I can’t really tell you how long I’ve been blogging on RevTrev.com. All I know is I have over 800 posts and WAY TOO MANY categories. I suppose you can say the same thing about the number of plugins I have as well.

That didn’t keep me from installing one more…and maybe another to help it. I’ve installed the Organize Series Plugin and so wish I had it when I started blogging. You tag your posts when you post them (unless you’re me, then you go through series and label them more tediously) and the plugin adds the series at the top and navigation on the bottom. I’d like to change the CSS to get the color to match my scheme better, but other than that I’m impressed with how painless it is.

Why do I want to set up series? Well, it helps me refresh content. I’m going to be setting up training around some the series I’ve done so I want to get as many people to those series as would be interested in the training. Setting up series allows me to structure the posts from first to last rather than last to first the way WordPress needs to. Finally, it gives me some satisfaction that what I’ve written will be enjoyed beyond the SEO traffic…by the way I’ve discovered my early series had no SEO, so it gives me a chance to better optimize the site as well.

I’ve got a few series set up – you can see them in the sidebar under “Featured Series” I’ll be adding others as time goes on. I’m turning this site into more of magazine feel and back issues are a great resource.

Check a series out and tell me what you think. I appreciate the comments.

Here’s a list of people to follow this Friday. Yes, they are all part of our Kingdom ReTweet Club, but you can join and be listed here every Friday as well (as well as on the invitation page).

Blessings

~Trevor
Follow revtrev

Follow askandimagine

Follow Kevin Martineau

Follow 365globalprayer

Follow Crusade4Christ

Follow godvertiser

Follow a_p_martin

Follow gcministryoh

Follow hccedmonton

Follow WordOfHisPower

Follow BroKev83

Follow RaisingTheCross

Follow giselleaguiar

I finally got to the bottom of my inbox and realized I NEVER posted this guest blog by Bud Bilanich. He wrote it to tie into the negativity fast. My apologies Bud. Thanks for the post. Be sure to check out his blog.

If you’re a regular reader of my career success blog, you know that I love Twitter.  It provides an easy way to build your on line presence.  Common sense suggests that easy is better than difficult.  The other day, I saw a great tweet.  It said, “Sometimes I wake up grumpy.  Other times I let her sleep.”

Tweet 21 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “You’re in charge! Commit to taking personal responsibility for creating the life and career success you want and deserve.”  The tweet I quoted above goes to the heart of the career advice in Tweet 21.  You get to choose your attitude.  If you wake up grumpy, but her back to sleep and choose to wake up happy and motivated to create the career success you want and deserve.

You demonstrate your commitment to your career success – to yourself and to the world — by doing three things.  First, take personal responsibility for your career success.  Only you can make you a career success.  You must be willing to do the things necessary to succeed.  Second, set high goals — and then do whatever it takes to achieve them.   Third, stuff happens; as you go through life you will encounter many problems and setbacks.  You need to react positively to the negative stuff and move forward toward your goals, dreams and career success.

Waking up grumpy is not going to help you with any of these three.  When you let a grumpy mood run your day, it becomes difficult to do the things you need to do to achieve your goals and you dwell on problems and setbacks.  You don’t use them as a springboard for moving toward your life and career success.

And, the really cool thing is you get to choose.  I wake up grumpy some days.  As soon as I realize she is awake, I do my best to put her back to sleep and wake up happy and motivated.  When I’m happy and motivated, it’s easier for me to focus on my goals and move forward toward my career success.

Successful people do whatever it takes to achieve their goals.  This takes commitment and tenacity.  It means working towards you goals when you are tired.  It means not giving up in the face of problems and setbacks.  It means doing what needs to be done, not what you want to do, or feel like doing.  It’s easier to do this when you’re happy and motivated.

This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Malcolm Forbes…

“Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.”

It takes thousands of years and tremendous amounts of pressure to turn coal into diamonds.  While you don’t need to spend thousands of years creating the successful life and career you want and deserve, you do have to stick with it.  If you give up every time you wake up grumpy, run into a problem, setback or roadblock you’ll never become a diamond.  If you can’t take the pressure, you’ll never become a diamond.  You have to stick to it and bare up under the pressure.  It doesn’t take a career success coach to tell you that you need to be persistent if you’re going to achieve your goals.

I am a fan of Lindsey Vonn, an Olympic gold medal winning alpine skier who makes her home in Vail; so she’s a local as far as I’m concerned.  She is the most successful American woman skier in World Cup history.

She’s 26 years old and has been skiing for 24 of those years.  She moved away from home and her family at a young age to pursue her dream of being a world class skier.  She started skiing competitively at age seven and competing internationally when she was nine.  She is devoted to her sport.

Check out what Lindsay Vonn says about going for your goals…

“When you fall down, just get up again.  If you fall get up stronger, hungrier, more ambitious.  Setbacks help you concentrate.  When success falls into your lap, you lose sight of your goals.”

You can’t get up stronger, hungrier, more ambitious if you wake up grumpy.  You can if you let her sleep and wake up happy and motivated.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  You can choose to wake up grumpy, or to let her sleep.  You can also choose to wake up happy and motivated, or to let her sleep.  The career advice in Tweet 21 in Success Tweets suggests that you should wake up happy and motivated, not grumpy.  “You’re in charge! Commit to taking personal responsibility for creating the life and career success you want and deserve.”  It’s up to you.  Choose to commit to taking personal responsibility for your career success.  Let grumpy sleep.  Wake up happy and motivated.

That’s my career advice on letting grumpy sleep.  What’s yours?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  What do you do when you accidentally wake up grumpy?  How do you put her back to sleep?  As always, thanks for reading my musings on life and career success.  I appreciate you and I value you.

Bud

www.BudBilanich.com

Here’s a question I got from someone on Twitter. I asked her to email me because I had more than 140 characters of advice. What’s your advice for her?

Question:

As requested on Twitter I am emailing you.  I have went to this church for 6 years.  I absolutely love the pastors but don’t fit in with the people.  I have been involved in two different ministries, each for about two years, joined a woman’s Bible study for over a year, but to no avail – my family (myself and adult children) just doesn’t fit in with the congregation.  At my last church of 18 years I was the secretary and had many, many friends and relationships.  I quit that job because of the integrity of the pastor and felt the Lord moving us on.  I have tried for six years but find myself now needing relationships with my fellow church members.  No one in my church knows the good or bad things that I am going through.  All my support comes from church members from my old church.  I have also been struggling with the amount of sin in the church – and feel God calling me out into something with higher morals and standards.  The church nowadays doesn’t look much different from the world and I am struggling with that.

Any advice would be appreciated.  I do not want to be a church hopper – and surely don’t want to leave for the wrong reasons.

Answer:

Thanks so much for asking me for advice. I think I know how you feel. I’m a strong believer in growing where you’re planting and needing roots before you can grow strong.

Ever since I left paid vocational ministry every church we left has been a bit of a dilemma.

When we moved to New Zealand I decided to join a denomination and as I filled out a form one of the questions made me take stock. It asked something like, “Why do you feel called to this organization?”

It’s a good question. I couldn’t answer honestly I was.  I went to the local pastor and told him I needed to make sure I was called to be a part of that church and subsequently their denomination. It was the first time in my life I “church shopped.”

I didn’t like it.

When I was a pastor and people moved away I always told them, “Before you decide on a church, attend a few of their prayer meetings. Make sure you’re all on the same page.”

I forgot about that advice.

Eventually we went back to the first church because we connected with the pastor. I can’t just sit in a pew and they opened up opportunity for me to support the ministry.

We still keep in touch with many of the friends we made in that church.

I believe a few things very strongly:

1. We’re part of The Church, no matter what church we attend. Where two or three are gathered in His name He’s there.
2. It’s not just a pastor called to a specific church for a specific time. Everyone attending a local church ideally should feel the call to support the ministry of the church.
3. We need to be where we can give and get the building up, encouragement and comfort we all need.

It doesn’t surprise me you’ve had a hard time after 6 years to connect with people at this church. You were heavily invested in the last one. Undoubtably you’ve been hurt with what happened there. What’s keeping you from going back?

What’s keeping you from connecting with people in this church?  Have you made the effort to make friends? Have you had people over for lunch or supper? Have you emailed them just to say, “I’m praying for you?” Have you invited anyone out for coffee?

Personally I think it’s great a church has people coming to it with low morals. It means they’re reaching the ones we’re supposed to. I have trouble with people in leadership living like they’re unredeemed. But people in the congregation better look not much different than the world. I’m not talking the majority of people. Light can’t be overcome with darkness. On the other hand light can’t be afraid of darkness.

You need to figure out where God has called you.

Ask Him. Ask your spouse to ask Him. Keep seeking until you’re in agreement. You’re His sheep, you know His voice.

Is God saying “Iron sharpens iron” or “I’m leading you out”?

Does the church have prayer meetings? Do you feel empowered by them or drained by them?

If you’re empowered, it’s a good sign. If you’re drained, I’d be concerned. If they are non-existent…can you start one?

Do you have any influence for positive change in the church?

If you do, stay. If the pastors say you do but keep putting up roadblocks, don’t feel bad about blessing them and leaving.

No church is perfect and if you find one, don’t join it because you’ll ruin it. And don’t be afraid about being called a church hopper. Jesus was called much worse.

Frankly, I talk to pastors in confidence and often know more about the people they’re lamenting about than they do and it makes me angry. They’re the ones who are going to be called to account for not being good shepherds and often all they do is sit around and warn each other about, “So-and-so is just trying to stay disconnected” or “I put so much time into them and they would have nothing to do it so they left.” Balderdash.

If a church isn’t warm and inviting, it’s because of the pastor.
If a church is ingrown and stagnate, it’s because of the pastor.
If a church is undergoing negative growth, it’s because of the pastor.

The only time it isn’t is if the pastor has been their less than 18 months. They become more and more responsible up to 7 years. After 7 years everything in the church – good and bad – is because of them alone…and hopefully the Holy Spirit.

I don’t know if that helped at all. I know I rambled quite a bit. I feel for pastors but I also feel for people needing good pastors and good relationships in good churches.

I’ve found this advice from Ron Edmonson

Some people stay too long…

I suggest you leave before you have to…

When you are tired of the vision…
Can’t support the leadership…
Have no heart left to give the organization…
Consistently struggle to stay motivated…

And…

You feel God is freeing you to move elsewhere…

Leave before you have to…

Don’t be forced out because you’re too stubborn, scared, or have a false sense of loyalty. You’ll do more harm to your reputation, your attitude and the organization during the miserable days.

There are a couple of thoughts for you.

Praying for you.

~Trevor

You know I have a pastor’s heart, so you know I’m going to try to find a way to tell you “The coal goes out when it’s removed from the embers, but it burns bright when it’s close to them in the fire.”

And you’re right, as I studied the Word I found some verse that seemed to fit together to expand on meeting together for encouragement. Here is what Scripture says strengthens us:

1. Grace

Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them. Hebrews 13:9 (New International Version)

2. Speaking

Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? We have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ; and everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening. 2 Corinthians 12:19 (New International Version)

3. Music, Teaching, Revelation and Supernatural Gifts

What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. 1 Corinthians 14:26 (New International Version)

4. Prophecy

But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort. 1 Corinthians 14:3 (New International Version)

5. Individuals

…and we sent Timothy to visit you. He is our brother and God’s co-worker[a] in proclaiming the Good News of Christ. We sent him to strengthen you, to encourage you in your faith, and to keep you from being shaken by the troubles you were going through. But you know that we are destined for such troubles. 1 Thessalonians 3:2-3 (New Living Translation)

6. Love

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. 1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 (New International Version)

I know the church is often the last place to find grace. I’ve sat through sermons from Job’s friends. I’ve been there when performance outstrips presence. I’ve experienced love turned inward while I’ve been left on the outside. I’ve seen prophecy used to manipulate. I’ve seen the Word used to pummel… and still I’m insisting the gathered church is where you can be – no should be – strengthened.

Too often when we are at the end of the rope, we find enough excuses to withdraw from meeting together. Don’t.

Find out more at HopeInTransition.com

There are two main reasons I see to have list. They may not be the ones you’ve considered before. Learn how I see success with a list.

Trevor Lund of http://revtrev.com talks about why your ministry needs a list and how you can use your list for ministry in this episode of Ministry Coaching with RevTrev http://ExpectancyMinistries.com/coaching/

Do you need encouragement to rise from your discouragement? Here is the promise for you:

“Arise, Jerusalem! Let your light shine for all to see.
For the glory of the Lord rises to shine on you.
Darkness as black as night covers all the nations of the earth,
but the glory of the Lord rises and appears over you. ?Isaiah 60:1-2 (New Living Translation)

To hope at the end of the rope you need to accept the circumstance, and confide in a mature believer for prayer if the circumstance overwhelms you.

Find out more at HopeInTransition.com

OK. I’ve got to admit. I might have a new obsession.

It’s called Fiverr

Basically people tell you what they’ll do for $5. I know the price for many of the services I purchase and wow…it’s a deal.

A lot of sellers do this to grow a portfolio or grow their business. Fiverr won’t let you share personal information, but there are ways to track down good talent. It’s as easy as following them on YouTube where many have a sample or welcome.

I’ve got a couple gigs tweeting out to messages from my business account but I’m thinking of taking it down. I forgot to tell people I would tweet spam or malicious links and guess what I got the first order?

That’s bygones. I’m a consumer on Fiverr and I love it.

I’ve used Astrid to do voice over work a few times and today she had me laughing out loud as she gave a number of samples for the script I gave her (you’ll hear her on RevTrev Radio in about a month and possibly on RevTrev TV as well) I’m so pleased with all the video intro’s I’ve had done. Sure, the Doctor Who intro got me blocked on YouTube in the the UK – I got too excited to think about copyright – but the work was done quickly and well and to spec, so I can’t really complain. I should have figured that one out myself.

This is actually one that got done by mistake. It was supposed to be RevTrev TV. I got it redone, but I’m not sure where I’ll use this video except here and now.

Ya..I’m loving Fiverr. I’m getting great work done by amazingly talented people, very quickly completely and all for five bucks a gig. What’s your experience on it?

It started with at Tweet. Someone sent me a tweet on Twitter asking “What do you do when your prayers aren’t answered?” I knew I needed more that 140 characters, so I started writing an email. That soon had to be a booklet.

I wrote the booklet and gave it to my wife to read and she came back with, “You’ve got to teach people how to hope.”

So I prayed, studied, considered our life, and wrote a new booklet. When I was done I knew I left out our story and I knew I left out a few really important truths I was planning to make into other booklets. However I looked at the page count and realized I had a 200 page booklet.

So the booklet became a book, and I’m left with room to share a bit of our story and give you examples of how I’ve learned to hope at the end of the rope.

That was the working title the book “How to Hope at the End of the Rope”. You can still find blogs talking about it and looking forward to it being released. I’ve changed the name for a couple of reasons, the main one being marketability.

People who are “at the end of the rope,” need to know what I’ve learned and included in these pages. But the truth that the book contains is for a much broader audience that those who have “had enough.” Every time we go through change there is an opportunity for hope to be tested. We need to know the battle we’re in so we can be successful in trying times.

Find out more at HopeInTransition.com

It’s been one of those weeks when things that should work don’t work and yet somehow it still doesn’t take the smile off of your face.

It must be God.

I just like to laugh.

The 2011 International Fast from Negativity starts March 14th (40 days before Good Friday). Every year I have people email me or call me or tweet me or facebook me with questions about how to live life above the negativity. This year I decided to be more proactive.

We’re going to have a few Q&A webinars during the fast. The first is scheduled for

Wednesday March 16, 2011

1:00 PM Mountain Time

Now even if you can’t make it, I’d love to have your question. You can give it to me through the form at http://revtrev.com/webinars Once you ask a question you’ll be able to download the webinar to watch whenever you have the time.

The benefit of being at the webinar is that I’ll make time for follow up questions you may have. Your questions are going to help others and don’t worry you can be anonymous if you want to be.

Anyway, if you want to see a bit of how my week has been, check out the video clips of my attempt to do a short invitation for this week’s webinar. Love to have your comments on it below.

PS. yes ask.revtrev.com never got set up. After doing everything I know what to do and hacking even more than I could I decided to redirect it to my webinar page…don’t know if I can explain the details any better.

You know I have a pastor’s heart, so you know I’m going to try to find a way to tell you “The coal goes out when it’s removed from the embers, but it burns bright when it’s close to them in the fire.”

And you’re right, as I studied the Word I found some verse that seemed to fit together to expand on meeting together for encouragement. Here is what Scripture says strengthens us:

Grace

Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them. Hebrews 13:9  (New International Version)

Speaking

Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? We have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ; and everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening. 2 Corinthians 12:19  (New International Version)

Music, Teaching, Revelation and Supernatural Gifts

What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. 1 Corinthians 14:26  (New International Version)

Prophecy

But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort. 1 Corinthians 14:3  (New International Version)

Individuals

…and we sent Timothy to visit you. He is our brother and God’s co-worker[a] in proclaiming the Good News of Christ. We sent him to strengthen you, to encourage you in your faith, and to keep you from being shaken by the troubles you were going through. But you know that we are destined for such troubles. 1 Thessalonians 3:2-3 (New Living Translation)

Love

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. 1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 (New International Version)

I know the church is often the last place to find grace. I’ve sat through sermons from Job’s friends. I’ve been there when performance outstrips presence. I’ve experienced love turned inward while I’ve been left on the outside. I’ve seen prophecy used to manipulate. I’ve seen the Word used to pummel… and still I’m insisting the gathered church is where you can be – no should be – strengthened.

Too often when we are at the end of the rope, we find enough excuses to withdraw from meeting together. Don’t.

Instead realize you are the church and that the one who refreshes others will they themselves be refreshed (Proverbs 11:25). You can make the place you gather a place where people are strengthened… so don’t be afraid to hug.