New Village Chapel video

One of our interns put this together for our New Comers lunch. It is well done and gives a great picture of our church

A Little Out of Hand

Take a close look at this picture. Yes it is a batter chasing a pitcher with a bat after getting hit with a pitch. Latin American players are passionate about their baseball. Watch the video here:

Why is this Cuban baseball player chasing another with his bat? – Big League Stew – MLB Blog – Yahoo! Sports

Volunteer of the Week: John Sobal

John has been coming to The Village Chapel for almost three years. During that time we have seen him get involved in several areas. His first claim to fame is part of our champion golf team that took the Care Net Pregnancy golf tournament in 2009. From there he has spent his time slinging chairs around on our set up team as well as deep frying fourteen turkeys for our Christmas Eve outreach. Currently John serves as our volunteer bookkeeper. He faithfully comes in on Mondays and Wednesdays to pay all the bills for The Village Chapel. He chose those days because they don’t interfere with his full time pursuit of being a retired golf addict.

We love having John around the office. He adds a lot of humor. If you see John around the church go ahead and give him a Village Chapel “Atta Boy!”

Weight Loss Wednesday

This is my second post in my weight loss journey and I am more excited than ever! I am down 17lbs and starting to see the benefits of losing weight. On Monday I had to wear my suit and it was the first time in years that I didn’t have to squeeze into my pants and was able to button my jacket with a risk of the buttons popping off. The bonus is that Jen has been doing the diet with me and she is down three pounds in three weeks.

I am continuing to learn a ton as this process goes on most of it good and some of it bad. Like Sunday when I ate sugar coated bread for the first time in four weeks and felt the effects all day. I also realized that sleep is so important to your weight. Go without it and the stress rises from fatigue and your body goes into shock mode and retains water.

Some of the things that I am learning in the process:

• It’s 80% Diet and 20% Excersize.
• Good food tastes good.
• Bad food may taste good for a second but it affects your body like you don’t know.
• Nothing motivates you more than when you hit a goal.
• Track what you eat. They say that you lose 25% more weight that way. Jen & I use myplate.com from Live Strong. Has a great app for the iPhone as well.
• Hoping to be down 20lbs by Friday. Got a little work to do but I think I can make it
• A lot of clothes are starting to not fit in a good way.

Meal of the Week: 3 Alarm Sloppy Joes:
All of us loved sloppy joes in school but here is a recipe that is awesome.

1 28 oz can of Vegetarian Bush’s baked beans
1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes
2 Tablespoons of chili powder
1 Tablespoon of Garlic Salt

Throw is all in a pan, mix, and simmer for 10 minutes. Put it on top of all wheat bun and top with Coleslaw if you like. It is incredible and really good for you!

Let Me Introduce an Inlfuential Leader: Michael Hyatt

A Leader that I have been following for a couple of years is Michael Hyatt. He is the CEO of the largest Christian Book Publisher in America. He prints Authors like Max Lucado. He has some great insights and is really organized. This week he put out a blog on Authentic Leadership. It is a must read for every leader but something that everyone should read.

The Five Marks of Authentic Leadership

The Five Marks are:

1. Insight
2. Initiative
3. Influence
4. Impact
5. Integrity

Video of Shoreline Calvary’s mission to London

This was the promo video that Tonye Holdye showed at The Village Chapel on Sunday March 28th.

I Love My Kids!

This video was taken at my brother in laws house on his 31st birthday. The kids in the video are my niece and nephew and my kids. All of them crack me up. The ABC’s by Toby and Ashland is hysterical.

Sunday Update

I should really call these Monday reflux because I write them on Mondays and it is basically what I remember from Sundays. Nonetheless we will continue to call them what it is a brief picture of what God is doing on Sunday mornings at The Village Chapel.

Yesterday was a tough day. I am not sure why but I was in a fog all of first service and after I was done I went home and crashed. Still trying to figure out if it was the windy weather which always throws my allergies off or it was the partial cinamon roll that I ate that threw me into sugar shock. Whatever it was I was fighting it during first service. Thankfully I came out of it second service.

Here are a few of my thoughts from Sunday:

• I am loving the involvement of the Elders on Sundays. They continue to oversee most of everything that goes on but we have added them coming up front and praying for the offering. Each Sunday has been really cool since we started.
• So we got hooked up with getting some of Panera’s donated. To say they make our donuts look weak is an understatement
• Ellen drove up in a new car on Sunday. Normally not a big deal except she had been driving her old one for 31 YEARS!!!
• Our intern Joel seemed really cleaned up. Wonder if it has anything to do with his dating status? Things that make you go Hmmm?!?
• The prayer times after services have been packed. The Elders and Prayer teams are doing a bang up job.
• Some lady busted out a tamborine in second service! It was her first time.
• If you are a shy or introverted person you might be a little overwhelmed by our people. They like to get up in your grill and welcome you
• It was nice to see the newest member of our church, Lukas, at church on Sunday. Think he is only a month old
• Hearing more and more stories of hurting families in our fellowship.
• Easter will be here in less than four weeks! We are doing some new things as well as our annual Sunrise service.
• Looking forward to our leadership lunch on Sunday. Love connecting with our core people.

Why Champions are Exceptional

As I watched the Olympics the last two week a couple of things stuck out to me. First is that not everyone lives up to expectations and second champions not only live up to them they explode past them. This got me thinking what makes a champion? I think there are three factors that make up every champion.

1. Champions EXPECT to be one. Nobody is a champion until they win. This is what makes underdog champions so popular, they came out of nowhere. If you ask what took them over the top to win it was that mental edge. They thought they could do it and they believed they could.
2. Champions EXCEL when they are supposed to. How many times have you seen someone come in with lofty goals and expectations only to fall short? You can blame it on conditions or bad luck but true champions turn it up a notch when they need to. Bode Miller is a perfect example of this. In 2006 in Turin, Italy he was the best skier in the world and came away empty handed. In 2010 he came home with three medals with little to no expectation of him winning.
3. Champions EXCEED expectations. True champions know that to be a champion you have to go above and beyond the pack. you can’t just do it better you have to push the envelope and set yourself apart. The risk is great but so is the reward. Shaun White is the perfect example of this. He had already won the gold before his second run and could’ve played it safe but instead went all out did his signature move.

This Takes Real Guts

Yahoo Sports is running a great story on a big time college football player who said no to the NFL. I wish we would more stories like this. This takes more guts that those who go on to the NFL in my opinion. We are not a society that turns our back on fame and fortune.

Nebraska’s Hickman takes rare pass on invitation from ‘The League’ – Dr. Saturday – NCAAF Blog – Yahoo! Sports