Financial Fitness

So there you have it… we finally wrapped up the series ‘The Dark Side Of Greatness’ this last Sunday at Mavuno. I was greatly encouraged by the life-change stories, as many gained a greater self-awareness and even more importantly, God-awareness. You can stream the sermons from here or get the complete series on CD from Mavuno’s office.

I’m completely excited about our next sermon series… ‘Exercising Your Way To Financial Fitness’. Money is one of those big life-issues that we either conquer or get conquered by. Many of us may not be in a financial crisis but may still be settling for way lower impact than God intended for us. This is going to be a practical coaching time for all of us as we learn about how to grow and manage beaucoup bucks!

Apart from the Sunday services, we’ll also be launching our first ever ‘Harvest Night Series’, a series of talks on finances held every Friday night of September. This Friday (5^th), we begin with a talk by Eric Kimani, a phenomenal motivational speaker on ‘The Scarcity Mentality’. I’m looking forward to meeting Eric personally as I’ve heard great things about him and can’t wait to hear this talk. We start 6pm at the Mavuno Dome (former Bellevue Cinema). Please come and bring all your friends!

I found this quote by George Elliot that I liked… It’s never too late to be what you might have become.

Here’s to all the ‘ordinary people’ out there who have decided to live extraordinary lives!

Adrenalin Junkie

It’s been a great two weeks taking it easy with the family and being away from the office. I did make one mistake that I hope not to repeat again, which was to preach during my leave! Apart from that though, I have enjoyed the last two weeks. I realize that I live such an adrenalin soaked life that it takes at least that long to slow down and feel relaxed.

It’s so easy to rush through our frantic, fast and noisy world without taking time to refuel, reflect and refocus. Too much to do, too little time, too many meetings, too many responsibilities, too many friends, too many books on the shelf we plan to read. I actually woke up this morning with a start thinking ‘help! There’s soo much to do!’ and had to ask Carol to pray for me. Her peaceful nature has a great slowing down effect on me!

With God's help, I’m determined to keep practicing the following disciplines throughout my life…

Quiet Time – take some time every morning (when I’m not on vacation!) to give my day to God
Sabbath – take a day off each week to rest and relax. For me, that’s Mondays
Retreat – take three 2-night retreats annually to evaluate my life direction and refocus on what’s next
Vacation – take a week off three times a year (every holiday) to build family memories with our kids

In Mat.11.28-30, Jesus made an invitation: ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

When we listen to God, we actually end up doing less not more. But this less is more focused on what we are meant to be doing. Here’s a great mantra for all adrenalin junkies out there: ‘It’s not busyness but effectiveness that counts’.

Blessings

For the first time ever, Mavuno held two services this last Sunday. 9:00 and 12:00. Both went really well! It was great to hear comments from all the morning people at the 9:00 who were so glad they could be at church early and then have the rest of the day to do whatever they want to do. And then later to hear from all the not-so-morning people at the 12:00 who were oh-so-glad they could finally sleep in on a Sunday morning and come to church all relaxed!

Finally, off to the Coast this week with our kids for a much awaited vacation! We enjoyed the drive yesterday; the road’s quite good except for the strip from Daystar to Makindu, which you can evade by going through Machakos. It was the longest road trip we’ve taken so far as a family but we all held up pretty well. We’re staying with some good friends in Mombasa. Looking forward to making some great family memories!

This morning I’m counting my blessings. I thank God for my wife and kids whom I love very much. For our many good friends. For belonging to a great church. For fantastic co-workers at Mavuno. For an opportunity to be a part of what God is doing on our great continent. For the opportunity to take time off once in a while and relax.

There’s an old hymn that says, ‘Count your blessings name them one by one… and it will surprise you what the Lord has done’. Too true!

Issues

Had a really great weekend... Friday night was Mavuno’s first ever Date Night, a fun event designed to bring the spark back to our marriages. And how much fun that was! I won’t quickly forget the near riot when we turned off the music at 11.30pm so people could go home, and people began chanting ‘haki yetu’ (we want our rights!) so that the DJ had to play a few more songs! With marriages under so much pressure today, I’m very excited about this new ministry and look forward to seeing intimate and purposeful marriages in this generation.

Also this Sunday, Carol & I began our new series ‘The Dark Side of Greatness’. It was the first time we were preaching together (although we’ve team taught many times at marriage and family seminars and retreats). Very grateful for the enthusiastic response by people and humbled to see how many resonated with the first message; either cholerics like me or survivors of cholerics like Carol! Several people told me afterwards that they are going to bring their entire office staff to listen to the series (or at least their boss J). It’s been great to read the continuing conversation on the Mavuno blog (mavuno.wordpress.com). I look forward in the weeks to come to exploring together what the bible has to say about the other temperaments.

None of us is perfect, nor should we ever pretend to be. We all have ‘issues’, and as we deal with them, we position ourselves to be the people God created us to be. In acknowledging our weaknesses, we actually become stronger (2Corinthians11:10)! Understanding our temperament as well as how to overcome our dark side can help us become better leaders, employees, friends, spouses and parents. And hopefully, people around us will begin to agree with us when we say, ‘I’m not yet what I’d like to be, but I’m sure not what I used to be!’

Lastly, I like this poem that I found in my file of quotations (author unknown)…

If a child lives with criticism,
He learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility,
He learns to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule,
He learns to be shy.
If a child lives with shame,
He learns to hide.
If a child lives with tolerance,
He learns to be gracious.
If a child lives with encouragement,
He learns to be confident.
If a child lives with praise,
He learns to appreciate others.
If a child lives with fairness,
He learns to be just.
If a child lives with security,
He learns to trust.
If a child lives with healthy discipline,

He learns to have healthy boundaries.
If a child lives with approval,
He learns to love himself and others.

With God’s help, let’s sort out our ‘issues’ so that we don’t pass them on to the next generation!

Temperamental anyone?

Wow… just finished our last sermon series at Mavuno, ‘Players of The Bible’, and Pst. Linda did a phenomenal job! It was great to see that people in biblical times faced very contemporary issues e.g. a sexual advances by the boss, using sex to get what I need etc. She did a weekly ‘talk show’ with a team of 4 panelists whose job description was to keep it real. As one lady who was visiting from another church said to me this past Sunday, ‘I still can’t believe they said such things in church!’ If you didn’t get a chance to hear it or would like to order it for a friend, the complete series should be available on CD at the Mavuno dome this coming Sunday.

Hard to believe August is already here! And with it the beginning of a new series, ‘The Dark Side of Greatness’. The plan is to explore our different temperaments, their strengths and their shadow sides. Not something I’ve heard many sermons on before. But the applications are endless. I believe it will help us all better understand ourselves and what kind of leaders we are becoming. We’ll also understand how to be better parents, bosses, employees, siblings etc. Should be interesting… And hopefully life-changing!

And speaking of temperaments, here’s a great quote for people who share mine.

"I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to."

Sort of reminds me of the old Kenya one that goes, ‘Never argue with a fool… people might not notice the difference.’ I find this rather hard to do! It’s so much easier to prove to the other person how wrong they are and how right I am. That I too am an intelligent human being. With a valid and educated opinion. But by God’s grace, I’m learning to pick my fights wisely: To ask ‘what is really at stake here?’ And to know that when I’m truly secure in who I am, it’s not a sign of weakness to choose to walk away. Can you guess what temperament I am?

Have a great week!

Friends

I had a great time this weekend at the launch of the International Christian Center (ICC) launch of their brand new 15 acre Imara campus. Having just been through our own launch a little while back, I was well placed to appreciate the remarkable work that had gone into setting up. It was an action & emotion packed service and judging from the over 4000 who showed up + ICC’s great history of involvement in their community, I predict the Villa/Imara area will never be the same again. Kudos to our sister-church ICC and to my good friend Pst. Philip Kitoto on a job well done.

And speaking of friends, I read this quote recently…

"Real friends are those who, when you feel you've made a fool of yourself, don't feel you've done a permanent job"

I spoke with one of my friends this week on several guys we know whose marriages have hit a wall. These are people who have loved and served God and had what seemed to be great marriages. And yet after many years together, their wives suddenly (at least to us) left them and moved on to other pursuits. The sad thing for each of these couples is that no one was close enough to them to see it coming.

In the career-building phase of life that so many of us are in, it’s so easy to focus on work at the expense of relationships. And to slowly find that we end up with no real friends. People who can ask us difficult questions. Who can challenge our decisions, not to hold us back but because they have our back.

It sometimes feels like work at this stage to build friends; much easier to be surrounded by colleagues, acquaintances and admirers, aka ‘mafans’. And yet Carol & I are learning that we need to slow down enough to make time for our friends. Because if and when the going gets tough, we’ll be glad we did.

Time Off

Taking it slow this week to work on sermon prep and also think. Am amazed how much of my work is taken up by just thinking! Quite a few good things going on at Mavuno over the last couple of months...

• The energy every time we meet on Sundays is incredible. A tangible sense of anticipation is in the air. And God has graciously chosen to check in every time we've met
• Lots of life change going on. Last Sunday's challenge was to men to stop being 'players' and to live responsible lives in regards to our relationships with the ladies. The response was overwhelming. Lots of great individual stories... very exciting!
  
• We've had over 200 sign up for Mizizi ~ our intro course to Mavuno which also doubles as our Christianity 101 experience!

Exciting days. Now if only I didn't have to take time off to think!