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On a recent Donald Miller's blog he discuses the Enneagram . The Enneagram is a personality assessment tool, but it differs from others assessments because it doesn’t seek to tell who a person is, but rather, how a person hides who they are. There are nine personalities on the Enneagram. I've always been fascinated by these types of test ever since I took my first one, the Myers-Briggs (which according to I'm an ISTJ), over 15 years ago. The results are always very enlightening and usually dead on. Here is the results from my Enneagram test that Donald discusses: Type One: The Reformer (Which as you can see in the above diagram also reaffirms my ISTJ assessment from Myers-Briggs) The principled, idealistic type. Ones are conscientious and ethical, with a strong sense of right and wrong. They are teachers, crusaders, and advocates for change: always striving to improve things, but afraid of making a mistake. Well-organized, orderly,and fastidious, they try to maint

By Perry Noble 1. The Vision Is Not Clear If people don’t know where a church is supposed to be going, then it will attempt to go everywhere and eventually wind up nowhere. (Interesting experiment–ask people this coming Sunday at your church, “What is our vision” and see if people give you the same answers or different ones.) 2. The Focus Is on Trying to Please Everyone There is NO church on the planet that will make everyone happy every single week—and according to the Scriptures, that isn’t really supposed to be our obsession. Too many times, we become so concerned with offending people that we actually offend Jesus. 3. Passionless Leadership When a leader does what he/she does for a paycheck and not because it's their passion…it’s over. I’ve said it before…I want difference-makers, not paycheck-takers. Also, it is hard to be passionate about a place when a person's average stay at a church is two years or less. 4. Manufacturing Energy If a program is dead in

Last night Beth and I along with several friends attended the opening night of "Rock of Ages " in Charlotte. Beth and I have been to several Broadway shows and this was possibly the best we have ever seen. This show is absolutely amazing. From the moment the back-up band starts before the show opens until the minute the band stops playing after the final curtain, this show is non-stop fun and excitement. The music brings back memories of the 1980's when mullets were in and dreams really could come true. All of the acting is incredible and the voices and dancing will blow you away. Not for children due to language and some risque scenes, but I cannot encourage adults enough to make time for this wonderful show. If you grew up on 80's music then this is a must see show. If you have no idea what "Rock of Ages" is, then here is a quick synopsis... Rock of Ages is a rock / jukebox musical , with a book by Chris D'Arienzo, built around classic rock hi

The following is from a recent blog by Keith Giles. Great thoughts! “Have you asked Jesus into your life?” Most of us who consider ourselves Christians would probably refer to the day we asked Jesus into our lives as the beginning of our journey with Christ. However, if you look throughout the New Testament you won’t find anyone ever doing such a thing. The Gospel most of us heard was that we need to pray a prayer so that when we die we can go to Heaven. That’s also not part of the actual Gospel that Jesus or the Disciples preached. Instead what we find is Jesus inviting us to come into His life. He says that our lives need to be surrendered, given up, let go so that we can embrace His life. In fact, every time Jesus refers to our life he does so to emphasize how we should lay it down or die to ourselves. He never asks us to let him into our empty, broken, screwed up lives. He just asks us to realize that it’s not worth holding on to so we can see that real, true

My church, Main Street Baptist, ( www.msbc.cc ) will be hosting a 12-week series on the "Constitution". This class is being led by one of our church members, Bill Flynn. As the class was filling up (it's now at capacity) Bill posed the following question to me, "How do we get more 20-35 year olds to join the class?" The following is the actual facebook coversation that took place. I really feel what Bill says at the end of our converation was incredibly insightful and very challenging. Michael, Thanks for your help getting the word out on our US Constitution series starting Jan. 10. We could really use more 20-35 year olds in the class. Any ideas how to get them to join us ? Bill Bill, That's a great question. The problem I see with the lack of 20 somethings being more involved in things like your class is the belief that you must separate church and state. They believe the church has no business offering (or even hosting) any class that c

As always, I'm not saying these are the "best", they're just my top ten favorites of 2011. 1) The Walking Dead 2) American Horror Story 3) Parks and Recreation 4) The Middle 5) Dexter 6) Modern Family 7) Raising Hope 8) Breaking Bad 9) The Office 10) 30 Rock / Chuck

As always, I'm not saying these are the "best", they're just my top ten favorites of 2011. 1) Hugo 2) Rise of the Planet of the Apes 3) X-Men First Class 4) Bridesmaides 5) Cars 2 6) Thor 7) Captain America 8) The Hangover 2 9) Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol 10) Super 8

This letter was purportedly dropped from an office building in Chicago by the Board of Trade down upon the crowd of Occupy Wall Street protesters. There is no author attribution, so for now, this re-publication remains anonymous. Whomever wrote it, it is indeed a work of genius. Here it is, as written in the photo above - We are Wall Street. It’s our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn’t matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable. I didn’t hear America complaining when the market was roaring to 14,000 and everyone’s 401k doubled every 3 years. Just like gambling, its (sic) not a problem until you lose. I’ve never heard of anyone going to Gamblers Anonymous because they won too much in Vegas. Well, now the market crapped out, & even though it has come back somewhat, the government and the average Joes are still looking for a scapegoat. God knows there has to be one for everything. Well