In Seeing Jesus from the East, Zacharias describes a time when he and one of his colleagues visited with a notorious Islamic terrorist who kills Christians.

There is a fundamental difference between you and us (Islamic terrorist and a Christ-follower.) When you see a person, you see that person as identical with his belief. So, if you don’t agree with that belief, your answer is to kill that person. When we see a person, we don’t see them as identical with their belief. We might not agree with the belief, but we still love the person. We will discuss the content of their belief, but we don’t hate the person. We can not kill a person because of their belief. We believe that every human being is created in the image of God, and we can not violate that.

We have seen the death and destruction of radical terrorism in our world. In America, we visualize 9/11 and the Twin Towers crashing down that killed so many in 2001. Because I live in Oklahoma City, the 1995 Murrah Building bombing comes to mind and the devastation that came with it. On a global scale, terrorism runs rampant, and its results are mind-blowing and sad.

But honestly, when I listened and read this section of the book and how he described the difference between the Christ-followers and the Islamic terrorist, I honestly struggled to see much difference. No, the Christians I’m thinking about are not literally killing someone for their beliefs, but the thoughts, actions, and words that are currently being used by Christians are very similar to those of terrorists. This is what lead me to think about Christian Terrorism.

In today’s American society, it seems that there’s just as much division among Christians as there is non-Christians. We’re divided politically, theologically, and in our stance on Covid-19. It seems as if being able to separate a person from their beliefs has become the exception rather than the rule. Zacharias described Christians as being able to separate a person and their belief and not seeing them as the same. Is this really the case? Are you able to do this, and are you doing this? I’m challenging every part of myself to be able to do this and truly live as Jesus did.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” — John‬ ‭13:34–35‬

Jesus brought a new command, a new way of life, and He gave it to us. Love one another. When we, as Christ-followers, see a person as identical with their beliefs, we become Christian Terrorists. This act of terrorism is destructive, divisive, and detracts from the loving character of God. As a Christ-follower, we believe that every human being is created in the image of God. This belief is central and essential to our faith.

So, no matter if you support Trump or Biden, consider yourself a conservative or liberal, or won’t wear a mask or choose to wear one and “social distance,” may we first and foremost be Christ followers who are Christ’s disciples. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Catholic, Methodist, Anglican, or Evangelical. What matters is that we love one another.

In the last year have you rented a movie from Blockbuster? When was the last time you charged up your Blackberry? Updated your Myspace? These are all things that used to be wildly popular, but now we go through our day without even thinking about them.

MySpace, Blackberry, and Blockbuster are just a few examples of organizations that have fallen from influence to irrelevance. The scary part about this is, irrelevance doesn’t just happen to large organizations. It can happen to you and me, to our companies, non-profits, products… and the scariest part, it can happen without us even noticing it.

Before we dive into talking about how to become irrelevant, let’s look at what the word really means. Webster’s Dictionary has an eye-opening definition: irrelevance is a loss of influence. None of us want to lose influence with our family, co-workers, clients, or friends. However, it happens all too easily.

We need to consider that our daily choices impact whether we are becoming more influential or more irrelevant.

If you want to let the influence you have slip out of your hands, I have identified three points on how to become irrelevant:

1. Focus on the Method.
   A pathway to irrelevance is replacing the mission with the method. Let’s go back to Blackberry for a second. Instead of being focused on the mission of helping people use a device to connect quickly with the world, they focused in on the method of a physical keyboard. For a season, the full physical keyboard on a handheld device was revolutionary. However, the focus on the keyboard, instead of the why behind the keyboard, took Blackberry from world-domination to complete irrelevance. It is important that as you are leading teams, volunteers, your family and even yourself, that you elevate the why above the what or how. Use your why, which is your mission, to define your what and how. The mission should always be first.
2. Forget about the Future
   Another pathway to irrelevance is becoming comfortable with what you know. Do you remember Kodak? The inventor of the digital camera and, at one time, the king of digital photography. Digital photography has become popular in recent years, so what happened to Kodak? They got stuck in the “Kodak Moment” and completely forgot about the future. It takes work to think about what’s coming. It’s much easier to ignore trends, fall behind on news outside of your own culture, and even be uninterested in the apps your kids are using. Be careful that you are not becoming efficient in something that is losing its effectiveness.
3. Believe it’s About You
   The final road to irrelevance that we are going to talk about is ignoring wise counsel and believing it’s all about you. The fast-track to irrelevance would be to forget about getting feedback from peers and leaders and to also neglect seeking wisdom from your mentors. When we believe it’s all about us, we isolate ourselves. We make decisions on our own, without input from those whom we respect, and determine that we know what is best. This kind of isolation creates something called, confirmation bias. If you find yourself pulling data and stories to support your own ideas without the input and feedback of others, you are wrapped up in confirmation bias and it is the nail in the coffin on the journey to irrelevance.

We don’t wake up thinking about the slope from influence to irrelevance. We can assume that Blackberry and Kodak weren’t thinking about the slope either. We need to recognize what we are stewarding and of what we get to play a part. As I write these thoughts, they are just as much for me as they are for anyone reading them. I need the reminder to not go on auto-pilot, but rather lean in and not take anything for granted. We have to press into the work and awareness it takes to remain relevant.

Thank you for reading and I hope these thoughts help you in the same way that they are helping me. If you would like to hear the entire talk on how to become irrelevant, here is a link to the video:

How to Become Irrelevant was originally published in Open Digerati on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Wikipedia: In game theory and economic theory, a zero-sum game is a mathematical representation of a situation in which each participant’s gain or loss of utility is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the utility of the other participants. If the total gains of the participants are added up, and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero. Thus, cutting a cake, where taking a larger piece reduces the amount of cake available for others, is a zero-sum game if all participants value each unit of cake equally (see marginal utility).

Growing up in sports, I was conditioned to understand winning and losing. Yes, this was in the era of only getting a trophy or medal if you won. American soccer, starting at four years old, birthed into a passion for tennis that became highly competitive and a driver through my teenage years. Winning was everything. In my mind at the time, tennis was possibly the career path.

Competitive sports produces winners and losers. There is no participation medal, and no one remembers the 2nd, 3rd or 4th place. This is the zero-sum game. My win is your loss, and this mindset does not just birth out of sports — it’s much deeper than that. As Wikipedia explains, it is also embedded in our mathematical understanding, so it impacts our financial understanding and can drive the way we think about money and stewardship. If you stop and think about this concept, the zero-sum mentality just might drive many areas of your world.

What I have realized in my own life is, the “zero-sum game” mindset is dangerous and destructive. As a competitive person who can find myself very performance oriented, I have to be very cautious to not default to a zero-sum mindset. As Wikipedia describes, when a person gains, the other person loses. More often than not, this line of thinking is flat out incorrect. You see, this is a give and take system, the zero-sum game is all transactional, and the amount of cake we have grows or diminishes with every transaction. You see, this is jacked up, but we all deal with it. Jesus addressed this line of thinking. Look at his words in Matthew.

“But Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” — Matthew 20: 25–28

The antidote to the zero-sum mindset is generosity. Generosity is not transactional; it is not based on a simple mathematical equation of gains and losses. It is rooted in giving, based on sacrifice. The generosity mind-set lived out means sharing ideas, investing in each other, blessing one another and expecting nothing in return. And the paradox of all this is found later on in Jesus words.

“The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” — Matthew 23: 11–12

Lord search our hearts and reveal to us where our mindsets are counter to you ways.

Originally posted on TerryStorch.com

Have you ever been in a car when the engine overheated? The smell is horrible, and the only safe option is to pull over and stop the car. Total shutdown. There are many reasons a motor will overheat — but I am not going to dig into proper maintenance of a motor…I am going to shift into the more uncomfortable topic; are YOU running too hot, or running your team or organization too hot; nearing overheating and total shutdown?

This question came to me while having dinner with a dear friend recently while in London. We were discussing life, ministry and what’s generally on our minds when his observation, (which I saw was a Holy Spirit moment) he shared about challenges he has faced in the past of running his team’s too hot and himself too hot. My friend went on to discuss the problems he encountered while leading a large global organization too hot, describing teams in the red, with no margin or ability recover and respond quickly when needed. Like the example of the motor above, our bodies and organizations are not designed or capable of running beyond 100% capacity for too long.

Working too hard and running too hot may feel productive and exciting in the short term, but you will find yourself overheated and nearing total shutdown before long.

I am quickly approaching 20 years in full-time ministry and can say running too hot has nearly taken me out a handful of times. Most of them were in the early days, but honestly speaking a few have happened in the more recent years. I am a born and bred natural workaholic, so running hot and struggling with this area is real life for me.

Here are a few things I have found that personally help me work hard, but prevent me from running too hot.

Schedule

We live in a busy and demanding world with endless “things” demanding our attention. As Ferris Bueller once said “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.” How true is this? If we don’t stop and look around, life will not only pass us by, but it will also entirely take us over. A life taken over by the tyranny of the urgent will lead directly to running too hot. Our schedule and calendar must follow, and be in line with our priorities. It’s critical that your time and energy is appropriately allocated to your priorities. I often look up to, and quote the apostle Paul and value his passion and commitment, heck Paul wrote a lot of the New Testament. But when reading Paul’s words, we need to realize at that Paul was single with no children. Our schedules must reflect our priorities as well as the seasons of life we are currently in. My schedule now married with two teenage daughters can not look like it once did when I was single. Look at your calendar and schedule now, does it reflect your priorities and are you taking control of your schedule? Dr. Henry Cloud says it best in his book Boundaries for Leaders: “You are Ridiculously In Charge!”

When we look at our priorities, and start to take control of our schedule let me guide you to the truth. Our priorities must start with putting God first. The principal of priorities starts and ends with God being first, above everything else. If we don’t get this right, everything else will always be out of whack. I wrote more about this here.

Sleep

Sleep is the one activity we do more than any other. About one-third of each day and one-third of our lives is spent sleeping. Did you realize that sleep is so essential to the functioning of our bodies that we will die if we go too long without it? I didn’t! Honestly, early in my life, I made many mistakes around feeling invincible, and thinking sleep was for the week. Working till all hours of the night, and waking up early in full throttle mode, powered by caffeine and sugar! Come to find out, my body was able to handle that for a short period, but significant challenges presented themselves in painful ways such as general anxiety disorder, panic attacks, rage, depression and eating disorders. Yea, I have been jacked up — but that’s another post. Sleep is SO CRITICAL for our bodies and minds, and we need to value it at all costs. Don’t miss that sleep is not just for your body, but it is also for your mind, this great article reminds us that sleep is our minds best friend. I have found ~7hr a night is my sweet spot. I also have also grown to love the weekend afternoon nap. Listening to my body, when I feel it needed rest I learned to listen and honor my body and embrace the nap. For me, the 20 or 40 min power nap is vital. Anything more than that becomes problematic due to sleep cycles. I notice many young people, just like I didn’t, value sleep or prioritize it. But trust me — if you want to thrive in the long run, get good and regular sleep.

Before I leave this topic, did you realize sleep is spiritual? For brevity of this article, I will encourage you to read this. There is a good reason we sleep, and God doesn’t!

Exercise

For years I struggled with any consistency when it came to exercise. Once I figured this out years ago, it was a game changer. Running too hot can often be just as much mental as it can be physical. Exercise helps me mentally disconnect from work and have other goals, and that is very healthy for all of us. In the cycling days what was terrific was having very limited ability to check my phone, or respond to text and email. I know many executives that have taken up swimming because it’s impossible to be connected while swimming laps! I am currently exercising by weightlifting, and I have to work hard to not bounce into email and text between exercises. No matter cycling, swimming, weightlifting, yoga or running, just consistently exercise. I have found the top benefits being; mental focus, energy, improved sleep, strength and overall feeling great.

Relationships

Social media is powerful, and a great way to stay up to date with happenings in the world and with some connections. However, don’t confuse social media “friends” with deep relationships. I am not saying that online connections are not powerful, and beneficial…they are, or I know they can be! But one thing I have found critical to help from running too hot is having significant relationships in place that can be safe places to share, sharpen each other as well as support and encourage one another.

Meaningful relationships that are built on trust need to include transparency and “radical candor,” so when you are approaching, or in the running too hot season, they can call it out and help you navigate your way out of it.

Sabbath

Last, but certainly not least is the Sabbath. I am unqualified to talk on this topic, primarily because I have slaughtered the Sabbath for so many years. Yes, I did not honor the Sabbath at all for many, many years. So, again I am proof that God has grace and mercy, and in spite of our actions and disobedience, He can still bless us. BUT…I do sometimes wonder what the missed opportunities were, and where I missed out on more of the blessings of God. I will not live or dwell in the past; I am moving forward and encourage you to do the same thing with a weekly Sabbath. One of the best messages I have heard about the Sabbath was from pastor Robert Morris called The Principal of Rest. I wrote about it here.

You see, the creator of everything, the living and loving God is more interested in a relationship with us than He is in what we do. So, while we are called to have a strong work ethic and to work hard at all that we do, we are also called to take times of rest. God in His great wisdom commands us to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. I am not sure why, so I won’t try and answer this is a broad context — but I will give my personal opinion. For me, I don’t need to be told work harder, as I said before, I am a natural born workaholic! I am going to bring everything I have, all the time, that just who I am. But I do need to be commanded and told to rest because that is not natural to me.

Finally, I debated about adding this and opted to include it. The Sabbatical. I said it in my opening, but I am approaching 20yrs in full-time ministry and have never taken an extended period off, or break. I think I have another 20 strong and effective years in full-time ministry left. I desperately want to finish strong, and want to be a model of these verses!

For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

2 Timothy 4: 6–7

I know the only way for me to finish strong, to have the second 20 as effective or even more effective than the first I need to avoid running too hot! I have to obey the list above, but I am also feeling convicted that a sabbatical is going to be required. Why the debate on adding this? Well, it’s honestly a trust issue. I am not sure I fully trust God in this area — how He will provide for a Sabbatical. I am praying for clarity, and to fully trust Him and would appreciate your prayers.

Have you ever been in a car when the engine overheated? The smell is horrible isn’t it!? How’s your engine? Are you running too hot? Are you running your team too hot? May we all be reminded the short-term benefits of running too hot never outweighs the long-term benefits of honoring God with everything we are. Praising God with our mind, body, and soul allowing us to serve Him for the long run.

“Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful.”

1 Thessalonians 5:23–24

Originally posted on TerryStorch.com

My friend and team member, Cameron, turned me onto this productivity planner a while back. Honestly, I was not too interested at first. I had a fairly robust process in place for my planning and always felt like I was strong when it came to productivity.

Well, after some continual promptings from Cam, and some realizations with my more analog style of journaling that had been a huge success this year, I felt it was time to dive into the Intelligent Change Productivity Planner. Let me say this — wow! I have fallen in love with the simplicity of the planner, and the process it takes you through; it is so helpful. Here is why I think it is a winner.

1) Weekly planning

The productivity planner starts with planning your week. Immediately this creates a mindset broader than today, or this moment. Looking out beyond a day or two and focusing on the week is an essential part of being productive on the “right” things.

2) Daily prioritized task list

Once the week is planned out, you dive into what is most important today in light of what is important to accomplish this week. Daily is just a subset of the week, and with this type of focus you quickly adjust and move away from just silly busywork. Keeping the most important things in front of you helps with distractions immensely.

3) Reflection & Evaluation

Weekly planning and daily task management were good for me before this planner. But what has been added for me, and I think is bringing the most value, is the daily and weekly reflection. Every day has a quick review, a 1–10 productivity score with a small comment section. This has been gold, daily making myself score the day and evaluating what issues are challenging my productivity. Having this new detailed awareness gives me practical and tactical ability to make the adjustments needed to be better the next day! The same happens when the week is over, evaluating the full week and carrying those learnings forward.

4) Paper

Digital vs. Analog. Paper and a notebook might not be for everyone. Heck, I am a digerati. My life is often bleeding edge digital and technology, and that is one reason I love the physical writing in this paper planner. There is something special for me when writing on the physical pages early in the morning — a sense of creating and crafting the vision and plan for the week. A personal connection with the vision and importance for the day. It feels “real”. I am shaping and creating the way.

5) Timing and process

Finally, and this is not so much the Productivity Planner specifically, it is more about the process and the flow in my day. Opening my Productivity Planner happens right after my morning time with God, before any emails or actual work for the day. Why is this important? For me, it is important because I am committing my day to the Lord. Coming out of my devotional and time in the Bible I turn my day and tasks to Him and seek His wisdom and direction for what is the most important things to give myself to this week, or today. This helps bring a very practical process to surrendering my will to His will…daily, and I recognize how important that is for me!

The Intelligent Change Productivity Planner has been a great tool to add in my belt for increased productivity, prioritization and focus. I have shared it with many people who have seen great results in just a few short weeks of using it. No matter the Productivity Planner or not, I highly encourage you to take a step back and evaluate your productivity, process, and priorities. Are you thinking the right way, and using all the tools available to maximize your return on investment? Time and energy are limited resources, steward them well.

Originally posted on TerryStorch.com

I am not one that believes the realities this current generation is facing is harder or more dire than anything we have ever faced. I believe that line of thinking is a bit idealistic and ignorant. However, I do think that each generation faces unique issues and challenges it must navigate with great wisdom and discernment. As a parent of two homeschooled teenage daughters, wisdom, and discernment are regularly called upon words in my journal and prayers.

Parenting in a digital world presents unique challenges that need to be addressed and faced with great intentionality and care. This is the first teenage generation that is fully digital — 100% smartphone availability in their lifetime. A continuously connected and, unfortunately, interruption driven culture. To stay on this topic for a moment, the new Apple Watch was announced recently and the core new feature is built-in cellular connectivity. Your watch, always connected, delivering notifications, text messages, phone calls, meeting invites, etc. Always connected, no phone needed. On the one hand, I love this technology — but on the other, our every day can turn into a constantly “connected” and never removed from interruptions or a stream of information.

Are we prepared and leading through this well? This constantly connected, information overload life has some serious consequences. Did you know teenage suicide is a growing public health problem. A recent Huffington post article unpacks the CDC report.

“The suicide rate for girls ages 15 to 19 doubled from 2007 to 2015, when it reached its highest point in 40 years, according to the CDC. The suicide rate for boys ages 15 to 19 increased by 30 percent over the same time period. ”

Leading our children and the next generation starts with leading ourselves well and being keenly aware of what being a teenager online is like. It’s important to know that teenage depression is seeing a startling increase. A major contributor to this increase is cyber-bullying according to Susanna Schrobsdorff in this Time Health article.

I see evidence that technology and online bullying are affecting kids’ mental health as young as fifth grade, particularly girls. “I couldn’t tell you how many students are being malicious to each other over Instagram. “I’ve had cases where girls don’t to come to school and they are cutting themselves and becoming severely depressed because they feel outcasted and targeted.” — Ellen Chance

As parents are we monitoring digital use well? Are we aware of what’s happening in our kids lives online as well as offline? We need to be!

A major challenge we face with our smartphones is our constant digital connection and addiction? Yes, addiction. For the most part, all of us, parents and kids, struggle with addictive behaviors with our smartphones. Some adults navigate this better than others, and some are horrible. Robin and I talk about this on a fairly regular basis, and in full transparency we both find ourselves sliding up and down that scale, from bad, to worse to swings in the good and doing great other days. But we both would say we do not consistently model this well in our home. And we have decided this has to change, and we are going to be intentional about building and shaping the right habits around our digital lives consistently.

Here are the four keys we use to do our best at parenting in the digital world.

1) Lead With Vision

One thing I have learned along the way is, it is critical with vision. Leading with vision needs to be about what your family is for, not what it’s against. We opted to kick this off with everyone in our family meeting. Our family meetings happen on a semi-regular basis, say monthly. The key discussion centered around bringing clarity to our core priorities as a family. Those are:

• Relationship with God
• Building our Godly character
• Family
• The Church

These priorities are not new to our family and not exclusive to this topic. We discuss these on a regular basis and they become our guide to many decisions we make (spoken and unspoken.)

2) Focus On Habits

After getting centered on our priorities, we then transitioned into how those priorities were being threatened and impacted by our digital addictions. No, not everyone was happy about this discussion, but everyone agreed this was a struggle — FOMO (fear of missing out) is real. So, we kicked off a digital detox. A 30-day removal of social media, and any apps that create demand for our attention. Robin and I both were in agreement that apps like text messaging and FaceTime were important because we want to encourage deepening relationships.

3) Parents, Lead by Example

As parents, we have also gotten a little more lax than we should have on computers and phones in bedrooms. We have NEVER allowed phones in bedrooms overnight — even with sleepovers. Kids’ phones and devices get plugged in and charged in the kitchen, and if your phone is not on the charger when I awake in the morning you lose it for the day. BUT, during the day and waking hours phones and computers have become highly used in the bedrooms, and we also are putting a limit to that. We will allow exceptions to the rule when needed — but permission must be asked. Robin and I were also in the bad habit of having our devices with us throughout the house in the evening. Constantly glancing at, being pinged by and interrupted by emails, text, GroupMe, Instagram, and Facebook — just a bunch of stuff that in the big and grand scheme does not matter.

It’s hard to build solid face to face communication as a married couple on its own, and when you have the easy distraction of a smartphone, it’s near impossible. Phones need to get put up and on the charger when we are “home.”

Obviously, there are exceptions to the rule, and we discuss those and try not to be too legalistic. Robin prepares for school; I have work I sometimes need to handle…there are relational needs that need to be tended to on our phones, yes. But, what we are trying to avoid are the meaningless distractions of the digital black hole. Again, all this goes back to point two, to break bad habits and build new ones.

4) Review, Discuss and Modify

Parenting in a digital world is complex. Leading ourselves in a digital world is challenging. What I know is this: we must bring intentionality to all areas of our lives, or we will wake up, and the world and stuff will control us. To do this effectively, this must be fluid and adjust regularly. The age of your kids, situations you face and technology advancement means this is not a set it and forget it concept. Have open and transparent conversations with your kids, and each other as parents. Reward good behavior and celebrate new habits that have been formed!

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” -Romans‬ ‭12:2‬

If you read this far, then congratulations for wanting to make a change. Start now, reject and refuse, to be consumed and led by things of this world. Control your things, or they will control you.

Parenting is tough. Don’t think for a second that we have all this figured our, or have never made mistakes. We make them all the time. Thank God for His grace, we need it. But I will leave you with this. Be different. Think different. Act different. And doing so will guarantee you to be WIERD. But as pastor Craig Groeschel says: “I choose WIERD, because normal isn’t working:”

Great resources:
The Culture Translator — weekly email
Circle — content and time filtering tool
10 tips to break digital bad habits
Deep Work — a good book bringing attention towards being less distracted
Quit Social Media — a very interesting TEDx talk by Cal Newport

Originally posted on TerryStorch.com

I love my job. It’s as simple as that.

This week, the devs and designers on two of my teams were all pretty quiet. Or not in the office at all. But they were working, oh they were working.

This week was Ship-It Week for our Life.Church Digerati Interactive and Open Network teams. They had seven days to dream, design, and deploy a new feature or gadget or process that would help us as a church be even better at leading people to Christ.

Ship-It Week was started in the Digerati group by our YouVersion team many years back. Some really amazing things have come from these weeks — for example, the current interface and design you use on your Bible App was developed and designed in a Ship-It Week!

I wanted to give you a glimpse of the project presentations and “closing ceremonies” for Ship-It Week, and share what these talented team members (and God) are doing to leverage technology to reach the world for Christ.

Project 1: The Blue Button — The winner of Ship-It Week!

A group from our Interactive Team painted the picture of a person coming to our Life.Church website for the first time: it would be like entering one of our campuses that was completely empty — no staff, no greeters, no lights, no nothing. To create an atmosphere that welcomes people, that meets people right where they are, you have to inject a little human-ness into a website, and they did that through a ‘blue button.’ It’s a chat-like integration that allows team members or volunteers to talk with people, answer questions, and pray with people in real time. They even created a set of custom premade interactions that can intelligently help people find the pages or answers they need.

Project 2: Open Network SSO

Our Open Network team has built and supports four distinct apps, and over the last 11 years, they’ve served more than 430,000 pastors and church leaders with these free church tools. That’s a lot of user accounts, and that’s a lot of back-end data to manage. Many of those users have multiple logins for the different apps we offer, too. So, working in Rails 5.1 and React, two team members tackled “OpenAuth,” a kind of single sign-on that would not only help users create accounts and jump easily between them, but would also help the Open Network team learn how to better serve them.

Project 3: Captioning

When they dug into it, our team discovered that 1 in 10 people can’t hear a message — and they built a way to let those people see a message by adding an automated process for captioning our video content. They focused on making it affordable and reliable, and it will automatically update on all the different pages, platforms, and devices where we show video.

Project 4: Augmented Reality

You’ve seen it in Iron Man when Tony Stark can see his ‘instrument panel’ in his helmet. Our team asked, “How could augmented reality help people learn more about our church and God?” Built with Apple’s new ARKit for iOS 11, the team demoed some cool examples: a QR code on a mailer that opens to a video promo for a new series, Shine the Star from the Bible App for Kids helping kids learn a verse, and live signups for the small groups available on our LifeGroups wall at campuses.

Project 5: Search with ‘Actions Index’

In keeping with the theme of making otherwise-cold, digital sites more warm and welcoming, the next team worked on an advanced search system paired with something they call the ‘Actions Index.’ Working together, the upgraded search and the Actions Index combs every Life.Church web property and pulls all the returns into one easy-to-navigate page — and it even searches actionable items like signups, online giving, and forms.

Project 6: Church Online Platform Reactions

According to our Life.Church Online team, 90% of people who watch an online service don’t engage with the chat. And since we know how important it is for people to have community online, our team worked on a solution that lowers the barrier-to-entry for an online experience. They created a heart reaction that you can pop at any point in the service that you like. It’s a fun, colorful interaction that doesn’t require a signup or any vulnerability, but it helps bring people one step closer to engaging in an online community. Learn more about doing online ministry with the free Church Online Platform, and fiddle around with the demo for reactions here.

These are just a few of the projects our teams work on every day, and I love how each one helps to bring humanity, warmth, and authenticity to technology. They push the limits and change the norms to help lead people to Christ.

And that’s exactly what Digerati Ship-It Week at Life.Church is about.

If you want to be part of this amazing team — and maybe be onboard for our next Ship-It Week — check out all the positions we have open here at https://www.life.church/jobs/technology/.

Interested in doing your own Ship-It Week? Learn more about Life.Church Innovation and the ins and outs of planning a Ship-It Week on our Open Network blog. (Link)

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So how can boundaries do such harm when it comes to our personal development? Because the odds are, your boundaries are located in the wrong spot.

It’s our human nature to seek comfort and safety. And that’s a central problem with our development and daily life. Catalytic growth, our development, and core joy happen just beyond our boundary of comfort.

May this be your challenge, your new awareness to move your boundary just beyond what you can handle. Set your sights, goals, dreams beyond what you can accomplish in your strength. You will be amazed what happens when you live your life truly depending on God to show up.

There is growth beyond boundaries.

An excerpt from #ThoughtsFromTerry email dispatch. Subscribe and get weekly thoughts in your Inbox.

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People evolve and grow; teams morph, goals and objectives adjust, technology rapidly changes. Leading is dynamic.

As leaders, we must regularly evaluate and change our playbook to the proper game. If you find yourself continually leading the same way, I will go on a limb and tell you that your game has changed without you.

Are you being led by the wrong playbook? With honor and respect, it’s time to have a Crucial Conversation. Lead up, pull the necessary feedback, and align the playbook with the new reality.

Leading with the right playbook makes all the difference!

Your capacity as a leader is directly tied to your ability to change or adapt in the moment and over time.

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The past month or so I have been thinking about an upcoming Leader Essentials session I have the privilege to speak at. Leader Essentials is a dedicated training event for new leaders at Life.Church geared toward training and equipping leaders within our culture. I like to use this time to highlight the DNA of digerati leadership, but also highlight what I am learning and leading through personally. While preparing for the talk, I found myself drawn towards my learning through failing and how critically important mindsets are.

In thinking through those mindsets and mental models, it became abundantly clear that death often produces life. I know that is extreme, but stick with me. I was continually seeing the theme around being willing to leave the old way of thinking or doing, which is death, to step into the new, which is life. Why was this concept hitting me again and again? I am not sure. But this is what I do know — we learn on a need to know basis. A great mentor of mine tells me this all the time. This illustrates why new learnings jump out, or off the page, and we think we have never seen them before. The truth is we have seen it before. We did read it last week, last year, or a decade ago. But this time, in this season it jumped out because we needed to learn it.

Our mindsets and mental models are powerful. They drive just about everything we do or don’t do. I know that in my life when something “new” happened, the old had to die. At age 21 when I gave my life to Christ, it was leaving the old way of thinking for the new. As the journey with Christ continued over the years, the process continued. Many mindsets and mental models from my past were continually challenged, and the old had to die to produce a new way of life. I believe this process is never ending while we are on Earth. Our growth must continue, our wisdom needs to broaden, and our mindsets advance. Every time I spend time with some of my “older” wiser friends in their 60s/70s I am reminded I still have a ways to go.

Life is an active and evolving process that produces learnings, experiences, and all sorts of feelings and emotions that follow. It’s my desire, my hope, and most importantly my prayer, that my journey with Christ is never static. I pray that I never wake up thinking I have arrived. How about you? Are you a lifelong learner? What jumps to mind around this topic? Anything in your life that needs to die in order to bring new?

Jesus said in Mark 8:35, “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.”

Paul said in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Paul said in Titus 3:5, “he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”

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