Highlights:
•    Steelers Playoff Game with Ben Rath – San Diego Chargers
•    Steelers Winning Super Bowl/Pens Winning Stanley Cup
•    Praying for Dan to go to Iraq for the Egans
•    Ski Trip 2009
•    Super Bowl Pig Roast at Faulks
•    Seeing Keith Moore in Canton
•    Going to the Pens game with all the Pastors
•    Fiddler on the Roof
•    Believer Meetings
•    Catalyst West Coast with the Boys
•    Meeting Craig Groeschel and Erwin McManus
•    Hollywood, Santa Monica, Reagans Library, Universal Studios with Ben Rath
• Pittsburgh Marathon
•    Working at Houlihans
•    Spring Cadre Advance in ATL  – Stone Mountain, Ring Ceremony
•    Having Dinner with Jeanne Mayo, the honor of being asked to work for her
•    Speaking at Jumonville for the 2nd time
•    Impartation Conference
•    Driving Doug Jones, Christopher Alam, and Pat Butcher to the airport
•    Making it Count Cincinatti – Training and Assemblies
•    Vacation in Ocean Island with the Kruks
•    Working in ATL with Jeanne and Staff in August
•    Going to NA football game with my dad
•    Marine Corps Marathon in DC
•    Fogo Di Ciao Celebration
•    Cadre Fall Retreat in ATL – Jeanne’s First Church, Retreat, CNN Tour, The Varsity hot Dog Shop
•    P90X
•    Revolution Leader Christmas Party – Students Seving
•    Steelers Game with Mr. Steidel, James, and Matt
•    New York City for New Years

Favorite Versus:

Jeremiah 32:38-41, Jeremiah 33:6-9, Romans 8:32, Proverbs 31:8,9, Proverbs 25:6,7, Proverbs 2:9,10, John 8:28, Psalm 34:4, I John 4:18, Psalm 105:19, Psalm 127:1-3, Genesis 23:39:23, Exodus 18:14,  Exodus 31:13, Acts 13:7, 1 Tim. 1:4, I Tim. 4:14,

Travels:

• Atlanta, Cincinnati, New York, DC, LA & Orange County, Rushville IL, Ocean Isle, NC
  

Bucket List Items Complete:

• Attend a Catalyst conference, go to an NFL playoff game, checked off one presidential library (Reagan), ran 2 marathons, meet Erwin McManus and Craig Groeschel, get mentored by high quality leader (Jeanne Mayo), get a bible degree, graduate college.

Best Series I listened to:

• Keith Moore - Graces and Places, Thanksgiving Victory, Free from All Fear

2009 was an amazing year and I know God has even more in store for 2010! If 2009 was good for you spend time reflecting on great memories, all that was accomplished, and how much you’ve grown! If it wasn’t a great year, recognize God wants to do big things in your life and 2010 will be the best year of your life!

Happy New Years Everyone!

I recently heard about this book from a John Maxwell Lesson. He said it’s one of the books that have influenced him the most in his life on leadership. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to read it.

This was probably the best leadership book I’ve read. The title makes it obvious, but it’s because it concentrates on being a spiritual leader, not just a leader in general. I’ll be going back through this book often. It is definitely a book that will mark my life. I’d make this required reading for anyone who wants to go into ministry.

Big Takeaway: If God’s called you to lead, go after it with all of your heart, but recognize that leadership is a responsibility, not a game or for your glory.

Final Grade: 10/10      Buy it Here

Some Highlights:

• God assigns places of spiritual ministry and leadership in His sovereign will.

• If the disciples figured to learn about leadership on the fast track and with appropriate perks and bonuses, Jesus soon disillusioned them.

• “It occurs to me that perhaps the best test of whether one is qualified to lead, is to find out whether anyone is following.”

• One should inquire of a potential leader whether he or she 1) does little things well; 2) has learned to focus on priorities; 3) uses leisure well; 4) has intensity; 5) knows how to exploit momentum; 6) is growing; 7) overcomes discouragement and “impossible” situations; and understands his or her weaknesses.

• The secular mind and heart, however gifted and personally charming, has no place in the leadership of the church.

• To reach this goal, a spouse must fully share the leader’s spiritual aspirations and be willing to join in the necessary sacrifices. Many a gifted leader has been lost to high office and spiritual effectiveness because of an uncooperative spouse.

• Jesus’ classrooms were the highways of life; His principles and values came across in the midst of daily experience. Jesus placed disciples into internships (Luke 10:17–24) that enabled them to learn through failure and success (Mark 9:14–29).

• Before we can conquer the world, we must first conquer the self.

• We cannot learn about prayer except by praying.

• The character and career of a young person depends on how he or she spends spare time.

• Minutes and hours wisely used translate into an abundant life.

• Our problem is not too little time but making better use of the time we have. Each of us has as much time as anyone else. The president of the United States has the same twenty-four hours as we. Others may surpass our abilities, influence, or money, but no one has more time.

• ‘Well, I just had two hours to kill here in between trains, and I thought I would come and see you.’ That used to bother me. Then the Lord convinced me that He sends people our way.

• Unless our reading includes serious thinking, it is wasted time.

• Those who lead the church are marked by a willingness to give up personal preferences

• Only one Leader holds office forever; no successor is needed for Him

These highlights surely do not give justice to the book – there were so many that I probably have 5-6 pages! Buy this book!

This was one of the first books I read on my new Kindle (I absolutely love it!). I’ve wanted to read this book since it came out, I had heard a lot of good things about it.

This is not a book I’d normally read. It wasn’t a principle book or even a practical one in which I could implement all the lessons I’ve learned. The whole book is about the author’s life experiences. Movie producers wanted to write a movie about his life, he agreed, and while writing the movie, he was asked to edit large parts of his life in order to make it more interesting. Through the experience he recognized that he had been living a pretty boring story.

What did he learn? That if we’re going to live interesting lives here on earth, if we’re going to live a great story, we need to do it on purpose. We need to write our stories, make them memorable, risk it all, and have as many adventures as we can.

Big Takeaway: Stop living a mediocre life and start building an amazing one on purpose.

Final Grade: 9/10 Buy it here!

Some Highlights:

• If what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either.

• If you aren’t telling a good story, nobody thinks you died too soon; they just think you died.

• Good stories don’t happen by accident, I learned. They are planned.
• “I tell good stories in books. I don’t live good stories.”

• People who live good stories are too busy to write about them.

• People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen. But joy costs pain.

• The War of Art. The book is about writing, about the process of getting words onto an empty page. Pressfield said a writer has to sit down every day and write, regardless of how he feels.

• The ambitions we have will become the stories we live. If you want to know what a person’s story is about, just ask them what they want. If we don’t want anything, we are living boring stories

• And once you live a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can’t go back to being normal; you can’t go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time.

• When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.

• We don’t know how much we are capable of loving until the people we love are being taken away, until a beautiful story is ending.