mike goldsworthy

I was listening recently to Malcolm Gladwell on the Catalyst Podcast.  The guy is brilliant.  If you’ve read any of his books before, or happened upon his articles in the New Yorker Magazine, you’ve seen his uncanny ability to see things in ways we hadn’t noticed before, and to make connections that make sense later but you needed someone like him to first notice.  Plus his hair is awesome. 

He was asked something along the lines of what will make someone succeed today, and he responded by saying, “you have to live with an insatiable curiosity”.  That you’re willing to learn new stuff, you try new things, you’re reading new stuff.  You live with a curiosity that never allows you to sit complacently, but instead has to always be learning something more or something new. 

I love that idea.  That’s one of the things I want to be known for – living with an insatiable curiosity.  And really, couldn’t you in a way say that’s what those of us following Jesus should be striving for.  A part of following Jesus is to be a seeker of truth – so it seems that we should be a people who are known for living with an insatiable curiosity. 

Most of the time Christians are known for the opposite.  We’re rigid and fixed and often act as if we’ve got it all figured out.  What if instead, we were the ones known for living with an insatiable curiosity…

This weekend we were talking about the significance of each of us encountering the resurrected Jesus.  Where we don’t just allow the resurrection to be a historical fact that we point to, or a something that only sets us up for a future reality, but instead something that affects real people in real ways now.

Regardless of whether you’ve been in church your entire life or if you just recently encountered Jesus, he can still have a significant affect in your life.

Here’s a video that we showed this weekend of a few people’s different stories from Parkcrest.

(great job Kozmo on shooting and editing this)

Sometimes you have to just simply start things unfinished. 

My problem is that I tend to have a picture in my head of how I want something to turn out, and if I’m not starting it in that place then I’m bummed. 

I was telling someone this morning that if I didn’t have to preach every week, I’d probably never finish a sermon.  I’ve never quite got it finished.  I always want to figure out a better way to say it, or have a stronger illustration or understand a passage of Scripture better.  But because it comes every week at some point I have to have something to give, and so in a way I’m forced to put something out.  If I wasn’t forced to put it out, it would probably just sit there unfinished. 

That’s what a lot of us do.  We’ve got a great idea or a project we want to begin.  I’ve got about a dozen unfinished blog posts sitting right here.  And we let it sit unfinished.

Sometimes you have to start things unfinished.  Just get it going and get it out there.  That’s the only way you’ll get it finished.

This weekend, I’m going to be sharing several things that we’re going to engage in during 2010 with Parkcrest.  I’m really excited about what’s going to be happening over these next 12 months.  But the thing is that I’ve been tempted not to share most of these things because they’re not finished yet.  But what I’m learning is that if I wait for them to be finished or at a point of being what I think is ready, we’ll probably never do them. 

So, we’ll start them unfinished.  Because sometimes that’s what you need to do in order to make things happen.

I’ve ignored this blog for long enough.  I’ve got several posts sitting and waiting.  But until then, here’s a few random updates…

• I’ve decided to try and learn to draw.  I’ve never considered myself someone who has that ability, but was convinced that it isn’t some special things that only some people are born with, but instead can be learned.  I’m using this book, and my brother-in-law is coaching me.  Had my first lesson last week.
• I’m trying to diversify my reading this year by reading a few less books and instead more magazines.  I tried to find a few that I might not normally read, but would help me to be stretched in different areas.  In addition to the ones that I was already getting, I’ve now subscribed to: Dwell, Real Simple, Mental Floss, One Story, and Fast Company.  I’d like to add a few more…got any suggestions? (I also already currently read Collide, Leadership Journal, Christianity Today and Wired)
• Had a great phone call with Jud Wilhite yesterday.  He was super encouraging…I took pages of notes.  One of things he said that’s stuck – “you have to outlove and outlast your critics”
• Stoked to start a coaching network with Scott Hodge next week.
• Way into This American Life right now.  I can’t get enough of it.  I’m downloading the podcasts each week, got the DVD’s of the TV show for Christmas, and I’m still left wanting more each week.
• Inspired by what we’re doing in our small group right now, Allison and I have decided to experiment with having an intentional sabbath as a family for the last two weeks.  Our goal is simply two things when we do it: to not work/produce, and to do things that bring joy and help us to experience rest with God.   It’s been really good.  I think we’ll be trying to figure out how to be better at it and how to make it a more regular, intentional part of our week.
• Read Frederick Buechner’s book, Telling the Truth a couple of weeks ago.  It’s older than me and it’s short, but I was sucked in.  I bought a copy for a few friends and for everyone on our staff who regularly preaches. 
• I’ve only played The Settlers of Catan one time, but I’m hooked now.  We’ve got another game going tonight.  How is it that no one told me about this game before last week?
• In my other random spare time, I’m designing a website for my parent’s company.  It’s still got a ways to go…but not bad, eh. 
• My parents bought me a netbook for building their website.  I’m really enjoying the portability of it.  In fact, I’m writing this one it.  Now, if only it didn’t run Windows…
• We’re currently reading the kids a chapter a night of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.  Kate’s struggling a little to pay attention, but Isaac is way into it.  I’m excited to start exposing our kids to great literature like this early on.
• Allison decided to start Twittering – mostly so that she could keep tabs on what everyone else was hearing from me.  If you’re on Twitter, follow her – she’ll have some good stuff and honest insight on our family. 
• And no, that doesn’t get me any closer to Facebook.  Now, I’m mostly not on it out of pure stubbornness.

That’s all I’ve got.  We’ll return to a regular posting schedule next week.

I took a bit of a break here with Christmas and everything, which has lasted a bit longer than I anticipated. I’ll be back soon, but wanted to pop back in to let those of you from Parkcrest know that we will be responding as a church to the Earthquake and subsequent crisis in Haiti.

We will be partnering with a mission’s organization in Haiti called New Missions who will be working to restore damaged schools, food storehouses and medical clinics.

If you would like to give to Parkcrest’s Disaster Relief Fund in order to help with our response, you can do that online, here. Indicate that your gift is for Missions, and when our finance department emails you to ask which Missions it is specifically for tell them “Disaster Relief”. Follow the instructions on the website to follow up with the finance department and direct your gift to “Disaster Relief”.

There is also a possibility that a team could go to Haiti later this year for disaster relief work. If that is something that you may be interested in considering, send Ginger an email including your name, phone number and email address. Indicate that you’re interested in more information about being a part of relief work in Haiti. Someone will get in contact with you when there’s more information.

And of course, we should be praying. Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and there are reports of 30,000-100,000 dead. Pray for the relief workers. Pray for clean water and food to be able to be delivered. Pray for necessary medical supplies to be able to make it. And pray that this will be an opportunity for the church to be the church, and for people to turn to Christ in the midst of this all.

My goal is to read 50 books a year. I’m not exactly sure how many I got through this year…I probably need to do a better job at tracking that, but it’s somewhere around 50. My favorites tend to be books that had me talking about it and thinking about it later. They’re books that I found myself referring back to and referencing to people in conversations. Often, as was the case with a few of these, I end up buying copies that I give away as well.

So, here were my favorites that I read this year¹:

7. In-N-Out Burger by Stacy Perman
I’m not going to lie. I love In-N-Out. We had it at our wedding. Anytime I’m out of town, it’s the first place I go when I get back. So, I really enjoyed reading about how it started, some of their practices and some of the things they’ve done that have set them apart from other fast food chains. It was a good read for leadership principles. The only problem was that every time I read a section I had to run to In-N-Out to satisfy a craving.

6. Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
I seriously didn’t expect to like this book. I don’t think I’ve ever before read a book on running. It was a great story, that along the way gave you stats, advice and helpful antidotes on running. It inspired me to run for the joy of running, and to do it barefoot.

5. Me, Myself and Bob by Phil Vischer
This is the autobiography of Phil Vischer who was the creator of VeggieTales. Reading about how VeggieTales got started and what happened to it was interesting. But what sucked me in more was his story of grace and how he encountered God in fresh ways when he wasn’t trying to do more good stuff for him. After reading it, for Isaac’s birthday, I also ended up buying the children’s book that Phil wrote shortly after he lost VeggieTales.

4. Lamb by Christopher Moore
Probably about 5 years ago, a few people kept urging me to read this book and I never got around to it. I don’t know why I didn’t at the time, but it was definitely worth reading it this year. It’s the fictional account of the Gospel according to Biff, Jesus’ Childhood friend. It was so funny and fun to read. I actually laughed out loud several times as the author would retell a common story of Jesus from Biff’s perspective. One brief disclaimer though: Although there’s some great historical and biblical research done for the book, Christopher Moore isn’t a Christian, so if you’re someone who is easily offended, it’s probably not the best book for you to pick up.

3. The Orthodox Heretic by Peter Rollins
Peter Rollins is a bit controversial for some other things he has written, but regardless of whether or not you agree with his theology, I think that this book is brilliant. Essentially he writes his own parables, some of which had me thinking about them for days afterwards. It also made me think about what it looks like in preaching or writing for the story to be the message, and to not have to make the story be supplemental to the message. I haven’t ventured to try anything with that yet, but it definitely compelled me to consider it.

2. The Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight
Scot has definitely become a significant voice in the evangelical world, and it helps that we had him out to speak at Parkcrest and I got to know him a bit. But this book was something that I had been looking for, for a long time. A book that the average person at Parkcrest can read that helps us to thoughtfully engage the Scriptures.

1. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller
This was the one book that I read this year that I had a hard time putting down. I think I read it in two sittings, and need to go through it again. This was definitely Donald Miller’s best book yet. He recaptured his great writing style where he tells you stories about himself, but at the same time has a bigger overarching narrative that he’s drawing you into. He does a great job at encouraging us to live a better story.

Continue Reading…

Since it seems that about 1 out of every 5 people with a cell phone now has an iPhone, I thought it might be helpful to post what my most used apps this year were.

9. Mint
We began using Mint this year to track our personal finances. It is amazingly awesome. The two best things about it are that it’s free, and all of the work is done for you – you don’t have to reconcile your checking account, you don’t have to mentally subtract your credit card from your checking account to figure out how much cash on hand you have – it’s all done for you. The iPhone app is a nice quick glance at our cash flow and how we’re doing.

8. Dragon Dictation
This just came out a few weeks ago, but it’s already been incredibly helpful. I find myself dictating emails on my way home, and it’s got huge future potential.

7. Best Camera
I’ve got several camera apps that I’ve tried for doing quick edits of photos, but this is my favorite. It’s got a few prebuilt filters that for the most part are all that I need to use to make an iPhone photo stand out a bit.

6. RunKeeper
I began using this before my barefoot running obsession, but it’s definitely helped. It tracks where I run, how fast, how far, average pace and calories burned. I was using Nike+ for a little while, but I found this to be more accurate and more versatile.

5. YouVersion
At the beginning of the year, I was using this for my morning Bible reading. I stopped using it regularly because I got frustrated by the lack of ability to follow a plan at my own pace, to have it sync with my online reading on YouVersion and with the lack of ability to use a different reading plan than the default one. With their most current release, they’ve dealt with all three of those, so it will definitely become a most used app again.

4. Evernote
Evernote can run on the Mac, PC, web and iPhone. I use it to drop anything that could possibly be used for research for messages, leadership development, or some random future project. I take pictures of my whiteboards and save them on here. It’s all searchable and archived online. I love having access to all of that on my mac and iPhone, and now that I was recently given a netbook, I can have access to it on there as well.

3. Omnifocus
This is definitely my most expensive iPhone app, and many people won’t have a need for it. For me, I cannot stay organized without Omnifocus on my Mac, and having it sync to my phone and having all of my projects and the work I need to get done with me all of the time has proved to be incredibly beneficial.

2. Words With Friends
Kozmo talked me into downloading this game, and I’ve been sucked in. It’s basically playing Scrabble with anyone else who has it, at whatever pace it takes you. A game could last a day or weeks. I’ve currently got several games going with people from around the country. (by the way…my username is mgoldsworthy if you’re playing)

1. Tweetie 2
I love the design and interface of this Twitter app. Not only does it have a clean interface, but it also integrated TextExpander, so you can type a few letters and an entire sentence, or phrase can be automatically inserted, which is brilliant, especially for using the iPhone.

What were your most used iPhone apps this year?

Since it seems to be the cool thing to do, I thought I’d do a few “Best of 2009″ blogs. Starting with the most visited blog posts on mikegoldsworthy.com from 2009 according to Google Analytics.