EZ37 starts today

Our EZ37 internship starts at ZHOP this afternoon. Look to have between 12-15 interns, a pretty special group. A couple of teenagers aiming to join full time staff have landed with the bunch, as well as some married couples of varying ages (20 through 40-somethings) and some singles joining for the next 5 months. This should be truly special, I'm eager to partner with the Holy Spirit and watch Him touch these coming to pray, to pursue the better thing of sitting at Jesus' feet. Come, Holy Spirit, teach us Your ways... lead us into the Truth who is a Person, this Jesus. Holy Son of God, be exalted as we look to You and draw near, that You might draw near to us! Yes and amen! Yes; and amen.

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ZHOP visitation weekend: Shelley Hundley

We have an event coming up in the next several weeks of substance and impact:

Shelley Hundley from KC-IHOP will be speaking on several occasions through the weekend of March 27-29. Registration is free, and its onine here.

Charlotte Awake! Worship and prayer service

Host: Saint Giles Presbyterian Church
Location: Saint Giles Presbyterian Church
2027 Emerywood Drive, Charlotte, NC 28210 US

When: Friday, April 25, 6:00PM
Phone: 704-553-1977
The evening schedule is as follows:

Sanctuary Prayer 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Prayer Gathering Service 7pm-9pm

Prayer Watch 9 p.m. to Midnight

Wisdom from an entrepreneur

Loïc Le Meur, head of the technology startup Seesmic, strikes me as a rather bloated ego (to be blunt). But in a recent article in Financial Times he has some recommendations that I think are worth pondering outside of an IT endeavor.

Included in the article are his ten rules for startup success. Reprinted below.

1. Don’t wait for a revolutionary idea. It will never happen. Just focus on a simple, exciting, empty space and execute as fast as possible
2. Share your idea. The more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors.
3. Build a community. Use blogging and social software to make sure people hear about you.
4. Listen to your community. Answer questions and build your product with their feedback.
5. Gather a great team. Select those with very different skills from you. Look for people who are better than you.
6. Be the first to recognize a problem. Everyone makes mistakes. Address the issue in public, learn about and correct it.
7. Don’t spend time on market research. Launch test versions as early as possible. Keep improving the product in the open.
8. Don’t obsess over spreadsheet business plans. They are not going to turn out as you predict, in any case.
9. Don’t plan a big marketing effort. It’s much more important and powerful that your community loves the product.
10. Don’t focus on getting rich. Focus on your users. Money is a consequence of success, not a goal.

Episcopalian maneuvers

My friend through Fr. Bill Cobb of El Paso, Bishop John-David Schofield has been removed as head of the San Joaquin Diocese of the Episopal Church USA. As the Episcopal Church has continued to veer away from biblical moorings John-David has held course. Read more here.

Team Tom and Hilary

The Lacys are blogging, all hands on deck! Find them here.

Word

I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him. - Ecclesiastes 3:14

Bolivia trip prologue

OK, now I'm $500 closer to meeting payment for the Bolivia airfare, aiming to leave next week. I have a keen sense that God is wanting to bring a new dimension to the prayer movement in a pronounced way: building prayer rooms in orphanages. I've had some understanding this would be coming for a few years, now the door is opening to take the first steps of understanding the vision of what God is doing in such a place. There will likely be a number of things God does to impart His life and show the reality of His Kingdom while we're on this trip. We'll be meeting with leaders and teaching in different venues regarding prayer and building community. But this orphanage prayer room, I feel God's heart for this in a way that truly makes me tremble.

Thank you for praying; please continue on our behalf.

Beached whale!

This morning on my way to billable hours with a local drug testing company (ie. "work", "a job", "my current project"), the 'White Whale' broke down. As we were driving to the Kenny and Katie's wedding on Saturday I heard a 'POP!' of a belt breaking in our "party van". Its a 91 Chevy conversion van, a boon to oil producing countries everywhere. I stopped on my cross-town drive to get a coffee this morning and then found I couldn't start the van up again. 'Of course', I thought to myself, 'the pop was for the belt that turns the alternator that charges the battery'. As a tremendous act of providence, I was near Import Connection... literally about 2 miles away. Where Katie St. Clair's father and brother work! I had already sent her dad, Don, an email yesterday asking about the loose steering column that is now present in the "party barn". So now I'm sitting here in the wireless atmosphere of Import Connection now waiting the verdict. Got a free tow from AAA at least. But Don will do me right - hey, we're practically family, right? Right? Distant cousins in spirit? Er, live in the same area code?

Feeding the world

Read an interesting blog entry over the weekend in the Dallas Morning News religion blog (here)... concerning the rising cost of food globally due to increased demand in many nations. They fault overeating in the industrialized nations. While I think gluttony applies to a degree, I still hold that the biggest issue is distribution of food and the processes deployed to get production out of food-growing regions. I think other factors such as pumped up costs for it getting sent are the biggest problems. My thinking for this is simply based upon my faith that God allows the world to produce enough food to feed all of humanity. He is not at fault in the least way. Somewhere, somehow its people not responding in love that is narrowing the channels of distribution.

NCAA tournament pool

If you are interested, for fun I've started a NCAA basketball tournament pool on Facebook for "shameless bragging rights for a year". So far I've got Matthew, Isaac, David Sliker and myself as members. Its open to the public, jump in here.

Sabbath