staff person
2 ~ college presidents involved
3 ~ local school superintendents involved
4 ~ local Chamber staff members are key to our success(es)
7 ~ high-quality, impactful national speakers (Barry Black <coming 5/7/11>Todd Blackledge, Clay Crosse, Michael Franzese, Clark Kellogg, Andre Thornton, and John Tolson)
10 ~ great board members
11 ~ Communities/cities, including South Africa, that have a Gathering presence nationally - www.thegathering.org
12 ~ Locker Room groups currently meeting
16 ~ partner churches (currently)
35 ~ months since our inception
70 ~ involved in bi-weekly (typically) Locker Room groups (average)
270 ~ people attended 3rd outreach breakfast with Michael Franzese (increasing 40 per, since first year)
460+ ~ attended first 2 Unleashed men’s conferences
30,826 ~ total men in Springfield to be reached (and certainly beyond, considering Clark County, and niches in Beavercreek, Urbana, Xenia)
62,844 ~ population of Springfield, Ohio
$90,000 ~ budget (roughly)
736,673 ~ population of average Gathering city (roughly)

Keep in mind, this work can not be done alone. I certainly am limited.

We need great people, great partnerships, and God’s favor, which I think we have certainly seen.

Contact me to set up an appointment with me or with myself and a board member to talk more about the Gathering and how to get involved.

If you’d like to partner, I’m easily reachable and (since that time of year), you can partner and invest easily (online, through automatic withdrawal, good ol’ US mail):

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CII: Gathering Circles: New, Diverse & Strong

Monday, November 15th, 2010

One of my favorite things of my work is the newness and diversity within our Gathering circles.... [Continue Reading]

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CI: Life Isn’t Politics ~ 11/8/10

Monday, November 8th, 2010

After a wild football weekend and seeing a room in our house be completed after much labor, my head was spinning.

I also struggled much last with the canceling of my Dominican Republic trip, and thought no one wants to hear my moaning, groaning and have flamed-out bad attitude spew any ash.

Certainly, politics and voting were on most people’s minds last week. I stumbled across an interesting read that has much value and finds much middle ground.

This was actually written prior to last Tuesday’s election. Wonder if more true now or then. – JP

Life Isn’t Politics (www.mansfieldgroup.com), 10/24/10

I have just finished a week in Washington DC as I write this and I conclude my time disturbed by a shift that has happened in our national life. It is not the shift leftward that conservatives decry or the trend toward secularism that people of faith bemoan. I share these concerns but neither of these are the shift I have seen starkly this week. Instead, I am concerned about the shift of politics to the center of our lives.

I am a libertarian as far as my faith will allow and I have long believed that government and politics were never intended to be central to American life. Instead, government and politics were designed to protect those pursuits which make for the essential matters of life—work and community, family and faith, culture and, yes, the fun and the joy that should crown each passing day. I have often quoted the words of G. K. Chesterton, who said, “The greatest political storm flutters only a fringe of humanity.” A favorite quote, too, was from Governor Morris, one of my heroes among the founding fathers, who wrote, “The Constitution is not an instrument for government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government—lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”

What should be central, then, is this broader matter of human “lives and interests.” Politics and government should be about protecting these. Yet our heated political wars, politicized media and thus our politicized citizenry have moved politics to the center of our society. Now, politics divides church members, separates friends, makes family dinners sound like the floor of Congress and even comes between husbands and wives.

If we allow this, though, then we have already lost the most important battle. If politics is central to all things, then this is simply another way of saying the state is central to all things. And when the state is central to all things, we are already socialists. We have already surrendered the beauty and thrill of life and replaced them with politics as life. This is a sin of both the political right and left today.

What grieves me is what politics as national obsession is doing to my country, and more importantly to my countrymen. When politics is central to a culture, it makes men hollow and vain. They become hungry for political power but they often seek it forgetting what politics is meant to be about—the leadership of a government that protects free citizens as they go about their business. Ignorant of their true purpose, they seek brute power at the costs of their souls—through the surrender of love and art, friendship and creativity, inspiration and the ideals that would make them men of nobility. Instead, they become what C. S. Lewis called “men without chests,” men with appetite and drive and intellect and yet without faith and character. They fight great political battles for the controls of state but they do not have any greater purpose for winning control but to exercise still more power. And so life becomes politics, but the meaningful pursuits of a free people must yield to make it so. We become a dull, politicized people led by preening power addicts who have no higher purpose for power than power itself. And beauty flees.

To effect a change, we do not need an act of Congress or a presidential decree. We simply need to push back. Refuse the constriction of politics. Live to the full and insist that politics be about protecting us as we do. Perhaps we should start by listening to some wisdom from Patrick Henry, a man who was concerned about this trend long ago: “Liberty necessitates the diminutization of political ambition and concern. Liberty necessitates concentration on other matters than mere civil governance. Rather, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, freemen must think on these things.”

Several great events coming up, SAVE THE DATES now:

http://tinyurl.com/29ecu7b
http://tinyurl.com/26eltve
http://tinyurl.com/2dwj5sm (1/24/11)
http://tinyurl.com/2g8fxxw (5/7/11)

Social media (over 1/2 day) seminar (12/14 – 8:30 – 2) in Bellefontaine by Urbana’s own, Tiffany Eckhardt – http://tinyurl.com/2vuyq4n – if needing help or wanting to grow this aspect of your brand, this is can’t miss!

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