Missional Heart

Writing...

I'm back at it again. I'm rusty, but I have a new system that will let me crank out 5-10 pages a day if I'm disciplined enough.

If you're interested in writing a lengthy piece, try this program. It has several functions for most writing jobs. It also exports for specific publisher request and is plug-in friendly. It's called Scrivener
, it is only for the Mac OSX platform, so PC users I can't help you.

I think it's going to do some wonderful things for my productivity. Also, as I complete sections of the work. I will be faithful to posting them here for discussion and revision.

I'm in love with the idea of letting those interested use my thoughts now to help them along, and if at some time you want a bound copy, once it is done, e-mail me. Lastly, once the piece is done, I will take it down from the blog... I gotta entice people to help me feed my wife and put shelter over our heads some how.

Erick

Absolutely beat...

This weekend has been one thing after another. It's 446 am Monday morning and I'm still not to sleep.

Friday night we had our Leadership Community family meal, about 20 of us. We discussed what's taking place and what we want to see take place. I meet Mandy to ride the train towards the apt together. She went home and I went to Barnes and Noble at Lincoln Center to meet Adam Spooner for a perusal of books and a grande, 6-pump, no water-no-ice, iced chai. We also, went and had a quick steak dinner at Steakhouse on Fairway... I highly recommend it... topped the evening off with a little
Run, Fatboy, Run. It was decent. I bedded down around 4 am after sending an e-mail to my friend asking for 400k to help Mandy and I buy an apartment in the city so we can rinse and repeat for years to come.

Woke up Sat morning at 7 headed to Columbia U's Walk the Walk, Stop the Talk community service project. We took our missional community to paint fences and guerilla garden in Harlem till 2pm. It was a great time just being out in the midst of people wanting to serve and help the community. Both believers and non-believers. I can't wait to see how we can help later and use our contacts to really make a difference there.

I went to help a friend move from the Upper East Side to Brooklyn after that till 530 pm. I threw my back out caring a table, and it hates me now, but I'll survive. The cool thing was that this guy was moving during the day and getting engaged that night to his girlfriend. They are excited about starting a life together, and who can blame them... It's all up hill from here on out. We moved most of her stuff and they were going to move most of his later... I'm really excited for them. Best of all I got to help them move, serve them. They had a lot of people back out at the last minute and no-show on them, some for good reasons (Adam), others for lame ones (you know who you are)... Anyways. Kory's the man and Amanda an awesome person.

After helping them, I headed to the apt. parked the Pathfinder hurriedly to wash up and head to what I thought was going to be a great musical/play... man was I wrong. I couldn't have been more wrong than say taking a blind man to a silent movie. It was Sunday in the Park with George. It has won many awards, but I can't understand how, for the life of me.... More on that play later... dually noted, never see a play that has Sunday in its title, nor In the Park with George attached to it either. A major snorefest, as if I weren't already exhausted from painting, moving, parking, no sleep and man-dating it up on Friday night.

Lastly, Mandy and I topped the night off with a fist-pumping, "to hell with" South Beach late night Dessert run for a Nutella, strawberry stuffed crepe for her and a slice of original NYC cheesecake for moi (french for me). Hit the sack around 1am loaded to the gills with cheesecake and back meds. Up at 9, at Origins greeting by my lonesome self 200+ peeps with a smile/grimace coupled with a firm handshake that rattles my core and small of my back area, stealing my legs making me look overtly Pentecostal... Loved every minute of it. (grin)

Tyson, said some amazing things today that challenged me, and I'll post those later. We had a missional community leaders lunch meeting at Cafe con Leche and it went well. I was slightly not myself, overtly aggressive/passionate on some things. Well, i made it home with Mandy, who I hadn't really seen, nor will see till next weekend, because she is grading the State Math tests for a meager 40 dollars and hour on the side. An extra 1500 in a week and a half. She gets to keep it and use it for herself to pamper and primp (please do not misconstrue that as PIMP, there's an extra "R" in there). And we went to bed sleep till 8 pm. tonight and we had dinner and I went back down to Chelsea 107 blocks from home via $14 cab ride saw the movie Stop-loss with a friend whom I respect and serve unconditionally. He convinced me to walk home from the movies, 4 1/2 miles to my door!!! I can't say that I have had a more intellectual conversation, nor a challenging one. There are so many things I want to do here, and there are so many things I want to see done here, but feel I need to pay my dues first. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what my dues are. I do know the more I read the scriptures, the more I notice men, who are yes men, get entrusted with great things by God and others... So, I am trying to figure out what it means to be a YES man for Origins.

Baby owen

Would you take 5 minutes of your time today and pray for Baby Owen...
I know Owen's mom from high school youth group. Jamie and Wesley love
God and are going through a terrible time. For some reason this story
just tears at my faith. I can't imagine what they are thinking. Would
you add them to other lists, those at work, those at your gathering
this Sunday.

Be sure to read below about Owen's situation.

Grace,

Erick Bauman 863.430.1200 (cell)

Sent from my iPhone.

my friends... thank you for your faithful prayers. it's been a long day for the greene family and there still are many unanswered questions. this we do know:
owen has stage 4 neuroblastoma. he has a mass in his chest and places on his liver. today the doctors put a port in his chest for chemo and did a liver biopsy. owen came through surgery like a champ. the doctors also did a spinal tap and an MRI... they are still waiting on the results of the biopsy, but the spinal tap revealed that there is cancer in his bone marrow. future treatment and options are still unknown right now. they are not certain if they will go home, go out of town to consult with experts, or stay in the hospital. i'm sure the doctors will be able to give jamie and wesley more firm direction once they have the biopsy results back.
i spoke with jamie for a moment this morning and it absolutely broke my heart. she and wesley are such strong believers who trust in the sovereignty of the lord... but right now it is so hard for them to understand. we are called to walk by faith, but it is sometimes a raw and difficult journey. please continue to pray for each of them during this extremely difficult time. thanks. i'll hopefully keep you updated as i hear from jamie tomorrow.

Ginger

Resources...

A lot of you guys might not appreciate that which I am about to give you, but I hope that some of you will be able to appreciate the opportunity to be mentored by some dead, great thinkers of the Church.Christian Classics, Everyone is covered in this library. It's free too. Augustine, Bunyan, Edwards, a'Kempis Lawrence, Chesterton. I hope this is well received.
this link will take you to a site where you can peruse all of the great classics of the Church. I hope some will benefit greatly from these... let me know if you like it by commenting back.

I'm regular...

I'm trying to blog regularly for more discipline in y life. I hope that it counts to just do it for the sake of doing it. Its almost like my youth pastor told me growing up... Have your quiet time no matter what, even if you don't want to...

So here's to that mantra. I'll post in a few minutes a more indepth blog on something worth writing. I just want to get one in before midnight tonight.

Introducing MUXTAPE

Check MUXTAPE... I think it is going to be huge. You heard it here first. You can visit my muxtape, HERE

I learned about me today

Today I had to write my own Bio for the Dwell Conference
. I thought it was a lot like writing my own epitaph... I do have to add that it was harder to write my own bio, than when I wrote them in obits for others as a novice reporter.

Here is what I came up with, let me know what you think...

Erick Bauman is a radical visionary passionate about calling the other 98% of the church into holistic, missional communities to shape and redeem the cities of the world through recreating culture. He has huge dreams of starting churches in a new unifying way. He and his wife, Mandy, have planted several churches, one as lead pastor, in Central Florida with a network he helped pioneer, ReproducingChurches.com. They relocated to Manhattan and began co-leading a Missional Community on the environment with OriginsNYC. Most recently, he started another MC on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and is completing Redeemer’s Church Plant Training Center Fall session. Erick is also the president of MyChurchPromos.com, a promotional product and printing company that gives 100% of its Net profits to planting more churches.

Blogging regularly

Over the last year I began to blog about life and things I hoped to put in a book. I didn't follow through with those things as much as I would have liked to.

So, this Monday, March 24, 2008 I am blogging more regularly. I hope that I can gain an audience that cares to help shape my thoughts by commenting back regularly and constructively. Life seems best when others are speaking into our lives and I welcome that into mine. I'm not quite sure if by saying these things that I am opening pandoras box on my blog, but time will tell.

It seems that those who have a successful blog do because of focus and regularity.

I have some measurables by which I would like to consider the next year a success in blogging:

1. blog once a day (this should be possible with my iPhone, and I should be able to do it with focus... which now that I think about it, this could be a great measurable for me to see if I'm doing the right things during the day.)

2. focus the blog posts (I think this will be the most difficult for me, because of the random chaotic life that I live. Furthermore, it may prove to be something that also keeps me in some finite boundaries of interests, which at times, again the chaos of my wandering brain, seems to be all over the place.)

3. respect my audience and comments section (my comments will always be open and I will hope that conversations can be sparked and started in the comments section.)

My focus is be refined over the next week as I identify my must haves - things that are important to my existence and my purpose, and I will begin to lists those defined topics... starting now.

Missional Communities (MC) are a committed core of believers (40-60) who live out the mission of God together in a specific area or to a particular people group by demonstrating the gospel in tangible forms and declaring the gospel to others – both those who believe it and those who are being exposed to it. This component of the Networked Church model is what God has asked me to focus my attention to starting through OriginsNYC. My desire is to start as many of these communities here to bring a much larger hand print of God to the Church of Manhattan.

----

Resolutions three months later...

I am wondering how I am doing with my Resolutions...

They were to:

Blog regularly
Compose first full literary work
Start a missional community in NYC
Learn Digital photography as a Professional
Lose 40 pounds (250-210... South Beach)
Read 36 books (2/3rds on spiritual formation, 1/3rd on photography/writing/fiction/misc.
Grow the new Printing company. Www.mychurchpromos.com - "We print. We give. Everything."

So, I think these things are measuable.

Have been ok with blogging regularly. However, I think it may be time to have a more clear definition of the word "regularly."
I haven't touched the literary work of brilliant genius since November... Should set up a better support group and structure, but accountability here in Manhattan is hard to come by.
We did succesfully start a missional community, but I am thinking it is time to test and see if it is "good, and healthy." Time to act out.
Photography... Well still working that out.
40 lbs lost has turned into 18 lost, 20 gained! Hahaha, I love coming out on top.
3 books read, 33 to go. (titles and reviews later)
printing company is not doing so hot. The thoughts of a recession has caused people to think less about advertising and more about word of mouth. I'm still the cheapest online printer on the USA if your curious, also no price is firm. I just have to feed my wife and pay rent, so I can do a lot more for a lot less! That should motivate peeps that want great quality and quantity for cheaper to use me! Visit www.mychurchpromos.com for a look at our promotional products.

Let's see where I am in 3 months from now. I know in 3 minutes I'll be at Chipotle, getting back into the South Beach rythme.

MissionalHeart is getting a Extreme Makeover

It's been about a year and I am getting jazzed for another round of Blogging for 365 more days. I think the place needs some spring cleaning to happen so stay tuned for the new look!!!