This plate and my plate feel the same right now. When you have an empty plate and think of all of the things that you wanna eat, it can be hard to decide how much of which food to place where. When you start placing food on the plate, you choose your portion sizes with what you have yet to fix in mind. A little food here, a lot of something there, and before you know it your plate if full and you haven’t even gotten to the main course. You can’t grab an extra plate, you have no more room on your current plate, if you throw the steak over the top of it all you look ridiculous, so what do you do? Dropping the food analogy, I find it best to give one issue or one task a strong, focused burst of attention so that I can actually remove an item completely from my (plate) to-do list. Trying to do 5 things at once is VERY stressful and isn’t even that effective.
I am at a place today where I feel like I have 7 appetizers on my plate (get car battery replaced, take other car in to see why its check-engine light is on, work on the website, send in a proposal, prepare for important meetings, etc., etc.) and haven’t even gotten to the main course. Nonetheless, these things must be done and if I neglect them, I’ll still have to pay!
Pray for me today and I will pray for you. Stay focused and get some things completed.
Go ahead, call me crazy, but this is THE year for the Braves to win it all. I say this every year, but now Jayson Stark, the ESPN.com baseball guru says so too! Nana nana boo boo!
This is Eric Pinckney. He is my neighbor. We met a few months ago when it actually snowed so much in Atlanta that our kids made a snowman – a big one. Tonight we had dinner with his beautiful family (Claristine, EJ, Joshua) and really enjoyed our time together. We watched Davidson lose to Kansas, ate dinner, talked politics, and passed a whiffle ball with my 18 month old son, Ezekiel.
His wife took this photo right before we left and it occurred to me that it is a lot easier to love a neighbor that you know. While I don’t wanna debate what Jesus meant when he admonished us to love our neighbor, I know that in our impersonal, doors-and-windows-locked, park-in-your-garage society it is way too easy to use the excuse of not knowing your neighbor for why you don’t love them.
I am glad I know Eric and the Pinckney crew and look forward to a growing relationship with them. How could you get to know (and love) your neighbors? If it’s as important as Jesus says it is, I think you should give it a try!
Being the cheesy, tech dad that I am, I have created a simple blog for Kendi’s soccer team. My hope is that it will help keep parents in the loop and allow the kids to see themselves online (which many of them have never done before. It’s nice and simple. If you wanna check it out, go to: EastLakePanthers.Blogspot.com
This photo was taken by my Morehouse brother Tim Cunningham about a year ago when Barack came to Atlanta and over 20,000 people showed up. I had no idea Tim took this photo until it showed up on my Facebook page today. In a very corny way I am proud of this photo! I told Tim I’m going to start telling people I had my photo taken with Barack Obama.They don’t have to know I’m 20 feet away! Haha!
I was an early adopter of Barack, but this rally sealed the deal for me and a lot of others. Never in my life had I seen so many people from
so many ages, races, and nationalities come together like this. It really was awesome. After Barack wins the Democratic nomination, I believe he will take Georgia in the presidential race as well. Wins like that are central to why he will likely be our next President.
My doctors have recommended that I have a multi-level spinal fusion. This is the spinal equivalent to losing a kidney or a testicle. In other words, I don’t want to have this procedure. It would permanently alter the quality of my life and send me down a path I am not willing to follow at this point. Now they are recommending that I have a spinal cord stimulation unit implanted in my back to alleviate the pain since I am refusing to have the surgery. Before I take this step, I have decided to give my body the best shot at non-surgical recovery by working with a Super Trainer that also happens to understand what it’s like to be thrown some curve balls in life. Andrew Johnston is a great guy, an award winning trainer of trainers, a physical recovery guru, has a holistic perspective on training, and is currently living with Leukemia. My kind of guy. Andrew is and has been a world class athlete for over a decade. I admire his drive and determination to continue with the life God has for him in spite of the fact that he has been diagnosed with a debilitating and (what people say is) an incurable disease. I expect Andrew is going to push me way past my comfort zone, but at this point I am wide open to all of his advice and wisdom.
I feel that it is important for me to "go public" with my decision to work with Andrew because I need as much motivation as I can get. The pain in my body is constantly asking me to not work out, to not push myself, to rely on medications, to not believe that recovery is possible without surgery. However, I am choosing to believe that another option is available and going public to you with it puts just a little extra, but necessary pressure on me to move forward with a radical physical recovery plan.
I have used this "going public" method throughout my life and it works for me. When I know that something is going to take some real courage and determination to pursue and that the constant pull to be mediocre in life that we all feel has the potential of keeping me from reaching my goals, it helps me to not just expect success for myself, but to begin having other people expect success of me as well.
Low expectations are like water to fire. As a 1st grade teacher, my wife constantly informs me of how essential it is for her to express her huge expectations to her students. The second she lowers her expectations (academic, behavioral, etc.) of her kids, they begin to under-perform and lose their motivation.
Now, I have to have my own internal, personal motivation – and I do. However, I strongly believe in the power of community and communal expectations. When a community expects change, the chances of it happening increases exponentially. I am expecting a physical breakthrough in my life and would you to expect one for me as well.
If you are in need of a radical personal transformation, you can check Andrew out here and here. I trust him.
Do you need me to join my faith with yours for any physical breakthroughs or miracles? Let me know so that I can encourage you on your own personal path to health and healing.
This is Deacon the Villain. He is one of the hottest rappers and music producers in the world. Before he was so fresh and famous, he was my college roommate in 1997 at Morehouse College (LLC – 3rd Floor) and at the crappy Spanish Trace Apartments where we were robbed the first week after we moved in. But we go deeper than that, we were best friends in high school when we lived in Versailles, Kentucky and went to Woodford County High School together and dreamed big dreams together. I could always count on him through thick and thin and I am not even sure I would be a Christian or a pastor if I did not know Deacon. That’s another story.
I am very proud of the man he has become and the great success he has had pursuing his dreams. I just left a meeting with him @ The Varsity in downtown Atlanta and we swapped some stories and continued to share our dreams with one another. The big difference is now that I can help him make his dreams become a reality and he can certainly help me with mine.
I thank God for these types of full-circle moments where God shows me how he has been working behind the scenes without my knowledge or contribution to make old friends like new friends.
Before I was a pastor and he was a rapper, we were friends. That has weight with me.
On the dark, icy night of November 28th, 2003, my wife and I were in a full-speed, head-on car collision. The shear force of the crash sent my face (not my head, but the front of my face) crashing through the front windshield and tore my handsome mug to shreds…
Regretfully, I never lost consciousness during this whole ordeal and lived through the doctors injecting over 50 Novocaine shots in my face and giving me over 300 stitches so that I could look like the dead man you see above. They had to sew my right eyelid back on and sew on a huge chunk of my bottom lip. The other side of my face, which you cannot see in this picture (see it here if you can stomach it), was cut wide open from my ear to my mouth. I looked pretty much like this for about a month and looked something like that for about four months. No joke, I was still getting small shards of glass out of my face several months after the accident.
When I would go out in public, people would (rightfully so) stare with puzzled looks on their faces… wondering what dog I let chew my face up. I had major dental damage, could hardly eat, couldn’t see well, was in a ton of pain, but I made it. It wasn’t a storybook recovery either.
I cried like a baby (when no one was looking). I was depressed and lost a ton of confidence in my ability to be a public leader (I was a full-time public speaker at the time). I was upbeat sometimes, but felt like crap a lot. But when everything added up, I made it…
Psalm 30:5 states that "weeping may endure through the night, but joy comes in the morning." In other words, keep living and things will get better.
After meeting with my physical therapist today and consulting with a
few top-notch personal trainers, I am preparing to face some new
challenges (avoiding a multi-level spinal fusion surgery by working out
like a cancer stricken Lance Armstrong) head on. They tell me that
this mountain I am about to climb is a big one, but after you’ve been
through what I’ve been through, don’t call it a comeback, I been here
for years (that’s an LL Cool J quote for my non rap lyric quoting blog
buddies.)!
Whatever you are facing, you need to know that you can make it. You may not come out looking like America’s Next Top Model and it won’t always be easy, but you have been through hell and high water before and you can get through it again. I have come to learn that if I just keep on living, I will outlast most of my challenges.
I believe I have a lot more living to do and so do you!
(Don’t take my word for it – let LL get you pumped up)
Wow! I can understand some of the controversy about Barack’s pastor, but criticizing Barack on what someone else has said is very different than criticizing Hillary based on what she has said. Follow my quick argument and check out this CBS News video for yourself.
Hillary has touted her overseas trips, particularly her trip to Bosnia (with Sinbad & Sheryl Crow) as the reason why she is more capable than Barack to be Commander in Chief. She told BIG, FAT, HAIRY, LIES about this trip, not once, not twice, but three times in three states over a period of four months to give her some credibility on this issue and suggested it was because of this type of experience that she is particularly able to answer 3am phone calls regarding national security issues.
Now that she is caught in this big, fat, hairy lie she starts talking about how she would not let Jeremiah Wright be her pastor (who is her pastor?) and that she was sleep deprived when she misspoke last week on this comment.
Here is my question, were you sleep deprived when you told the sames lies in this CBS video in Iowa and Texas as well? Were you sleep deprived in Pittsburgh this week when you continued to lie about your recollection of it in a newspaper interview in the state you know you need to win so badly? And if you were sleep-deprived all of these times, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO BE LIKE ANSWERING THE PHONE @ 3AM???
I have been sleep deprived many times in my life – it causes me to be cranky and irritable. When Hillary gets sleep deprived it causes her to make up very descriptive stories about ducking from sniper fire and canceling meetings on the tarmac to run for safe cover. Hilarious!
This is not smear politics – this is down right scary to have a presidential candidate telling these types of lies without the blink of an eye. Heck, it seems like she actually believed them and that is a major problem. Now several military officials are speaking out about how this disturbsand angers them. Watch this video and let me know what you think? Did she misspeak?
This morning I was watching the news and saw the dumbest thing. When I find a link, I will post it, but a simple google search tells me that people are "seeing" Jesus everywhere.
A woman, this morning, swore the collection of dirt (presumably from her nasty butt) in the bottom of her shower is Jesus. This is ridiculous to me for a few reasons…
1. We don’t really even know what Jesus looked like and I am sure he doesn’t look like the dirt from your arse.
2. How do I know you didn’t put your finger in your nasty shower dirt and draw that yourself?
Here’s the point – people are looking for Jesus. While one man insists his Corn Flake was the face of Jesus, another man a potato chip, one dude his chest x-ray, this crazy woman says it’s the dirt in her nasty bath tub – I am not trying to step on someone’s cornflake by saying that Jesus couldn’t appear in your cereal, because I guess He could, but I can think of about 1003 places off of the top of my head where you can meet Jesus face to face that won’t keep you from washing the filth out of your tub. Start here.
Since I admire the great work that they do in our city and I only live a few miles away, I have been wanting to visit Buckhead Church for a while and finally got the chance to go this past Good Friday. Rai and I took the kids to the nearest Toys R Us two weeks ago and I was shocked when I pulled into the parking lot and saw Buckhead Church right in the thick of things. They were preparing for the 6pm service that night and a great crowd of people was parking all over the place to get into service. It was super cool! As I always do, I forced my wife to take a tour against her will. Since I could no longer use not knowing exactly where the church was located as an excuse to not visit, we decided to visit the Good Friday service. Like the typical pastor, I went back and forth from study-the-environment mode to worship-God mode – here are my thoughts.
I love the building, the location, the main sanctuary is huge and is a great use of space, parking is surprisingly ample and was very organized.
We got there about 30 minutes before the service was set to begin and had a comical time trying to find a seat. If I was as cool as Los, I would have had a camera strapped on my head somehow as I walked through to capture the experience, but I am not quite there yet. A few things made this experience comical (for me) and frustrating (for my wife). While we are probably spoiled and not use to having to search for a seat, our church uses ushers (friendly guides) to help visitors find a seat. We scoured up and down isle after isle and row after row, embarrassingly asking people, Forrest Gump style, if a seat was available. We would see entire rows of seats with 10-12 empty seats, but we would always get the response, "Taken." It was ok at first, but it did get a little old. It is obviously a part of the fiber of the church to save and reserve seats, because everywhere we went, we would see little bitty pieces of torn paper that people would place in the saved seats to show you that they were taken. It was a lot like finding a parking spot at the mall, but discovering a unicycle parked in it when you got all excited about finding the spot. We eventually sat pretty far in the back, but all of the seats were really good seats because of the awesome A/V system there.
One additional interesting thing that my wife and I noticed, but didn’t know that that the other noticed, was the fact that we saw hundreds of white attendees having a blast before the service started… drinking Starbucks, laughing out loud, shaking hands, and telling stories all throughout the place. We both noticed that nearly every African American we saw was sitting alone, talking to no one, and looked altogether lonely. We wanted to give them a hug or a high five or something! I did not help things by overstating to my wife the diversity of Buckhead Church ahead of time.
Once the service began, we were blown away. The artwork of Jesus on the cross being done on stage was great and not cliche in any way. The music, the lyrics, the graphics, and the vocalists were absolutely awesome. I am convinced that some of the most talented people in the country are leading Buckhead church. At our Pentecostal church, you look strange if you are not standing up and waving your hands during worship. It’s just a major part of our service. Of the thousands of people on the lower level, my wife and I wanted to stand up during worship several times, but noticed that absolutely nobody was standing except for one lone guy in the balcony. After reading Los talk about the Easter Services @ Buckhead, I really regretted not standing when I felt compelled to do so. I’m not a give-in-to-peer-pressure type of guy, but it got me this time. I saw one of the worship leaders crying and really worshiping God out loud, but surprised myself with my desire to fit in by sitting down.
The service, which included Communion, videos, songs, art, and more was less than an hour long, but felt like much longer because it was full of depth and meaning. When it ended with the unveiling of the finished art, Rai and I (and everyone around us) took a while to get the double-meaning from the art work. We knew that "It is Finished" were the words of Jesus on the cross, but it also meant that the service was finished. After everyone stared at the art for about 30 seconds, the early adopters began getting up and leaving – which let the slower ones amongst us know that it was time to go. Upon reflecting about this way to end the service as I walked to my car, I decided that I liked this method because it was thought-provoking and did not cheapen the moment. Instead, we all left somewhat somber and serious – which is appropriate. Altogether, this service was very well-conceived and executed and hopefully touched people the way it touched me.
I got a lot out of my time @ the Buckhead Church and hope to go back to some evening services (with the kids) in the near future.
My daughter Kendi, at the front of this line, is the youngest, smallest child on her soccer team and one of only two girls. My wife and I watch her on the field and recognize all of these potential challenges right away. Somewhere along the way we have been conditioned to magnify challenges and perceived shortcomings, but Kendi never even noticed that she was the smallest, doesn’t know that she is the youngest, and plays with as much tenacity as the roughest boy on the field. Of course I am proud, but their is a deeper life lesson in this. When Jesus commanded us to have faith like children, I think he had kids like Kendi in mind. Kendi does not worry about size, does not fret over her age, she doesn’t realize that most of the kids on the field have been playing for several more years than her – she just goes after it.
As adults, we think we have so much to lose that we are afraid to have faith like a child. In our minds, living with boldness will ruin our reputations (like our reputations are that good), will cause embarrassment, or we think that having childlike faith may force us to venture out into unknown territories, so we stay in our safety circles and rarely venture outside of them. This guarantees that we miss out on life.
What would be different in your life if you let go and had the faith of a child?? Maybe you could fly? Check Kendi’s feet out from the game on Saturday! Beat that David Blaine!
You know the scene in Pulp Fiction where Mia gets the $5 Milk Shake? Well – $5 milk shake, meet the $4 Whole Foods cupcake! FYI – it was as good as Mia’s $5 milk shake.
Yesterday was an awesome day for Total Grace Christian Center. With three separate, all-live (no video) locations throughout metro-Atlanta and four (sometimes five) Sunday morning services, we are getting better and better at creating a great experience for all of our locations and yesterday was a great example of this. We were one of the first churches in Atlanta to go multi-site and have been doing it now for over five years with a great deal of success. We have wrestled with a couple of ways to do our Easter Sunday services over the years and see it done in a lot of ways in the city (rent out a big stadium and have one big service, keep the regular schedule, etc.), but we do it a little different on Easter Sunday.
Normally, we have a 7:30am service, two separate, simultaneous, all-live 10 am services, and our largest gathering at 11:30am. Frequently we also hold special services @ 7pm as well.
Yesterday, we did a church-wide sunrise service @ 7am at our Clayton County location, and did three simultaneous services @ 10am @ all of our locations (HQ, Clayton, and Gwinnett). We had live worship at all of the locations (which was great everywhere). Bishop & Co-Pastor Alvarado then did a great song together @ our HQ Location from their upcoming recording project with the Ministry Couples Institute.
For the Gwinnett Location, this is where we tapped into a live feed and piped the service into Gwinnett with our projector and screen using SlingBox. I was surprised at just how easy it was to make use of the technology. I have a few complaints about its efficiency, but thought that it was good overall. So, while Bishop Alvarado preached live @ HQ, we watch the live feed at our two other locations and it went very, very well. Attendance was up at all of our locations and we probably had around 3,000 people that attended all of our locations and services combined – which is awesome. I know we joke that "everybody comes to church on Easter," but attendance really does go up. I was shocked at the number of first time visitors at all of our locations.
It is now 6:51 am on Monday morning and my youngest son, Ezekiel (we call him EZ) is crying for me to come get him out of bed about a full two hours early….which means I must quit my rambling about the church. Bye. Here is a picture of my crew yesterday outside of Norcross High School – where we have our services….
We are going to be leaving in a few minutes to go to a soccer game for Kendi – my 6 year old daughter. It is going to be pretty chilly this morning, but it was 28 degrees during our first game last year and should be at least 50 degrees this time. These games are still fun and aren’t yet hyper competitive.
Somehow, we were selected as the Soccer Parents for the team yesterday. This means we are in charge of snacks and organizing some events for the kids. It’s worth the little investment of time and money.
*** Update:
Kendi was great. She is by far the youngest and smallest kid on her team, but makes up for it with great tenacity. We won the game and she was a real contributor. It makes me proud to have a girl that is cute, but not afraid to mix it up on the field.
Nearly 13 years ago to the day I was assaulted. I detail the assault a little more here, but it was brutal and set my life on a very different path. I was 15 years old at the time and missed over a year of school recovering from the many injuries and spinal surgeries required to recover from the assault. 8 years ago I was forced to have yet another spinal surgery to help ease the extreme pain I was feeling from my previous injuries. 5 years ago I was in a brutal car accident in which I nearly died when my face went through the windshield in a head-on collision and I needed over 300 stitches on my face alone to put me back together again. I know about pain.
Living well with pain is a major part of who I am. If you know
me, you may or may not know my story of a life lived in pain, because I
try to squeeze everything I can out of life in spite of my physical
challenges. I have made a conscious decision that physical pain will not hold me hostage and
that I am still going to live well in spite of the pain in my body. Is
it exhausting? Yes. Are simple things (tying shoes, getting out of
bed, etc.) hard? Yes. Is it fun or fulfilling to lay around and do
nothing and still be in pain? Absolutely not! And that is why
I am still going to live my life well, because I am going to be in pain
whether I am in the bed or not. Some days I can hardly move and
resting may be the best thing I can do, but when I can get out, I have
pledged to myself that I will get out and live life to the fullest.
Now, it is 2008, and I am inches away from requiring a very, very serious multi-level spinal fusion surgery that would not only be tremendously painful, but would take me out for about a year and would change my quality of life significantly – and that’s if it goes well. It does not have the best success rate in the world and is rarely performed on someone my age (28). Having this surgery when your kids are fully grown and out of the house is one thing and having it when you are not married or do not have kids is another, but I am fully married and have three young kids – so I am in a very tough spot. I am in a ton of pain to the point where it is fairly debilitating and makes it difficult to perform regular daily tasks, but I refuse to accept that this surgery has to happen. I am doing regular physical therapy (thanks Thomas), and it is helping some, but my doctors have made it clear that it is highly doubtful that any procedure or medicine will completely alleviate my pain and that I need to adjust my mind to live with some degree of constant pain from day to day.
Before I resort to surgery, I have decided to undergo a very drastic, total makeover with my physical health and fitness. It is going to be unlike anything I have ever done before and will be something like what Lance Armstrong did when he was recovering from cancer -all out physical madness. I will be detailing what this means on my blog in the days and weeks to come and may even include photos of my progress so that you see what is possible. Pray for my success and know that no matter what you face, God is not through with you yet!
Here are 3 Things that Help Me Live Well With Pain:
1. Reminding myself regularly that life could be drastically worse. My legs are in terrible pain, but I have legs. My back hurts like hell, but at least I am not paralyzed and can feel the pain. How worse would I be, I remind myself, if I did not have health insurance, if I did not have a loving family and church, if I did not know God for myself?
2. Searching out deeper value and meaning for the pain. I choose to believe that this pain is not pointless. If it was pointless, I would indeed go into a deep, depressing funk and understand how easily this could happen to people. However, I regularly search for a purpose to my pain – intended or otherwise. Because I have pain, I am very compassionate to all people in all types of pain (physical, mental, emotional, etc.). Because I have pain, it has slowed me down in such a way that I appreciate the small things in life a great deal (the smell of good foods, a hug or kiss from my kids, a sweet text message to/from my wife). My pain causes me to call on God and to rely on Him to get me from day to day. I am confident that I would be out and about doing life like a Lone Ranger if it were not for this pain.
3. Thinking of my pain as a personal challenge that I can win. I am a competitive guy and I love a good challenge. If anything, this pain is pretty doggone challenging and I refuse to lose to it! Hear me, the pain may win a few rounds of this fight, heck it may even win the whole fight sometimes, but I am content to come back and win the rematch. I have learned that although my pain is real, it is tough, and it hurts, I get great satisfaction in overcoming it to live life well. Some people may get zero satisfaction out of getting dressed or getting their children ready for school, but for me, these are victories that take effort.
Ali lost his first fight with Frazier, but he won the next two. What are some other strategies that help you live life well – even though you are in pain?
This photo was just released from the tornado this past Saturday in downtown Atlanta. This photo was taken about 1 mile away from the storm. See the skyscraper with the lit top. That is the tornado to the right of it. I live a few hundred feet away, but didn’t even know it happened! Just [...]
I don’t actually fix my kids Corn Pops every morning before school, but I did this morning. Now I snicker to myself when I fix them and feel a strange burden to keep buying them since I made them an official part of my blog title. I suppose I could rotate the breakfast food from [...]
Hello! I'm Shaun King - a 30 year old husband, father, pastor, and grad student (in that order) in downtown Atlanta.
I am the Lead Pastor of The Courageous Church- a brand new, diverse, exciting church in the heart of downtown Atlanta! Before I put on my SuperSuit and go live out my call in the city, I fix my five kids a bowl of cereal, change diapers, pack lunches, and give my wife a kiss.
This blog is all about the tight rope that I walk between Courage & Corn Pops!
This plate and my plate feel the same right now. When you have an empty plate and think of all of the things that you wanna eat, it can be hard to decide how much of which food to place where. When you start placing food on the plate, you choose your portion sizes with what you have yet to fix in mind. A little food here, a lot of something there, and before you know it your plate if full and you haven’t even gotten to the main course. You can’t grab an extra plate, you have no more room on your current plate, if you throw the steak over the top of it all you look ridiculous, so what do you do? Dropping the food analogy, I find it best to give one issue or one task a strong, focused burst of attention so that I can actually remove an item completely from my (plate) to-do list. Trying to do 5 things at once is VERY stressful and isn’t even that effective.
