My friend, Andy, beat out the other Andy (Andy Stanley) for the most popular blog post in March. Maybe Catalyst needs to recruit Andy, the one that’s not Andy Stanley, for their conferences.

Here are the most popular articles from March:

1. A Letter from Andy’s Dad on Marriage
2. My NCAA Tourney Picks
3. What Worship Leaders Can Learn from American Idol
4. The “Culture of Honor” is Hurting Churches
5. Interview with Seth Godin on ‘Poke the Box’
6. The New Normal
7. Unstuck: How do we get different results?
8. Unstuck: Mind the Gap
9. Vote Now: Which eBook should I release first?
10. Catalyst West 2011: Andy Stanley

By the way, I’m not sure why so many folks were interested in my NCAA basketball picks. Obviously, they weren’t very good.

My grandfather, who will soon turn 90, was born in the United States. His parents and his brother were immigrants in the U.S. from Matrice, Italy. Matrice is a small village of about 1,000 people in the Molise region east of Rome.

Back in 1987, some of our relatives visited Matrice. With no street address but an old photo, they found a policeman who offered to take them to the house where my great grandparents used to live.

Earlier this week, I found out that Google’s “Street View” now includes Matrice. I’ve been able to explore the village where my ancestors lived almost 100 years ago. And, with confirmation from our relatives, I can share this picture from Street View.

One of these days, I’m going to visit that house. In the mean time, I’m once again amazed at what technology allows us to experience.

A couple of weeks ago, Emily and I were having dinner with our friends Andy and Ashley. During our conversation, Andy mentioned a letter his dad gave him just before their wedding back in 1997. Andy’s parents have been happily married for 40 years, so I was curious about what was in that letter. Andy agreed to share it with me so that I could share it with you. Here’s the letter.

____________________________________________________________________

Andy,

Talk! Talk! Talk about everything with Ashley and respect each other’s opinion, and use each other’s areas of expertise. Together you will be an unbeatable team!

Don’t ever complain about your wife to your friends about little or big things. It gives others the wrong impression about your marriage and relationship.

Money! Agree on how to spend it. Make a budget together so you are in total agreement about where your priorities are. Decide how much to spend without discussion.

Complaining! A little goes a long way. Don’t fall into the trap of making complaining a major topic of conversation. Don’t go to work somewhere for eight hours a day then spend the first hour together complaining about it. Be a positive person! Change what needs changing. Fix what you can fix. Understand the realities of a situation then comment on it, learn to live with it, or take yourself out of the situation. Complaining is counter-productive.

If something bothers you about your wife, discuss it with her, that is, only if it is something you can’t live with. Remember, you did not marry her to change her. You fell in love with her the way she is.

(more…)

“When we are saying open your eyes and do those things it’s because we want you to connect. You are writing a letter. You’re telling a story. I don’t want the intensity to come from you wanting to do well. I want the intensity to come because your heart is breaking.” –Jennifer Lopez

Last week I finished reading Ten Steps Ahead by Erik Calonius. Erik has been a writer with the Wall Street Journal and Fortune. Through those experiences, he’s had the opportunity to interview some of the greatest business visionaries. In this book, Erik pulls on recent neuroscience discoveries and behavioral research to identify what distinguishes great visionaries from the rest of us.

I actually had the opportunity to interview Erik as well. I’ll share that interview later this week. In the mean time, here are the top ten highlights from my reading:

1. “When we are actively looking for what we expect, we become blind to what is right before our eyes.”
2. “Visionaries don’t succeed by lying in bed with their dreams floating idly above their heads. They get out into the world and experience things, and from that, shape their ideas.”
3. “People frequently make better decisions with less information.”
4. “Visionaries almost always work at the edge of our understanding, where information is scarce or nonexistent and where intuitive decisions are often the only choice.”
5. “For an idea to really be radical, it has to be in some way ridiculous.”
6. “Courage and commitment separate the visionary from the dreamer.”
7. “It seems that we all can read people pretty well. But visionaries either have that skill better honed or merely trust in it more than the rest of us.”
8. “A paradigm is often preceded by a crisis of confidence in the old idea.”
9. “New information is not likely to bring badly polarized groups together, but is merely fuel for their fire of dissension.”
10. “Visionaries never hobble themselves with preconceived notions. They’d prefer not to know precisely where they’ll wind up next.”

Are people born visionaries or are these skills we can learn over time? This book may challenge some of your preconceived notions…which may actually indicate you’re not a visionary. :-)

Here’s my Amazon link if you’d like to get your hand on Ten Steps Ahead and learn more about what separates successful business visionaries from the rest of us.

I really like to win. With that in mind, here are the current standings for the NCAA bracket challenge at West Ridge Church:

I will try not to gloat too much, but I just wanted the whole world to see where things stand right now. That’s my name at the top. I have the highest score. That means I’m winning!

You know what that means? It’s looking like Kevin Dunlap is going to be buying me lots of coffee at the “World Cafe” at West Ridge Church. (That’s the prize for the winner.)

Kevin, get ready to pay for lots of half-caf Americanos in the coming weeks.

I have control issues. I admit it. If there’s anything that God uses to fix my control issues, it’s parenting. I’ll be honest — this commercial hits a little too close to home:

In case you need help filling out your brackets for this year’s NCAA basketball tournament, here are all the correct picks:

It’s probably pretty easy to tell who I’ll be cheering for in this year’s tournament.

Who do you think is going to win it all? Share your winning pick by leaving your comment.

You may be interested in checking out some of the ministry resources that are available. Here are the folks that are making things happen at TonyMorganLive.com in March:

faithHighway – provides total marketing solutions to attract visitors to churches

Know Hope Collective – featuring Mark Stuart and Will McGinniss formerly of Audio Adrenaline

dc – design and communication solutions that create raving fans, inspire people, and honor Christ

Bellevue Church Management System – the free, web-based and open source church management suite

Church Community Builder – a web-based church management software with multi-site capabilities

Clover – provides websites for growing churches and ministries

Ministry Marketing Group – helps churches and ministries identify and communicate their vision, mission, values and ministry events

Orange – a premier conference for church leaders hosted in Atlanta in April 2011

Outreach Events – specializes in dynamic, outreach-oriented events with people like Scott Rigsby that create opportunities for sharing faith

Standard Theme – the best-coded WordPress theme ever (My site is built on this theme.)

StreamingChurch.tv – provides everything you need to broadcast your services live

TheCommon.org – offers a simple way for people to get and give help to their community

I only have one remaining advertising spot open. If you are interested, email me for more details. I’d love to have you join our team!

Gungor just did this song at Catalyst West with the video that follows. Check this out.

I like Gungor.