Tony Kummer is a big fan of jonathancliff.com. He’s posted on his widely-read blog that I’m #1.  Of course, my wife and children already knew I was #1; but now the world knows.  My fear is that now he’s set me up for failure.  I’ve watched Behind the Music on VH1, and if I follow that model for success then I’m sure drug use or inappropriate words to the press will follow.  I hope I recover in time for this Sunday morning.  (Thanks Tony!)

I’ve been car shopping this week.  For those NOT in the know, my beautiful, talented, intelligent, wonderful and loving wife crashed my car last week.  It’s totaled, and now I get to take my pennies and look for something else.  I loathe car shopping, ranking it up there with medical procedures that involve my doctor putting gloves on.  I know that not every car salesman is an evil person, but I need someone to redeem their kind.

Speaking of that wife of mine, have you read her thoughts on the crash?  She’s an A+ writer, and knocks it out of the park with her Sinking post on lostinlaundry.com.  There is even a church in Oklahoma that read the post verbatim to their congregation last Sunday.  Amazing!

I’m 2 weeks into Financial Peace University with Dave Ramsey at our church.  Starr and I are taking it together, and it’s really kicking my butt.  I’m a very frugal person, then again I’m not.  But I really am, but I guess I’m really not.  The one thing I’ve learned in 2 weeks is that I want to have more control over my financial life.  We’ll see how that goes.

I’m 43 days into a 90 day project.  I’ve only missed one day and I blame Kenny Conley and his wife for it. (However I forgive them for the nice gifts they brought me.)  I fill you in when I’m finished.  Don’t worry, it’s perfectly legal.

I just posted my thoughts yesterday, but it’s been a strange week talking to High School students at their school chapel.  Very, very different.  I think I’m gonna grow a soul patch on my chin to fit in better next time…or maybe not.

I’ve been sending out my Kidsplace Unscripted training videos on Vimeo to my volunteer team for about 5 months now, and I think I’ve hit a wall.  I send them through constantcontact.com so I can see who has opened it and viewed the video.  Where I had a 100% watch rate 3 months ago, I know am down to about 25%.  I’ve got to mix it up a little, but need some suggestions.  Got any?

I’ve made some major changes to the Child Dedication process at Trinity.  For the past 45 years at our church, parents have dedicated their kids by walking them up front for prayer at the special “dedication service.”  This year I’m attempting to be more intentional about what parents take away from the experience, and have set some hoops up for families to jump through before dedicating them.  I had quite a few people tell me it would never work, and families don’t want to attend a class, meet certain conditions, etc…; but they’ve been proven wrong.  My goal was 5 families, and sitting with 5 more days to register…I have 14 families signed up!  Thank you Jesus!