It's been a very interesting week for me.  God allowed me to see the ways that writing and being honest, transparent and real could impact the lives of people in ways that you don't expect. 

Today, my pastor Pete Wilson has a post on his blog sharing a letter from a young woman who had been impacted so much by his book Plan B that she cancelled plans to commit suicide.  The truth that Pete shared in his excellent book brought the truth of transparency from Pete himself but also the truth of the Word of God which Pete mentions through the pages of Plan B.

Pete ends his blog today: More...

I have a question for you.  If I were to host an event so I could give a talk and get your feedback about it, would you be willing to show up & let me practice?

Would you be willing to host something like this?

If you might be willing to show or host, e-mail me or leave a comment below.  Thanks.

This is a first for my blog even though it may not look like it.

I usually write my blog entries late at night, at home, plugged in. This is being written at City Limits Café in Bellevue (highly recommended) in the late afternoon without any internet connection. (That’s why I go to City Limits to try and write…no internet, no distractions.) The downside to this is that I have to write it in Word and translate it to my blogging software. Hopefully your reading this didn’t require a lot of technical changes!

It was delayed 24 hours but this is the blog post I intended to write yesterday concerning what I’m thinking about when it comes to starting a speaking ministry. This may be a longer blog post than normal (and I know I’m not exactly Mr. Brevity on most of my postings.)

Over the last few years, the idea of a speaking ministry has been something that crossed my mind more than once. Perhaps it’s because I looked at the course of my life and the major things I’ve done…radio, improv comedy, community theatre, writing…and realized that God had gifted me in the area of communication on both an intimate and a larger scale. It didn’t intimidate me to sit and talk to a group of four people wanting to know about radio and it didn’t bother me to be on a stage in front of 100,000 people talking about various events.

A large part of my time in radio when it came to the on-air and public appearance work was More...

I think I may copyright the phrase "this isn't the blog I planned to write for today."

I seem to type that a lot.

Maybe I'll change my blog's title to it.

Yesterday, if you follow me on twitter, you know I was feeling increasingly bold in something I felt God telling me to do.  I felt like I needed to go all Joshua 4 and mark Saturday but also declare for the future.  I see a lot of folks doing that right now like my friend Tam and it inspired me to pile the rocks.  I worked through the day yesterday fighting off a cold with plans to find a coffee house after work where I could sit and write my sheet of goals for the rest of this year and next year.

Yeah...didn't happen.

I went into my bedroom after work and told Amy I was going to lay down for a few minutes.  Five hours later I woke up because I was hungry.  I ate.  Then back to bed for over nine hours more sleep.

I had planned today's post to be a declaration of what I felt God calling me to do, things I was working through as I processed that calling and some advice I received from a pastor I greatly respect which has me spinning a bit.  I was wrestling with the "next step" in what I felt called to do and how to process things I've read versus what I had been feeling within me.  I thought I'd solicit your suggestions and see if you had any helpful books or tips to pass along.  Then I thought I'd encourage all of us to set goals and hold each other accountable for those goals.  Cheer each other on.

Instead, I'm writing this through a Dayquil induced haze More...

Tonight, I quit playing online simulation fantasy baseball for the first time in 20 years. It was the latest in a series of things that I've felt the Lord telling me to give up with no real explanation why He wants me to do it.

I don't know what God's doing but it's unnerving me a bit at my indifference to letting them go.  It's not that I haven't felt like seasons in my life were ending...it's that when I stopped fighting the feeling I needed to let things go and let them go that it seemed so easy.

I gave up playing in a league that in the past showed me more love and concern than many Christians I've met.  A league where I met my best friend and best man in my wedding.  A group of folks who when my apartment burned in 2005 sent a TV, DVD player and discs so when Eli came to visit his daddy he didn't have to ask where his Spongebob had gone.

And I feltMore...