[audio:http://www.tonywheeler.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Toil-Radio-Episode-2.mp3|titles=Toil Radio Episode 2]Toil Radio Episode #2 — Setting Goals

In this, the very second episode of Toil Radio, I talk a bit about what I learned from Three Time WCW World Television Champion Marc Mero.

Setting goals in life is important. Goals in your work life are even more important.

Take a few minutes to write down your work/life goals. Where do you want to go? What do you want to accomplish? Plaster those goals where you can see them!

Love to hear your goals. Chime in and share!

I was doing my daily reading of blogs and ministry stuff and ran across a Rick Warren quote in the Ministry Toolbox on Pastors.com. The quote says:

“Our culture is falling apart. If you??re not preaching repentance in your message, you??re not preaching. No matter what we cover, it has got to come back to changing your mind, because your mind controls your life.” – Rick Warren

I have a core conviction that stems directly from the Bible: A change in thinking produces a change in action. Romans 12:2 tells us that in order to be transformed we must renew our minds. What happens then? We will be able to test and approve what God’s will is. You want to know what God’s will for your life is? Change your mind. You want to hear God’s voice? Change your mind. Looking for answers? Change your mind. This transformational truth can be found in several ways, the easiest and best is simply by reading the Word of God. The whole stinkin book is full of truth and the truth sets us free.

Rick hits on one of my other core covictions: Preachers must preach Jesus. Jesus is why we do what we do day in and day out. Preach repentance “for the Kingdom of God is near”, but at the end of the day it has to come back to Jesus. You’re doing a series on Marriage? Bottom line: Jesus. You’re preaching on The Davinci Code? Jesus. You’re talking about money? Jesus talked about money, A LOT! You’re talking about sin? Jesus mentioned something about sin…oh yeah, He forgives sin, He died for my sin, He wants us to not sin. Bottom line: Everything comes back to Jesus, who he is and what he did and what he wants us to do. Anne Graham Lotz has it right: “Just Give Me Jesus”.

You want to know God? Change your mind. Stop thinking about you and start thinking about him.

Hello to all out there in TV Land!

The places I ‘ve been? Gary, SD and everywhere between here and there. Pretty exciting, eh? It really was a nice time, a good relaxing time. We spent the weekend with Destiny’s parents and sister’s family. Got to play with a two year old and a 8 month old for a couple of days. Good times! They love me, so how can I not love them? Had a nice snow/ice storm while there…getting one here as we speak.

I had an interview last night for a full time position within the Mayo Security department. I interviewed with the two guys that I had already interviewed with for my on-call position, so they already knew pretty much what to expect. They verbally expressed that they were looking at me seriously, like what they see in me. They like my attitude, just my overall attitude. You can have all the skills in the world and not have a good attitude and things just won’t work out. So hopefully next week I should get a call welcoming me to the Mayo Security Staff full time. It would be good to have a steady paying job with great benefits. Haven’t had one of those as of yet, well steady paying, but not well paying. Haha. This would be a steady well paying position. Hah.

I start a couple of new classes on Sunday. One is the second portion of the Ministry Internship and the other is Theology of Evangelism. The Internship I am not too sure what to expect because they base it off of the first half of the internship, which I did not complete at Crown, so I emailed the prof to see what I should do. The Evangelism class should be fun…take me out of my comfort zone and get me doing what I should already be doing if I actually care about people.

Thats about all the random news I have1

Look for a discourse on Baptism coming up…had my thinking sparked while at Church with Destiny’s family on Sunday….been thinking of it since.

Until next time…Don’t eat yellow snow!

How sweet is that? I caught this on a blog that is part of a collection of blogs. What a phenominal idea. This apparently was an ad for Embassy Suites in a newspaper. So true of hotels, grocery stores, clothing stores and even more so about Churches. In the Orlando area there are all about multisite. One church is even so intentional about it that there name is Northland: A Church Distributed. They have meeting places all over the metro for people to get connected. While I don’t think that multi-site is for every church, I do feel that churches who are moving and going and being used by God to change lives should think about it. For some, it is neccessary, for others its just plain good (for the community and for the Church itself).

Anyway, these guys are thinking of making a shirt that capitalizes on this ad. “Because building one giant church in one location would have been a dumb idea.” Or something. Seems pretty resonable to me.

Just something neat that I felt like sharing. One of these days I will have an idea or some deep theological truth to share…for now feast on a newspaper ad and a borderline blasphemous video (In all honesty, I repented after watching that video because I just wasn’t sure about it. It wasn’t totally anti-Jesus or anything and while funny, the brunt of the joke (Jesus) is something that I take seriously and am offended by him being the brunt of the joke.)

Stumbled across this while reading my daily blogs…

The McPassion

Do you ever feel frustrated? I know I do, pretty much daily in fact.

I was working yesterday, a long day of lots of problematic customers….so that made me frustrated. I have been dissatisfied with my work for several months, so it is not really difficult to frustrate me. I was thinking about this yesterday. I think at the root of it all I am frustrated because of my frustration. It isn’t that the job is difficult…I get a call, pick up food, take said food to the customer and move on. Not exactly rocket science! I have always had an extremely high work ethic, doing the best that I can in every situation, even when I am not satisfied in my work. A couple of the sermons that I have been listening to over the past couple of days have talked about being the best cupbearer you can be. You may be 1000 miles away from your God given passions like Nehemiah, but being the best cupbearer in the mean time is what God is calling you to at the present. I find myself struggling with this….I have a lot of different God given passions, not a single one of them is delivering food. (on a side note, I have scaled back my work so that I can focus on school and my book selling, so that is a blessing!) I try to find good in every day, most of it ends up being that I can pay my bills and use the finances that I get to further the Kingdom…so it is tough to find fulfillment in just making money.

Not really anything crazy, just what’s on my heart at the moment. I know that all of this will produce something beyond my wildest dreams….so I frustratedly wait!

I also want to say that the difference between being frustrated and discontented is important. While I cannot say that I, like Paul, have found the secret to being contented in any and every situation, I think that I am content in most every situation….just striving to do better, get better, learn more, live more. I have learned the secret to being content in most every situation, just not the secret of not being frustrated in any and every situation.

Today we got the next to last installement in the “Uncivilized” series at church. One of the things that hit home with me was Rich’s mention of the bumper sticker theology that “The center of God’s will is the safest place to be.” For many years I have listened to well intentioned Christians (mostly students and people in the churches that I have been a part of) throw around the phrase “I am trying to figure out God’s will for my life.” In its simplest form, God’s will for your life is that you would stop worrying about His will for your life and start living. I think that we often make the mistake of pining over what it is that we are “supposed” to be doing that we don’t live the life that God has called us to RIGHT NOW. Dean Paulson, the campus pastor and Bible prof at Northwestern used to end every sermon this way (or very close to this way), “I can’t tell you who you are to marry or what job you are supposed to have, but I can tell you this…” Basically the last portion would be a Biblical truth about God and our relationship with him. What is wrong with going where God takes you and realizing that living day to day in the will of God is way better than having some roadmap to the rest of your life? Why do we feel the need to have that roadmap?

EDIT: I was doing some reading and came across Bono’s sermon from the National Prayer Breakfast that was held a few weeks ago. He has said some of the stuff in other places, but it struck me today especially after the blog that I crafted earlier in the day. What I thought was one of the coolest things that he said,

“A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord’s blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it. I have a family, please look after them. I have this crazy idea…

And this wise man said: stop.

He said, stop asking God to bless what you’re doing.

Get involved in what God is doing – because it’s already blessed.”

That has to be one of the best answers to “What is God’s will for my life?” Get involved in what God is doing, its already blessed. Stop asking God to bless what you wanna do and do what God has already blessed. Stop searching for some cosmic greatness and realize the greatness that is alredy in front of you. It may not be comfortable, it may not be easy, it may not be something you ever thought you would be doing, but its already blessed. How can you ask for anything more? Have you ever talked to someone that said, “I never thought I would be doing (XYZ), but it is the best thing I have done!” They realize what it is to get on board with God and see where the ride goes. Chew on that!

The center of God’s will is the (un)safest place to be. John the Baptist…beheaded. Disciples…persecuted. Paul…flogged/stoned/imprisioned. Jesus…suffered one of the most painful and humiliating deaths known to man. The center of God’s will? That is safety? Sounds pretty dang dangerous to me…but being in the center of God’s will is a good place to be. Not one of the persons (well the disciples early on might have…but once they got the Holy Spirit and their minds opened to the things of God, doubt it!) listed in my examples would have traded their experience for the “easy” road of being outside of the will of God. There will be trials and trouble along the way…no one said it would be easy, but it is worth it.

On a side note: If you build it, they will come. If only that were true. Rich told a story of one of the church folks who called him the other night while watching Field of Dreams….won’t go into details, but after he told that story I kept thinking about church and my last blog. If you build it they will come. Too bad that doesn’t apply to church anymore. Maybe not too bad, maybe it is too bad that more churches don’t realize that. There are some churches that it does work for, but mostly those churches are building it, going out and telling people about Jesus and inviting them to come…they don’t just come. I guess the church mantra should be something like, “If you build it, you gotta go invite them, then they might come, if you’re lucky.” haha. Mark Batterson says that the church is in the invitation business. How true is that? If we are in the invitation business, are we in the red or the black? As a business I think that we are in the red. In the business of invitations, I am in the red. I want to commit this week to invite just one person to come to Journey next week. I have a few of the church business cards that I am going to carry with me…they give the time, place and web address of the church…people can check it out before they come. I will use them this week. I challenge each of you to do the same…not just Journey folk, but everywhere across this land. All it takes is one. I don’t care about numbers, finances or butts in seats…I care that people know Jesus, and guess what? We talk about him every week at church!

Here is to being in (un)safe places with (un)civilized people.