It’s been a month since Hope Chapel Mana`olana, my church body here on O`ahu, made the change to the house/garage/beach church model. Enough time to begin to measure some results.

First of all, what has this looked like?

It’s been meeting with some friends for BBQ, surfing, worship & hanging out at Kakaako Park. It’s been early morning coffee & catching up with a friend. It’s been late night Wii Tiger Woods Golf & accountability with another friend.

It’s been creating an environment at my house where some family members - who would never “go to church” - have felt comfortable discussing God. It’s been not feeling the obligation to rush out the door on Sunday morning.

It’s been an evolving picture, but it’s all a move toward eliminating this church-as-a-destination way of thought that’s become THE model for modern Christianity. A model that personally changed my life and has been given years of opportunity to be effective, but has achieved generally mixed results and has alienated countless numbers to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This new model is an attempt to return to our roots as an interconnected, interdependent network of believers passionately pursuing Jesus Christ together.

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Posted on Sunday, 27th April 2008 in Faith, Life | Comments (0)

I didn’t catch this live, but enough people told me about it that I had to YouTube it.

I’m not going to lie, I had a nice manly tear fest over the fact that 100 billion American Idol viewers saw this…

There are 4 shows I still make time for:

1) American Idol… I’m secure in saying this - they’ve raised like $80 million to support kids in the US & Africa

2) Conan O’Brien… Try it, you’ll like it

3) LOST… Somehow I run into Hurley all the time… including the magazine section at Borders yesterday

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Posted on Thursday, 24th April 2008 in Life | Comments (0)

“Underpromise and Overdeliver” is a common business mantra, but it’s certainly a wise approach to live by in general.

How many times have you talked up a comedian as “the funniest,” or a movie as “the best,” or a restaurant as “the most incredible food you’ve ever had.” And how many times does that object actually live up to its high billing?

If you’re experience has been like mine, I’ve let a lot of people down! If you set the bar at a height that’s so difficult to attain, you’re bound to disappoint.

I had this experience in my business this past week. I OVERpromised & UNDERdelivered, and it’s resulted in a lot of damage control & public relations efforts.

However, much of my “underdelivery” is the result of a strategic partner who has grossly underperformed what we contracted with them to do. When they didn’t deliver to me, the burden fell on me as I couldn’t deliver to my customers.

The result has been a uncharacteristically high level of stress, which I absolutely hate with all my limited capacity to hate.

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Posted on Monday, 21st April 2008 in Life | Comments (0)

One final thing I caught in Paul’s letter to Philemon. Verse 6 says “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.”

Did you catch that??

Be active in sharing your faith SO THAT you will have understanding!

Simply sharing our faith.. with each other & with those who don’t have it… gives us understanding of Jesus Christ. Knowing Him more isn’t a solo effort between you & your Bible. Hanging out with each other, just talking about the TRUTH, gives us knowledge of our Savior!

Posted on Saturday, 12th April 2008 in Faith | Comments (0)

I’m not even sure what to call what I’m currently experiencing. It’s more than jet lag. Maybe premium jet lag plus.

I’ve literally gotten 3 hours of sleep in the past 2 days. I’m in toasty Tampa, Florida for Mike Collins’s Pitch-Free Wholesaling Seminar. On Friday, the Rehablist boys found out that a speaker couldn’t make it on Saturday, so they asked me to speak for an hour.

Less than 24 hours notice, but you can’t turn that down.  A ton of real estate educators would pay to be on that stage.  So I ran with it.  It was my biggest audience to date (120+), but the response was pretty solid.

They made me feel a little more at home with a lei, some coconuts, & torches, and I opened up with my version of the Maori haka.

Mines is on tape, so I’ll try to get it up here. It was nothing like the real thing, but it definitely got the crowd in the game.

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Posted on Saturday, 12th April 2008 in Real Estate | Comments (0)

I’m doing a quick study of Philemon with some brothers & sisters this week. I’m not even sure how to pronounce that name, but when my wife says it it comes out a lot like “Filet Mignon”.

I got a laugh out of that, but for years one botchery has stood alone as the funniest biblical mispronunciation of my lifetime.

My college roommate was convinced that HABABCOCK was a book of the Old Testament.

Hababcock.

No joke.

Anyway… Paul writes this letter “to Philemon… and the church that meets in your home.”

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Posted on Wednesday, 9th April 2008 in Faith, Life | Comments (0)

I think a lot of believers have the wrong idea about money.

We read verses like Matthew 19:24…

… it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

and 1 Timothy 6:7-9…

For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.

and we condition ourselves to not think unnecessarily about money.

It’s understandable… money definitely has a lot of worldly connotations - greed, jealously, hedonism - but I think having an aversion toward it because of those things is the exact opposite of how we’re supposed to think.

In viewing it this way, we’re letting the enemy take this one. We’re like a decathlete who doesn’t participate in the shotput because it’s uncomfortable for his arm, and he thinks he can still win by working hard in the other nine events.

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Posted on Monday, 7th April 2008 in Faith, Life | Comments (2)

We’re pitched fast-track products every single day.

“Get rich quick!”

“7 minute abs!”

“Forget the fact that you ate Big Macs every single day for the past 14 years & just take this diet pill!”

“Bob’s happy now because Bob started taking INVIGOR-ENIS! You can be just like Bob TODAY!”

99% of them are BS. They’re magic pill propositions that don’t solve the real problem, which is the way you THINK about money, exercise, eating right, and your physique.

A huge light bulb went off for me last year. I realized that there’s this book in the bible called Proverbs, where the second wisest man who ever lived wrote everything he knew about love, money, food, fear, marriage, sex, pride, sin, trust, faith, how to speak, think, and live in a way that honors God & leads to health, wealth, and happiness.

THIS IS A GOLD MINE PEOPLE!

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Posted on Sunday, 6th April 2008 in Faith, Life | Comments (0)

Having lived on the east coast for 22 years before moving to Hawai`i, I still maintain a lot of distant friendships. I continue to cultivate most of these relationships through bi-monthly-or-so phone calls.

Being a huge proponent of Tim Ferriss’s GTP (Getting to the Point) Philosophy , I’m experimenting with a different communication model for these calls.

Instead of an unfocused "gimme a few highlights of your life with extremely little depth" model, I recently started asking my friends to give me a specific rundown of the last 24 hours of their life. I then ask 2-3 focused questions based on the information they give me.

I believe it’s effectively allowed me to trim the fat from these conversations, understand what’s truly going on in their daily lives, and leave them with something meaningful at the end.

A typical rundown might include "I got to work at 8am, answered emails until 9, had a mind-numbing meeting until 11, went to Neato Burrito for lunch, ordered a mega-size #1 with guacamole, etc."

And you may think this isn’t GTP at all! But you’re missing the P .

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Posted on Saturday, 5th April 2008 in Life | Comments (1)

Okay, I’m in.

In for this blogging thing. For real this time. I need to.

I’ll admit that in the midst of building my investment business & launching some online products, I have neglected my relationship with Christ far more than He deserves. I’m not a workaholic, but it’s become difficult for me to idle the part of my brain that thinks business. It seems like it’s constantly thinking, creating, stretching.

But just like with your spouse, if you continually neglect your relationship with your Savior, you’re on a slippery slope toward destruction.

If you’ve known Christ for any length of time, you know where I’m coming from. I believe the #1 strategy the enemy uses to pull us away from Christ is busy-ness… making “obligations” of this life seem more important than time with Jesus.

And — contrary to popular Christian thought — the solution is not “making time” to spend with Christ.

As Christians we do this, don’t we? We think the solution is “I should be spending more time with Jesus, so tomorrow I’ll start setting aside 30 minutes in the morning to read a devotional & pray.”

Wrong. If you think this, you’re missing a step.

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Posted on Saturday, 5th April 2008 in Faith | Comments (2)