Leadership Scuds

If you are around NewPointe for any amount of time you will soon learn that we focus on 3 things:

1. Leadership!
2. Leadership!!
3. Leadership!!!

So we are always tracking people we value as great leaders.  One of those is Andy Stanley from North Point church in Atlanta.  Andy is simply a phenomenal individual.  He recently spoke at a conference and below are some leadership scuds that he dropped.

1. “Leadership is not about making decisions on your own.  It’s about owning decisions once they are made.”
2. “The leader shouldn’t make all the decisions.  The leader should just make sure the decisions are good ones.”
3. “Leaders who refuse to listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing important to say.”
4. “You are probably not the smartest person in the organization.   You’re just the leader.”
5. “Fairness ended in the Garden of Eden.  Never shoot for fair.  When you shoot for fair you will be unjust.  Shoot for Right.”

Wow, that’s just a few of things he said!

Leadership is tough.  Personally, I think leadership is more about your character than your ability.  Give me a “humble person with the courage to do what he/she knows is right” and you will have a great leader.  It sounds simple but few really achieve it.

My goal is to become a better leader at NewPointe.  Every day I pray for God to make me a better leader by giving me clarity, confidence, and courage.

What 3 things do you need to lead better in your life?

Katie’s Graduation

Wow, its really, really hard to believe that my precious little daughter, Katie, has just graduated from college! It really just seems like yesterday that we dropped her off at Indiana Wesleyan for her freshman year.

I’m so proud of Katie. Let me brag about her for just a bit because she has accomplished so much. Katie has:

• Finished at the top of her nursing class of 80 students.


• She was one of only 2 nursing students to graduate summa cum laude which means her GPA was > 3.9


• She received a special award during her pinning ceremony for her academic achievements and her leadership qualities as a nurse.


• Her senior year she worked 12 hr shifts as a student nurse in an ICU at Ball Hospital in Muncie, IN.


• She has recently accepted a full-time position in a large ICU at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Indianapolis. They only hired two people and Katie was one of them!

So as you can see she has accomplished a lot in her 4 years at college.

We had a great weekend celebrating this time with her. I was surprised how sad I was to see her leave IWU. We really have grown to like that university. It is one of the few “Christian Colleges” that is still “Christian”.

This is Katie’s roommate, Kayleigh. She has been a great friend of Katie’s and is like a daughter to us. Its hard to see them start new journeys in life without each other. This is yet another emotion to deal with! However, I’m sure they will stay connected somehow!

So if you have kids, don’t take any short cuts to keep from spending quality time with them. Time cannot be replaced and you don’t want to regret not spending it with those you love! It really does fly by!

A Picture is Worth a 1000 Words

This is a picture that we took on Easter morning.  The entire hallway from end to end looked like this.

When we built this church 2 years ago we designed this hallway WIDE so that it could always handle the crowds.  I never dreamed I would ever see it this full!

I’m excited!  Not because we have lots of people in our church.  I’m excited because we are hearing story after story about how this church is changing people’s lives.  That’s why we do what we do – LIFE CHANGE!

This Sunday are service times are 9:00, 11:00, and 12:50.  If you plan on coming and are flexible, please come to the 12:50 service.  There will be plenty of seats available and we guarantee you it will be the same experience as 9:00 and 11:00!!!

God is doing some pretty amazing things at NewPointe.  Its His gig.  We just have the fun of being able to participate!

Easter Recap

Wow!  Another amazing Sunday at NewPointe.

Dwight kicked off a new series entitled, “He’s Still Got the Whole World in His Hands”.  It was a terrific message on hope which is much needed in these uncertain days of a failing economy.

The bottom line is that God is still in control and He always keeps His promises!  Now that’s something you really can “take to the bank”.

It was also the official launch of our 3rd service which starts at 12:50pm to “Make Room” for more people.  (Which, btw, is a good thing because we had 4516 people on Sunday!)

So major kudos to the staff for putting together a plan to handle 3 services and 4500+ people.  And mega kudos to the volunteers who pulled it off!

Who would have ever thought a church on a farm in Tusc County would host 4500 people on a Sunday morning?  God is doing some really amazing things.  The best news is that we get to join Him! 

That is just sooooooooooo cool!!

DIY - #1 - Changing Oil

Welcome to "Do It Yourself" project #1.

Lately I've been on a kick to try and do everything I can instead of paying someone else to do it. One reason is that I like to try new things and have the great feeling of accomplishing a challenge (you can learn to do anything on Google and You Tube).

Secondly, as a family we have been trying very hard to adhere to our budget and saving money by "Doing It Yourself" always helps when the money is low at the end of the month!

So yesterday both my car and Jeff's car were due for oil changes. So we headed out towards Millersburg to the Quick-Lube - estimated cost 2 x $30 = $60.

On the way Jeff gets the notion to try changing the oil ourselves. We often due car projects together on a weekend. Its fun and provides lots of father-son bonding time!!!

Well, I used to work at a gas station when I was 16 so of course I felt fully quallified to tackle this one (no YouTube necessary today for those of you keeping score at home.

So we pulled into Autozone to get the supplies. Jeff looked up the numbers in the book, we pulled the filters and oil off the shelf and walked out of there paying only $20.

Below is a picture of Jeff's first experience under a car. It was also fun to watch him pull the oil filter off and see all the oil run down his arm. Needless to say we used alot of rags.



Hey we even took out the air filters and blew them clean with an air compressor. It was a lot of fun and we saved some money along the way. Next time I'm sure it will go a lot faster!

Grounded in Hickory, NC

Well, it started out as an adventure. Jeff had been wanting to fly to Florida for quite some time since he got his license. So things were working out for us to try it on his spring break.

The week before he spent many hours planning the flight - how high to fly, where to refuel, which air spaces to avoid, and where to land in Ft Lauderdale. The night before was full of excitement and anticipation (and very little sleep!)

We took off early in the morning on Saturday. It was really beautiful to see the sunrise from about 10,000 feet in the plane. We cruised over the mountains in West Virginia and Virginia. They started to clear in North Carolina. So it was time to stop and get some fuel.

Unfortunately, the clear skies had been taken over with a dense patch of clouds. So rather than stopping where we had planned, we picked another airport that was close to a hole in the clouds where we could descend.

After we refueled we got back in the plane but to our dismay the plane would not start. It seemed like a dead battery. The nice people at the airport tried to jump us but it didn't work. So we called the "mechanic on call" and waited for the prognosis. After about 4 hours of waiting we heard that dreaded news, "Your plane needs a new starter which will take about 4 days to get here."

Well, we were 12 hours away from our destination of Ft. Lauderdale. Our only option was to rent a car and drive the rest of the way. We actually had to rent a car in Hickory and drive to Charlotte to pickup another rental car that we could drive one way. We rolled into the condo at 2am instead of 1pm like we had planned.

Well it is now Thursday and we are ready to fly commercially back to Pittsburgh (arriving at midnight). We'll have to find a way to get back to Hickory, NC to pickup the plane and fly it home.

This has been a pretty big disappointment. Jeff really wanted to fly all the way to Florida. Well, he got half way there. We'll have to try it another time.

It was an adventure alright... an adventure in PATIENCE!

Tourney Trail Ends - But What a Ride!

Well, the Hiland boys lost their first game (24-1) of the year last week to a very tough Lutheran East team in the regional semi-finals. Of course everyone was really disappointed. The goal for Hiland every year is to make it to "state". I heard many comments about how this last game could have been a state final game and would have been easier to handle had we lost there. But, that's the luck of the draw and shows just how tough it really is to get to state.

Lutheran East was just too good of a team last week for Hiland to overcome. They took everything we could throw at them and still kept cruising. I believe they have a very good chance of winning it all.

Here is a good link that summarizes the game and the year for Hiland.

I'm really proud of this year's team. It had unusually great team chemistry and senior leadership. I'm also really proud of Braden and the growth he showed this year both on and off the court. He's already making his plans for workouts for this spring and summer.

There are a lot of benefits to being on a successful sports team. Winning is just one of them!

What a great ride this year was for the Hiland Hawks! Congratulations!