Bil Cornelius

Creative Marriage Conference

I just got back from the Creative Marriage Conference, and man was it good!  Ed and Lisa Young did an amazing job of sharing real answers for pastors in ministry, on how to have a strong marriage.  Ministry is wonderful, but it is also exhausting and all-consuming, so it was refreshing to hear practical ideas on how to guard your marriage while growing a church.  Craig and Amy Groeschel did a great job too.  Both couples are the real deal and it is always a breathe of fresh air to hear from authentic, strong couples doing marriage and ministry well. 

#8 Seek to Tweak

Once you get started, you must immediately begin to tweak how you are doing.  If you are not getting the results you want, don’t quit, just change your approach.  Most successful people are successful not because they are brilliant but because they are bad quitters.  They just try something new until something finally works.  If you tried to get involved in a small group and your first experience didn’t go well…dare I say find another one?  If you started a business and it failed, learn from it and begin again more intelligently.  Thomas Edison said he didn’t fail 10,000 times at creating an incandescent light bulb, he “learned 10,000 ways it did not work” before he successfully changed the world by giving us the light bulb.  Anything worth doing is worth doing badly at first.   Just learn from it, so you can tweak what you are attempting until you do it well.  The first time I ever gave a message, I was terrible.  I went through 4 pages of notes in 10 minutes, and then just started to crying on stage….my youth minister had to come on the stage and convince me to leave the stage, because I didn’t know what to do other than stand there and cry….can you say “AWKWARD?”  I’m so glad I decided to try public speaking again!  I’m not the greatest, but I’m better than I used to be (not hard to go up from there!). 

Move #7 Pull The Trigger

Going back to the 10 Right Moves to Make, here is #7: Pull the Trigger. You can pray, and plan, discuss, and plan, analyze, and plan…at some time you just have to pull the trigger. Michael Masterson says “Ready, Fire, Aim.” This philosophy does not mean that you do not plan, but that you do not wait…forever. Ecclesiastes 11:4 says “If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done.” At some point you need to get started on your dream. Get started on that diet, on that business, on doing your taxes, on confronting that individual, on going back to school….or whatever you are putting off. If the enemy cannot get you to believe a lie, then he will do his next tactic: he will get you to believe the truth but keep putting off applying it to your life. We must get into the “action” habit. Now is the time to start, for “This is the day that the Lord has made!”

Now That is a Gift!

Here is a gift recently given to our church. Notice that even though I’m on the bike, they actually have it on a frame to keep me from knocking it over. Okay, so I’m not exactly what you would call “credible” at this streetbike thing. This is a good example of someone who gave extravagantly to the Lord. We are going to sell the bike to whoever wants it at a good, yet retail, price, and put the money towards the ministry. In the past few weeks, we have seen a convertible, a jeep, a 9’4” longboard, even a motorcycle given to God’s work! Who says giving can’t be creative? Most of the vehicles are given to those in need, except the motorcycle…we are selling it only because we do not want the responsibility if someone lays it down on the freeway.

How has God blessed you, to be able to give towards His work? Who can you bless with something you own? I challenge you to give away your car rather than trade it in….so see the $400 extra this month as someone’s tuition money they need, or to buy someone’s meal you see in a restaurant, just to honor the Lord. In other words, I challenge you to have a giving lifestyle. After all, “God so loved the world, that He gave…..”

144 People Enter the Kingdom of Heaven!

What a weekend! I just have to stop and praise God for 144 declared salvations from one weekend! There is great power in slowing down the “invitation” and making sure it makes sense, then sincerely asking (but not manipulating) people to cross the spiritual line and become Christ followers. For those of you who were not there, especially pastors, I highly advise trying to clearly communicate the offer for salvation by having people get out their registration/commitment cards provided in the bulletin, tear it out, and ask them to pray while signing the card, thus signing the “contract” to become a follower of Christ. I explained how in the Old Testament they made vows to God, and today we make contracts. I also explained that the binding nature of the contract was not their signature (signing, or baptism for that matter, doesn’t save you..it’s a symbol of your salvation), but rather their sincere prayer asking Jesus to be their Lord, boss, CEO, and repenting of their sins, and inviting Jesus into their hearts and lives. The results speak for themselves! Praise God! I believe that the “method” was not the key, it was the simple explanation coupled with the Holy Spirit doing His bidding. I am convinced that there are more people who want to accept Christ than there is people (or churches) that are willing to slow down and clearly explain salvation and ask them to receive Him. Are you willing to slow down long enough in your sermon, or at work or on the court or in the gym to ask the person in front of you to receive Christ? Eternity hangs in the balance.

Too Good

I was just about to drop a new blog when this came across my desk. This blog is from a faithful member of our church, and obvious supporter of our ministry. If you are a leader in any way, you should take the minute or so it will take to read this:
...money talks.

I just returned home from a birthday party for a three year old. In researching my new business venture, I've priced the different things that are made available for birthday parties. I'm probably underestimating the cost of the party to be $400. On a three year old. If the parents were to read this they'd probably scoff, I wish $400.....the cost alone was not my issue. It was coupled with the really large presents people were bringing. I'm quite sure some of the gift bags cost more than what we spent on our gift, again not the entirety of my issue.

The conversation came around to where people go to church. The second Bay Area came out of my mouth, the talk turned to money. They are always asking for money. The crowd cheers when they announce offering. Money, money, money. One lady made the comment that they were used to putting in their wadded up dollar, "so people saw" them putting in something, and this church was asking for $1,000/year for three years. OMG. Who tithes anyway. "We do". That stopped the conversation quite quickly.

These are the same people who were talking about how many Vera Bradley bags they had, and "Have you gotten the Coach clutch?" Not my normal crowd I guess. No money left after birthday parties and purses.

I haven't noticed the constant money talk at Bay Area. I do know that they ask for it, but it hasn't really bothered me that they do so, since we've been giving. We're the ones who cheer when they announce offering. It's not weird when you are on the tithing side of things. When they were asking for $1000/year we committed to a double tithe, based on the salary of a job that we didn't have at the time. It was more than $1000/year, but we believed that we'd get the job, and the salary bump would be bigger than a 10% bump in giving. I'm not saying that we promised to give in order to get a "raise", but rather we knew God would give it to us if he could give through us. It's worked out well for us. But not at first.

When we first started giving we didn't get the job when promised. Not the first month, not the second month, not the third month. We still gave the first month, the second month and the third month. We have not had any real money problems since. Of course we've had some issues and what not, but there aren't any starving naked kids running around the house. Even a couple of weeks ago we got a letter from our insurance company, they were dropping us because our roof appeared to be an overlay. Turns out overlays haven't been legal since 1993 or something, and the previous owner should have put on a new roof when we bought it six years ago, yadda yadda yadda. This was immediately after promising an attorney several thousands of dollars to adopt our kids, and getting ready to start a business. None of which we can "afford". We're doing what we can, but are relying on God to come up with enough money to pay the attorney, repair our house, start a business, and feed the kids. I don't really want the Coach clutch, but I'm sure He'd throw it in too.

God allows us to test him in the tithe. I'm sure that four years ago when we first committed to giving seriously, it probably was a little bit of a test on our part. I also am pretty sure my crowd tithes. We don't discuss it but their kids are neither starving or naked. The whole "can't afford to tithe" argument goes out window when you have two Lexus' and live in the Lakes. Tithing is not for rich people. 10% is 10% and we get really excited when a tithe has a comma in it, it means good things for us. I'm actually looking forward to the day I can put two commas in a tithe check. Then they'll say "well, if I had ten million, it'd be easy".

I think the problem us humans have is we are used to mathematical accounting. We use the God accounting system and it nets more somehow. So, who tithes anyway, we do, we can't afford not to.

On Starting A Business

So you want to start a business?  First things first:  why?  Do you not like your boss?  Do you want more money?  These are two of the worst reasons to start a business, and let me explain why.  The “I-don’t-like-my-boss” reason is terrible, because have you noticed this is based upon emotion, and that once you are free of him/her, you are also free of that nice little thing attached to them called your “paycheck?”  Starting a business requires a plan of action, a risk, a level of ingenuity and aggressiveness that you must prepare for in advance, and the ability to suddenly be the “hated boss” at times.

Second wrong reason:  “I-want-to-make-more-money” is not wrong in itself, but it must be followed up with a true assessment of one thing:  Do I want to make more money so I can do more with it, like a good manager (stewardship), or do I need to make more money because I have not handled what I make wisely.  I’ve noticed that people who are making lots of money often find themselves in more debt, worse off than when they made less, because riches do not come to those who earn a lot, they come to those who save and invest a lot.  Before you start your business, how is your current business going?  You may not realize it, but you are already in business for yourself:  You, inc.   Are “You” profiting at the end of each month, or losing money?  You may want to begin profiting by saving something, because you cannot make up for bad spending with more money.  You have to change “You” first.

Comments?

Something New

Today I am taking a break from my "Top Ten List", because multiple types of people come to my blog.  I am fielding more and more questions through the blog about business/investments/real estate, and personal productivity.  So here goes.

My favorite investments

People often ask me about investing, and the first thing they ask me is what do I like to invest in….the answer is so simple really:  I like to invest in assets that create immediate cashflow.  If there is not immediate cashflow, it’s not really an investment, in my opinion.  If the cashflow is not immediate, it’s probably a gamble.  For example, if you invest in a mutual fund or stock, you are hoping it either will go up in time, or it will atleast hold it’s value by staying up with inflation (need at least 4 to 6% to keep up nowadays).  Before I go any further, you must understand my bias:  I don’t invest to “have something in retirement.”  I invest to “make something now.”  I also am not planning to have enough in retirement, I’m planning on having way more than enough!  Then, by the time I die, I want to die broke because I give it all away to:  (1) my wife and kids, (2) my kid’s kids, (3) missions, (4) church planting, (5) my local church, (6) season tickets to the Texans for my kids, which should be about the time they actually make the playoffs…I’m not bitter.

#6 Clear The Clutter

You are probably doing to much. If you are stressed out, you are doing too much. If you are frustrating your family, you are doing too much. If you haven’t felt connected to God lately, you area clearly doing too much. If you make a To-Do list on Monday and it is still hardly touched by Friday, you are doing too much. It’s time to clear the clutter. There are so many people and tasks to get to, that if you don’t prioritize what you will focus on, you will find yourself busy in the “thick of thin things.” Whenever I get too busy, I always do the same thing to correct the problem:

(1) I do not go into the office for a day or two and get the important things done at home.

(2) When in the office, I tighten down my schedule by creating a blocker (a great assistant is critical on this one).

(3) I make a “stop doing” list.

On the third one, always allow close friends, associates, and family members in on the list. They will help you see the stuff to quit spending your time on…because it is driving them crazy to watch you becoming more and more ineffective! Let others help you clear the clutter. One more thing, if it’s not in your purpose, no matter how worthy a cause or great a task, it’s clutter to you. If anyone makes you feel guilty for not doing their pet project, you did not clear all the clutter. The task they gave you was clutter, but their lack of understanding your real purpose, means either their attitude (or they themselves0 have become clutter to your purpose. You may need to clear them from the room (having access to you). This may sound harsh, but understand, the only thing more painful than disappointing them is disappointing God by not putting His gifts and vision He gave you as your main priority.

#5 Get a Mentor

Life’s greatest victories are never won alone.  You need the counsel of others.  If there is ever a way to speed up your goal achievement, it would be to find someone who has already achieved whatever it is you want, and ask them to mentor you.  There are several ways to find a great mentor:  (1) look around you…who has God already placed within your circle of friends or industry?  (2) seek out someone through the Internet, books, or conferences.  Both of these approaches have worked for me.  When I first moved to Corpus Christi, there was a great mentor in place to  help me:  Sam Douglass.  Sam now coaches pastors and church planters (I know, one in the same), and he is a trusted friend to this day.  Sam helped me make some critical distinctions in the early years about what kind of ministry we were going to be.  He gave me the freedom to be me when I lacked the confidence that comes with success and experience. 

Eventually, I had to look outside my city for mentors for two reasons:  Sam moved, and there were no mentors that really had a background or experience in the kind of ministry we were aimed at becoming.  I eventually built a great friendship with Scott Weatherford, a pastor only 90 minutes from me, and he gave me great advice as we grew.  Then, as we began to get some size, and therefore noticed around the country, it was much easier to get some doors opened to other mentors.   

I can already hear you asking this question:  What if the person I need to meet with I can’t get to?  Mentors who are pretty high up the “food chain” in your industry don’t give their time to people who have not demonstrated success with what they teach the general public.  When you prove you are accessing what they are offering already, and that it is working for you, they are more likely to give you five minutes here and there, and eventually, much more time that.  Here’s the point:  God always gives you mentors that are in front of you….you probably don’t need Rick Warren or Ed Young yet, but if you will find someone a few steps in front of you, listen to their advice, maybe there will come a day when you will gain access further up the chain.  The key is to use diligence in what you have already learned, to earn the right to have access to great leaders. 

“Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; He shall not stand before mean men.”  Proverbs 22:29 ASV