I am too. Does anyone else feel like Thanksgiving barely even exists anymore? I saw that several stores are opening this year for black Friday in the evening on Thanksgiving. One family in San Antonio has been camping at Best Buy since November 15h. I caught the family on the news tonight and the mother said “we just want to get a flatscreen and a computer.”

Really? 10 days on the sidewalk to save $100 on a TV? Wow.

Here is an idea or two to save Thanksgiving:

• wake up early and spend 30 minutes in prayer thanking God for all He has blessed you with.
• play with your kids.
• at dinner, go around the table and share what you are thankful for.
• at dinner, also go around the table and share why you are thankful for each person there.
• men, do the dishes for your wife…she cooked all stinking day.
• turn off the football and watch a movie as a family.
• go serve together as a family at a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter.
• invite someone that will be all alone on Thanksgiving to be a part of your family for the day

What ways can you think of  to bring back Thanksgiving?

There is no one harder to lead on this Earth than yourself.  It’s easy to talk about what you should do or tell others what they should do, but doing it yourself is an entirely different endeavor.

This presents a problem because people will never follow your talk. But they will follow your example. If it is hard for you to be an example, chances are you won’t be leading many people.

I lead with this core conviction (among many others): People don’t want to follow someone yelling from the sidelines.

Want to lead? You have to lead yourself first!

Here are some good ways to know if you are leading yourself:

1. You have a daily lineup card

Jim Rohn said “Never begin the day until it is finished on paper.”

I did not want to use the word schedule here, because I realize, not everyone operates on a strict calendar. But, at the same time, if you are leading yourself, you will at least know what you are doing on any given day when you wake up.

I have noticed that many young leaders don’t know what is in store for the day…even by lunch time. Don’t tell me you are leadership material if you don’t even know what you are doing today. That’s just simple discipline.

2. You have some goals and are actively working to achieve them.

Zig Ziglar said “If you aim for nothing, you’ll hit it every time.”

Don’t tell me you are leadership material if you don’t have any goals that you are working on knocking out. They could be simple goals like “pay off my debt” or they could be complex like “become the CEO of Starbucks.”

Show me some initiative and that you are serious about the trajectory of your life and impact your life will have on this world. Read more on goals here, here and here.

3. You read regularly

Jim Rohn said “The book you don’t read, won’t help… Most homes valued at over $250,000 have a library.  That should tell us something…”

Leaders are learners. They learn. They improve. They are actively moving forward in their thinking, knowledge and challenging themselves with the ideas of others’.

I think the library quote above is awesome, though with Kindles and iPads it might be more metaphorical. If you spend more time watching television and playing video games than you do learning, then maybe you aren’t leading yourself.

4. You don’t whine and complain

Anthony J. D’Angelo said “If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it.”

I am tired of whiny “leaders.” Please, for the sake of everyone you want to lead, stop whining and make it happen. Learn to accept the minor aggravations that life will bring and move forward. Don’t cover everyone with your dust of complaints.

Just a few things I have learned about leading yourself first!

Day two below…

Fight number two: The Fight for Balance.

It does not matter what I do or how hard I try, there are certain things that I will never be good at.

When I choose to fight this fight and focus time and energy on things I stink at, I also choose to neglect the very gifts God has given me.

Things have changed. I’ve learned that some fights are worth fighting and some are not. Watch the blog for the next few days to read about fights that I don’t fight. Day one is below.

Fight number one: The fight to keep everyone happy.

If this were a fight worth fighting, then why did so many people hate Jesus?

Its a fact: you will NEVER please everyone.

The right fight is the fight to please HIM (Jesus) and only HIM, not THEM.

It’s not quite that simple, but here is the gist:

God chooses what we go through in life but we get to choose how we go through it. We determine our attitude. And personally, I’d just rather live PUMPED UP and excited about life each day than down in the dumps. SO its a choice I make.

Why would I choose to be pumped though? Especially on Sundays. I mean c’mon pastor, where is the holy hangover? Listen…every Sunday for the rest of my life I will be PUMPED UP…

• Because every time just one person starts a spiritual revolution in their life we should celebrate it like crazy! (Look at Luke 15 where we see the angels throwing a crazy party over just one!)
• Because every single sunday we get to worship God publicly, together as a Church.
• Because Every single Sunday our kids get to hear about Jesus and what He did for them on the cross. That ROCKS!
• And most importantly, because every Sunday the Gospel will be preached. The best part of that is that Scripture promises us that His Word never returns void! (Isaiah 55:8-13)

I don’t want to be a part of a regular, mediocre church where everyone’s eyes are glazed over, they meet for an hour and then go home.

This is a CHOICE. And personally, my choice is that no matter what is happening I am going to find reasons to be PUMPED UP and celebrate!

So don’t miss church tomorrow Revolution! We are kicking off a new series and I am PUMPED!

This week I recommend buying your wife flowers. Do it randomly. Its cheap and she will love it.

Then, if you want, go the extra mile and build her something to put flowers in. Fill it with flowers on a regular basis.

Couper and I built this country flower box on man day and gave it to Amber.

Booyah. You’re welcome…

ITS. NOT. FUNNY.

ITS SICK. ITS SAD.

I can’t believe how pathetic our leadership is in congress.

I minister in an area where EVERYONE will be affected somehow. 70% of people here are active duty or work on base.

People are at FLOOD STAGE in life right now. They are questioning everything in life because of this.

And, this is a chance as a spiritual leader to pave the way for faith, much like Joshua did in Joshua 3 right before they crossed into the promise land.

Pastor, its the same for you no matter where you lead. People in your church will be hurting if a shutdown happens.

You can make stupid jokes about the government or you can see this as a special opportunity to step up and change lives, carry burdens and charge into enemy territory. Satan loves this whole situation and how it will shake faith. When you make jokes and sit back and watch, you choose a side. And its not God’s side…

Step up and lead or put a sock in it and go home.

Just my two cents.

Take today for example.

I woke up at 5:30.

Prayed.

Started setup at the gym at 6:00am.

Preached our two services.

Helped with tear down.

Then, I helped an electrician from our church install 2 new circuits for our lighting. Got a cool lesson in electricity.

Helped unload the baptistry at our office.

Went home, pulled the battery out of my Jeep.

Went to a school party for Couper. Had a blast! Ate way too much.

Got a new battery at Autozone. Installed said new battery.

And to top it all off, I just did my taxes.

When I share about my Sundays, some of my pastor friends give me a smug look and tell me they just take a nap after church each week. They say things like “don’t worry Zak, it won’t last” or “dude, Zak just take a nap.”

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I hate naps.

Sundays PUMP ME UP. There is no greater joy than seeing people come into the kingdom!

So on Sundays, I go with it.

That’s how God made me. Maybe I will change one day. I don’t know. I’ve been hearing that stuff for over 12 years.

But for now, I’m riding the waves of adrenaline that He has given me!

What do you do after Sunday morning?

The Elevation Church worship albums. ALL of them.

We have started doing a lot of their stuff at Revolution Church. The songs are amazing!

Get them all (click for iTunes link)

• Kingdom Come (check out the tracks “This City is Yours” and “The Church” AMAZING!)
• We are Alive (check out the track “All Things New”)
• God with Us (check out the track “We Unite”)

Awesome stuff. You should own it. Best of all, if you are a worship leader you can get all of the chord charts, etc here for free.

You’re welcome…

Why?

Check this out. It ought to be reason enough.

Leaders are learners. They read.

Successful people are learners. They read.

So maybe you should read. Something. Anything. Here are a few books I’d recommend to start with:

• Good to Great, Jim Collins
• The Dip, Seth Godin
• Guerrilla Lovers, Vince Antonucci
• I Dare You To Change, Bil Cornelius

And if you already do read, but you get in a rut and only read from your “approved author list” as I used to do, I’d recommend that you read something from someone you despise. You’d be surprised how much it can rock your little reading world.

You’re welcome.

I was talking to a younger baseball fan the other day and he did not know who Jim Abbot is.

Seriously?

This guy pitched a no-hitter and he only has one hand.

When pitching, Abbott used to rest a right-handed thrower’s glove on the end of his right forearm. After releasing the ball, he would quickly slip his hand into the glove, usually in time to field any balls that a two-handed pitcher would be able to field. Then he would remove the glove by securing it between his right forearm and torso, slip his hand out of the glove, and remove the ball from the glove, usually in time to throw out the runner and sometimes even start double plays.

UNBELIEVABLE. (see the video below)

I love that this man did NOT let his deficiency define him…instead, he did what he loved to do and went for it! Makes me think of King Naaman in 2 Kings 5.

Facebook is a great tool for networking…but I also see a great danger for Facebook users, especially married ones. Facebook makes it easy to connect with old flames, classmates or even someone you always wondered about.

A UK site recently reported that the word “Facebook” alone appeared in 20% of its divorce cases last year. That ought to be an indicator that its necessary to set some social networking guidelines to protect our marriages.

Here are some guidelines that married couples ought to follow when using facebook:

1. Never hide anything from your spouse on Facebook…or online at all for that matter. Share your Facebook, email, and other online passwords with your spouse. This builds trust and communicates to your spouse that they are welcome to see what you are doing anytime.

2. Befriending an old boyfriend or girlfriend should NEVER be done. Don’t even go looking for people you dated in the past.

3. Never “connect” with anyone of the opposite sex. This means don’t chat, surf their photo galleries, or leave comments.

4. Remove anyone who crosses normal boundaries. Use your head…if a comment makes you uncomfortable or sets off that little voice in your head, drop them like its hot.

5. Facebook has a cool feature where you can put that you are married and even who you are married to. Announce it to the world with great PRIDE.

6. Don’t spend more time on Facebook than you do with your spouse. Communicate with your spouse and ask them, “Am I spending too much time online?” You want to make sure your spouse is your number 1 relationship, not your buddies on Facebook.

6. Use a picture of you and your spouse as your profile picture or post a few in your photos.

7. Never use Facebook or Twitter to complain about your spouse. Praise publicly all the time!!!

8. Don’t leave comments on people’s pages that may come across as suggestive. Use your head and think before you type.

DELETE. Well, sometimes…let me explain.

Feedback is the breakfast of champions, but only when it comes from the right sources.

If the source does not matter, then the feedback becomes nothing but another confusing, discouraging, self-doubt inducing, stress causing waste of your life!

Feedback becomes the breakfast of champions when you start listening to the right people while simultaneously learning how to ignore the wrong people.

You have to install a feedback filter. Here are some things that are working for me:

Decide who to ignore. Try making a list that describes the kind of person you need to ignore. Its easy and fun! This will help you learn who to listen to. Just don’t fall into the trap of arrogance where you think you don’t need to listen to anybody. That’s called PRIDE. But that is a whole ‘nutha blog post…

Learn to pan for gold. Learn how to find and use the gold that is mixed in with the junk.

Know that usually, unsolicited feedback is coming from an insecure person. My favorite is when someone prefaces their apparently brilliant wisdom with the words, “Let me give you some friendly advice…” Wrong. It’s rarely friendly and it’s not advice.

Amy Grant had a song called “Who To Listen To.” Look at this portion of the lyrics:

You’ve got to know who to, who not to listen to.
Well, you know, they’re gonna hit you from all sides.
Better make up your mind who to, who not to listen to.

Are you willing to tune out people who don’t have your best interests at heart?

Feedback from the right people (and the humility to make necessary changes) leads to more people meeting Jesus. I dare you to stop exposing yourself to abrasive, unsolicited feedback and to start listening to the people who matter.

And here is a hint for ya: the people that matter aren’t always the ones with a seminary degree.

We pray “God, if you could just open up a door for me.”

What we are really saying is “oh God bless my laziness!”

Last time I checked, God requires us to have faith and take action. Look at James 1:6-7 or Hebrews 11:6.

What we ought to pray is “God, just barely crack doors so that I am required to have faith to walk through them.”

Our message on Sunday was all about praying this risky prayer. We called it “Kick it Open” because when God shows us just a sliver of light…a little tiny crack in the door, its our job to kick the door open and jump in with some risky faith.

We need to pray bold prayers! We need to say, “God I believe in You and I am willing to stick my neck out there for You!”

See, the issue is this: do we really believe our God is powerful? If we do then we will pray some BOLD, CRAZY prayers Believing that He can do what He says He will do!

What doors are you kicking open in life?

Today, ways for companies to win my heart:

• Make it simple. Whatever “it” is, IT must be simple.
• Give me my own account rep. I know its not “real” but have them take notes on me. Train them to act like they know me.
• DO NOT try to get me to sign up for your charge card.
• If I have to return something keep it simple.
• If you get my order wrong, fix it. Fast.
• If I am loyal to you, be loyal to me. (great example is Starbucks gold card program)
• Use technology. When I go to my dentist, I sit down at the computer to fill out paperwork and update info. I love that!
• Make sure I can try your product before I buy it. Make sure when I have questions that your sales staff can answer me clearly. (the Apple Store does this very well)
• I want to be able to buy it in person AND online, for the same price.
• Get your staff to say “my pleasure” or “thank you” often. (Chick-Fil-A does this very well)
• Smile while you sell. Whistle while you work. Don’t be a jerk.
• Have a no contract required option that isn’t ridiculously over priced. I’ll pay more to have it my way, but I won’t let you rip me off. And if I can’t have it my way I’ll go somewhere else.