Monday, April 30, 2007

Paint Balling. . . . Ouch

Yesterday after 2nd service here at NewPointe, I when paint balling with my son, his small group, and three other junior high small groups.

My son is really into paint ball. He has claimed all of my hunting cloths and was dressed in full camo for the event. Myself on the other hand, this was my first experience paint balling and I wore a long sleeve T-shirt. (Not my best idea. . .)

How did it go? I have no less than 5 quarter size red welts on my body. The "prize" welt is just below my jaw line on the left side of my face. I was the "cool" dad because this welt also made me bleed. I enjoyed myself and the time my son and I spent together running around the woods trying to "paint" each other.

On a deeper level, it was great seeing the small group leaders taking time with 20+ JH boys doing something the boys love to do. Having another adult Christian male in my son's life is priceless. Thanks Marc for being that person!

Friday, April 27, 2007

For Sale

To make a long story short, NewPointe owns two houses. (They sit next to our former building. At one time there were plans on expanding the church in that direction.)

We put the house on Dover Rd. up for sale on April 20th. I just received a phone call from one of our Trustee's and he said there are five offers on the house. Wow.

I'll be brining our Exec. Director up to speed and by the end of the day I hope to have a SOLD sign in the front yard. (Being in the landlord business wasn't the most enjoyable thing for me.)

A big thanks to Jeff and Jeremy at Pissocra Mathias Realty. Thanks guys for the great job!

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Jott It? . . . . I love it

My good buddy and co-staffer @ NewPointe Kevin West turned me on to Jott a few days ago. I'm addicted to it.

Jott is a free internet service that lets you use your cell phone to send people, including yourself, an email. It even lets you create groups so you can leave one cell to email message for the entire group.

Using Jott is so simple, all you do is call their toll free number from your cell phone and a voice comes on and ask, "Who do you want to Jott?" I said me, left a short message and as soon as I hung up my cell phone, an email from Jott was in my inbox waiting for me. I was able to read the email and click on a link that then played the audio.

This is way cool and you have to check it out. Have fun with it and pass it along.

Thanks Kevin!

Monday, April 23, 2007

Odds and Ends from my weekend

It was a beautiful weather weekend here in Ohio. Sunny and in the 70's. Thanks God.

This morning, I wanted to just jot down some of the things I did this weekend.

  1. 84 miles ridden on by bicycle.
  2. Two birthday parties for my son Chaz. He's 14
  3. Pulled 1,000 plastic forks out of our front yard. (Birthday prank from Chaz's church friends)
  4. Walked the dogs a lot
  5. Jumped on the tramp with my daughter
  6. Great small group time
  7. Handed out pledge drive completion gifts as a thank you to those who have completed their three year building pledge.
  8. Took a nap
  9. Read a book
  10. Enjoyed listening to the birds and smelling fresh cut grass.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Blogs vrs Podcasts

I enjoy writing and reading blogs. I use Google's reader to keep up with a dozen or so blogs. Two or three times a week I'll open up my Google reader and plow through 50 - 100 blog posts. I follow most of the NewPointe bloggers, all of the Fellowship One blogs at 3cords.org and of course multiple financial blogs. My blog reading keeps me in the loop and I pick up some great tips now and then.

I love listening to podcasts. I'm addicted. So much so that my car radio is never on unless my kids are in the car with me. Other than that, I'm using my fm tuner and my mp3 player to play my favorite podcasts. Yes, the podcasts I listen to the most are financial in nature.

The one podcast I can't wait to listen to . . . . .

American Public Media (APM) A Prairie Home Companion's News from Lake Wobegon with Garrison Keilor. You've got to know him to love him.

Here's a list of my top 5 financial podcasts.

  1. APM - Marketplace (Daily; on business and economics)
  2. APM - Marketplace Money (Weekly; on things that effect your wallet.)
  3. Dave Ramsey Show (Daily; Personal finance call in show and home of FPU)
  4. Kiplinger's Personal Finance (Biweekly; Just like their magazine)
  5. NPR: The Color of Money (Weekly; on personal finance)

Check out my top 5 financial podcasts. I really enjoy them and their free.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Exciting and Scary at the same time. . .

When I was bike riding down in N.C. with Kevin and Rod at Scott's house, I was doing some snooping through Scott's books. I was looking for a particular book that Scott had been talking to me about and agreed to let me borrow. I just finished it tonight. (Thanks Scott. I'll return it to you this weekend when your home.)

The book . . Epicenter by Joel Rosenberg. It was exciting and scary at the same time.

I can't begin do the book justice by trying to summarize it here as I like to keep my blogs short and to the point. What I can say if you have ever sensed in your being that we are living in the end times, read this book. Joel disects Ezekile chapters 37 - 38 and he believes Ezekile prophecy is being fulfilled now.

The book is a great read and after you read it, you'll have to make up you own mind or not. Either way, I know I've got eternal life in Heaven waiting for me.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Saff meeting Hot Seat

Here at NewPointe we start each week off with an all staff meeting. It's a time where we as a staff pray for each other, share stories of life change from the weened and occasionally, put a ministry and or staff person in the "Hot Seat".

Today was my turn, or the financial/administrative side of the church's turn in the hot seat. I was ready. We are making changes, like all of our ministries, since moving into this building. It's hard to believe we have been here for 4 months already.

Being in the "Hot Seat" gave me the opportunity to share with our staff, all 31 of us some hot topics as of late. Here's what I shared.

  1. For Profit companies cannot conduct for profit activities on our campus. This question has come up twice in the past 30 days.
  2. Our year to date giving and attendance vrs. budget. (Behind in giving up in attendance)
  3. Check/Payment processing cutoff dates have been established for our once per week check run. We process somewhere between 30 - 50 checks per week.
  4. Do NOT prop exterior doors open.
  5. Fob's (keys) availability.
  6. Doors will open 1/2 hour before a scheduled event unless instructed differently.
  7. We have new written spending procedures in place.
To steal a line from Dave Ramsey, "This stuff is as much fun as a barrel full of fish hooks." It is however very important and a needed part of ministry of our church and I'm thankful to be leading in in this area.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Joy & Hope + 10 more Credit Cards

Just got home from another great Financial Peace University class and as usual I'm to pumped to go to get ready for bed. (Hey I get up at 5:15 a.m.)

I knew class was going to be great. Before we started the DVD, I gave the call to cut up your credit card! Guess what, we had another 3 people come up and we destroyed 10 more credit cards. That's close to 50 credit cards gone never to be used again out of this class.

Buyer Beware was tonight's topic and it's a great one. You'll have to take the class to find out for yourself. When the DVD was over, it was time for small group. This is were I believe life change really happens. Here was the quote of the night from one of the couples in one of the small groups, "Financial Peace has brought Joy and Hope back into our marriage."

I love being part of this life changing class. Quotes like this are priceless and will stay with me forever.

I want to publicly than the other leaders here for bringing about life change. A big thanks and eternal rewards to:
  • K
  • Larry
  • Mike
  • Ron

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Can you guess what this picture is?

My right hand accounting person Anita works very hard and I'm a much better staff member because of her. I'm glad and grateful to be serving with her here at NewPointe.

One of Anita's greatest assets is her uncanny ability to find better deal on stuff we are going to purchase and by doing so saves the church lots of money. It's a true gift.

Well this time, I think she has taken things a little to far.

Can you guess what this is?



This is her cubical door. . . . (Stop laughing.) See it's we are still working on month end and this is her lame attempt at asking people to, well, stay out.

I was laughing so hard, on the inside, I told her to go ahead and get a door for her cube if there is such a thing. Within three minutes she found one on line for less than $40. I said go for it.

Thanks Anita for all your hard work and this blog material.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Background Checks!

Here at NewPointe, We take the safety of your children very seriously. We have a team of security volunteers who's role is the safety of your children during your time with us at weekend service. This group does a great job and I'm very thankful for them. (Keep up the great work guys!)

There's a lot of "stuff" that goes on behind the scenes as it relates to the security and safety of your children and it all starts with background checks for our children and youth volunteers.

Yesterday, we changed background screening providers to SecureSearch and we processed our fist screening through them. I was very impressed with the whole process.

Here are the benefits of using SecureSearch.
  1. Fellowship One integration. (This is a big deal.)
  2. Multi State Criminal check
  3. National Sex Offenders check
  4. Social Security Number trace
  5. Address verification
  6. It's all done on line.
  7. We are reminded annually to rescreen volunteers.
  8. Soon, volunteers can input their information online for screening.
  9. The results of the screening are attached to the individuals record as a pdf file.
  10. Peace of mind.
This is part of our comprehensive process in providing a safe environment for you and your family.

Monday, April 09, 2007

New High

I hope you were able to attend one of the two Easter services we had here at NewPointe. It was a great day. Make sure you check out Danny's blog to get a recap.

If you weren't able to attend, you can download or listen on line to Dwight's message by going to NewPointe's web site.

Since I'm the numbers guy here at the church, I wanted to share Easter's attendance number with you as that's a question we get a lot, "What was the attendance Sunday?". Well, no need to wait until next week for the attendance in the worship guide.

Easter attendance. . . . . 2,790

Beyond the new high, there was story after story shared at our all staff meeting today about people coming to NewPointe for the first time.

I can't wait for next week as we continue our series on forgiveness. It's called no strings attached. You can check out a quick summary here. Hope you can join us next week.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Two if by Sea

Just a little bit ago, I was checking out Google Analytics on my blog. As you might imagine, I find numbers and statistic fascinating and Google Analytics provides all that and graphs as well. As I was checking out the different stats, I noticed two recent visitors were from England. (Brighton and Droylsden to be exact.) (Get it, Two if by Sea? This is my sense of humor)

This makes me wonder how someone from so far away ends up on my blog? Then I got to thinking how cool it would be to have a conversation with them to find out the how and why behind stopping at my blog.

When I started blogging I really had no expectation or predictions of readership. As it continues to grow I'm feeling a sense of responsibility of weekly posts and relevant topics. I hope I'm doing both.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Online tickets & payment come to NewPointe

One of the new ministries we are launching at NewPointe in 2007 is something called Married Life Live. My buddy John Bunn does a great job describing Married Life Live over at his blog Thinking outside the Bunn. Please click on this MLL link for details. My wife and I are really looking forward to taking part of that Saturday night in April.

MLL is where online tickets and payment comes into play. K Greenwalt and I are implementing the weblink module in Fellowship One. Fellowship One is our church management software system. It and the people who work there are at the top of their game. Most recently, Maggie at F1 played a big roll in our online purchasing process. Thanks Maggie!

Starting today, for the first time, you can register and purchase your tickets via our church web site. Here's the link. So if you haven't read John's blog yet on MLL here's a brief summary and I hope you decide to come. Cindy & I are planning on being there.

MLL is date night--NewPointe style. At MLL you'll experience incredible music, creative programming, and a message that's very relevant to your marriage. It's all specially designed to encourage and empower you as a couple.

Purchase your tickets on line. (Way cool)

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Whats in a Password?

Passwords. It seems like these days we need one for everything. I get asked this question a lot. "What's a good password"?

Your password should be easy for you to remember but difficult for unauthorized parties to guess. here are a few suggestions.

  1. Create acronyms from the words to your favorite song. For example, Mary Had A Little Lamb becomes mhall. Even consider adding numbers characters to it. For example, 8mhall4 where 84 was the year I graduated from High School. (whoops did I just give away my age?)

  2. Deliberately misspell a word. (I do that when I'm not even trying.) Example, locomotive could be lokuhmotiv. ( Ok, that one is hard.)

  3. Consider combining a number of facts, such as dates and events such as 12Christmas25day.

  4. Mix cApiTaL letters into your password.

  5. Use punctuation characters and/or numbers.

Anyway, theres are some of my thoughts. I know there are lots more you could chose from. Have fun with it and please change your password to something different than "password".