"Peppermint Filled Pinatas:
Breaking Through Tolerance
and Embracing Love"
Now Available!
"Peppermint
Filled Pinatas is Saving Private Ryan meets Nacho Libre! Eric calls us to a
heroic mission and at the same time exposes our flawed humanity. He tackles one
of the most critical and complex issues of our time and brings it down to earth
and keeps us grounded in reality. It's quite a gift to force us to face such
uncomfortable and serious issues and at the same time keep us laughing. Somebody
needed to write this book; I am grateful Eric did. We will all be better for
it.Thank you Eric for awakening in us a love that knows no boundaries."
-Erwin McManus
July 24th, 2008 Eric Bryant Posted in Creativity, General No Comments »
A few months ago I had a chance to meet Phil Cooke at an event we did called Awaken. I have enjoyed tracking him online at his site “The Change Revolution.” (In fact, yesterday thanks to Phil, I read a fantastic article about how Pixar’s tight-knit culture is its edge).
If you haven’t read Phil’s book called Branding Faith: Why Some Churches and Non-Profits Impact the Culture and Others Don’t or signed up for his free podcast on impacting culture, check them out!
July 24th, 2008 Eric Bryant Posted in Diversity, General No Comments »
“Diversity = Range of Perspectives = Effectiveness = Probability of WOW!”
For more on maximizing the opportunity of diversity, check out this previous post which includes links to other articles and resources on creating a diverse community.
July 24th, 2008 Eric Bryant Posted in Connecting Others, General, Peppermint-Filled Piñatas No Comments »
A “PFP Moment” from David Donahue in Virginia:
“Beale Memorial Baptist Church is in the small community of Tappahannock, VA. Our church runs about 230 on a Sunday and we are active in a variety of ministry endeavors throughout our community and region…. We are a fairly mission minded people and try to remain open to creative ways to express our faith in a practical manner.
Last summer a member of our church traveled to Ghana to distribute mosquito nets in the northern part of that country. While there he met a church planter name Emmanuel Mustaffa. Muss has had wild success in planting churches. At that time he had helped plant over 80 in just under two years. His goal is 400 by 2010. Along with the starting of churches he has built a school, is helping farmers, and training leaders. While our fellow was with him for the day, he told Bryan that his ministry needed a tractor. He was very specific about what type of tractor he needed and said that he was waiting for God to provide the perfect one.
God’s timing… Bryan farms about 5,000 acres of land in VA. Bryan knows tractors. Muss showed him the land that would be cultivated. Discussed what the needs were and said that he would wait for God’s timing. Bryan told him in that our church would buy him the tractor…he didn’t put a time on delivery. But promised that we would get his ministry a tractor.
Upon Bryan’s return to church he was giving us a report of his trip. At the conclusion he told the story about the tractor and how he promised Muss that we would provide. At first I was a little perturbed that he would offer a tractor when we:
Bryan continued to speak, my heart began to soften. The deacons were sold as well and we thought that God would use us to raise money for months on end to buy this tractor, implements, shipping costs etc.
After that meeting I told a fellow member about the opportunity. They were excited, but not too excited. I told a second family and they gave me $20,000 to help buy a tractor!
Interesting thing. The tractor Musstaffa needed cost right at $30,000. We had $20,000. Bryan told the tractor dealer his story and they knocked $10,000 off the price. We had our brand new tractor for $20,000. Another side note….the money this family gave us came from their stock holding. The company was Bear Stearns. If they had held onto their stock, that same gift would have been worth less than $100 right now.”
July 23rd, 2008 Eric Bryant Posted in Connecting Others, Creativity, General, Mosaic No Comments »
To find out more about the Urban Poets trip to the Olympics and how you can help them get there, go here.
URBAN POETS IN ACTION
July 23rd, 2008 Eric Bryant Posted in Fun Stuff, General 1 Comment »
I ran across some amazing photos at BlingIt.
“I’m the King of the World…Ouch!”
“Mr. Cool Meet Mr. Chin”
Take a look at the rest here.
July 22nd, 2008 Eric Bryant Posted in Fun Stuff, General, Sports No Comments »
Debbie and I laughed often watching Justin Timberlake at the Espys. If you haven’t seen it, at least check out “I Love Sports” here!
My favorite parts include the way he mocked the Celtics and Kevin Garnett, the Tiger Woods rap, and when he mocked himself for the “wardrobe malfunction.”
July 21st, 2008 Eric Bryant Posted in Diversity, Fun Stuff, General 1 Comment »
At our kids swimming lessons the other day, one of the moms mentioned to me and Debbie how cute we looked together. She kept going on and on about how much alike we look and even told us we look like we could be siblings.
Hmmm.
I don’t see it at all. She is much, much better looking!
July 21st, 2008 Eric Bryant Posted in Character, Connecting Others, General No Comments »
A new friend of mine from the Northwest sent this PFP Moment about “The Church in the Cracks.”
“Just a few days into my job at Safeway and I had the opportunity to meet Bill. Or should I say, Bill met me… Bill is a friendly guy, but at first glance you would not give him much attention. He walks slowly and his speech is slurred from a palsy that also causes his hands to tremor when he shakes you hand. Bill showed some immediate interest in coming to our church’s meetings and I have to admit that part of me wanted to say “no”. Yeah, I realize that makes me look like a jerk for even feeling that way, but still the feeling was there. But I overcome that urge and invited Bill to come and join us for one of our Saturday Night Reunion meetings. It turns out; Bill is a great guy who is in desperate need of a caring community. His wife has recently passed away, and he is lost and looking for meaning in his life. Bill may not even know it yet, but he is looking for Jesus. Bill is exactly the reason I am planting this church and I am so glad God gave him to me.”
Joe goes on to say:
“The most interesting thing about Bill is that he does not fit into any of the demographics that make church planting organizations get excited…. I have never met a church planter or a pastor who said a guy like Bill is their target demographic. Everyone wants to reach the middle class, middle age, middle American, but who is out there reaching the Bills of our world—you know, the folks who don’t exactly fit into our “ideal demographic.”?
Joe concludes:
“All this makes me wonder, do we still value church in the cracks? I sometimes think… we have put more value in reaching “blocks” of people more than people themselves. But what about the people who don’t fit into the big blocks? What about the people in the cracks? I just can’t help but wonder if we have not missed something or someone. How many Bills have we overlooked or undervalued? What about the needs of those not in the majority? Who is reaching out to the people who don’t fit into our surveys and demographic studies? What about the people in the cracks? Where is the church in the cracks?”
Check out the rest of the article by Joe Miller here.
July 21st, 2008 Eric Bryant Posted in Connecting Others, Diversity, General, Mosaic, Peppermint-Filled Piñatas No Comments »
If you are anywhere near SoCal, NorCal, AZ, or Hawaii, I would enjoy seeing you at these upcoming speaking engagements:
JULY 27: MOSAIC AT THE MAYAN: 6pm
Los Angeles, CA (new date, time, and location!)
AUGUST 10: VINTAGE FAITH CHURCH: 11am and 7pm
Santa Cruz, CA
AUGUST 23: 2008 ACE CONFERENCE: 8am to 4pm
Phoenix, AZ
AUGUST 31: Cornerstone Christian Fellowship: 10:15am
Kona, Hawaii (Big Island)
July 20th, 2008 Eric Bryant Posted in Family, Fun Stuff, General 3 Comments »
I cannot wait to see The Dark Knight on the IMAX screen on Tuesday night (first available showing that wasn’t in the middle of the night). In the meantime, Debbie and I went to see Wanted on our last date. That was a horrible mistake!
I can see why some people may like this film. I enjoyed some of the more dramatic moments, but it is a terrible date movie, especially when your date is extremely squeamish. She cannot even take the violence on TV shows like 24!
The movie ends with the main character (a weakling accountant-turned assassin) telling the audience: “I used to live a pathetic life like you.”
I was looking around the audience wondering, “Is he talking to me?” Now I didn’t like the movie!
The last line of the movie is the main character harrassing the audience again by saying he has taken control of his life and asking “What the f*#* have you been doing?!”
My response: “Wasting 2 hours and $20 watching you transform from a loser into a psychopath!”
I don’t like being taunted by characters on the screen. We would have been better off seeing Kung Fu Panda again!
