Anne Marie Miller

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  • Buy Mad Church Disease NOW & One Final Excerpt

    But first…here is one last excerpt…

    As much as we may want to, we can never rid ourselves from our past ? the good or the bad. And regardless of how normal or even how terrible your past might be, you have experienced those things for a reason. The successes, the failures, the joy and the pain are all beautifully woven together to make you who you are at this moment.

    We should look at our past like a gift and not a burden. And as such, we should steward it like any other gift we have been given. We need to be grateful for our unique circumstances, not resentful. Once we accept our God given past, we can find out what about it makes us extraordinary.

    By taking our focus off of the dysfunctions of our past, and changing it to how God can work through us using our journey as a whole ? our history, our present, and our future ? we are less likely to burn out. Any time we become less and He becomes more, it?s His power being perfected in us.

    You can preorder the book below.


    **A few Facts About the Book**

    • It’s a hardcover with no jacket. Along the lines of Rob Bell books, but with a little different shape.
    • It includes questions and a study guide to help you walk through your own personal journey of healing from (or preventing) burnout.
    • Several leaders contributed “Second Opinions” to the book (their own thoughts on aspects of burning out and restoration) including Bill Hybels, Wayne Cordeiro, Perry Noble, Mike Foster, Gary Kinnaman, Brandi Wilson, Matt Carter, Shawn Wood, and Craig Groeschel wrote the foreword.
    • It will be somewhere right around 200 pages. We are shooting for 192.
    • It will be chock-full of creative artwork and design on the inside.

    So all that AND more for $16.99!

    This is so exciting on many, many levels. Just a little over a year ago, the website for Mad Church Disease launched and people began sharing their stories..thousands of people! Thank YOU!

    Now, a year later, well…here we are! If you preorder Mad Church Disease now, with Amazon, if the price goes any lower after you order it today, you will lock in the lower price (because…correct me if I’m wrong…but I don’t think it charges you until it ships, which will be February 1, 2009).

    I’d like to announce the Mad Church Disease website will be completely relaunched later this year, and will include a forum for pastors, church leaders, their families, and volunteers to dialogue and encourage each other to pursue a holy, healthy ministry.

    **CASE ORDERS**

    If you would like to purchase a case (40 or more books) there is a 30% discount! Please email me and I will get you hooked up.

    And it would rock if you could spread the word!

  • Pastor Stats: Overweight & Unhealthy

    Here are some statistics from Mad Church Disease.

    This is from a formal survey conducted by Ellison Research.

    71% of all ministers admitted to being overweight by an average of 32.1 lbs.

    One-third of all ministers were overweight by at least 25 lbs, including 15% who were overweight by 50 lbs or more.

    Two-thirds of all pastors skip a meal at least one day a week, and 39% skip meals three or more days a week.

    83% eat food once a week that they know they shouldn?t because they?re unhealthy, including 41% who do this three or more days a week.

    88% eat fast food at least one day a week, and 33% eat fast food three or more days a week.

    50% get the recommended minimum amount of exercise (30 minutes/day, three times a week). 28% don?t exercise at all.

    ==

    When I was first in ministry, I gained 40 lbs in two years. I don’t blame ministry for making decisions for me, but I know because I didn’t plan my time well, I would be caught grabbing snacks in the break room or eating out too often or eating too much fast food and not finding time to exercise. I lived off the caffeine and sugar highs and crashed in front of the TV at night on the lows.

    Fortunately, I was able to get back into shape, drop the extra weight, and although not perfect, attempt to eat healthy and exercise regularly. I haven’t gone back to a huge weight gain even though I do fluctuate within a 10 pound variance throughout the year.

    Can you relate?

    ==

    Side note: According to the Center for Disease Control, the percentages for American adults over 20 years old (as compared to just pastors):

    – 66.3% are overweight or obese with 32% being obese (30 pounds or more).? According to this particular survey, it would appear that a greater percentage of pastors may be overweight in relation to an average American. But these are just two statistics.

  • Keeping the Church’s Soul Alive

    When someone invests into the unique call that God has placed on your church, there?s no stopping them. They?re inspired by what the future holds.

    It?s vital to the health of whatever team you are leading to clearly and consistently communicate that calling with your team. God has placed you there for a reason, and he?s placed them under your care because he wants all of you to carry out this calling together.

    Proverbs 29:18 says this,

    ?Where there is no vision, the people perish.? (KJV)

    Many times, the word ?vision? in this verse has been misinterpreted to mean ?goals? or ?plans.?

    The word ?vision? in this verse actually means ?divine guidance? or ?revelation.?

    And without divine guidance, people will perish. As important as it may be to be on the same page with your goals and your plans, without relying on God for wisdom and guidance that only he can provide, your environment will fall apart.

    Matthew Henry?s Commentary says, ?How bare does a place look without Bibles and ministers! And what an easy prey is it to the enemy of souls! That gospel is an open vision, which holds forth Christ, which humbles the sinner and exalts the Saviour, which promotes holiness in the life and conversation: and these are precious truths to keep the soul alive, and prevent it from perishing.?

    Without true divine guidance, we scatter. Our unity is broken.

    ==
    [this is an excerpt that may or may not be cut from Mad Church Disease. thought i’d give yall a little peek as i finish editing this week].

  • THE COMPETITION-DRIVEN CHURCH

    We are creatures needing affirmation. And the spotlight seems to promise us everything we?ve ever wanted. Whether it?s an actual spotlight on the platform, in front of an adoring congregation, or a more passive spotlight ? perhaps you glow under the praise of a certain leader ? it?s natural that we seek out opportunities in which we can shine at our best.

    One of the problems I see plaguing unhealthy environments is ego. Ego can be loud and abrasive or it can be subtle and deceiving. Either way, it?s the antithesis of the character of Christ.

    Society today is competitive. We feel that our voices must be the loudest and carry the furthest in order to be heard and validated. It breaks my heart when I hear pastors of small churches say, ?we only had seventy-five people today? or ?only two hundred people showed up.?

    Only? I?m sorry. Are those seventy-five or two hundred people not enough for you?

    I am not going go into length discussing the perceived importance of numbers. Keeping track of ?how many? is a valid metric to measure some kinds of effectiveness in what we are doing. Numbers do represent people. Christ did say that he would grow his Church.

    However, our view is so limited as far as what that actually looks like in our church today.

    Unfortunately, I think numbers have become an addiction. We flaunt our numbers, we despise our numbers, we fret about our numbers. Our numbers can validate us. But they shouldn?t. We have absolutely no right to know how God is using us. We only need to know he is, and be grateful.

    This spirit of competitiveness (whether clearly stated or implied) has damaged so many churches and leaders who haven?t seen the same ?success.? After hearing it over and over again, leaders who aren?t as ?successful? start believing the lies that maybe God just hasn?t blessed them like he ?blesses? other churches or leaders. And at that point, those leaders either shut down or they begin to be driven by their need for man?s affirmation.

    Just yesterday, I met with a church leader. She went to a church creative leadership conference (and she is self-admittedly a conferenceaholic, loving to meet other leaders to encourage and network). But after walking through some hard times in her own church and ministry, at the conference, she sat on the back row and wept.

    “How can I ever keep up with this? I’m just not good enough.”

    Looking back, she knows that nobody is good enough and it is by the grace of God we do what we can do, but when most churches are under or around 500 people, with little resources, although aspects of these conferences are practical…it seems like a lot of times, they can do more damage than good.

    Not because a host intendeds to flaunt their stuff. Not because they are able to hire professionals when someone else is lucky to have found Bob who can play guitar on Sundays. But because the church culture has gotten so competitive. And it’s happened so slowly, we don’t even notice it.

    When we think our calling is to be the biggest, the most creative, or the best, we have completely lost sight of the only important fact.

    And that is that we are called.

    ===
    [this is an excerpt that may or may not be cut from Mad Church Disease. thought i’d give yall a little peek as i finish editing this week].

  • the BEST birthday gift EVER!

    it’s the fourth of july. tonight, i’ll be hanging out with friends eating large amounts of food and watching people blow things up. we are celebrating our independence.

    a few months ago, i talked about the trap freedom can also bring, if we’re not using it for things like truth and love.

    Ingrid Compassion Internationalit’s the fourth of july. it’s also ingrid’s birthday. even though nicaragua celebrates their independence in september, ingrid is still very much bound by the chains of poverty.

    she’s probably spending much of today like most six year olds…she likes swimming and playing with dolls. most adults in Bo. Pedro Avenda?o (where ingrid lives) are unemployed but some work as street vendors and earn the equivalent of $62 per month.

    it’s easy to sponsor ingrid. just click here to be taken to her page to learn more about her. if you decide you do want to sponsor her, just click the “sponsor this child” button at the top. (if you decide not to, please don’t click that button as it will remove her page for a while and someone else may miss the opportunity to sponsor her.)

    maybe this fourth of july can start a new tradition for you. not only can you celebrate our freedom, you can celebrate ingrid’s birthday as well. and next fourth of july, and the next, and the next, you can celebrate the freedom she and her family will come to know when they are released from poverty in jesus’ name.

    INGRID HAS BEEN SPONSORED, THANK YOU! sponsor ingrid here.

  • Comcast, Airport Express & Twitter

    i have written about online corporate reputations before. and i’ve talked about how twitter has helped saved lives.

    although there were no real life threats, both mine and chris’ sanity was being tested all night long.

    we have had a buffalo airstation for a while which has been pretty solid for DSL wireless, but hasn’t always played well with cable. we decided, after it wouldn’t connect with our new comcast cable internet, to get a new router. off to best buy, chris went, and purchased a netgear super g router, which was even worse trying to set up.

    now, i’m not completely clueless when it comes to techy things, and have set up plenty of wireless connections in my day. so, after a couple of hours of set up and nothing was working, i twittered my frustration.

    several of my twitter friends responded (one even called) and recommended the airport express. so out chris went to the apple store for purchase number two. we plugged and didn’t play right away, but after some minor tweaking, got it to work.

    what really surprised me in this whole ordeal was comcast. after first losing our initial reservation for service installation, and after being on hold for a while via their phone systems, i realized that on twitter, @comcastcares had almost immediately responded to my woes. we walked through a few options, twitter went down for a while (sigh), but soon enough, he was back on trying to help me out.

    even better was the personality of @comcastcares. his name is frank. he apologized for a slight delay he had in responding to me…why? he twittered that he was playing wii with his wife. perfectly acceptable in my book!

    again, social media has pleasantly surprised me. even gigantic companies like comcast have taken initiative and customer service is being reshaped. why would i spend 10 minutes going through mazes of phone systems when twitter help is right there?

  • chasing dreams

    the first time i breathed a breath of nashville air was less than a year ago. i was up for ministrycom, a communications conference, and during the couple of days we were here, i fell in love with it. after i got home, i told chris that we had to visit sometime on vacation. maybe our fifth anniversary or something (which ironically, was the day we moved…)

    i think i finally figured out what it is about nashville that is so appealing. it’s not a place where people go to settle down. it’s not a place where people go to be comfortable.

    it is a place where people go to chase their dreams.

    most of the time, those dreams take sweat, blood and tears to achieve. it requires living simply, working wherever and whenever you can so that in the few hours you have left, you can spend them working out whatever that dream is.

    and for whatever reason, nashville is one of those places where a lot of people go to do that.

    maybe it’s because it’s where country music was born, and now so many artists flock here. i think when people are chasing their dreams, something spiritual happens and it draws people in. people who don’t want to be comfortable.

    it’s a bit paradoxical, but i am comfortable being uncomfortable. chris is technically self-employed, so we don’t know how much he’ll make a month or if he’ll have to pick up side jobs along the side. and yeah, it’s scary. it’s really uncomfortable. but seeing him chase his dream is one of the most beautiful things i’ve ever seen.

  • while i have internet…

    …i’d like to say i don’t have internet.

    somehow we have a little dot of wifi showing up. we were supposed to have ours hooked up today, but they somehow lost our reservation. so until thursday, it will be quiet (although we might go to the library and use the computers there…or lug our iMac to a hotspot).

    so, we moved in quickly (under an hour or so once we got going and a whole group of people showed up!) and am totally digging the new place.

    more thursday…or sooner if we can.

    much love!

  • things to pray for

    alrighty…so, by the time you are reading this, we are hopefully on the road to nashville. we’ll be staying the night in memphis (in a fancy-schmancy hotel because afterall, it is our 5th anniversary) so, yeah. there you have it.

    if you could pray for our safety as we travel, and for everything to just go smoothly (we had a few hiccups with the moving truck company) that would be great!

    see y’all later!