Tips:
#1. Be a noticer – Pay attention to your surroundings, eavesdrop, be a people watcher, either way you’ll never know the opportunities to make a difference in someone’s life if you’re not looking.  Jesus was a noticer, I often think about his teaching on “The Widow’s Mite”.  Jesus was at the temple and through people watching he noticed a woman who gave everything she had in one tiny mite.

#2. Keep outreach/Invite cards handy – This is all about equipping.  An act of kindness without some form of connection is simply a random act of kindness.  Now, while those are great and all, the opportunity to match your act of kindness with an opportunity to connect with Jesus is priceless!

Here are a couple of examples of what we use at Crosspoint.

#3. Let them know why you do what you do. - There’s usually an opportunity that pops up when someone says “Why are you doing this?”  That’s when I take the opportunity to say, “I just wanted to show you God’s love in a practical way!” A simple sentence with a BIG impact!

If you want to find out more about Servant Evangelism and Outreach check out these books below or visit ServantEvangelism.com:

Last night I read “You Don’t Need a Title to be a Leader” by Mark Sanborn.  It’s the second book by Sanborn I’ve read, the first one being “The Fred Factor”.  His books are quickly becoming “must reads” for me, and they are definitely required reading now for anyone and everyone at Crosspoint.  Here are some of the takeaways:

• Anyone at any level can learn to be a leader and help shape or influence the world around them.
• A leader leads through their relationships with people, as opposed to their control over people.
• “The longer the title, the less important the job”
• When you do your job – any job – with initiative and determination to make a positive difference, you become a leader.
• Being happy is enviable, but being good is truly admirable.  It requires character, integrity, and perseverance.
• “While I don’t want to shortchange the importance of “the big show”, I am even more impressed by  the leaders who know what must be done behind the scenes to make the big show happen.”
• Real leaders bring the same commitment to excellence to whatever they do, whether on the stage or behind it.
• Genuine leaders make things better not just for themselves but for others.
• The people who change the world around them…rarely act from a sense of obligation.  Leaders almost always act from a sense of incredible opportunity.
• Too often, people confuse activity with accomplishment.
• Integrity after all, is measured by the distance between your lips and your life.
• Leadership is power with people, not power over people.
• Everyone makes a difference.  The choice we all have is whether we want to make a positive difference or a negative one.

I loved every minute of reading this book, if you want to pick it up you can do it by clicking on my Amazon link right here.

Just wrapped up reading “The Dip” by Seth Godin.  Here are some of the “nuggets” I took away from reading it.

• “Winners quit all the time.  They just quit the right stuff at the right time.”
• “Extraordinary benefits acrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most.”
• “Extraordinary benefits also accrue to the tiny majority with the guts to quit early and refocus their efforts on something new.”
• “The people who are the best in the world specialize at getting really good at the questions they don’t know.”
• “The Dip is the long stretch between beginner’s luck and real accompishment.”
• “It’s not enough to survive your way through this Dip.  You get what you deserve when you embrace the Dip and treat it like the opportunity it really is.”
• “Quitting is difficult.  Quitting requires you to acknowledge that you’re never going to be #1 in the world. At least not at this.”
• “Quitting in the Dip though, isn’t worth the journey.”
• “Your strategy – to be a trusted source in your chosen market – can survive even if your product is canceled.”
• “Quitting is not the same thing as failing.”
• “Strategic quitting is a conscious decision you make based on the choices that are available to you.”
• “If pride is the only thing keeping you from quitting, if there’s no Dip to get through, you’re likely wasting an enormous amount of time and money defending something that will heal pretty quickly.”
• “It’s almost impossible to overinvest in becoming the market leader.”

The Dip was a quick but fascinating read.  If you are building a strategy for success take a look at this book… it’s not just about quitting, it’s about leading smart. The Dip