Posted on Monday, February 23, 2015

6 Ways to Beat the Winter Blues

I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard from who are feeling down this winter. If you live in a Northern climate like I do it’s been a rough winter. It seems like every day it’s below zero and snows several more inches. I’m even out of places to put the snow.

Living in such a harsh climate can take its toll on your emotions. You can’t live in a tough place and expect the environment not to be a factor in your mood. I’m not saying people who live in Florida don’t have problems, just different ones–like skin cancer.

Posted on Friday, February 20, 2015

Who’s Driving Your Life?

If your life was a car, are you in the driver’s seat? One thing I’ve noticed as a pastor is that many people aren’t.

They have resigned themselves to the passenger seat and given their emotions and impulses a driver’s license. Today, I want you to know it doesn’t have to be that way. You belong in the driver’s seat!

Posted on Friday, February 6, 2015

The Most Important View of You

Today we finish up a series of posts about self-awareness. Knowing how others perceive you is crucial to winning in life, but there is one last area we need to look at and that is YOUR perspective of yourself.

This is a BIG deal. Here is why…“People will never outperform their self-image” -John Maxwell. Maybe you want to read that again. If you have a low view of yourself, you’ll live up to it. If you have a high view of yourself and believe that God wants to do great things through you, you’ll live up to that too.

Posted on Wednesday, February 4, 2015

4 Questions You Should Ask Others…If You Dare

We are in a series of posts looking at how a lack of self-awareness can be holding you back in every area of your life. Today, we are going to look at the second of three ways you can gain that crucial self-awareness.

Yesterday, we looked at the tools to help you self-assess how you respond under pressure and what your strengths are. Today, I want you to ask 4 questions to someone you love. This is the most difficult and the scariest of the three ways to gain self-awareness. The results of the different tests you took yesterday can be kept to yourself and you can even disagree with the results. Going to someone you love and getting their feedback is a much more painful look in the mirror. But even though it’s painful, you still need to know the answers.

Posted on Tuesday, February 3, 2015

How To Find Out What Others Know About You

In the last post we looked at how a lack of self-awareness can be holding you back in every area of your life. Today we are going to look at the first of three ways you can gain that awareness.

How well do you really know yourself? Do you know what ticks you off and makes you tick? What strengths do you bring to a team? What role would you best function in? What is your natural default when placed in stressful situations? Knowing how others interpret your actions when you are under pressure is one of the most important keys to self-awareness.

Posted on Monday, February 2, 2015

What Others Wish YOU Knew About Yourself

What if the way you looked at yourself wasn’t accurate? What if you were really socially awkward? Or what if you were better than you gave yourself credit?

There is one word that will help you answer those questions. The word is so painful that few people will do the work that this word requires.

Posted on Monday, January 26, 2015

Never Use This Excuse

Most of us want to do things that leave our corner of the world better. We hope that because we lived others can point to things that are better because of our time on earth. No one says, “I just want to be lame my whole life.”

We plan to do good, we plan to change the world…we just forget on the way to work or the way to soccer practice. That altruism gets lost in the busyness and routines of life. All that running around makes us tired and starved for time and cash. So when we actually have an opportunity to make a difference we don’t have the capacity emotionally, physically, or financially to help.

Posted on Thursday, January 22, 2015

Evangelizing the IRS

It is that time of year when churches send out annual giving statements for you to use in your tax filings.

This is also a great time for self-evaluation in a very important area of spiritual growth (Matt. 6:24). It’s not often that we get such a tangible way to measure our priorities.

Posted on Monday, January 19, 2015

Withholding Likes – New Rules of Facebook #5

Facebook by its design is more of a highlight reel than a documentary. Most people only post the best and it’s easy to think that someone else’s life is perfect.

Worse, it’s even easier to feel like a loser and like you’ll never catch up. Facebook makes it seem like everyone else is living a Disney story except you. The reality is everyone has a cross to bear. If you aren’t careful these feelings can quickly turn to envy. Here is a great test to see if you suffer with envy on Facebook: Have you ever withheld a “like” from a post?

Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2015

Trolling for Compliments – New Rules of Facebook #4

Today’s post comes from Pastor Ernie Schenk who is the Care Pastor at Northstar Church. He will be sharing the next rule in our 5 part series called, “The New Rules of Facebook.”

When do we go overboard with posting pictures or comments about ourselves and become braggarts? How much sharing about myself, my family, and my interests is too much? When do people looking at my timeline start saying, “Wow, this guy really loves himself.” Or, “This guy is his own #1 fan!” I’m not sure there is a hard line to cross, but we all know when someone has crossed it.

Maybe you’re saying, “What’s the big deal about bragging?” I mean, it’s not bragging if it’s true, right? If I really am that good, then I’m just telling the truth. Maybe so but you’re alienating friends in the process. You also can appear insecure like you are trolling for compliments.