ryan russell

Took another crazy trip for StripChurch.com with those crazy gals from GirlfriendIT.com — we are looking at putting together a very unique ministry trip for ladies. This trip had us starting the morning out EARLY (text messages began around 5:30am). My compadre Stephen & I picked up Patty & Lisa from the airport in the StripChurch bus (have you seen it yet?).

We swapped the bus & stephen for Craig and a scion and headed 4 hours to nowhere. Do you know where Ely, NV is? I didn’t think so. Ely is home to the oldest legal brothel in the state of Nevada. There are quite a few words that could describe the experience: weird, interesting, depressing, run down, desolate, removed from ‘normal’ life. Our mission for the day had 2 objectives. 

1) Build relationships between StripChurch, GirlFriendIT and the owners of the brothel.

2) Scout a new kind of ‘missions trip’ for a group of ladies – it will be a make over (of sorts) to bring life, love, hope and grace to the gals who live in very bad conditions. 

The controversy: Should any time, relationship and money be invested into renovating the living conditions for prostitutes working in a brothel? Your opinions and thoughts will be intriguing. The mission will chart on. Look for the trip near October.

In leadership & in ministry, WHO you have influence you is a very key ingredient. It seems very wise & prudent to carefully select which voices you are going to allow to penetrate into your outlook, attitude, worldview, decision making and direction.

Over the last 8 months I have been refining which voices to have speak into my personal development, professional insights and ministry direction. I don’t have all of this work done yet, but I want to pass along two new voices that are making the cut.

the first is a pastor out in S.C. — for those of you in ministry you won’t find the revelatory — named Perry Noble. He pastors a church called NewSpring. Read his blog… it is worth the price of the subscription (FREE). The best take aways are spiritual leadership and then church leadership, in that order.

the second is a pastor in New York named Tim Keller. What he has been doing as a pastor of the local church is very good, but what he is contributing to the intellectual dialogue in the world on behalf of Christ and the gospel is outstanding. His lectures and sermons would be termed ‘boring’ by the average evangelical church attender on the west coast, but if you can hang with the deliver the content will leave you thinking for a very long time. Be sure to check out his lecture at Google.

Jen & I just got back from “assessment” for church planting. Still processing the highs and lows of the experience… when I am have it sorted through, I will post more about the whole last 2 weeks here. In the meantime here is an article from Seth Godin that I think is pretty interesting and related to what we are charting out to do next.

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What are you good at?

As you consider marketing yourself for your next gig, consider the difference between process and content.

Content is domain knowledge. People you know or skills you’ve developed. Playing the piano or writing copy about furniture sales. A rolodex of movers in a given industry, or your ability to compute stress ratios in your head.

Domain knowledge is important, but it’s (often) easily learnable.

Process, on the other hand, refers to the emotional intelligence skills you have about managing projects, visualizing success, persuading other people of your point of view, dealing with multiple priorities, etc. This stuff is insanely valuable and hard to learn. Unfortunately, it’s usually overlooked by headhunters and HR folks, partly because it’s hard to accredit or check off in a database.

Venture capitalists like hiring second or third time entrepreneurs because they understand process, not because they can do a spreadsheet.

As the world changes ever faster, as industries shrink and others grow, process ability is priceless. Figure out which sort of process you’re world-class at and get even better at it. Then, learn the domain… that’s what the internet is for.

One of the reasons that super-talented people become entrepreneurs is that they can put their process expertise to work in a world that often undervalues it.

check it out – get involved – share it with your friends:

http://stripchurch.com/theplan.html

The next 9 days are going to fun, interesting and I am sure a little bit draining. Jen & I are first in Florida for a gathering of leaders w/ the Orchard Group. (They are the organization that we have landed with to help facilitate our new church launch.) The purpose of this gathering is to build some new working relationships with their key leaders that will ultimately translate in to better decision making and an incredible resource for us as we head out on this new endeavor.

After Florida we then head off to Johnson, Tennessee for 3 days of “assessment” for fitness to lead and launch a brand new church. Jen has been a bit more worried about this part of our journey than I have, so I am sure that she would appreciate your prayers. The process includes some psychological examination as well as a general interview process that is the last bit of the ‘approval’ process for Orchard Group to be our lead partner in the project.

Once we have these things wrapped up you should starting seeing a lot more details here about our new church plans, the move details, the formation of our ministry team, the leaders that are speaking into the plant and also the other partners that are lining up to be a part of the project.