This weekend I have to run 13 miles.

I’m not looking forward to it, but I now have an example to help quench my fear.  This morning my wife Carie ran that distance, and I’m pretty proud of her.  We’ve only been running for 5 weeks consistently (4 times a week), and now we’re ultimately training for a half marathon in October.  At first we considered a full marathon, then pulled back for this season.  But we’ve managed to stay on the training schedule for the marathon up to this point.

Because of scheduling conflicts, our training is one day apart, so Carie runs the training schedule one day before me most of the time, and I don’t mind telling you how scared I have been about my 13 mile adventures this weekend.  But Carie showed me it could happen, gave it her all, and finished the 13 miles.  Well, actually because her mom, who ran with her, took a wrong turn, she ran 14 miles, but I’m not doing that – on accident or on purpose.

Don Miller says that “A character in a story is a person who wants something and overcomes an obstacle to get it.”  I want to finish this half marathon, and I want to beat a few people along the way, and before today, I had a hard time believing that was possible.

Great examples and heroes are people who exemplify, not only how to live life, but the dreams which we already have in our hearts.  Running a half marathon may not make a big difference in the world, but it will make a big difference in me, which I believe will push me to make a big difference in the world.

Thanks Carie!

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My head is spinning.

As I told you before this year is my dream year – the year I implement some of the ideas that have gone on in my head over the last several years.   I will tell you what those things are, but, alas, that is not even the purpose of this post.  Somewhere between Christmas and now, my beliefs about what God is going to do here at Fellowship have gone huge, and it’s going fast.

Fellowship Holden is building. (more on that on Sunday)

“The Splat” is coming.

Fellowship Worcester is not far behind.

And on top of all this, Fellowship will be pouring into Haiti in finances and people power.

Of course none of this has literally started yet.  It’s all in planning stages, but God willing, very soon in this year Fellowship Church will never look the same. And this is why my head is spinning.

A mentor of mine says, “A dream without a plan is only a wish.”  I never understood what he meant until recently.  He told me that all of last year when I talked of my dreams, and I just plugged him as somewhat of a realist.  He should get out and dream more, I would tell myself.  Then after I found out I had been accepted into Ben Arment’s dream year, I made a plan to accomplish some of those dreams.  Without having spoken a word or having written a recent email to Ben, I just made a plan.  Certainly I could have done this beforehand, but something about this transition and 2010 and acceptance and people believing in me set me off, and a plan was made.

Then I sent my plan to my mentor, believing that he would think I was crazy and “settle me down”.  I was wrong.  He said this plan looked great and we may need to be fluid and changeable in regards to the plan, but it could be done.  Then he reminded me of the words he had spoke so many times before, “Marty, a  dream without a plan is only a wish.”

For the first time I got it.

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For years I’ve known I’m an ideator, but many times, the fact that I wasn’t a good executor of those ideas led me to sit on several of those good ideas like the devil can sit on a tack.  2010 is different.  This year provides me the execution skills (no, I’m not the guy with the black hood walking around with the ax) that have caught up with my Ideation, and wallaa, look out world.

I have a new coach, a great team, a set of amazing dreams in line with the vision of the church I pastor, and a great big God who has given me much to risk, because after all, it’s not mine to keep, it’s His to do whatever he wants.

This year is going to be amazing, crazy, and I hope I won’t be the same person I was when it started.2010

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I had a dream last night that I was flying in a plane, when all of the sudden, I heard an incredible crash, whether it was the engine of something hitting the plane, I’m not sure.  Everyone starting screaming and running around as the plane began to tilt downward and felt like a roller coaster after the first hill.  I had a pair of sunglasses on my head, so I had placed them over my eyes, put my head back and rested as the plane went down.

Then I woke up.

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Fridays video of the week:

Which is which?

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I have this dream. It’s a simple dream really. It starts and ends with people just enjoying being together and growing together. Not under the false pretenses of being a part of a certain status like economic, family, or religious experience, but under something deeper. It doesn’t seem deeper, but it is. By the simple idea that they just really enjoy one anothers company.

To start off, they (the people) might not exactly understand why they would want to be in this community, but they take a chance. A chance to learn, grow, live, influence, and maybe even laugh with their newfound community. Over time they would even use the word “love” to describe their journey with the community they have take a chance on.

Now remember, there is no common sense or special commonality that brings these people together, except maybe a strong desire to love God more, though they might not really understand what that means, and may not even really ever understand fully. So they meet regularly and eventually grow to a place where they can take a chance and influence others in their journey too.

Obstacles (and in some cases tools) to this dream are technology, complacency, prejudice, pride, and comfort. Taking a step towards community can be hard when you have a preconceived notion of what your day looks like,and change is hard to come by, but my dream relies on people all across New England moving out of that notion and connecting with God and people.

My dream is authentic community, and I have a long way to go. But here are 4 ATOMic steps and prayers I’m taking and praying to reach my dream:

1. Authentic community – “God, help us to drop our walls and be authentic.”
2. Transormation – “Transform us as we move toward You together.”
3. Outward reaching – “Help us to not be focused on ourselves, but to make reaching out to others
    habit we’ll never take for granted.”
4. Multiplication – “And use us to influence others to move into this journey we’re on.”

Critics please?

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I saw this quote on a blog that was quoting Mr. Andy Stanley at this year’s DRIVE conference, and I have been haunted by it ever since.

Family – Do you think more about how great your holidays used to be rather than what could be and should be in the life of your family?

Job – “My old boss used to be so great.  Now stuff is so disorganized and I hate coming here.”

Marriage – Do you think more about the way he/she used to treat you before the kids and before “I do”?

Church – “Man, those were the good old days!  When we used to know everyone in the church.”

Hey you!  It’s time to dream again.

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I’m sitting here admiring the future.  It looks sweet.

Carie and I talked about the future a bit yesterday, and what we wanted it to look like, how we were going to get there, and what the point of it all is.  It gets me really excited!

We’re still hashing it out and attempting to focus it all, but all in all, I’m pretty impressed and what God can do as we dream together.  Carie’s top strength is that she’s a futurist, and my top strengths are Ideation and Positivity, so you can bet that our future looks mighty good, with some pretty sweet stuff going on.

I’m also so excited for Fellowship Church as all of our future plans focus in on our church family.  We love to dream this stuff,and we love where we’re at.

So this makes me think more and dream more and focus more.

I’d love to know what you’re dreaming about right now.

Also, this weekend’s service will be amazing as God is continuing to do great things at Fellowship Church.  Service will be at 10:30 am!  See you there!

Until next time…

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