It’s 12:21 a.m. on April 1st and we just went live with the new Compass Point website. We’ve been messing around with it for several weeks now…but had to really rush to finish today before the Inbox Promotions stuff goes out Wednesday. We already discovered a small spacing problem on the “About Us” page which we are fixing. Also we’ll be dropping the counter on the front page at the end of the week. A lot of folks…including the Compass Point staff…want to see a live count of the hits we get once the email blast goes out. We aren’t big fans of advertising around here…and are a little leery of this kind of marketing. Other folks tell us it’s great…but we’ll have to see for ourselves. More on that later. It’ s late…I’m whipped…I’m still at the office…and I gotta walk all over Seaworld with my family tomorrow.
Bunch of new faces at C-Point yesterday…gotta buy more chairs this week.
The folks from the Catalyst Road Trip guys are heading to Lakeland Thursday to shoot an interview about Compass Point.
Got our first Inbox Promotions thing going out this week…will keep everyone informed on the impact.
Four baptisms yesterday…four more in a couple of weeks. Glad the warm weather is back…the pool wasn’t so cold yesterday.
“Baggage” series starts next Sunday…pretty pumped about preaching this one.
Had communion yesterday…which was cool…but my sermon kind of bit the dust. It’s hard to get jacked up about preaching on the meaning of communion for the 101st time…like Mother’s Day…Father’s Day…it gets a little stale after a while. However, there were plenty of folks at church yesterday that had never heard it…so you never know…nothing comes back void.
Still trying to figure out where some of the numerical growth is coming from. Most have never been to church…but met some yesterday that “was trying us out” because they got burned by the whole Without Walls thing. Not sure how I feel about them coming to C-Point.
All of my dad’s family is in town…had a blast with them last night…heading to Seaworld tomorrow. At my size that is dangerous…Shamu keeps winking at me.
Finally got the cell phone thing completely worked. Starting to like the new Blackberry…but I’m far from loving it. Did test drive an iPhone…just not my cup of tea.
Got some hard and difficult meetings with staff over the next few days. In the words of Furtick…we’ve got to get more vessels in place to handle the oil flowing forth. Too many staff worrying about too many things that they weren’t hired to worry about.
Gotta go…got ten million things more important than blogging to do. No offense to my readers…but it’s a heavy day.
I’m done…I’m going back to books, paper and pens…screw technology!!! I still can’t get my Gmail and Mac email accounts to sync with my Blackberry account. AT&T nor Blackberry can seem to find out why. Their solution…just use my Blackberry email account only (it’s the only one that still works). Let me get this straight…I signed up for…and paid for…and contracted for…a service that doesn’t work. It is not my fault that it doesn’t work…it is the service provider’s fault. Their answer…ignore the problem…deal with the fact that it doesn’t work…but still pay them for the service for another year (until the contract is up). Customer service was a casualty of Y2k…it’s dead!!!
By the way…Twitter sucks also. Finally heard back from the losers that handle tech support for them. Their suggestion…shut down my account and start a new one. Do the words “bite” and “me” ring a bell?
So everything in my new phone finally kicked in this morning at around 10:00am. By everything…I mean everything…voicemail, text messaging, email, ringtones, GPS, etc. I tried to turn it off and got this 2001: A Space Odyssey voice going, “What are you doing, Chris?”
I still can’t text directly to my Twitter account…can only email to it or do it off my Macbook. I shot an email to tech support..they emailed back they were working on the problem…that was two weeks ago. Further emails to them have not been responded to. I suppose it’s because they are way too busy looking at the inside of their colons.
I dropped my Facebook account…it’s just one really annoying program. I’m actually thinking about dropping my Twitter. After the stalker thing last summer…it kind of freaks me out that people I don’t know are tracking my moves through Twitter. Not sure if I’m going to keep MySpace. I’m not going “Howard Hughes” on the world…but I am finding the not being so connected actually is helping me in some areas of leadership…not to mention having more time to devote to fellowshipping with God.
Three weeks ago the DSL service at our house slowed to a crawl. After replacing the modem and wi-fi…still no speed. Verizon told me they were having trouble with a line in the area and things should be back to normal in a few days. That was over two weeks ago. Verizon tech support keeps telling me they have no record of problems and it must be with my hardware. I have refused to pay them…or give them back their modem…it’s all still unresolved. I have guns stashed around the house…good luck to them in getting their equipment back.
My Sirius radio system fritzes out when it rains..something about the wiring. Guess what? It’s the rainy season down here in Central Florida. I freakin’ hate regular free radio…shock jocks, shock jock wannabes and endless commercials.
Over a month ago my I lost text messaging on my Nokia E62 for no reason. Gary hipped me to it when I wasn’t getting his messages. AT&T’s been working on it for several weeks…finally worked it out last Friday. Got text capabilities back…lost my Blackberry service and email. AT&T’s been working on it over the last four days. They finally just dropped the service today so they could add it back on with a new account. Dropped the Blackberry service…couldn’t get it back on my phone. The local sales rep calls the main tech support only to be told that Blackberry is no longer available on the E62’s…I have to get a new phone…for $200 because I didn’t qualify for an upgrade. After explaining to AT&T that they had violated their own contract by discontinuing a service they had promised in writing…and that I was no longer obligated to pay them (I’ve been an AT&T Wireless customer since 1992)…they played around an essentially got me a new Blackberry 8310 Curve for free.
Got the new phone home…only to find that it’s not Mac capable. Had to download third-party software in order to sync up with iCal, address book, tasks, etc. Found out I could no longer sync by Bluetooth like my old E62…have to use a USB cable every time I want to sync. Synced up…then lost all ability to text, handle email or even get on MediaNet. Called tech support…they are closed…as is the local store until tomorrow morning. I’m not that patient. Oh yeah, I can’t pair up my Bluetooth headset because I have to be able to send the phone a numeric passkey code. Silly me forgot to get a Bluetooth headset with a keyboard built into it.
I’m hating technology right now in a BIG WAY. Life is not easier with technology…just more stressful. At this moment I don’t feel relaxed because technology has made my life more simple…I’m feeling like Denise needs to hide the guns I have stashed around the house.
Props to Angela at the local AT&T store…she really worked hard to get the phone thing worked out today. I’m sure she’ll get all the bi=ugs worked out with my new phone tomorrow…and I’ll be back to loving technology again.
The is the second part (you can part 1 here) of a two-part series on why Compass Point could have been bigger by now. My hope is that people will learn from my…our…mistakes…and successes.
Leadership is not a state of mind. As I have stated before, me being the Senior Pastor of Compass Point is not a state of mind…it is reality. The crazy thing…it’s taken me a while to come to grips with the fact that I am the leader. Sounds weird I know…but that’s the truth. I was so busy being everyone’s friend and trying to break down the barrier between shepherd and flock…that most people never saw me as more than Chris the goofy, fat guy that can make people laugh and is fun to be around. The problem…that is how I saw myself also. I wanted everyone to feel comfortable and happy…I didn’t want to rock the boat. What I discovered…people pleasers can’t be leaders. The church takes on the personality of the leader…when the leader belittles his position…that is how the congregation also treats the position. I spent almost three years being everybody’s buddy…now we are taking steps to help the congregation see me as their pastor…and the staff as their boss. Most importantly, I’m taking personal steps to help me see myself as the leader of Compass Point.
You can’t serve two masters. When Compass Point first started as a small group Bible study I was still working on occasion with Prison Fellowship. Due to some unforeseen circumstances the money that was promised for us to officially launch took months to materialize. As a result I started touring pretty much full time with Prison Fellowship the first two years of Compass Point’s life. What I discovered was…you can’t serve two masters. There were months where I was out of the pulpit two out of four Sundays. I missed our first two Easter’s…which is a no-no in church planting. Even on weekends I was in town I had just flown in on Saturday night…and was too whipped to really put my all into preaching. The worst thing…there was no one around Monday through Friday to conduct ministry, handle administration or cast vision. Two years ago I came to the conclusion that if Compass Point was going to have a chance I had to put all of my eggs into it’s basket. It meant financial sacrifice for Denise and I…and the letting go of another ministry I dearly loved. I miss my “prison friends” (Duane, Leslie, Justin, Don, Ron and the various other “lambs”)…but it was the best decision to date concerning the future of Compass Point
Fast to hire and slow to fire. I plugged holes. I hired from outside the church. I didn’t properly interview people. I didn’t pray or seeks God’s will in making staffing or leadership decisions. I just wanted to shift as much stuff off my plate as I could in the quickest amount of time. Therefore I hired anyone that had a pulse…and would take forever to cut them loose when they turned out to suck as leaders. In hindsight I can’t believe some of the crap I allowed to go on within the staff and leadership at Compass Point. I was an idiot…that let other idiots…help sink the ship. These days I’m a little slower and cautious in bringing people on staff…and a little quicker to cut them out of the body if they become cancer. In essence…slow to hire…fast to fire.
I blew my morning Coke all over the computer screen when it showed the guy’s feet dangling. The dude kind of reminds me of “Mad Jack“….which has quickly become one of my favorite Internet stars. Thanks to Rich/Luthsem for giving me a head’s up on the video above.
I just found out I’m doing a breakout session on blogging with Scott Hodge and Todd Rhoades of Monday Morning Insight fame. First of all…those guys are WAY out of my league when it comes to blogging. Secondly, this whole thing entitles me to a backstage pass at the conference. That means that I get to hang out with Tim Keller, Andy Stanley, Rick Warren, Ed Stetzer and others. This could get pretty crazy…somebody at Exponential screwed up BIG TIME!!!
Can you imagine the bizarre questions I’m going to be asking those guys. “Excuse me Dr. Keller, what is the best place to buy a fake Rolex in New York?” “Dr. Stetzer, can you write the forward to my new book, Breaking The Missional Children’s Church Code: Changing Lives With Juice And Cookies?” “Hey Rick Warren…can you get me Hillary’s autograph?”
It should be outta hand and fun. Anyone out there got anymore questions I can ask…they can be funny or serious?
Got a call early this morning from a friend telling me that my blog was down. I checked Google Reader to see if last night’s post made it through RSS…it did. Checked through Word Press…there was my blog as a clear as day. Went to ChrisElrod.com and…oops…I forgot to renew my domain name and web forwarding. Seems I used an old email address to sign up with Network Solutions and was not getting the renewal notices because I never check that account anymore. I paid for three years of service in advance and never gave it another thought. Renewal paid…email contact changed…the fine folks at Network Solutions tell me everything will be back to normal in a few hours.
It’s almost midnight…just coming down from the emotional and spiritual high. Been reading the blogs…rejoicing at what God did at other churches today…blown away but what He did at ours.
It was HUGE DAY at Compass Point…bought a bunch of new chairs this week…still didn’t have enough…it was “standing room only” today…literally. A bunch of new folks say they are coming back next week…a bunch of folks made spiritual decisions…and a bunch of folks to be baptizednext week.
We passed a milestone…broke a barrier today. I’m no Gary Lamb…I teared up several times…so emotional to see a day you dreamed about…prayed about…longed for…finally arrive.
I am humbled by God’s moving today…and inspired by Compass Point’s faithfulness. Many were invited…many showed up…many were changed forever.
To the family of Compass Point…you ROCK!!!
To God…thank you for the honor…with Your guidance…I…we…won’t screw this up.
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