Eric Taylor

I can't believe I did this!

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It's BACK!

The Office is Back TONIGHT!  Can't wait!  Don't call me between 8:00 and 8:30, you'll get my voicemail.  I've been going through Dwight withdrawals. 

Now if we could just figure out a way to get 24 back on the air!

Whooooooooo!

Sad day for us Pro Wrestling fans.  Ric Flair is finally retiring from the ring.  Yes... I am a fan of professional wrestling.  I've tried to deny it, my wife says I should grow out of it, but the fact is, it's fun to watch.  I remember growing up and watching it on Saturdays with my grandmother.  She was a BIG Dusty Rhodes fan.  I grew up watching Ric Flair "win" the world championship belt 16 times.  He always put on a great show in the ring, but I loved watching him on the mic.  He was "stylin' and profilin'".  He had some great catchphrases but the best one was "Whooooo!"  It will be sad to see him go.  The dude is 60 and is not what he used to be and really  needed to retire.   But there will never be another Nature Boy Ric Flair!  "Whooooooo!"

Simplify and Save

Today it has been one week since I called T-Mobile and cut the $20 Blackberry email feature.  I did that for a few reasons... 1) I'm cheap and I don't want to spend any money on anything that can be duplicated somewhere else.  2)  I've been reading a lot of money tips from my friend Casey Graham.  He motivated me to evaluate where some of our money goes.  He's a great leader and has some great financial tips.  You can read some here.  3) I got over the idea that I'm uber-important and I must get every email forwarded to my phone so I can respond immediately to important things like drug ads and scholarship offers from the University of Phoenix!  Really, I'm usually not away from my laptop more than a few hours at a time.  If I can return an email within a few hours, I can live with that!

The greatest part turning off email from my blackberry is the opportunity to focus more.  Every time the email notifier would chime, I'd go through a dilemma... do I look at it now, or wait until I'm finished what I'm in the middle of???  The past few days I've been able to focus more, pray more without interruption from the phone/email vibe...in some ways, I feel like I've simplified in order to focus on Kingdom values and priorities... plus, I've got an extra 20 bucks in my pocket... and that's always nice.

Looking forward to a great weekend

This is shaping up to be a great weekend.  Last night, we saw "The Bucket List" with some friends.  It was a great movie... I was a little concerned about watching a movie where people are dying of cancer, especially in light of Sonja's mom passing away last year.  I wasn't sure about the flood of emotions it would cause.  But, her dad saw it and loved it, and we loved it too!  we laughed and cried... but the funniest thing was there was a lady in the movies sitting a couple rows behind us that had the LOUDEST LAUGH I've ever heard.  And she used it too!  So we would see something funny, laugh, hear her laugh and laugh at her laughing.  Today, we're helping someone from our church move into an apartment.  Her story is such an awesome story of moving from being disconnected to connecting with God and others in our church.  Every time I see her I think-- "That's why we started Journey!"  Later this afternoon we're just going to be getting ready for the SuperBowl party tomorrow night... cooking chili, making homemade salsa and preparing to see lots of people that we've invited show up to see the Giants pull the upset!
Hope to see you tomorrow!

Holding me accountable...from a distance

I've got to give a shout out and thanks to my friend Shawn Lovejoy from Mountain Lake Church.  He's the reason I got up this morning at 4:45 and went to the gym.  We normally do that, but today I wanted to stay in bed and sleep.  Seth had a 9pm basketball game and I didn't get in bed til almost 11, so, sleep would have been nice... except when the alarm went off at 4:30, Shawn's post yesterday kept running through my head.  I'm usually pretty disciplined in the area of time management and other areas, but one area I where could EASILY slack off is exercise.  I need to lose at least 25 pounds this year.  I'm trying to do it slow... a pound a  week by watching what I eat and exercising at least 4 days a week. I have to admit... IT'S DANG HARD! So, thanks Shawn for holding me accountable!  By the Way... if anyone wants to join me at the gym in the mornings, let me know!  I'm not sure how many takers I'll get on that one!

My Favorite Week

This has to be my favorite week of the year... the week between Christmas and New Year.  Most everybody gears down and I think it's a very healthy thing to do.  We had an amazing Christmas-- and we're looking forward to a great New Year in 2008.  But until things get cranked back up on the 2nd, things are kindof low key... except for one thing-- We're implementing Fellowship One (some of you Church planters will know what I'm talking about) as our database, financial recordkeeping and ministry contact tracking software.  It's going to be incredible once we're up and running with it and get everyone trained how to use it.  That being said... it's taken a TON of time just to get it set up so we can implement it.  I had a personal goal to be up and running by January 1st... we'll make it but that means I don't get to gear down as much as I'd like.  I spent a whole day listening to training modules to help get it set up...I've got 6 more hours to go!  But, like I said, It's going to help us track our progress and our process in helping people become passionate Christ followers... so that makes it worth it. 

Remember that we are not having service this Sunday, December 30th but will kick off the new year with a brand new message series called "Life in High Definition".  See you soon!

Frustrating Day

Well... I had on my schedule to write a new post at 7:30am today.  But, it's now 5:00pm and I'm just getting to it... why?  because I've spent the better part of the day rebuilding my files on my hard drive.  I didn't lose everything because the computer didn't crash... what happened was completely MY FAULT--that's what makes it so frustrating.  I'm not sure what I did, but I was cleaning out some space on my hard drive and I went to empty my trash and there was no more Journey Church folder.  All my documents, all my movies, all my church stuff, all my messages, everything was gone.  Now, here's my big pitch for Mac's new Leopard Operating System, which I don't have...yet.  If I had it, it could have retrieved what inadvertently threw out... I've already ordered it!  So... I'm stuck the entire day searching on external hard drives for back up files... I did back up everything in March, so, I only lost 8 months of stuff!  Man, am I bummed... But, here's the good news... as frustrating as it was, and as much as I wanted to hurl my MacBook Pro like a frisbee, I chose to control my emotions simply look at it as a learning experience.  Naaaah-- I cried like a baby and screamed at the top of my lungs and pounded my desk and cried out to God to remind Him that this would be a great time for a lesson on grace... you know... I deserved to lose everything, but just when I thought it was all over, God, who is rich in mercy, revealed the lost file on a tiny corner of the hard drive... I didn't deserve it because I was a bonehead... but He poured out grace... well, that didn't happen!  But God is still full of grace and I'm so grateful for a whole lot of other things that happened today...I got to see God work through our people to rally around a family when the husband/father had surgery... I got to pick up my teenagers from their last day of school today and take them to lunch and even in the middle of all the frustration, I got my message ready for this weekend. 

Back in the Saddle

I'm back after about a week of being without internet service and cellphone service for much of that time.  my family and I spent Thanksgiving holidays in the mountains of Tennessee.  Thanks to our friends, Rob and Christen Perry... their place in Wears Valley was the most incredible places I've ever stayed.  Take a look here.  There was absolutely no cell service, no email, no internet, no blogging... there was DirecTV which made it great to watch the Iron Bowl... War Eagle!  But other than that... there were no distractions... We got to spend lots of family time together and I got up earlier than anyone else and just spent some amazing alone time with God...  I'm pumped about what He's confirmed in me and some of the stuff He's challenged me to do... I'll share more about that later.  Being completely out of the loop on Sunday was a little uncomfortable and I would have had a hard time doing it 6 months ago, but I know our Ministry team is more than capable... I heard the Band Rocked ... AGAIN!  As they always do.  I heard Andrew did an awesome job teaching.  They recorded it in audio and video so I can't wait to watch it... He's going to teach a lot more here before he launches out to plant a church in Baltimore. I'm so grateful to stand alongside those guys and do ministry.   I'm about to head out the door to staff meeting... It's going to be a little different tonight because we are shooting a video for Sunday Night Live this Sunday night (hence the name).  If you're a fan of "The Office" you don't want to miss it... it's going to make you wet your pants!   Glad to be back!  Thanks for all of you who prayed for our family while we were gone... God really refreshed and renewed us and we're ready for all that He has for us in 2008.

World Series Tonight!

It's on tonight!  World Series, Game 1... Red Sox and Rockies... I can't wait to see my Sox sweep the Rox (sorry, couldn't resist).  I know it's football season and all eyes are on the Polls and what's happening there.. but I can't help it... I love baseball  and  I'm a HUGE Red Sox fan... I'm excited  about this stuff... I know it's not as popular as the SuperBowl or some of the College Football that's going on right now... but man, if you like baseball, there's nothing better than Fenway Park.  Plus, there's something fun about the possiblility of watching guys play baseball in the snow when they go to Colorado!