Later in life I thought I might want to be a teacher. Then I realized I really just wanted the summers off.

I never really thought I’d be a designer. I never really thought of myself as a creative, and certainly not an artist.

But that’s what I’ve been doing and that’s what God has created me to be. And I love it.

The difference is in the doing.

It is easy to want to be something. We want to be great parents, great spouses. We want to excel in our career, we want to change the world.

It’s hard to do. It’s hard to stop working and and spend the day looking for a car for my oldest. It’s hard to put down the controller just as I wipe out the entire team in Call of Duty to play “you can’t get me” with my youngest. But by doing those things, I become a great dad.

It’s hard to push through easy ideas to find a great idea, an idea that will be even harder to develop but infinitely more effective in catching people’s attention. It’s hard to not settle on the obvious and dig deep for an original way to communicate that moves people. But by doing those things, we become great designers.

So many times we get pumped up and write out our lists of goals. We make them big enough to be dreams, but small enough to be attainable. But are those nothing but words and ink on paper without action? We need to dream. We need to say out loud “I want to be…” and then we need to take a deep breath, roll up our sleeves and do what it takes to be that which God has called us to be. It most likely will not be easy, but it will be rewarding.

You will love it.

Father’s Day seems to be a tough service for many churches, all the one hit wonders are. How do you make a big bang with one service, no momentum, etc.

Here’s an idea:

Taking Care of Dad

The message isn’t so much to Dad, but more to Mom and the kids about Dad and about the need to support the family leader, etc. There’s a lot of pressure being a dad, and we’re often wired to not let it show…mom and the kids would do well to take care of dad sometimes as he so often is taking care of you. Think of it this way, if Dad spends his time providing for his family’s wants and needs who is taking care of his?

The big idea: Setup a bunch of lazyboys and select dads to sit in the chairs for the service, fully equipped with pop and chips (yep there will be crumbs, that’s why the vacuum was created).

Thought I’d pass it along. In fact, for the first church to commit to doing this all the way we’ll do the sermon branding for free.