Here are some Blog posts I’ve enjoyed over the last few weeks.
Seth chats about failure.
Jake gives his fresh new music likes. I trust him.
Pete shares this amazing truth/comic piece.
Chad hit me in the face with this quote.
Vince shared his small group philosophy and I liked it.
Mark Cuban is…well, Mark Cuban is a genius.
Brian is a genius too,and his friends, myself included, couldn’t wait to hear this news.
What are you reading these days?
And now it’s time for the 2nd Bloggle awards, an award ceremony that happens every 6 months here on martyholman.com, giving the common person (like the author) access to some amazing blogs on the web 2.0. Hopefully, we’ll get some acceptance speeches.
Most focused blog
Nominees:
Ethos: a cultural Watercooler by Randy Elrod; From where I sit by Michael Hyatt; Gotcha by Jake Holman; History in the making by Ben Arment; Reluctant Republicans for McCain by Clay Davis
THE WINNER: History in the making by Ben Arment
Anything this guy writes is gold. He’s somewhere around brilliant and then some. His focus is creativity in the church.
Best blog, comedy
Nominees:
Rainy Day Communications by Katie Ferguson; Stuff Christians like by the Prodigal John; Don Miller is by Donald Miller; Vince Antonucci by Vince Antonnuci
THE WINNER: Stuff Christians Like by The Prodigal John. Wildly funny, and will make you laugh out loud in your office every time you dare to read it.
Best blog, story
Nominees:
Trek to the summit by Tom Hogsed; Scott Hodge by Scott Hodge; Jenn with 2 n’s by Jenn; Connecting with Pastor Mike by Mike Laurence
THE WINNER:
Jenn with 2 N’s by Jenn
Best blog, pastor
Nominees:
Velocity by Dave Ferguson; Leading Smart by Tim Stevens; Life Church.tv: Swerve by Craig Groeschel and Bobby Gruenewald; Perry Noble dot com by Perry Noble; Tony Morgan Live by Tony Morgan; Without Wax by Pete Wilson
THE WINNER:
Life Church.TV: Swerve by Craig Groeschel and Bobby Gruenewald. This was the hardest to judge. These blogs are amazing!
Best blog post
Nominees:
“A couple of my rules for startups” by Mark Cuban (March 14, 2008); “Creating WOW product experiences” by Michael Hyatt (May 17, 2008); “The Lifetime of an opportunity” by Steven Furtick (July 30, 2008); “The Secret of the web” by Seth Godin (August 11, 2008); “The Bible said so” by Winn Collier (September 2, 2008); “What Complaining says about you”, by Ben Arment (September 9, 2008); “Palin, Religion, and how Secualrism is out of touch” by Dale Fincher (September 15, 2008)
THE WINNER:
“The Secret of the Web” by Seth Godin (August 11, 2008). This was not an easy task. I have so many subscriptions to blogs and highlight very few of them, but very few of so many is still a lot. These are all excellent posts, written originally by the authors.
Best blog, pictures
Nominees:
It’s all going to change by Kevin and Jen Richardson; Mark Beeson by Mark Beeson; Ethos: A Cultural Watercooler by Randy Elrod
THE WINNER:
Ethos: A Cultural Watercooler by Randy Elrod Randy always helps me to think more artsy than I really am. He bring out the culture in me, and I don’t use that term scientifically.
Best blog, intellectual
Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk; Dale Fincher by Dale Fincher; Jeffs Deep Thoughts by Jeff Campbell;
Jenn with 2 N’s by Jenn; Winn Collier by Winn Collier
THE WINNER: Winn Collier by Winn Collier. I’m pretty sure his nominated post for best blog post won him this award.
I wish I knew him or her (no winners, just a list of 3)
Steven Furtick by Steven Furtick
Flowerdust.net by Anne Jackson
Blog Maverick by Mark Cuban
I’m glad I know him or her (no winners, just a list of 3)
Mill Industries by Eric Mill
Brian Howe by Brian Howe
You can know God by Michael Lukaszewski
Thanks for joining me for the 2008 Bloggle awards! Check back for the acceptance speeches and comments about how wrong I was. And…
Please vote for your favorite all around blog
Last fall, I shared with you my most played songs on itunes. Here’s the renewed list.
top 25 songs on my ipod list.
25. Still Here – The Undeserving
24. Like a stone – Audioslave
23. Love Bites – Def Leopard
22. Boston – Augustana
21. Jesus, You alone – Tim Hughes
20. I don’t want to be in love – Good Charlotte
19. Let’s see how far we’ve come – Matchbox Twenty
18. Move – David Crowder
17. So Great a salvation – The OC Supertones
16. A Murder of One – Counting Crows
15. Stars – Switchfoot
14. Majesty – Matt Redman
13. Wonderful – Everclear
12. Deeper – Delirious
11. Blush – Plumb
10. What I’ve done – Linkin Park
9. Bigger than my body – John Mayer
8. Unforgetful you – Jars of Clay
7. Bed of Nails – Jake Holman
6. Surrender – Sister Hazel
5. Rise – Robbie Seay Band
4. First Time – Lifehouse
3. Give until theres nothing left – Reliant K
2. All because of you – U2
1. It’s not over – Daughtry
Holla at me if your favorite music should be on here.
I know I’ve been talking a lot about Jake, my cousin, but I really like his music. I have been singing a new song of his all day today, and wouldn’t you know it that today he put the song on his blog, so go have a listen.
Here are the words I’ve been singing:
“I’m not dead yet,
No, I don’t feel like it.
I’m not dead yet,
You won’t catch me.”
You’ll have something to sing all day tomorrow.
There’s no doubt that what gets me going is ideas. As I mentioned here, it’s my number one strength.
For some reason, because of my job or whatever, it would appear that the fall tends to be the time when I get the best ideas. And they buzz around and pan out in my head at all times of the day,and at all times in the night. It’s really nothing to find me going to bed at 12 or so and get up at 3:30 am trying to figure out how to work out an idea I have.
Only recently though have I not looked at it as a curse, but rather to use the time God has alotted me to really process all sides of the idea and begin to flush out the more negative, bonehead parts of the idea. It was funny when my cousin Jake visited last week, that he mentioned to me sometimes he gets up at super early hours and writes music. Maybe it’s a Holman thing. I have another cousin who actually has 4 of my top 5 strengths on the Strength Finder test.
So here’s a few ideas I’m accomplishing right now:
*The consistent growth of those who attend FC.
*The finishing of the web site to which I previously linked.
*Make Sunday Mornings @ Fellowship an experience that burns in the minds of those that have attended.
*Redecoration of the stage.
*Preparing the trailer in the back of the church to be torn down. It was home to me, now its home to skunks.
*Measuring the numerical effectiveness of our small groups based on the number of people regularly attending Sunday Morning @ Fellowship. Then making the appropriate decisions concerning those small groups. (This may not make sense, but it would if I felt like explaining more in this post)
Here are future ideas I’m mulling over now:
*The sale of land.
*The consistent growth of those who attend FC.
*Continuing to build a community and grow at the same time.
*The Construction of a new building.
So there you have it – the things that are in my mind these days. I’m sure there are more, but that is a base list.
Feel free to share your ideas with me.
By the way, Jake released a new song on the web you should check out.
In 2004, here at Fellowship Church, at the request of a friend of mine who was doing mission work in the area, I invited two young musicians to our church for a Friday night concert the weekend before Easter. I had never heard of these musicians, but I knew they were talented and wanted to share that talent with people in this areas, so they came. That night I also had a very special women in my life, Pauline Kelley, share her testimony with those who joined us. Pauline had been diagnosed with cancer a few years before, and shared the pain of those moments, along with the comfort of having Jesus Christ with her the entire time.
That testimony, combined with the music of Jake and Brooke, powerfully gripped the few people in the audience, and burned the memory of that concert into my head even to this day.
Since that day, Jake has been nominated for awards for his music and has really done some great things in his musicianship. So has Brooke, who I just found on the itunes free download of the week. Check out her new song, “Young Friend” for free on itunes.
So several years later, a thank you goes to Jake Smith and Brooke Waggoner and I’ll throw in this Jake too for taking time out of their lives to play here at “The FC”, and I’m glad all their hard work paid off!
Who else should we have here at Fellowship?
Nature of the Beast by Jake Holman from Marty Holman on Vimeo.
I thought I’d use this Friday video of the week to give you a taste of my cousin’s music and what we at Fellowship Church were able to experience this week. Thanks for stopping by Martyholman.com!
Have a great weekend, and let me know what you think about Jake.
My wife Carie and my cousin Jake at Moe’s
Today I watched and participated as my cousin Jake, entertained and lead our church in worship. It was amazing! Jake is so talented and I have been enjoying having him around so far this weekend. If you haven’t heard his music, I’d encourage you to check it out.
Today I was able to preach on Proverbs 9:10 – “The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Today I rapped (actually a lip sync) in front of a group of parents and their children as Fellowship Church presented their first shared worship experience called, “The Family Experience”. This afternoon I received this email:
I just wanted to thank you all for the wonderful FAMILY EXPERIENCE today. Thank you for loving our kids…for sharing God’s love with them….for doing it joyfully…I can’t say enough about what it meant to me today. I also had the opportunity to use a lesson learned as we were leaving and ___________was telling me how a kid at school hit her with his backpack after she mistakenly dropped hers on his foot. I didn’t go through with all Carie’s “motions” , but was able to talk to her, and apply what we’s just learned TOGETHER …as a family. __________ was talking about how much she loves our church with some neighborhood kids whose family has stopped going to church because it’s too boring(they’re Catholic). They said how our church sounded great, especially when we shared with them that our pastor came out as a rapper(__________ loved that part and the neighborhood boys really wanted to see that!)
Anyway I just wanted you to know how much we truly appreciate the time & care put into today’s event! We look forward to more…
Today I received this text message:
Congrats. Today was amazing. I’m so proud of you and what you’ve done with our church. Blessed be to God.Today was a good day!
This week at Fellowship, I have the privilege of conducting our Parent Commitment and Baby dedication ceremony. This is my fourth time here at FC that I have conducted this special service, and I never grow tired of seeing parents make a commitment to entrusting their children back to God.
There will be 7 families making this commitment and dedicating their children, so this should be an amazing service at Fellowship Church. If you attend FC, please don’t miss either of the next two services, because on September 7th, we’ll be having my cousin, Jake Holman, playing music for us that Sunday Morning @ Fellowship. You can listen to Jake’s music here.
Right now I absolutely love what God is doing and what God is going to do through our church this fall.
If you can feel it, give me a shout out!
So today is my last day of blogging, because I’m going on vacation tomorrow, and I’ve decided not to bring my computer with me for the festivity of rest. This will be the first time I haven’t blogged for more than a week since I started blogging in early October 2007, so it will be a welcome break. Who knows, maybe I’ll come up with some fresh ideas for the blog.
Thank you to all of you who read, subscribe, or just take a looksy at Martyholman.com. I love writing stuff, and sharing back and forth.
Todays Friday afteroon at the Internet Video will be my last blog until Monday, August 25th.
Until then, a few thoughts:
My height is not 5-2, It’s actually 6’3″. 5-2 is my people/week ratio.
Wanna help Claire? Some crazy awesome people already have!
I will be microblogging using Twitter, which connects to my Facebook account. You can follow me here.
I want to read two books, though I don’t know which ones yet, on vacation. Any suggestions?
I’m so excited to be a part of Fellowship Church in Holden, Massachusetts! I believe this fall is going to be one of the most amazing seasons we’ve ever seen at our church. Just like I believe this summer has been. We’ve been building community like never before, seeing people growing in their relationship with Jesus Christ, and I believe God is preparing us for something big.
My cousin, Jake is going to be playing at our church on Sunday, September 7th. You will want to be here for that!
So that’s all for now. Thanks for reading and enjoying or not enjoying my written communication via the internet.
