THOMPSONLAND

Here's my cover song tribute to The Beatles: All You Need Is Love.

2010-09-25T14:40:00.001-07:00

All You Need Is Love by Bryan Thompson
Download now or listen on posterous

All You Need Is Love.mp3 (4505 KB)

Thompsonland is Moving!

2010-09-14T21:20:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking of moving Thompsonland.tk from Blogger for a while. There are some nice templates and to some degree, Blogger is the most customizable free blogging host out there.
But I can't help but notice Blogger doesn't tend to have the reputation for drawing out all the cool people the way Tumblr does. Perhaps that's subjective, but I thought I'd give Tumblr a few clicks and we'll go from there.

If you subscribe via feedburner, you won't have to change anything. I've already done that for you. You should still receive your RSS feeds and emails.

But, if for some reason you haven't subscribed, you can do so by RSS or by Email. Either way, it will update you from my new site.

Now jump on over to the new Thompsonland.tk! There's lots of writing, fiction, music, and other great stuff to be discussed! And bring your thinking caps!

That's all for now. Happy reading.

Contest Time: Enter to Win a FREE eBook of "The Dreaming Highway!"

2010-09-05T19:21:00.000-07:00

I hope you're having a wonderful Labor Day Weekend! Americans: you deserve it! Take a day off! And if you're from another country, you deserve it, too, but I can't publicly recommend you take the day off. You might get fired.

It's time for a good old fashioned drawing! That's right: you can enter to receive a FREE eBook of my novel, The Dreaming Highway!

There is one thing you need to do:

Leave a comment on this post. In the comment, make sure and leave your full name, email address, and your favorite method to read an eBook (say Kindle, Nook, iPad, PDF, etc.)

That's it! I will randomly select up to 5 winners.

The contest will run from now (September 5) until two weeks from today (September 19) at 11:59 pm. I will announce the winners on this blog on Monday, September 20.

How You, Too, Can Be a FAILED Blogger Like Me!

2010-09-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

Blogger announced this week that they now feature real-time stats for their bloggers. This is great! Now, Google’s content sharers can bask in the glow of their Wordpress.org counterparts. Now, they can finally measure up to the Marketing Extraordinaires and Social Media Brainchildren with their paid MediaTemple accounts and their ascots and high-brow poses while the sweaters wrapped around their necks wave in the wind on the decks of their yacht – and claim equality!

Blogger Stats Day has become the most depressing day of my blogging career. Imagine my disappointment as I sit down to see my humble devoted fans to see this:

Certainly there must be some mistake, I think. After hours of painstaking design (okay, it wasn’t exactly hours, but it was a sustainable amount of minutes), 2 drafts of content editing to make sure the content was breathtaking and suspenseful, and more proselytizing tweets than I knew what to do with, this must be a fluke.

And so I refreshed Firefox.

How can this be? Yet, here it is right before my very eyes. All of the traffic that has been drawn to Thompsonland.tk has been from me! I am my biggest fan!

In 2005, I wrote a post called, I’m a Failed Blogger, which can also be seen here. This post, in all its forms, may be the most popular blog post I’ve ever done. It’s been seen by over one hundred people. “My secret?” You ask. We’ll get to that, but first, I want to show you some more depressing statistics.

Let’s dive in. Shall we? Or shall I? Heck, I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?

Now, this isn’t all depressing, right? I mean, sure, the 5 hits out of 7 (overall) came from my own domain names and my Twitter account. But then, look at the bottom. There is one that says “Google” and one that says “Semrush.com.” Groovy, right? Someone has Googled me! Awesome. And I don’t even know what Semrush is! But, hey! I’m there!

But then, just below that, we see this:

What were the search words? Not, “Bryan Thompson,” “master writer and blogger,” “world’s biggest hopeful” or “the next big thing,” or “ready to shake the literary world by storm!”

No! None of these. Instead, we have, “Brian Thompson, game designer.”

What? Whoever Semrushed me (my new verbage use of Semrush.com. It’s like Googled, but with SemRush. Get it? I thought you might.).

So, how did this happen? Something has clearly gone wrong here in Thompsonland! And I intend to find out what it is. And so, after careful consideration, I’ve decided that self-confidence is a good thing. And I have compiled a list of 6 things that YOU, TOO, can do to have a healthy self-confidence with ZERO fans!

And so, without further ado, I present

THOMPSONLAND’S 6 WAYS TO BE YOUR ONLY FAN!

Tip #1: Blog About Your Own Life and Everything That Interests You!

When I was first introduced to blogging, I was a youth pastor, and I was taught, “Blogging helps people get to know you better.” Heck, yes! Why not? So, I started writing posts about me. You know, to help people get to know me better. And you know what? Do this, and I promise you will get to know yourself a heck of a lot better!

Tip #2: Don’t Narrow Down Your Topics

Hey! You are a well-rounded human being. You’re into more than just web design, writing, or personal development. Write about that fishing expo or boxing match and how it compares to life. That reaches a wide variety of niches and you don’t have to narrow down on one to become an expert in that field.

Tip #3: Tweet Your Weight in Gold!

I am now going to share with you a secret: I secretly was able to sync my Twitter account to my Facebook account. Yeah. So, when I tweeted, it updated my Facebook status! And guess what? You can, too. This way, whenever my Facebook friends log onto their accounts and see their friends’ updates, they can see my code-symbols #LikeThis and @thompsonland. And it’s like I’m in on some secret that they’re not. Because I’m cool like that. Oh, wait. Did you already know about syncing Twitter and Facebook?

Tip #4: Assume All the Pro Bloggers Will Make Your Life Easier

SocialMediaExaminer told us to write provocative headlines! So, write yourself the most creative darn headline of your life, like, “6 Writers that will Thrive Now that the Printed Page is Dead!” Look at all that ReTweet action! Copyblogger says it’s all about content. So, write deep and edgy content, and if it’s interesting, people will read it. So, assume that everybody is interested in what you’re interested in, and this will prove easy because you’ve not narrowed down your niche. Are you paying attention? Write this down!

And ViperChill says to use StumbleUpon! It’s INSTANT traffic to your blog! Let’s see, how many times can you be the only one who thumbs-up your post before you’re kicked OFF StumbleUpon? Everyone should try this. Just for an experiment!

(For the record, I do think these blogs exist because they want to help people create successful blogs, but make no mistake, they won’t reveal all their secrets. Blogging takes hustle and it takes oomph to make you stand out. Obviously, I can’t tell you what that is. You have it or you don’t. Just like American Idol.)

Tip #5: Dispense Advice About Topics You’re Just Learning

Remember the old admonition your guidance counselor used to give you in school? You know, how if you would begin to TEACH and TUTOR other kids in a subject you were trying to learn, you would learn that subject better? I think it does have merit here, but be a Know-it-all about the industry you’re trying to break into, and it’s a sure fire ticket to One-Fan City.

Tip #6: Follow Tips 1-5 and Assume You’re Qualified to Market Your own Self-Published Products!

As I wrote the first five of these, it occurred to me that I have also been in charge of marketing my own book! I suddenly have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach! Wait, let me go check those stats….….AHHHHHHHHHH!

Okay, what about you? Any tips and advice on how to be your own biggest fan? Or, you could dispense tips and tools on how to get MORE subscribers, fans, and followers. Comment below.

It's Time to Kill Comic Sans!

2010-08-24T07:21:00.000-07:00

You know that old family newsletter you get once a year from the aunt and those cousins you never talk to? The one with the photo of everyone smiling that almost creepy “we all get along all the time” look? You might give it a sideways half-smile if there is a cute little kid on there. And if you’re like most people who receive this newsletter, you either scratch your head at the horrid design structure of the letter or you can’t read it. And this is because, most likely, this aunt created this newsletter in Microsoft Publisher or some other free-with-their-PC design software and – in an effort to be more “creative” than the typical Times New Roman or Arial fonts that were already in place – used a pseudo-handwritten font like Comic Sans.

Comic Sans is a font that was designed to emulate comic strip captions. It looks kind of like a child’s handwriting but not really. And for some reason, small businesses make colossal mistakes with their public image when they delegate the task of designing the company newsletter to the receptionist. Not sure what qualifies this person to double as a graphic design expert, but if you’re a boss at one of these companies, I urge you to stop this cruel practice. This person will often use the Comic Sans font – or worse, the “cursive handwriting” font to design their entire newsletter.

When in doubt on which fonts to use for your design, unless you are a professional graphic designer, ALWAYS use Times New Roman or Arial! They aren’t default for no reason. These standard fonts are easy to read, and can be very attractive in almost any setting. These are two types of fonts that are part of the larger families known as Serif and Sans-Serif typefaces.

Times is an example of a Serif font – they contain the little lines running off the edges and look very bookish.

Arial is an example of a Sans-Serif (or “without” serif), meaning that it doesn’t have the lines running off the edges.

It’s debatable in the design industry on which type is easier to read, but most design experts agree: both are perfectly acceptable and appealing to the eye, and readability is really what we’re after.

And on a related topic, always use the same font throughout the entire document. Using too many different fonts is distracting and usually doesn’t have the effect you think you may be giving it. Use a simple font and utilize it throughout.

Keep these tricks in mind, and your newsletter will look much cleaner and simpler. And believe me, simple is great. I can’t promise that everyone will love the photo of mom and dad in the ugly holiday sweaters, but that’s a different issue, and at least your fonts will be readable.

Still not convinced? Check out this classic from ABC's 20/20.

6 Writers That Will Thrive Now that the Printed Page is Dead

2010-08-16T14:59:00.001-07:00

I’m a little surprised that brick-and-mortar video stores bit the dust before book stores did. I really am. Blockbuster, Hollywood, and Movie Gallery are all dead, but Barnes-and-Noble and Borders are almost sure to follow shortly, and the shadow of death is looming with a bony finger pointing toward them. This all seems a bit morbid to say the least, but the internet has been predicting the death of the newspaper and traditional publishing industry for years now. In the age where mail-in movies and soda machine-style video rentals has built a billion dollar industry and shut the superstores down – and all for the price of a candy bar – it’s a wonder that brand new books (which cost almost three times the amount of a DVD rental) have survived on the pretty shelves of the book industry giants.

In 2010, it’s safe to say that avid readers make up less than 40% of the American population. Go on most of your friends’ Facebook profiles and look at their favorite books. While you’ll have a few adventurous Harry Potter and Twilight fans out there, you’ll find a gazillion more that simply say, “The Bible” (and I’m guessing their consumption of that comes more from the Sunday pulpit than the actual text). And most of the Harry Potter and Twilight fans have risen out of the films. It’s a motion picture world, and books are becoming something of a relic from the past, but this in no way indicates that the story is dead. Far from it: stories are humankind’s way of making sense of the world, and our stories will survive long after we’re gone.

And so in this OpenSource/YouTube/Podcast/Redbox world, how will thinkers continue to turn into writers? And how will writers morph into authors? Below are 6 types of writers that, if they are imaginative enough (And who better to be imaginative than writers, right?), will make a very good living in the aftermath of the bookstore tragedy.

Type 1: The Ebook Writer

This probably goes without saying, but have you seen the latest series of ebook readers out there? They’re EVERYWHERE! From the Kindle to the Nook to the iPad, these little portable machines allow you to read full books cover to cover and to carry around your entire library in a device the size of a notepad. Now, you can read the latest Stephen King thriller without feeling like you’re lifting weights (though you won’t get the exercise value). Universities are now selling ebook versions of their text books, allowing students to carry one device for all their classes. And it’s given my wife an excuse to get the iPad.

Want to learn how to write an ebook? Copyblogger has some great tips to help you out!

Want to get them onto the Kindle, Nook, and more? Smashwords has what you’re looking for!

Type 2: The Print-On-Demand Writer

I want to be careful how I say this. Make no mistake: PRINTED BOOKS ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE! At least not anytime soon! It’s book STORES that are seeing the writing on the wall (that’s a bad euphemism). But, if you’re willing to put in some marketing work and learn how to sell it (and I am assuming you would like to see Best-SELLER above your name), you can now publish your long-awaited book for next to nothing. Lulu.com has been a self-publisher’s dream, making it easier than ever to use their ready-made templates to create your book. And in the last two years, Amazon’s Print-On-Demand company CreateSpace has made it possible to upload your book for almost nothing and allow readers to buy via Amazon.com. Wordclay is another Print-on-Demand option.

Type 3: The Audiobook Writer

Audiobooks have begun to flood the marketplace more than ever before, with companies like Audible.com becoming highly profitable companies. If you can learn to speak your book into a microphone, you can sell your book to hundreds of thousands of people who are on the go, juggling multiple jobs, or just don’t have the time to crack open a book but who love to indulge in knowledge. If you can get access to a decent microphone, and if you have any speaking skills, you can create an audiobook. And if you don’t, hiring someone who has both of these resources can be a valuable asset.

And now, the New Stuff

Okay, we’ve talked about some no-brainers. What are some other writers who will thrive?

Type 4: The Screen Writer

Books may be a good source of storytelling, but if you can put those words into a screenplay and make it come to life on screen, you can make a fortune! I think we can all agree that the message may not change but the method always changes. And film and television are definitely profitable methods of storytelling right now. Those who master their scripts and produce quality content will eventually get noticed, and if they don’t, make your own film! CreateSpace can help you with that, too!

Type 5: The Entrepreneur Writer

This part, I can’t tell you how to do; you just have to know it. Those who can create opportunities out of nothing will do very well with their stories. Most products on the market – from Post-It Notes to LED light bulbs to – yes, again – the iPad, were created out of what their creaters deemed necessity. They simply didn’t exist before, and then they did. A writer who can create a method of telling their stories that fills a void – and trust me, entrepreneurs will always find voids that no one knew was there and fill them. Think outside the box and be as creative with the WAY you sell your book as you were when you WROTE your book.

Type 6: The Social Media Writer

Social Media may produce some passing fads (remember Xanga?), but those who embrace the new media of today and utilize it in the right way will find rewards in terms of new fans, new readers, and new ways of getting their stories told. If they can market it the right way, they can also find lots of potential money out there.

This is Self-Publishing Alone!

You’ll notice that this list primarily includes things that you can begin to do right now to get your book into the hands of readers. Use your imagination here. This list, by all means, is nowhere near complete. What ideas do you have for getting your story out there? Leave a comment and let me know! Let’s dialogue here!

What kind of writer are you?

Why More People are Switching From Outlook to Gmail, and Why You Should Consider It, Too!

2010-08-13T12:46:00.001-07:00

If you have been using the Internet for the last six years, you are undoubtedly familiar with Gmail, Google’s web-based email service. Gmail has far passed Yahoo Mail in users and even further passed MSN’s Hotmail service, making Gmail the number one email service in the country. What you may not know, however, is that Internet users – business and pleasure – have begun abandoning their off-web email clients like Outlook, Thunderbird, and Apple Mail, and using Gmail’s web-based interface.

Why the switch to webmail? Most users say it’s because Gmail offers so much – drag-and-drop attachments interface, easy-reply, and a new-and-improved contacts web-application (not to mention the easy accessibility of Google apps and Google Docs rendering Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint more irrelevant to business needs) – and they offer them all for free. Microsoft’s high ticket prices for Office is becoming seen as a liability in these uncertain economic times.

As an Outlook user at work and an Apple Mail user at home (this could create a whole new argument, but not with email clients as you might guess), I haven’t quite made the plunge toward webmail-based email completely, but I am closer than ever to deciding, and here’s why:

1 – The Google Freebies (listed above)

2 – Easy signature customization

I admit it, I’m a graphic design geek, and I love designing email signatures to help me sell services at work and help me advertise my book at home. I like advertising my social media hangouts (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn), and with Apple Mail, there’s no customization (or no EASY customization). With Outlook, there’s easier customization, but it doesn’t work well with HTML.

But, with Gmail, there’s a great email signature designer called WiseStamp, that allows you to customize your signature with easy links to your social media.

3 – Social Media Integration

I began to get into this earlier, but web-based email just has an easier ebb-and-flow with social networks. Gmail is basically a social media outlet in itself, and when combined with Google’s Buzz network and GTalk, it gives easy compatibility with chatting and social networking.

4 – Pop3 and IMAP integration

And if Gmail didn’t have it all already, they also offer POP3 and IMAP integration, allowing you to retrieve email from all your other accounts, business and personal. You can reply to people with fully functioning HTML email if you wish, and interact with them in social media outlets easier than ever. The mail that would ordinarily live on your Outlook at work can now come into your Gmail account.

If you aren’t convinced yet, it might help to know that more people are switching to web-based (or cloud-based) applications for other things – Documents, Spreadsheets, and even the social media moguls who used off-web Twitter/Facebook clients like TweetDeck and Twirl are now using the web-based HootSuite (I am one of them) to connect with clients, readers, and friends.

What about you? Can you see yourself jumping off the Outlook bandwagon and onto the Gmail only bandwagon? Why or why not? Leave a comment!

How to Create the Most Productive Environment to Write Creatively

2010-08-12T21:59:00.000-07:00

If you’re like me - or most people, for that matter - you may have dreamed of writing that article, that winning blog, or even a book, but you keep asking the same question: “Where do I find the time to write all of this?” I am often asked where I found the time to write a novel. For me, the answer is simple: I wrote it whenever I could.

Writing is one of those special trades where you aren’t required to have a musical instrument, a football, or even a laptop to improve your craft. All you need is your brain and some mode of writing words on a piece of paper. Stephen King has often claimed to write many of his best-selling thick-thick books by hand. His 2001 thriller, Dreamcatcher, was written entirely in freehand while King recovered in the hospital from his near-death injury.

If you’re preparing to take on a serious writing project, here are some basic tips that will help you create the perfect time and environment for you to write your story, memoir, blog, or someone’s eulogy. Just don’t try to write your own eulogy. It’s a very humbling experience.

#1: Know Your Topic

This may sound like a no-brainer, but it seriously helps your writing project when you know what you’re going to write about. This doesn’t require an outline (in fact, I rarely ever use an outline). It simply requires that you have a topic in mind. Something you can toss around and play with.

#2: Keep a Small Notebook With You At All Times

Whether you write music, stand-up comedy material, poetry, or ways to catch squirrels that you learn on your cousin Jed’s farm, this tip is one that will never let you down. Get into the habit of keeping a small pad of notebook or scratch paper on you at all times. A pen, too. Just make sure it’s not a leaky pen. When I was writing stand-up material, I got in the habit of keeping this notepad next to my bed. When I would awake in the morning, I would try to spend the first few moments of consciousness writing down anything that popped into my head. Sometimes it was writing about the dreams I had dreamt up the night before. Sometimes it was about what I would be eating for lunch that day. It didn’t matter what it was, I wrote it down. I would keep these semi-conscious ramblings collected and at the end of the week, I would sort them out and see if there were thoughts that stood out or made me laugh. Those that did made the cut for potential material.

You may ask if you can go high-tech here and write everything on your smartphone. While I am a huge proponent of technology and wouldn’t be caught dead without my iPhone, I think it is a good idea to go stone-age on this one. No matter how good a texter you may be, there is nothing like writing those semi-conscious ramblings as fast as you can to get your brain kicking new thoughts around.

#3: Write Down All the Creative Ramblings in Your Head

Most of us don’t get paid seven-figure incomes to write stories and blogs. The moment you figure out how to do that, please let me know. So for most of us, the question becomes about time. When do you write down the ideas? And the answer is simple: write them whenever you can.

You may have to keep your desk job and you’d best keep your performance up there, but you have your topic in mind, you have your notepad, you have your brain. When an idea flows through you - and if you’re a writer, ideas had better flow through you - write them down. If you’re in the middle of helping a customer, don’t ask him to wait while you write your brilliant idea down for your next big thriller. But at your first convenient moment, write the idea down. Do this enough and your story will begin to write itself.

#4: Find the Right Time to Write It All Down

FInding the perfect time to write is all dependent upon what you do, what you have the freedom to do, and how supportive your family is. While my family is supportive of my writing, I also have small kids, and I don’t want to be the dad who spends all of his time at work and then finding more work to do. For me, I made the decision to be with my family until they go to bed. From their bedtime on, I write and work on my creativity.

I had one problem: In my early twenties, late nights were my best creative times. I thought creatively in the wee small hours of the morning. But now that I have kids, I don’t stay up as late as I used to. But, since this is my only writing time, I decided to write. But I’m not as creative. The solution? I am creative during the day. I kept my notepad on me, I wrote down my thoughts over a period of two years, and at night, I wrote them all down. The Dreaming Highway was born out of this hectic schedule.

Hopefully this blog has helped you find your creative times. And if yours is different from mine, please leave a comment and weigh in. What are your best creative times?

What Do You Read to Keep Your Mind Awesome?

2010-07-22T19:55:00.000-07:00

There’s no need to berate you with the same knowledge your mother told you over and over again as a child. Let’s all admit: books make you smarter, sharper, and more open-minded. And there’s no shortage of interesting topics to read about, so I am curious: what do you read that keeps your mind in tip-top shape?

Is if Fiction? I am an avid fiction buff. In fact, I wrote my own last fall! (Shameless plug of the day.) And studies show that reading an hour of fiction every night before falling asleep can calm nerves, wire up the right brain that likely doesn’t get much activity in the course of your accounting, data processing, call-taking, plumbing, or electrical work during the day. That rewiring of the right brain can make you better at problem solving and cause you to perform better at your left-brained job the next day.

But maybe it’s Non-Fiction for you. Non-Fiction is by far the biggest selling mega-genre of books. And it’s not a genre at all. There are thousands of genres and topics worth talking about. Books that give great ideas for business, leadership, parenting, and anything else.

If I can offer any advice for keeping yourself well-read and well-rounded, I would ask you to consider both. I have made the practice over the years of reading one fiction book followed by one non-fiction. And I am a connoisseur of them all. I am as avid a Malcolm Gladwell fan as I am of Stephen King’s. I devour anything by John Grisham or Nick Hornby, and I devour just as much from Seth Godin and Henry Cloud.

You may say you don’t have time to read much, and if you are a stay-at-home mom of young kids under the age of five, like my wife (who has material worth reading), then I believe you. But if, like me, you spend a lot of time driving, working, and connecting with clients, not to mention the time with your kids, believe me: there are ways! In fact, you might be shocked to discover I have not read a physical book in almost a year. But, when I turned 19, I became introduced to audiobooks, and my life has never been the same.

So, what are you reading? And what drives you to read it? Share your top picks below!

How to Create a Dynamic Resume that Gets Results

2010-07-13T08:01:00.001-07:00

Have you found yourself kicked around in a bad economy? Maybe you’ve found yourself on the receiving end of a layoff, even if you’ve invested years, decades, even your whole life into your job. Being downsized sucks, but there are several things you can do to be a step ahead of the game, even when the job market is tighter than usual. Of course, my ultimate advice would be to create the goal of working for yourself, but even then, it helps to have a safety net – especially if you have a family. And there’s no better place to build a safety net than by investing in you. And there’s no better place to begin investing in you than the resume.

As a former HR administrator, I have seen a lot of resumes. The first key to starting a resume is to come to the understanding that the resume does not get you a job! Let me repeat that: The Resume Will Not Get You a Job! The real goal of the resume is to land you an interview. The interview is where you can verbally talk yourself up and show why you should be the next President of the United States. Okay, maybe you’re not that good of a talker, but this should be your first goal: to get that interview.

Describe Yourself – You Are the Starring Role

Let’s face it, most resumes are boring! There is no more boring piece of literature to read than, “Waited tables at Ruby Tuesday.” Would you find enjoyment reading 200 lines of text just like that, even if it were for your job? HR staffers would have the most boring jobs in the universe if they only consisted of reading lines like that. But this is what most resumes look like. You have invested years of time to acquire the knowledge you have now. Let your resume show it. Give those HR staffers a break when they see your resumes.

Think of your resume as a novel and yourself as the starring role. Changing this very perception of the boring resume into something daring and exciting will change the moment for the HR staffer reading it, and if they have read past your name, it will stand out.

But before we start crafting the resume, let’s start with a blank sheet of paper. And let’s forgo the computer for now and write this by hand. Freehand often gives you more room to brainstorm, and that’s just what we’re going to do here. On this sheet of paper, write down as many words (in list form) as you can think of to describe yourself. And make them creative. Don’t just write, “Happy, fun, etc.” Don’t neglect those if they are part of who you are, but don’t leave out “witty, creative, energetic, inspirational, reflective, etc.” Make this list as long as you want, and give yourself a good five to ten minutes to just brainstorm. And don’t be modest here. Let it all out. You’re awesome. It’s okay to write about it.

Contact Contact Contact!

Now, let’s begin the craft of creating your big-executive resume. Let’s start with the first key area that most people get wrong: Your Contact Information! You would not believe the number of resumes I received in HR that had very intriguing information, but no way to contact them. It seems they were in such a hurry to try and get the job that they neglected to write their simple phone number down. You should make sure that your contact information is clear, readable, and in an easy-to-spot location. I recommend the top left-hand corner because it’s standard and because when they’re filed, the HR staffer will always thumb through them at the top.

I wish this were a no-brainer, but it’s not. Most people intend to do it, but the contact information is usually an after-thought. Make this the case no longer.

And if you have a Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn account, by all means include it in your contact information. BUT…only do this if your Twitter account is PG-Rated and would be worth a professional reading and if your Facebook account is used for something besides Mafia Wars or Farmville. This doesn’t mean you have to be all business all the time. We want you to be yourself. When employers are interested enough in you to check out your social network, showing occasional photos of your family and what you like to do for fun (assuming it’s not Farmville or Mafia Wars) makes you a human being, and can be endearing. Emotional attachments to people aren’t all bad. There are many studies showing that social media will replace the traditional resume, but that is for another post and isn’t quite the case yet.

Describe Yourself in Paragraph Form

The very first thing you should have (below your contact information, of course) is a paragraph of who you are and why you are interested in this job. This little section has been grossly wounded by Microsoft Office and has reduced itself to a one-sentence by-line that usually looks like this: “I want to wait tables and earn tip money,” or “I want to sit in an office and type letters.” Hello, ambition.

Remember all of those words you used to describe yourself? We’re going to implement them here. Not all of them, but pick ones that you feel correspond to the specific job you’re applying for. That’s right: not all resumes are created equal. If you are applying to more than one job, it’s recommended that you create more than one resume. And here’s where it starts.

Write one paragraph that explains very briefly who you are in the first sentence or two. If you have a family, mention it. In the next few sentences, describe the work you have done in the past and why it qualifies you for the job you want. Describe problem-solving areas of your personality and then describe what you can give to the company.

Traditionally, these Career Summaries have been written in an almost third-person form and forgo words like “a,” “the,” and “I.” Nowadays, this isn’t really necessary, and with the advent of social media, it creates a personal effect that many employers find refreshing.

Experience and Education

This is another point of confusion among job seekers. Do you begin with Experience or with Education? That depends on the strength of your history. It’s really simple: If you have years of experience that is worthy of a Tom Clancy novel, start with that. If you have just graduated from college with a degree in Business Management and your career largely consists of Applebee’s and Your Grandpa’s Farm, you might put most of your weight in the education side.

And don’t just list when and where you graduated. Talk openly about what you did there (besides the frat parties, I mean). What clubs were you involved in? What did you do there? Did you have a radio show? (I did.)

And in listing your work experience, here again is where you should tailor make each resume to fit the specific job you’re seeking. Write about the jobs you’ve had in terms of what you did to enhance the company, and write it in a way that your hopeful company could see you doing for them.

For example, instead of writing:

Applebee’s, 2008-2010

Waiter

Waited tables.

Write:

Applebee’s, 2008-2010

Food Server and Dining Experience Liaison

Brought more than three hundred smiles to three hundred faces as I graced hot meals that have satisfied millions of Americans.

See how different those two look? Now, don’t necessarily go creating titles if you have an official title, and don’t add opinions. But, give this a little juice that will stand out when an HR staffer reads it.

You have invested years of your life in these companies and your resume should reflect the best work you did there? And even if you spent your time making baskets with food trash in the dumpster out back, you most certainly did some real quality performance there. If it was in making people smile regularly, talk liberally about it. If it was making baskets in the dumpster, not so much. (Unless it was a world record. Then, by all means, talk about it or apply to the NBA.)

Kill Microsoft Office’s Resume Maker!

Not really. Not that you could, even if you wanted to. But, don’t rely on Microsoft Word to design your resume. Put it together yourself. If you need inspiration, start here.

With more and more companies looking online for employees via Monster, CareerBuilder, and Yahoo! HotJobs, the design of the resume is becoming more and more irrelevant, and if social media has any say in the matter, it won’t matter much at all in the near future – unless you’re a graphic designer. While this doesn’t mean your resume shouldn’t be near and organized, it does mean that the content matters now more than ever.

You should organize your resume into the following sections:

Name and Contact Information

Career Objective and Brief Bio (1 paragraph)

Education

Experience (only list 3 most relevant jobs to position you are seeking)

Of course, you can switch Education and Experience. Once you have crafted the entire thing, try to limit it to one page (2 at the most). And don’t include your references here. Instead, you can give the footer tagline, “References Available upon Request.”

Also, you'll notice I didn't include a special skills set at the bottom. You can still use this, but I'd prefer for you to include this very valuable insight in your Career Objective at the top. If you would still like to use this by itself, it is perfectly acceptable.

Have you created a winning resume that has landed you a great position? Comment and let us know.

My Dad

2010-06-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

Watching Mr. Roger's Neighborhood with my kids - yes, reruns are still on television - always makes me think of my own early childhood. Sesame Street always me laugh, and Mr. Rogers always inspired me to dream.

Mr. Rogers always reminded me of my dad growing up. I remember learning that Mr. Rogers was a Presbyterian minister,
and I remember that didn't surprise me. My dad was a minister, and that was the way I imagined a minister should be. Gentle and inviting, inspiring and easy to smile around people. I don't know if Mr. Rogers ever got so into his sermon that he danced around and yelled from the fire in his belly, but my dad sure did. I remember finding it funny because church was the only time I saw him do this. He connected with people because he was passionate and inspired them to dream from the pulpit. More than that, though, he connected with them because he really listened, was genuinely glad to see them, and never judged them for anything.

And the non-public-speaking part is the part I remember about my dad at home. Dad had been brought up in a hard-working farm family. His dad had watched his own pop walked out the door as a young boy, and though my grandpa could be hard-nosed and set in his ways, he had sworn to be there for his kids. And I'm grateful to my grandpa because my dad was a product of this environment, which he passed on to my brother and me.

My dad was a lot gentler than his grandpa had been, and while he always knew the value of hard work, he made sure to take plenty of time for vacations. I remember taking trips to Disney World, Six Flags, and Silver Dollar City. I also remember visiting every World War II and Civil War memorial below the Mason Dixon Line.

I look at my own children and hope they will benefit from having a theologically astute father to ask deep spiritual questions of the way I benefited from it. While I don't consider myself nearly the theological expert that I remembered my dad being, anytime my girls ask me a question about God, Heaven, or any other spiritual question, I always think of my dad.

Today is Father's Day. And I am a blessed dad to three little girls. But I'm also blessed because I have a great dad. And I'm thrilled to honor him on this Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

Unfulfilled Dreams, Former Childstars, and the Life and Death of Gary Coleman

2010-05-31T08:06:00.000-07:00

Like many people across the country, I was saddened to learn of the passing of Gary Coleman on Friday. Like many, I have fond memories of coming home from school, sitting down with my elementary school friends, and watching Different Strokes. Arnold's ultimate-famous one-liner, "Whachu talkin' 'bout, Willis?" along with his furrowed eyebrows and stuck-out bottom lip always made me laugh. It was also arguably one of the reasons Coleman never found another signature role.

Let me be clear: I have no knowledge of dwarfism. TLC's "Little People, Big World" is pretty much the extent of my awareness on the subject and prior to it, I had no real idea of it at all.
From what I have learned of success, it doesn't come to those who aren't willing to beat challenging odds and stick it out with perseverance that doesn't recognize failure. It can be a challenging process for people who have their height and weight intact. I cannot imagine the difficulty that is added when one is born different in a world that is still not designed to appreciate difference.

Coleman, like many child stars, grew up with his cute catchphrase forming his identity. Ricky Schroeder, Chachi (a.k.a. Scott Baio), and Jaleel "Urkel" White, have all shared the experience of having their dreams (or their parents' dreams) realized early in life and then struggling to find identity outside of those cute catchphrases. Even the successful returns of the Jason Batemans and Elijah Woods will reveal that they had to overcome greater odds than other aspiring actors because of their typecasts.

Except that, unlike Scott Baio, Jaleel White, Jason Bateman, and Elijah, Gary Coleman didn't realy seem all the interested in acting again. Coleman, instead, began to fade from the spotlight and always seemed to return as some kind of pitied joke. In the early 1990s, it was suing his parents for allegedly stealing his cash. Throughout the 2000s, it was through tabloid fodder of cursing out paparazzi, flipping off mall visitors where he worked as a mall cop, and getting into marital disputes that sometimes turned violent.

Which leads us to wonder, What the heck happened to Gary Coleman? Why was he so angry at the industry that had fed him for so long? Why was he so angry at all?

I didn't know Gary. Perhaps in private he was as happy as a lark. Maybe the angry post-childstar was just giving us a performance, a schtick. But, I don't think it takes Dr. Drew to recognize that this man was just plain sad.

How many people do we know that seem to have everything in their favor? They are born into the right families, the wealthy neighborhoods, they get into the best schools, have the best clothes, and they still find away to throw their lives away. They never seem to understand just what they have. And, of course, the opposite is true as well. Often, the people who are born into poor obscurity seem to tackle overwhelming odds and rise to the top of their dreams.

What is it that makes these two scenarios happen? Perhaps it's not about the opportunities we're born into. Maybe it's something we decide. Maybe God has given us the resources, the mental capacity, and the dreams to realize something big that lives inside of us. And maybe it's deciding that nothing is impossible that we're able to realize that we each shape our own destinies.

I hope Gary's final days were peaceful. I really do. I hope that after taking it all in, he was able to see the blessed life he had led and find gratitude. And I hope that others can take note of the lesson that seems to hide underneath it all. We can learn from Gary Coleman. We can be grateful of the opportunities that we have, that we've had, and for the adventure that awaits all who are ready to pursue it.

Top Things I'll Miss About Portland: And YOU!

2010-04-25T05:10:00.001-07:00

That's right, YOU. You look great today.

Posted via email from BryanThompson

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Top Things I'll Miss About Portland: Dutch Bros. Coffee

2010-04-24T22:09:00.001-07:00

Dutch Bros. Coffee came as a late introduction to me. I had seen bumper stickers everywhere but had never tried it. Although they're actually from Bend, they don't exist in Missouri. And they retain quite a following. And after my first mocha there, I understood why!

Posted via email from BryanThompson

Top Things I'll Miss about Portland: The Skyline

2010-04-21T18:53:00.000-07:00

I've lived in a lot of cities and traveled to a lot more, and I've never seen a skyline that makes my heart light up like that of Portland, Oregon. The bridges, the cranes, and the old public works buildings give Portland a Gotham-like feel that breeds creativity, romance, and a few crazy people. There's no feeling quite like driving through the various tunnels under mountains and seeing the skyline emerge as if from nowhere.

Portland, you're a beautiful city. I hope to see you again someday.

Top Things I'll Miss About Portland: Tri-Met

2010-04-18T18:11:00.000-07:00

Hang around me long enough and you'll soon discover that I'm a travel nut. Not cars, per say, but I love the idea of travel. Planes, boats, and trains. And Portland may possibly boast the greenest, fastest, and cleanest public transportation in the US. Not long after we arrived, we discovered that it was often cheaper and timelier (not stuck looking for a parking space) to travel downtown by taking the bus to the transit center, and then the MAX (our train) to any number of stations downtown.

Living in Portland opened me up to public transportation in a way I hadn't thought of before, and I will likely take it in other cities because of it. I will certainly miss the Tri-Met transportation system of Portland.

Top Things I'll Miss About Portland: Hot Lips Pizza

2010-04-17T11:49:00.001-07:00

And their pear soda. :)

Posted via email from BryanThompson

You And Your Heart - New Single from Jack Johnson

2010-04-07T11:13:00.001-07:00

You And Your Heart - Jack John...

Top Portland Stuff I'll Miss: POWELL'S BOOKS

2010-04-03T16:20:00.001-07:00

I am going to miss a lot about Portland, Oregon! I have had a thrilling year here. Of course, nothing can top the friends I've made here, but there are some things I'll miss about the Rose City itself.

Powell's City of Books was one of the first major attractions I saw upon moving here. Its major downtown location is an entire city block and it is unlike any bookstore I've ever seen! I will definitely miss this place!

Posted via email from BryanThompson

My 2-Year old decided to show me up on the piano.

2010-04-02T21:52:00.001-07:00

Bryan Thompson

Blog http://thompsonland.tk

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from BryanThompson

Back to the Midwest and a New Adventure

2010-04-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

The announcement became official yesterday. As of Sunday, April 18, I will no longer be the Creative Arts Pastor of Portland. My family and I have thoroughly enjoyed our time in the Pacific Northwest and it is painful to leave, but was in the best interest of our family for many reasons. With the arrival of a new baby, it began to make sense that we were so far from any family, and we were suddenly outnumbered by our kids.

In just a few weeks, my wife and kids will fly out to Springfield, Missouri; and a few days later, I will be making the long trek home. Back over the mountains and John Wayne territory, hopefully without snowstorms.

We are blessed with the new friendships we have made over the last year, and I hope to keep in frequent contact via Facebook and Twitter.

And we're beginning a new couple of ventures as well, starting with the official launch of Altezza Creative, a major push of my freelance work, and will be partnering with small businesses, churches, and individuals to create a thriving public image for their organizations - print, web, and video media - and helping companies to push the limits of their public image with strong public relations and creative coaching. You can help us spread the word by joining us on Facebook and Twitter.

Will post more on the subject later, but will be highlighting some of the Portland, Oregon experience I will miss the most in the next coming posts.

So my kids are having fun today. I think we'll be hearing Radio Disney all day.

2010-03-27T13:29:00.001-07:00

Bryan Thompson

Blog http://thompsonland.tk

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from BryanThompson

Learning to speak Swedish for the day.

2010-03-27T11:41:00.001-07:00

Bryan Thompson

Blog http://thompsonland.tk

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from BryanThompson

Beautiful day for a walk home from work!

2010-03-23T17:03:00.001-07:00

Bryan Thompson

Blog http://thompsonland.tk

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from BryanThompson

New Music from Robbie Seay Band

2010-03-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

Listen to the new Robbie Seay Band album below for free. And stream other albums online for free at http://lala.com

Miracle (Deluxe Edition) - Rob...

Five Best BBQ Joints in the US!

2010-03-19T16:36:00.001-07:00

Okay, so I've been on a big BBQ kick for the day. I discovered my old favorite southern chain, Sonny's Real Pit BBQ, was on Twitter and it gave me a hankering.

This got me to thinking. BBQ is one of those rare food choices that has more to do with American culture than the food itself. Ask anyone what the best barbecue is and they will associate it with all sorts of memories.

And usually, the big chains don't count, so the more hole-in-the-wall, the better.

Here are my top 5 best picks for BBQ in the US!

1. Jim Neeley's Interstate BBQ (Memphis, TN)
2. Oklahoma Joe's (Kansas City, MO)
3. Top's BBQ (Olive Branch, MS, Memphis)
4. Glen's BBQ (Panama City, FL)
5. Coach's (Oklahoma City, OK)

And if we're going for chains, you have to love Sonny's (sonnysbbq.com)

Okay, that's mine. What are your top 5?

True Story: What Fiction Teaches Us that We Wish We Didn't Know About Ourselves

2010-03-19T13:44:00.000-07:00

I wrote the following blog as a guest post for David Lermy. Enjoy.

Go to a leadership conference. Right now. Get online and reserve yourself two tickets to a conference. If you’re a church leader and you’ve never been, go to Catalyst Conference and register. Aside from hearing some pretty inspiring talks on an almost-Tony Robbins level, you’ll notice tables and tables of books! Books by the speakers, books by friends of the speakers. You’ll see all sorts of attending people holding armloads of these books. And something else: all of these books will be nonfiction.

This isn’t a shocking revelation. These are church and business leaders. Why should there be fiction books around?

Talk to a lot of leaders, though, and you’ll soon discover that most of them don’t read much fiction. They’ll give you plenty of reasons for it: It’s a waste of time,You don’t learn anything from fiction,and Nobody ever got rich from reading fiction are some of my favorites.

First of all, none of these reasons are true. Health studies have shown that reading an hour of fiction every evening can help people sleep better and accomplish more the following day (Reason 1). Also, I’m willing to bet that when you were developing as a child, you learned more about the world from Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm than you did from the latest Jack Welch business title. Lessons like not judging “ugly ducklings” when they may be “beautiful swans” and staying away from wolves who dress like your grandmother (Reason 2). On a distant third (Reason 3), I think Stephen King, John Grisham, and Danielle Steel read a ton of fiction and all have gotten unthinkably rich from it.

I learned early on that I love leadership. I really do! I live for conferences and I am an absolute TED Talk geek! I am also a writer and I learned that I can’t think of anything to talk about when it comes to dispensing advice. I don’t have an MBA and I’ve never gone to seminary. What do I know about telling leaders what to do?

I also learned that, as far back as I remember, I have been a storyteller and have been fascinated with crafting tales. In my fifth grade class, I can remember being asked to write a short story about a quest. I knew everyone else would be writing these tired stories of princesses and knights and dragons. How King Arthur and archaic, right? So, I decided to be the only kid to write about a space alien who gets stranded on Earth. Okay, so I had been heavily influenced by E.T. at the time, but it was a start. I think I did get better.

If you are a pastor or church leader, you should be warned that my first novel, The Dreaming Highway, may appear to be very critical of church leadership. In the story, a seminary student and youth pastor named Seth is thrown for a loop and loses his faith after discovering his wife’s year-long affair with his pastor. In the same year, Seth also loses his estranged father, a former pastor and closeted alcoholic. Seth wrestles with the idea of God and is only confused more when a recurring dream about an old flame and an open Interstate road leads him to his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama for his dad’s funeral. It is there that Seth decides to follow clues from his subconscious to try and track down his first love, Haley, across the country. Along the way, he is accompanied by his gay brother Silas, a Jewish seminary dropout named Rebekah, and a neurotic priest named Wiley (a former televangelist with the ability to predict the future…sometimes).

I have worked in church leadership for more than ten years. I’ve met and worked for a few good pastors who are gracious to their staff and to the people who look up to them. Unfortunately, I’ve also met and worked for a lot of bad ones. I have seen ministers who, I believe, really did step out into their fields of social justice because they wanted to help people, but somehow became seduced by the notoriety and power that comes with running their own empires. Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? I wish there was a better way to put it.

While The Dreaming Highway, doesn’t really go into the subject of workplace bullying (that is the subject of my next book, due this year), it does look into the pride and greed that causes one of the main characters to fall from national television. In the story, Seth and his friends meet Frank Wiley, a small parish priest who once enjoyed national fame as a millionaire televangelist. Wiley is still pastoring but has 1/1000th of the people he once influenced. Wiley agrees to help Seth pursue his dreams for a large fee.

If you’ve become offended at yet another attack on modern Christianity, keep reading. Seth’s journey to find his long lost love and ultimately to resolve his issue of whether or not there is a God becomes a journey of faith for everyone in the book, though the ways they arrive at truth are not how or what you might expect.

I didn’t realize until after I had written it that many of Seth’s questions of his faith and the leaders who represent it were my own questions that I’d faced after years of being thrown on the street due to church budget cuts and power-hungry bureaucrats who rose to levels of leadership. Perhaps we never recover from things like that. Perhaps we shouldn’t recover from them, if only to remind us not to become that way when our own moments of leadership arise.

In The Dreaming Highway, pride is a force that is seen in a power-hungry minister, but it is also something that surfaces in the ones who had been victimized by that force. Pride can turn survivors into victims, and it can destroy the very thing we wish to build in faith for the Kingdom of God. To put it simply, pride breeds.

All of that said, please – I beg of you – please, do not read The Dreaming Highway as a leadership manual. You will be sadly disappointed. Read it as an entertaining and often-laugh-inducing story that carries some variations of truth behind it, and see what you walk away with. And maybe, we can all learn something from fiction.

Our New Edition (or Why I've Been So Blog-Lazy)

2010-03-13T10:32:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's not the only reason I haven't blogged in a while, but it's the best excuse I could find. :) It's also the reason my wife hasn't blogged in a while.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I proudly introduce to you the newest edition to the Thompson clan: meet Noel Marie Thompson. Yes, that's Noel like Christmas. And I picked this one out.

We're so thrilled to welcome her to the planet.

What Tiger Could Learn From David Letterman

2010-02-20T09:17:00.000-08:00

After three months of avoiding the press and disappearing from the public, Tiger Woods came out on Friday morning and faced the cameras, the fans, and the music. He issued a public apology for his infidelity to his wife Elin and to the parents of children who looked up to him as a role model.

The speech won him points for some people and it made some people hopping mad. Just take a look at just a few of the heated comments when I posted a question to Facebook:

In October 2009, Late Show host David Letterman admitted to having affairs with women who worked for him after a disgruntled extortionist tried to blackmail him. While there was no excuse for his behavior, Letterman dealt with the problem head on by immediately coming clean on his own show. In Letterman's almost instantaneous apology, he publicly apologized to his wife, to the women he had let down, and to his fans. No excuses. No explanations. What he did was "creepy" (his word) and wrong. From there, Letterman went on to make fun of himself in his nightly monologue, joining the other late night hosts in doing so.

This may not have dismissed the issue from the public, but it didn't stop him from leading in the late night ratings either.

According to an October Time Magazine article, Letterman and other celebrities who face scandals may have an advantage over similarly-fated politicians (Bill Clinton, Mark Sanford, John Edwards) in that both Democrats and Republicans are fans of entertainers. When you're a politician - even a popular one - you have half of the population (give or take a few thousand people) against you from the start. So, if you mess up, you have a lot of damage control to do.

Which brings us back to Tiger Woods. Tiger's not a President, a Governor, or even a Mayor. He's a superstar sports celebrity, and one of the best. So, why do so many people still hate him?

Had Tiger handled his public shame differently and gone public in the beginning instead of giving a lousy excuse for a beat-up SUV and some bruises, fans would still have been upset, but by now, he would be making fun of himself on the Late Show or at least telling Oprah about how real sex addiction is and why every man must guard himself. Who knows?

If we've learned anything from David Letterman, it's this: when you know trouble is brewing, get it over with and face the music. While Tiger (and Letterman) certainly don't owe anyone apologies except for their families and those they've directly hurt, admission and humility might let you get back in the game sooner - no pun intended.

The Accidental Science Experiment

2009-11-10T07:20:00.000-08:00

For the last six months, our youngest daughter Hope has woken up each morning between 5 and 5:30. We tried several things: putting her to bed later, waking her up and putting her back to sleep at 4 just to break her routine. Nothing made a difference. She would still awake at 5:30. This being the case, we continued to put her to bed at 7:00 each night. It seems like an early bedtime, even for a two-year-old, but at least she is getting some sleep.

We take relaxation seriously around our house, and we take music seriously as well. Since I was a kid, I have listened to music as I slept. As a kid, I would turn the radio to the local Easy-Listening station and sleep while Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Wynton Marsalis, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane crooned and played their music. I contribute this largely to why jazz music continues to be some of my favorite. I still go to sleep often with iPod earbuds in my ears.

And so it came naturally that we would put soft music on in our kids' rooms since they were babies. Baby Einstein makes several classical music CDs as well as other groups. A while back, my wife picked up a series of soft worship music for babies and toddlers. It's relaxing (and, with a lovely soft voice singing the lyrics, positive), so we would let it play throughout the night.

Last night, as I prepared to get our youngest to bed, I realized this kids worship CD had been playing nonstop for a long time. So I took it out and put in an instrumental classical CD (Baby Einstein).

This morning, for the first time in months, Hope woke me up at 6:45. I was stunned. I had put her to bed at her usual 7:30 bedtime. What had changed? When I walked up to her room to get a diaper, I suddenly heard the sounds of Mozart, and I knew. There were no voices coming from the CD. It was just soft music. I began to think about it. Both of my kids have strong interests in music and love to sing. Could it be that, rather than put her to sleep and relax her, that the voices coming from her soft worship CD had stimulated her mind, forcing the gears to turn inside her head while she slept, so that even her sleep wasn't restful?

These are my scientific questions. To put them to the test, I am going to continue this accidental experiment by playing the classical CD tonight, then the worship CD tomorrow night. Actually, if tonight's experiment works, I'll just leave it at that. Tired of waking up at 5!

Practical Reason to Buy My Book #2

2009-11-04T22:23:00.001-08:00

I thought of another practical reason why you should buy my book.

It makes a BEAUTIFUL doorstop! Think about it: when you see a propped-open door, you never stop to look at the doorstop that's keeping it propped up. You just walk through the doorway.

But if there was a beautiful book, intricately designed and creatively crafted propping the door open, you wouldn't pass by without giving it a thought.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "But wouldn't this be distracting and out of place?"

The answer is yes. But, distractions are not always bad. Sometimes, our lives become so mundane and repetitive that a distraction like the beautiful artwork of this book can be a nice, welcome vacation from the moment.

So, even if you don't read it, buy it and place it in a doorway you find especially boring. The out-of-place doorstop will distract you everytime. Unless you're a hoarder that keeps bags of toilet paper and cat food in your shower. In this case, you're hopeless.

Daily Reasons to Get My Book

2009-11-03T21:33:00.000-08:00

I've been self-marketing my book, The Dreaming Highway, for a little over a month now. Not bad for a miniscule marketing budget (which comes out to close to $0.00). But, marketing is important. I'm learning some things about marketing through all this:

I'm not very good at it.
I am pretty good at watching horribly bad television ads for used cars and local furniture companies and pointing out what they're doing wrong.
The Snuggie is nothing without good advertising!
Stephen King, John Grisham, Danielle Steel, and Nicholas Sparks...all have way better marketing than I do.
The aforementioned authors have a lot of money, too. This isn't necessarily related to marketing in itself, though I think it has helped them to get some of this money.
I like money, and I think good marketing could help me get some, too.

But...I can't afford great marketing. So I thought of some other things.

One reason the publishing industry is hurting right now is because most people are hurting right now. The finances are tight. People are spending on the most practical things. The things they need the most.

Groceries=Practical

Movies=Quick and easy form of entertainment=Not entirely necessary but feasible enough

Books=Require work and discipline to finish=Not practical

This is cool. I understand. I'm into practical things, so I've decided to try a new approach to book marketing:

The PRACTICAL REASONS OF THE DAY WHY YOU NEED MY BOOK Marketing Plan.

Yes, I am going to make a solid effort every evening or early morning to lay out a new reason that you should buy my book...and it's entirely practical. This should also get me blogging more.

Well, maybe not every morning. This does pose some issues for my lying around time. We'll revisit it later.

Here's the first one:

Books on a book shelf automatically make you look smarter! You don't even have to read them! Heck, most of us haven't read 70% of the books ON our book shelves!

But when guests arrive, they're immediately inferior to you because you are well-read.

Also, it's always nice to say, "I know the guy who wrote this." This is a huge ego-boost to the author.

Need more proof? Here's some (and I'm being very transparent here): See these books in my photo? They're all from my book shelf! And the only one I've read is my own! It's that simple.

I'll write a second practical reason tomorrow. Too busy watching fat people lose weight on reality television. That's real entertainment! But, I appear smart.

If you're feeling practical yet, stop by http://dreaminghighway.tk

Want to Win a Copy of My Book? Post Your Weirdest Dream!

2009-10-18T22:30:00.000-07:00

Want to win a free copy of The Dreaming Highway? Here’s how.

In the comment section of this blog post, write down the strangest, most memorable, or most bizarre dream you’ve ever had. Could be now or when you were a kid. If it came true, this could be extra points. My wife has had some pretty bizarre movie-reel dreams, and mine aren’t far from there. So be creative, but be honest! Originality will be the key here. Dreams can be funny, bizarre, even a little creepy. But no sawed-off body parts or X-rated material – these posts will be deleted.

This contest will run from now until 2 weeks from today – HALLOWEEN, October 31! The winner will be announced on Monday, November 2!

Don’t have a strange dream yet? Take Ambien. You will. (Just kidding about the Ambien. Please don’t take drugs without consulting your doctor.)

Help Me Sell 7,000 Books by December 2010!

2009-10-03T15:11:00.000-07:00

I’m now a self-published author and I could use your help!

I have recently completed my first novel, “The Dreaming Highway” (http://dreaminghighway.tk). It’s a story with heart, soul, and may be the funniest novel you’ll read all year. I believe in this story, and I am currently shopping it to publishing houses and literary agents for potential publishing, film or television deals.

This is where you can help me. I have self-published a first edition of “The Dreaming Highway,” and - aside from making it available for you to read and enjoy - am relying on your help to get agents’ and publishers’ attention. By buying the novel for $12.99 and helping me spread the word about it to your friends and family (along with Christmas and birthday gifts), you can help others find out about it.

What’s “The Dreaming Highway” about?

It tells the story of Seth, a seminary student who has lost his faith following the discovery of his wife’s affair with his pastor and the sudden death of his estranged father. Seth would be Agnostic all together if not for a bizarre recurring dream involving his first love from a decade ago - Haley - and an open Interstate road. After months of wrestling with his dream, his career, and his faith, Seth drives to his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama for his father’s funeral and begins a spiritual and physical quest unlike anything he has ever imagined. Along the way, he is accompanied by his gay brother Silas, a Jewish seminary dropout named Rebekah, and a neurotic priest named Wiley (a former televangelist with the ability to predict the future...sometimes). Together, the four journeys collide as Seth follows clues from his subconscious across the country to track down the lover that haunts his dreams.

Please help me sell 7,000 copies of “The Dreaming Highway” by December 31, 2010. As an independent author, this will be a huge step forward in the journey toward mainstream publication of this story.

BUY THE BOOK AT CreateSpace and Amazon.com

LEAVE A REVIEW HERE!

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The Choice to Be Intentional

2009-06-25T23:26:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, died today, June 25, 2009 of an apparent cardiac arrest. The pop star was 50 years old and was only weeks away from attempting a major music comeback with sold-out shows in London.

It's no secret to anyone that Jackson had lived a troubled life for much of his experience. An overbearing showbiz dad who was impossible to please, a childhood lost due to being a busy and constant performer, a personal life spent almost entirely as tabloid fodder - Jackson expressed his unrest and pain very visually and often. His looks changed every few years, he was continually exploited for crimes he may or may not have committed. He battled overwhelming debt. And his life was cut tragically short.

Backing up a bit, though; there was a time in his performing career that Jackson had made a solidly good decision. After releasing a debut album (1979's "Off the Wall") that had done very well, Jackson decidedly stepped out of his Jackson 5 box and released the record that would revolutionize the music industry the way The Beatles had done 20 years earlier: "Thriller." Musicians from jazz, gospel, rock, country, and soul were inspired to create music differently than they had before, and the standards of making a hit record went up. Way up.

Michael was in his 20s when "Thriller" was released. I wonder if he would have ever guessed that his life would end in such a tragic way with so much life left to live.

However odd his life may have been, Michael Jackson was a human being like the rest of us. Like the rest of us, he didn't have a magic computer that would tell him what his future would become? He was bound by choices the way you and I are. It was the choice to be intentional or the choice to be a self-serving celebrity. Often, his choices were visibly misguided and self-indulgent. Sometimes, they may have been extremely dangerous (no pun intended). But, like it or not, Michael was bound by his decisions. Some of these decisions made him a breakthrough success. Some of them were career-killers and late-night joke material.

We are bound by our choices, too. In some strange way, it's comforting to know that even with all the money, fame, and legend of someone like Michael Jackson, he was a slave to time, choices, and personal responsibility just as we are. There isn't a magic computer for us either.

Life is happening now, and the choices we make now will help to determine how our futures are played out. It would be foolish to waste it when we could be giving all that we have to each moment.

In 1983, Michael Jackson made a decision to give all of his authenticity, his creativity, and his soul to a musical masterpiece that made history. He often reflected on that year and project as one of his most defining moments. In 1983, Michael Jackson was as intentional as he had ever been - perhaps before or since. Since "Thriller," Jackson has often been accused of being impulsive, egocentric, and lazy (often waiting 5 years or more between albums and touring). What happened to that intentionality? What happened to that authenticity? What happened to the soul that had been so giving in those early years?

We don't know the date of our deaths. We can't say whether we'll live to see 50 or 105, but we have right now. I challenge you to search your soul and your mind. Are you giving everything to this moment? I would highly encourage you to do so. It seems to me that the people who find their breakthroughs to success, love, and life do so by making the decision to be intentional.

What are you giving your intention to?

Thoughts From the Quarter-Life: Mortality

2009-06-07T21:33:00.000-07:00

My daughter Grace has been asking me to tell her stories from when I was a kid. So, lately, I've been reminiscing about childhood colds, favorite TV shows, and "bad choices" I made.

I remember asking my dad to tell these kinds of stories. Every night, I was fascinated to discover that he had been sick, watched Saturday morning toons, and made his own decisions to not clean his room or push his sister around.

To my surprise, as I tell my own stories, I remember them pretty easily. Most of them don't seem like all that long ago. I can remember falling out of a tree at eight years old and breaking my wrist two weeks before vacationing to the beach (where I had to wear a plastic garbage bag over my cast as I walked through the shallow waves watching the surfers, swimmers, and bodyboarders immersing themselves in the water). I remember sitting around the living room as a family to watch "ALF" on Monday nights before bed and "The Cosby Show" on Thursdays. I remember meeting my first "best friend" before Kindergarten and playing outside in his back yard in the afternoons. I remember painting a big mess on a canvas in preschool.

I'll be thirty this year, and I'm nearing the same age my father was when I began asking to hear his stories. His stories of growing up in the 1950s seemed as though they had been ages ago. Crewcuts, black-and-white televisions, and Davy Crocket were all symbols of a different age. Now that I'm telling my own stories, I realize that his stories weren't ages ago when he told them. The spike haircuts, wooden TV consoles, and He-Man action figures of childhood in the 1980s probably seem ancient in the mind of my four-year-old.

I've been thinking a lot about these two sets of stories lately. In 2001, John Mayer coined the phrase "quarter-life crisis," but he was really just putting into words what most thirty-year-olds are thinking. In fact, the term "quarter-life" is pushing it quite a bit.

Not to sound like a sappy record, but it is rapidly occurring to me that a third of my life is already over (and that's if I make it all the way through without getting hit by a bus or something).

It's not a heartbreaking thought or something that wakes me up in the middle of the night in cold sweats. Just a small voice creeping in my head the way I've heard it does. I'm excited to see what my kids will become passionate about, what kinds of friends they'll make, and what they'll do with their lives. I'm thrilled to be a part of it, but I still stand over their beds as they sleep at night and wonder how they can take up such tall lengths on their mattresses when they slept on my chest and fit inside my two hands just a few years ago.

When my oldest was born, I used to joke about how much college tuition would cost in eighteen years. Now that the number has turned to fourteen years, I realize that these seconds and moments won't pause or slow down. Well, that and I have got to save more money than I have now.

Now, don't go mistaking this for a sad post about the fleeting moments of life. But, think about this: what are you doing to make the most of your life? Are you doing what you love? And if not, why not? What's holding you back?

Book Review: Outliers - The Story of Success

2009-05-09T17:22:00.000-07:00

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars

Malcolm Gladwell may well be one of the most intriguing authors/columnists of the 21st Century. His two previous books, "The Tipping Point" (2000) and "Blink" (2005 - which I'm currently reading) are two of the leading New York Times Bestsellers of the last ten years, and his latest, "Outliers: The Story of Success" joins its predecessors on that bestseller list.

"Outliers" begins in a small village in Italy, where the inhabitants of this small town overwhelmingly seem to live long lives. In fact, one of the leading causes of death, heart disease, is almost entirely uncommon there. It's not because people make healthier decisions: many are overweight, smoke like chimneys, and drink to their hearts' content; yet these people are well, happy, and fully alive.

The above story is an example of an outlier. Outliers are those chosen few individuals who seem to cross over the ordinary/extraordinary threshold and rise to success. We would certainly consider outliers of our time and culture to be the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elvis Presley, or The Beatles. These success stories skyrocketed - seemingly from nowhere - to the top of their games. We think of these groups as lucky. They discovered a secret that made them famous or rich. If we were to break down their stories, however (and Gladwell does with two of these), we would find that they weren't more talented than their colleagues, they weren't smarter than anyone else, and they certainly didn't discover a secret the rest of the world missed. The fact was, these people were all influenced and surrounded by certain people, places, and events that shaped them in the beginnings of their futures. It also helped that these individuals happened to begin honing their crafts at a certain time in history where their kinds of endeavors were virtually unknown.

In "Outliers," Gladwell explores the stories behind the Stories. In one book, we move from a remote long-living village in Italy to a lucky private high school that had been donated a mainframe computer in late 1960's Seattle to an exhausted long-running struggling band in 1950's Liverpool, England to the rise of an unlikely successful group of Jewish immigrants in 1930's New York City to the vast rice patties of China. There are more intriguing stories contained between these and Gladwell is a brilliant wordsmith that paints these stories of success.

You may rise to the top of your game and become one of the most successful people in your field, but you won't get there alone. Gladwell suggests that the friends, family, events and circumstances in your life and history (including the history that predates you) will play a role in that success.

The fact is, even if you disagree with Gladwell's conclusions, you can't help but to be inspired by the stories of his research. And if you're like me, if it's your first read, you'll read the other two books by this award-winning New Yorker columnist. Read "outliers" and consider the history, people, and places that are shaping your own success story.

View all my reviews.

IKEA and the Generational-Cultural Shift

2009-04-27T17:45:00.000-07:00

This morning, I loaded up my family and we drove to Multnomah Falls. If you've never been there, this part of Oregon is truly spectacular and is one of those places where few can deny the artistic strokes of genius of the Great Artist. Being that our two small kids are under the age of 4 and can take in this divine work of God's art for about ten minutes before they begin complaining about no plastic slides, we didn't last long at the state park.

On the way back to our house, at my wife's insistence, we made a pit stop at IKEA, the Swedish
modern furniture superstore. If you've never been to IKEA, this is not part of God's direct handiwork but might have been mistaken for such if I didn't have to put it together myself. The superstore entrance is lined with a ginormous play area for the kiddos (which means that 'mommy will be a while.') and an escalator leading to a large showroom of every kind of modern furniture you can imagine. All kinds of sexy and uncomfortable tables, chairs, and cabinets await forming blocks of would-be rooms of all-IKEA products. It's really quite a wonder.

Back up a bit, though. This post is not about IKEA. Just happened to be the location.

As I stood in line to drop my four-year-old off in the play area, I noticed a Latino family in front of me waiting to do the same with their two daughters. They were a cute family with adorable children. It was cute enough to capture my attention. I couldn't understand much as the mom and dad spoke only Spanish to each other and to the kids. I would guess (and may be wrong, but for the sake of this post, let's assume I'm not) that they either didn't know English or spoke very little of it. I was caught a little off-guard, however, when the girls responded to these statements to each other with flawless articulate English (no accents).

It occurred to me that I was witnessing something significant for this family. Here were two adults who were either immigrants themselves or were likely the children of immigrants who were still holding onto their language and their culture. Then there were the children, who had obviously been to this store before. They knew the process and walked the line they had probably been in before. While I'm fairly certain they were familiar with the language of their ancestors, they spoke only English in the store and this was an unbroken, flawless, and highly articulate dialect.

Here, right in front of me in an IKEA children's line, was a generational-cultural shift. To some extent, all of us experience this, regardless of whether we're learning a new language or not. In my own family, I grew up in relatively small towns. We rarely drove to large cities and when we did, my mother was nervous and my father required all passengers (a.k.a - my brother and me) to keep quiet so he could concentrate on the roads. To this day, my father will make random "better you live in this crazy large town than me" comments and jokes when he comes to visit. As my education and career choices led me to larger towns upon growing up, I adapted to an entirely different kind of culture. It wasn't that I didn't hold onto roots and customs I grew up with. I simply added onto them.

My wife and I have brought out certain traditions and customs for holidays and our ways of life, but have also differed in many ways from the customs we were brought up with.

I suppose the event in IKEA simply reminded me of how we are consistently evolving as human beings. Our lives are continually growing and expanding to make room for new experiences and stories.

I wonder what kinds of different experiences these two girls at IKEA will have because of simply adapting to a new language and culture a little more than their parents.

As for IKEA,...well, it hasn't followed this trend, is still written entirely in Swedish, and I will be assembling a piece of furniture with nothing but a stick-figure drawing and a Swedish vocabulary I don't know.

Book Review: The Shack

2009-04-21T23:25:00.000-07:00

Originally posted at Goodreads.com

The Shack by William P. Young

My review

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

I began reading this book after Christmas and couldn't get past the first four chapters for a long time. The Shack begins with Mack, a simple salesman who has recently lost his young daughter to a brutal murderer in the Oregon wilderness (This is the first four chapters, by the way). After trying to come to grips with this nightmare and keeping his wife and other kids together, Mack is nearly numb when he receives a strange letter addressed to him by simply "Poppa" inviting him to the old abandoned shack where his daughter's murder took place. Mack eventually reasons that this invitation must be a message from God, so when his wife and remaining kids take a trip for a weekend, Mack takes the invitation and drives back to the scene of the crime. What he gets is unlike anything he expects. Throughout the weekend, Mack has a divine encounter with God and learns some tough lessons about relationships, expectations, spirituality, and forgiveness.

After putting the book down following the fourth chapter, I picked it back up in audiobook form as I moved from Springfield, MO to Portland, OR.

The story of The Shack's ascendence to the top of the New York Times Bestseller list is almost as fascinating as the novel itself. A never-before-published author (William P. Young) has a tough time getting agents and publishing houses to take his mainstream novel with deep spiritual themes seriously. Eventually, he decides to publish the book himself under the guidance of a group of friends. In the short time since its release, The Shack has become hailed as one of the best Christian fiction books of all-time, outselling the evangelical Left Behind series.

What Young lacks in extensive grammatical training (and he uses adverbs liberally, something my college Creative Writing professor would have cringed at), he makes up for with a highly entertaining story with characters who are emotional and authentic. It doesn't take long to find yourself lost in a painful story of loss and heartache. With the heartbreaking true stories of child murders that have haunted the news media in the last year, it hits a little close to home.

While The Shack is not entirely theologically orthodox according to many Christian standards (God first appears to Mack as an elderly African American woman named - of all things - Poppa), it has done phenomenally well among the evangelical market. The story has helped many evangelicals to stop relying on their preconceived expectations and notions of what they imagine God to be - which is what God (Poppa) is doing with Mack in the early part of the novel by appearing as an African-American woman. While this sub-storyline doesn't particularly score well with fundamentalists (though the biblical author of Isaiah also refers to the feminine nature of God), many readers can agree that God is Spirit, and can get the core fundamentals of the story.

The Shack deals powerfully with issues of loss and abandonment, relationships between friends, husbands, wives, and children, and how much of the world (including the church) has missed the point of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. The story also is a powerful tale of forgiveness, even when it seems impossible.

If you haven't read this provocative book, I recommend you do so. You may not always like where Young is going, but you certainly won't find it boring.

View all my reviews.

Two Months, A New Job, and Half-Way Across the USA Later

2009-04-19T22:15:00.000-07:00

I realized tonight that it's been almost two months since I've updated anything on this blog. My wife Kristin has been consistently faithful on updating her blog and, quite frankly, it's made me feel a little guilty.

This wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that a lot has happened over the last two months. In the last two months, I have said goodbye to children's ministry, loaded up my family, and driven a really big truck with all of our earthly belongings from Springfield, MO to Portland, OR. That's right, baby, I'm a West Coaster now.

And so far, I love it. My family is happy. My new job is absolutely awesome! I am now Creative Arts Pastor at Life Church. (Not to be confused with Craig Groeschel's LifeChurch.tv.). I am now leading worship and

developing creative arts for the church. Still running Altezza Creative as well, though I am having to push this to part-time status.

I loaded up the Penske truck on Sunday, March 22, and began the long solo trek to Portland while my wife and kids waited until April 1 to fly there (a 3 day drive is just too much for toddlers). I arrived Thursday, March 26. Doesn't make sense? That's okay, a lot happened in those five days.

On Day 1, I left and had driven almost to the Wyoming state line when I got a message from my cousin that a horrible blizzard was headed to Cheyenne (my stopping place for the night). She happened to live just 3 hours out of the way in Colorado Springs, so I soon found myself on a 3-hour detour through the dark Colorado wilderness. I arrived at 3 AM and parked my rig at a wonderfully nice Korean church down the street from her house.

It was three days before I left Colorado Springs. As I drove northwestward, I found myself dodging smaller snowstorms and driving through clouds

(yes, that's 'clouds!'), looking at some of the most beautiful work of God's creation. I stopped for the night in Boise, ID at a very questionable motel. The next morning, my dog (and traveling companion, Angel) and I left at 7 AM and drove the rest of the way to Portland, where we arrived at 4:00 PM.

We have since hit the ground running and are enjoying Portland and all of the awesome stuff it has to offer: mainly Starbucks on every corner (though we are find

ing some pretty good coffee competition with Peet's Coffees and Teas). Also, if you're ever up this way, you must check out Powell's City of Books - the greatest bookstore on the planet that happens to take up an entire downtown block!

Speaking of books, I happened to listen to a couple of great ones on audiobook on the way up. First off, I finished up The Shack by William P. Young. Great read (listen) and is a powerful story about forgiveness, relationships, and opening your heart. That helped fill the fiction void, which left room for 2 outstanding books by Malcolm Gladwell: The Tipping Point and Outliers. I'll be posting some reviews of these books on GoodReads.com and will be reposting them here.

It's great to be here and it feels good to be blogging again. Thanks for all the patience. I'll have more to post in the next couple of days.

I Should Blog More

2009-02-25T05:44:00.000-08:00

Really, I should. I see all of these other bloggers and it just puts me to shame. Especially my wife (http://caffeinatedmom.tk). She's the queen of blogging and puts my meager posts to shame. I really am feeling a little guilty.

Maybe I will update soon. Inspiration, inspiration..

Aren't These Really the Same Show?

2009-02-08T20:14:00.000-08:00

Okay, so my wife loves for us to come home on Sunday nights and watch the family drama unfold on ABC's "Brothers and Sisters." Talk about dysfunctional families! I don't think I've ever seen a family so dysfunctional!

Or have I?

After I stopped to think about it, I realized that I've seen this family before. They were a far more hysterical version of themselves on the now defunct FOX comedy, "Arrested Development."

Think about it: The only real difference is that instead of the father/corrupt-business-owner being dead in AD, he is in prison. Both families have self-absorbed women who argue nonstop, both families have one sensible guy who is trying to save the family business, there IS a corrupt family business in both, both families have a war-scarred ex-soldier (and in Arrested Development, the ex-soldier actually loses his hand to a seal), both have children who are enduring dysfunctional families, and both have wild-card brothers who may flip out at any time for any reason (one's a magician and one's a lawyer), both have at least one gay character (only in Brothers and Sisters, they've already realized it).

Here's my theory: I think Ron Howard was so disappointed with the demise of his cult-favorite sitcom that he struck a deal with ABC (a secret deal since Howard isn't mentioned in any of the creative or writing credits). Howard really wanted to continue telling this tragic story of a rich family gone haywire. Since he couldn't tell the story in comedic form any longer, he decided to go with a more dramatic emphasis. Same story, different characters.

Even if the Walker family (Brothers & Sisters) can't work out their differences, I do hope they don't do business with Iraqi dictators.

VLOG Episode 03

2009-01-29T18:48:00.001-08:00

Thompsonland VLOG - Episode 03 from Bryan Thompson on Vimeo.

The Transparency of Heathens and Pastors

2009-01-29T10:47:00.000-08:00

I watched on Wednesday as former televangelist Ted Haggard sat across from Oprah Winfrey and came clean about his life, his sexuality, his marriage, and his upcoming documentary, The Trials of Ted Haggard, which airs tonight on HBO.

I have to admit, I've only listened to a couple of Haggard's sermons during his time as Senior Pastor at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, and I thought Haggard appeared much more transparent (an embarrassing scandal destroying your career will do that to you), more down-to-earth, and more pastoral in his humble spot on Oprah than in the sermons I heard from his heyday.

Some people will roll their eyes at Haggard and call his mega broadcast on the most powerful talk show in the world and film as a desperate attempt to climb back to the communication world at the expense of the church that disowned him in 2006. Some people will not like the content of his conversation with Oprah.

I don't want to get into the content of the show itself or of the 2006 incident. Here's something to consider: Would Haggard's life over the last 3 years have been different had he been more transparent from the beginning? If he had sat down with trusted members of his board or another leader or coach and said, "Look, I'm a married guy who really loves my wife and kids, but I feel drawn toward men? What can I do to keep my marriage in tact and my career from falling out from under me?" would that have helped his situation? It didn't help that drugs were involved, and in a church environment that doesn't support gay rights, he would have probably been asked to step down anyway. Still, a large part of the case against Ted Haggard was that he repeatedly lied about the allegations.

Maybe the transparency wouldn't have helped...at least from the church's side.

Many mid-to-large sized churches have adopted a business/CEO model of leadership and growth. Led by megachurch superstars like Rick Warren and Bill Hybels, these churches tend to operate on a staff/volunteer/committee platform that looks more like a MacWorld conference than St. Paul's Cathedral (for that matter, even the Vatican is looking like Wall Street these days!). Many modern suburban churches have followed this example. They read the right books (including those by Dr. Warren and Dr. Hybels, among others), attend the right conferences, and showcase the right gadgets and podcasts. I actually think most of these ideas are well-enough in themselves. I love podcasts, love going to conferences, and have certainly been inspired by the writings of Warren, Hybels, John Maxwell, and Andy Stanley.

In the wake of all of these modern conveniences, one message that has sunk into the heads of many pastors of this model is that leadership requires self-confidence and that transparency is dangerous and may cause church members and seekers to look elsewhere for answers to their questions. As I've heard more than one CEO-style pastor say, "Fake it 'til you make it."

I agree that too much transparency and second-guessing can be dangerous. After all, if a leader doesn't know where he/she is going, how can he/she expect others to follow? Still, I wonder if we've pushed this macho leader image too far? Have we become such experts in our fields of spirituality that we're actually pushing people away rather than drawing them in?

In early 2005, I was let go from a church that operated under this CEO model. While the layoff was largely due to a tragic church-split that I happened to walk into unknowingly (and only lasted six weeks - and which was followed by the departure of every other staff pastor and the senior pastor), one thing was used by a small group of angry parishioners who were out to run the church and take it back to the Dark Ages: a blog. At the time, my 7-month-pregnant wife was getting close to the birth of our first child, and in my oblivion toward the church's problems within itself, I blogged one night that I was nervous about being a father and didn't know how I was going to get a baby to adulthood in one piece. Many young parents can relate, I'm sure. This church found the blog and used it to showcase my inability to lead due to showing weakness. In other words, why should a parent trust his/her teenager to a man who shows weakness?

I have since survived my short time in this church, and am grateful for the experience as it later allowed me to experience some great ideas and dream some new dreams.

My point is, maybe the Corporate CEO hasn't done as much favors for the local church.

In 2006, I attended the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. At the conference, one of the keynote speakers, Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, warned the church about this type of model. "Churches shouldn't want to run themselves like a business for two reasons," Collins said. "First, most businesses aren't very good....Second, in churches, your export is completely different. In business, that export is money, but in churches, that export is people."

People. Relationships. How do relationships grow? By being honest and transparent with each other. Many churches today are learning to operate under an entirely different approach. They're building house-churches: churches that are centered around relationships.

Perhaps transparency couldn't have saved Ted Haggard in 2006, but judging by the Twitter posts and blogs out last night and this morning, his transparency and admission of uncertainty of all answers helped much of America to begin a new respect. Whether his HBO documentary will allow that respect to grow remains to be seen, but the new Haggard did seem happier. And isn't that really the point?

How I Became a Spammer :(

2009-01-27T12:30:00.001-08:00

I'll begin with a shout-out: to everyone who got an invitation from me to join Friendster today, I apologize. Some people immediately placed me in their Spam folder.

Did I send it out? Yes, but I didn't mean to.

See, I got a message similar to the one you got today. I didn't know the person, but I clicked onto the link out of curiosity. For those of you who don't know what Friendster is, it's basically another social networking site in a long line of social networking sites. A little bit like MySpace and TagWorld, but really just more of the same stuff.

When I clicked on the link, I entered my email address, and BAM - suddenly I get an email telling me I've invited over 215 of my email contacts to join Friendster!

Oh no! I hate inviting people to do this kind of thing. Huge mistake, and I'm a little embarrassed. So, if you were spammed by me, forgive me.

There, I feel better. Let's move on with life, people.

RIP, John Updike (1932-2009)

2009-01-27T11:40:00.000-08:00

According to the Associated Press, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist John Updike was found dead Tuesday at the age of 76.

Updike was perhaps one of the most prolific literary writers of the twentieth century. His novels include Rabbit and Rabbit Redux.

Here is a shout-out to you, Mr. Updike. Rest in peace, sir.

To read the Associated Press story, click here.

Write Your Own Obama Inauguration Speech

2009-01-17T07:25:00.000-08:00

Remember MadLibs? Remember sitting around laughing at your friends' or your own ridiculous words in otherwise perfectly normal essays or stories? Well, thanks to the Inauguration Speech Generator from Atom.com, you can help write an inauguration speech for Obama. In the spirit of MadLibs fun, you can see the limitless possibilities of the English language.

Here's mine:

Barack Obama's Inauguration Speech

My fellow Americans, today is a grateful day. You have shown the world that "hope" is not just another word for "shoe", and that "change" is not only something we can believe in again, but something we can actually jog.

Today we celebrate, but let there be no mistake – America faces righteous and boring challenges like never before. Our economy is painful. Americans can barely afford their mortgages, let alone have enough money left over for magazines. Our healthcare system is green. If your leg is sick and you don't have insurance, you might as well call a custodian. And America's image overseas is tarnished like a rock tree. But running together we can right this ship, and set a course for Montana.

Finally, I must thank my bright family, my beautiful campaign volunteers, but most of all, I want to thank Clint Eastwood for making this historic occasion possible. Of course, I must also thank you, President Bush, for years of attacking the American people. Without your freezing efforts, none of this would have been possible.

So, what did you come up with? Copy and paste your inauguration speech in the comments section.

Why Your Resolution Will Fail in 2009

2009-01-01T20:57:00.000-08:00

Now that I have your attention...

I was originally going to title this, "2,009 Reasons Your Resolution Will Fail in 2009," but decided on the current title for 2 reasons: (1.) It's a major downer and would generate 0 reads, and (2.) I really didn't want to try and think up 2,009 reasons your resolutions will fail in 2009.

Moving on. Most stats and cultural studies indicate that the majority of New Year's resolutions are broken within 30 days. I find this astounding, since most of the people I know who make resolutions for New Year's break theirs within the first two days. I myself have perhaps gone a week or more. That being said, I have found the strength to lose weight, to accomplish things, and such, but this rarely happened as a result of starting a new calendar.

Whoever began marketing the idea that the first day of the year was a great time to guilt yourself into giving up habits or picking up better ones needed to have his head examined.

I believe New Year Resolutions set people who subscribe to them up for failure in almost every way. For one thing, there are many things that cause success: strong will, inspiration, education. Guilt is not one of those things. Guilt doesn't make dreams come true; it doesn't lead to an inspired life; it doesn't lead to motivation. In most cases, guilt leads to disappointment, a life driven by other people's demands, and...well, more guilt.

Think about the words we use to describe our "resolutions." Think about the following common resolutions of most people:

A. "I resolve to lose weight."

B. "I resolve to stop eating this junk food!"

C. "I resolve to quit smoking!"

D. "I resolve to be a better listener!"

The list goes on. While none of these are bad resolutions in themselves, they play upon the resolver's subconscious in even the way they are worded. If you don't think our subconscious thoughts have a lot to do with the results we achieve in life, you'd best think again.

By saying that we resolve to "stop eating junk food," we are putting an emphasis on the negative word, stop. In other words, it means we have to give up something we like. The problem with this is that this creates a negative emotion in the resolver's mind, thus creating a negative orientation toward his/her resolution.

Suppose, however, that we used the word "goal" in the place of "resolution." And suppose that, rather than putting an emphasis on the things we'll be giving up, we put an emphasis on something that we've long dreamed of but never really done, an emphasis on a goal that brings out a positive emotional response.

Rather than give up the things we're not really crazy to give up, we set goals to:

A. Feel good about myself by having more energy.

B. Have more energy by jogging around my block every day. This will give me a chance to unwind at the end of the day and to get my thoughts together for my goals.

C. Eat foods that make me feel great! The fruits and vegetables that make me feel good and have lots of energy.

D. Travel to a new location sometime each week, even if it's just around the block.

These "goals" are far more exciting than the "guilt trips" of having to give up something. By simply changing the way we think about something, we change our likelihood for success.

This year, don't set resolutions for what you'd like to stop doing. Instead, set goals for what you'd like to start doing, and then get to work on it. Let me know how it turns out!

Yes, I Do Update my Facebook Status Too Much: A Twitter Shout-Out

2008-12-30T13:07:00.001-08:00

[NOTE to Twitter users: If you use Twitter, this blog will seem pointless. It's only for those not accustomed to the joy of Tweets.]

So I've been told a lot lately something along the lines of, "Hey, man, I always know what's going on with Bryan! He's updates his Facebook religiously!"

"Hey Bryan, thanks for letting us know on Facebook every time you go to the bathroom."

or my personal favorite:

"Man, do you just keep your finger on the Facebook update button every minute of the day?"

Here's my official response. First off, I resent the comment that I update Facebook while I'm going to the bathroom. I've never done this and won't start anytime soon. (Can I get a "Hallelujah?")

Second, the truth is that I maybe log onto Facebook once a day, maybe twice - depending on how early I'm up in the morning.

So, what about all those status updates? you ask. Well, here's my secret to making my life an open book, posting every boring detail of my day-to-day activities:

If you look at my Facebook profile (and don't worry if you're not my friend, just send me a request), right beside each status update in small letters are the words, "via Twitter."

Twitter is a micro-blog. By "following" someone on Twitter, you are let into a special "inner circle" of knowing what that person is doing, what conferences he/she is attending, and who they're talking to - you'll see this by a "@" directly in front of someone's name, such as @thompsonland (me).

It might sound like just another boring social network hub vying for attention on the MySpace/Facebook scene, but it's not. Twitter is simply an easy way of sending out short messages to all of your "followers." You can do this by the web, by a number of external apps that stay on your desktop all day long (like TweetDeck or Twitterific), or by simply texting them on your mobile device. It's a great way to feel like you're documenting your life.

Also, Twitter is a great "alibi service." Much like collecting receipts to show where you've been at certain times, Twitter keeps a time and date of every "tweet" (update) you make, so if you're ever in trouble, you can say, "No, look, I was going to the bathroom at 5:17 PM yesterday! Just check my Twitter!"

Facebook, like it does with most anything, utilizes this in a very cool way for us Twitter nerds. You can "subscribe" to a Twitter app for Facebook, which uses your Twitter username and password, and allows Twitter to automatically update your Facebook status everytime you "tweet" (that word really bugs me, but it's kind of funny).

You can always tell a Facebook update from an actual "Twitter" Facebook update. A traditional Facebook user will always refer to himself in third-person (ex. "Bryan Thompson is trying to make himself sound less like a Facebook nerd and is making himself look like...a nerd."). This is somewhat off-putting and a little insane. A "Twitter" Facebook user will just come out and say it as himself (ex. "I am really making a fool out of myself by trying to make myself sound like less of a Facebook nerd with no life. Truth is, I'm just proving I have no life.")

Chances are, if you are on Facebook, you've probably all but abandoned your MySpace page. MySpace is old news. It's slow and has an ugly interface that got a slight face-lift only AFTER Facebook showed it up by being way simpler, faster, and edgier. Facebook then shot themselves in the foot by allowing everyone besides college students to join, thus making it the NEW MySpace. Now, mind you, I still love Facebook. I even love the "new" Facebook that everyone else complains and starts groups about. I like commenting on other people's statuses right underneath. It helps to know I'm not the only one "updating" all the time.

For those of you not yet on Twitter, I'm satisfied knowing I've maybe half-way converted about 5% of you. To the rest of you, I am now far dorkier and nerdier than you ever imagined right about now. It's cool. You'll call me when your laptop breaks down and you need free "nerd" advice on how to fix it.

Airports: The Ultimate "Community" Metaphor

2008-12-22T19:49:00.000-08:00

I love to travel! In fact, since I was a kid, I've loved going to new places. To this day, I enjoy car rides. I've always loved flying. Sailboats, cruise ships, helicopters, and trains have long fascinated me. I love the idea of going somewhere else. Maybe it's a sort of unsettledness or restlessness I've always seemed to have, and maybe it's just the idea of opening my mind to something new.

I've especially always been fascinated with airports. I love airports! I've always loved them! I remember being 16 years old applying for my first job. You can guess where I turned in my share of applications. The airport. I didn't care if it was loading other people's luggage, flagging down incoming planes, or working air traffic control (This was, of course, before I saw Pushing Tin and realized that this is actually a very difficult line of work to get into.). I just wanted to work in an airport. I wanted to be a part of the continual feeling of change as people traveled from one moment of their lives to the next. (Wings was my favorite sitcom for years and will always hold a special place in my heart.) The thought of an environment filled with busy business people on their cell phones and briefcases, visitors who speak anything but English, and people connecting from one flight to the next always intrigued me.

I traveled this week with my family. My wife, two kids, and I traveled from Springfield, MO to my hometown of Panama City, FL. Traveling with small kids is stressful, and is not exactly my idea of a great time when they get tired, but we made it fun. I made sure my 3-year-old got her "wings," and we had a good time taking off the ground.

Today as we traveled back home, I thought about my fascination with airports. I wondered what exactly it was that made them so intriguing to me, and while I think there are many subconscious elements, there is one in particular that seems to connect with a deep spiritual need: community.

If you think about it, airports are really the ultimate metaphors for "community." An airport is a first glimpse of a great big wide world. When traveling to a foreign country, the airport is the first building to welcome you to a new land (at times, this "welcome" is less warm and fuzzy than others, such as when angry men in uniforms are waiting for you to arrive).

Airports are filled with hundreds or even thousands of people all coming from somewhere else. Whether returning or visiting for the first time, each traveler comes from one location or another. Each is traveling to one destination or another. Every passerby has a different story. On my trip to Panama City last week, two Orthodox Jews were greeted at the Panama City gate - robes and all - by two farmers in overalls and ball caps. I would have loved to find out how their stories were connected to each other. On the flight home today, an elderly European woman made my 11-month-old laugh by making funny faces to her. I wonder what her own grandchildren think of her lighthearted smiles and funny faces. Also, a hyperactive kid sitting next to my wife told us of preparing to spend the holidays with his dad who lives thirteen hours away.

The next time you're in an airport, stop your hurry for a moment (unless, of course, you are running late for your connector flight - in that case, you might want to hurry up), and take a look at the diverse group of travelers around you. Allow your mind to absorb how big our world truly is. Think of the stories waiting to be told. Think of the people who come from such different walks of life. This is the ultimate metaphor for community. This is a glimpse of the diverse world given to us by our Creator.

And while you're at it, maybe you should test your patience by traveling with a toddler and a fussy infant.

'Blago' Connection?

2008-12-13T04:33:00.001-08:00

Is it just me?

Does anyone else see it?

If nothing else, you'd think everyone would be waiting for Sean Astin to join the ranks of SNL to parody the corrupt Illinois Governor.

C'mon, if Fred Armisen can pull off Barack Obama (you should totally watch that video, by the way), Sean Astin can for sure pull off the gubernatorial dirtbag.

Oh well, maybe that's not exactly newsworthy.

VLOG Special Edition // ORIGINS

2008-12-11T17:44:00.000-08:00

Coming in January: HELP!

2008-12-11T10:26:00.001-08:00

The Minutemen of Overland Park, Kansas, my new yet-to-be-written novel, will be an ongoing experiment for me beginning in January 2009.

I know it's kind of against the rules of writing - always write the first draft with the door closed, as Stephen King would say. In 2009, however, I think the rules of all media are changing.

In a world where anyone can have their video viewed by millions of people thanks to YouTube and Vimeo, and where more musicians can be heard by vast audiences due to MySpace Music and PureVolume, excellence is now being combined with transparency.

The challenge in today's media is to produce content that is excellent in quality, and yet something that is authentic and real. The days of professionalism without heart are over.

In this new moral declaration, I have decided to be as transparent as I can possibly be. I will be writing my first draft of my new novel to be seen by everyone. The work will be legally protected by a Creative Commons license of copyright, and this will help me in making the story flow.

Here's the deal: I can't do this without feedback from you. So, here's my question for you: Can you help me? You can be a part of this process by subscribing to the Minutemen blog, Minutemen.tk via RSS or by Email.

If you are interested in reading this new novel as I go and helping with this process by feedback, please comment below and let me know. I want to have a decent readership to proofread and provide constructive criticism along the way before I completely commit to starting it. If you're interested, let me know and work will begin in January 2009.

Oh, you want to know the premise! Here goes:

Mikey Burns is as predictable as they come. A banker who jumps at his own shadow, he is unquestionably committed to his career, his marriage, and his own schedule (down to the last second). When his new boss and new bank president - an egomaniac who is downsizing left and right - threatens to fire him, Mikey snaps and begins - along with a small group of other professionals - a string of wild and unusual bank robberies in the Kansas City area.

An Interview with Jay Leno

2008-12-10T09:23:00.000-08:00

Recently, Brian Williams interviewed Jay Leno on the NBC Nightly News about his stepping down from The Tonight Show, the passing of the baton to Conan O'brien, and about his new "experiment" in bringing his talk/variety show format to prime time five nights per week.

It will be interesting to see how NBC pulls it off. Leno has been leading the late night comics in the ratings since 1995, when "Tonight" began to pull ahead of Letterman. It has never stepped down in ratings. Leno has a loyal following and talk/variety shows are five times cheaper to produce than prime time dramas such as "ER," "CSI," or "Grey's Anatomy."

In the current economy, NBC opted to cut its 10 PM EST lineup - which included the outgoing "ER" and "Lipstick Jungle." They decided to put Leno's talk/variety show in its place. The challenge will mean Leno will be on at the same time as all "CSI" dramas on CBS and "Lost" on ABC. Leno admits it will be a tough challenge, but that his show will feature 46 weeks of new programming per year while the just-mentioned dramas will only produce 22 weeks.

In other news, Conan reported being happy for Leno and excited to maintain Leno's lead-in to his soon-coming Tonight Show.

VLOG Tuesday // STRESS

2008-12-09T13:12:00.000-08:00

Bizarre Night in Oklahoma

2008-12-09T04:26:00.000-08:00

If you would have told me yesterday morning that I would have closed out the day in a casino, I would have thought you were crazy. But, that's exactly where I wound up.

Let me explain how I got there.

Last week, my Father-in-Law, David, and my wife Kristin made a plan to surprise my Mother-in-Law, Shirley, for her birthday. They decided to throw a surprise birthday dinner for her on Monday, December 8. This would be surprising for 2 reasons: 1. It would be in a town she'd never in a million years suspect, and 2. Her birthday isn't until Dec. 21.

My In-Laws had just gone to Texas and had spent a day in Oklahoma. While there, my Father-In-Law made reservations at a nice restaurant called The Coleman House in Miami, OK (pronounced "Mi-amm-uhh" - don't ask why this is so, I only wish I knew). According to David, the restaurant had previously been a theater.

So, yesterday afternoon, Kristin and I loaded up the girls and Kristin's sister and left Springfield, MO for Miami, OK. Our quest led us - not to a former theater, but - to only the third largest casino in northeast Oklahoma, the Buffalo Run Casino.

Understand, my wife's family (and my own) are some of the last people you'd expect to spend their time in a casino. While some people prefer to gamble their life savings away, we can find better things to do with our money. So, you can imagine our surprise when we discovered we had to go through the Buffalo Run Casino to get to the Coleman House Restaurant for dinner.

Shirley's entire family was there - her brother and sister and their families. You can imagine she was pretty well shocked when she arrived past the slot machines and craps tables. She thought we had all lost our minds to be celebrating her birthday in a casino.

ON A SIDE NOTE: You should have seen the looks I got when I walked in the Buffalo Run Casino with two small kids. AND as we walked in, my three-year-old daughter Grace said, "Daddy! Look at all the GAMES!! Can we play them??"

Ah, only in Oklahoma.

Faith Lessons from a Towel Salesman

2008-12-05T12:39:00.000-08:00

Have you ever heard of the Super Shammy? I hadn't until today. It's like a sponge, a towel, and a shammy all rolled into one long cloth.

As I walked through the mall with my family today, we came upon a kiosk in one of the wings where a guy was giving a live presentation of a Super Shammy towel/sponge/sham-thing much like this one.

It reminded me of those OxyClean infomercials where the bearded guy with the thick Jersey accent splashes ketchup and mustard on random passersby and then begins to burst their personal bubbles even more by spraying a cold, wet liquid on them and scrubbing the fibers off of their clothing. Apparently, these people don't mind, in fact they don't even act surprised. And to think it's live. (You can't tell, but I'm rolling my eyes.)

I digress. So, the Super Shammy...yeah. As we walked by, several families were watching the guy's presentation. Later, on my way back through, I noticed at least a dozen people carrying the shammy. When I walked back by the kiosk, I had to dodge the crowd gathered around the kiosk.

Did you catch what I just said?

Think about the countless forgettable sales kiosks you walk by in your local mall? Hair curlers, hair straighteners, cell phone cases, Dip'n Dots, etc. How many times do you walk past them? Oh, and let's not forget the pushy sales people who continually tap you on the shoulder and ask, "Hey, hey, you want a sample of boring hair cream, blah, blah, blah?" Annoying? Yes. Memorable? No.

The sales guy at the Supper Shammy kiosk had...a...crowd! Why? Was it the amazing product? Well, maybe. The product was pretty cool. Made me want one. But, I think what made it the most effective was the guy standing behind it. He wasn't pushing his product on anyone. He wasn't asking anyone if they would give him five minutes.

Want to know what he was doing? He was making a big mess. When we walked by, he was pouring out a two-liter of Dr. Pepper onto a carpet sample. Right in front of everyone. It catches your attention to see someone doing something unusual like this, doesn't it? The guy was pouring it out and as people gathered around to take note of the unusual experience and ask him why he was doing it (yes, that's right, they were asking him), he told them why. He was passionate. He was confident in his product's ability to get every stain out (and it did!). Mostly, though, he had 100% belief in his product and in his idea.

It could have well been this guy who invented the product. I doubt it, but he should certainly get the attention of the company.

As a pastor, I'm used to talking about belief in God. Churches, temples, and synagogues like to talk about belief in God - and this is important, as it is God that makes all things possible. What about your belief in you? What sets you apart from the world around you?

I learned a little about the power of belief from a towel salesman at a Super Shammy mall kiosk. It's challenged me to know myself, to ask myself the tough questions about myself. Achievement doesn't happen without belief. Ask any ordinary salesperson at a mall kiosk.

Tinseltown: One Leg at a Time

2008-12-01T12:29:00.000-08:00

There's an old cliche in Hollywood that celebrities put their pants on one leg at a time just like everybody else.

I sat down a few days ago with my wife to indulge in an annual Christmas tradition: curl up with popcorn and watch White Christmas. Every year during the film, when it comes to the first dance of Phil (Danny Kaye) and Judy (Vera-Ellen), my wife makes a comment about Judy's skinny figure and super-skinny legs. For those of you not familiar with Vera-Ellen, she's the one who's not Rosemary Clooney. (For the record, I'm not gay; I live in a house with 3 girls and a female dog, I'm going to know a few things about musicals and Broadway that might have otherwise slipped through my consciousness.)

At one point, my wife said something about Vera possibly having anorexia based on her appearance. We typically have a deal that if we happen to think of a question about some useless fact or another, we say, "Wiki it," and then we look it up on the Wikipedia. When she made the anorexia question, I took it on myself to "wiki" it. As it turned out Vera-Ellen did, in fact, struggle with anorexia for most of her adult life. It affected her physical appearance as well as her emotional life and external relationships. While Vera-Ellen never rose to the superstar status of her White Christmas co-stars (Clooney, Kaye, and of course, Bing Crosby), she did become one of the most well-known dancers of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Reading on (in IMDB.com), I also discovered that Vera-Ellen had one child who died as an infant to SIDs in the early 1960s. The devastation from the loss of her child caused her to run away from the spotlight. She faded into obscurity and no one heard much about her again until she passed away in 1981 from cancer.

America has a silly and unhealthy fascination (sometimes bordering on obsession) with celebrities. Whether it's the attempt to fathom how people live with millions more dollars or what exactly Michelle Obama wore during election night, many of us have a keen interest in the lives of superstars. This may be why it becomes such a blow to us when one of them does something strange (Tom Cruise), something self-destructive (Britney Spears), or flat-out awful (Mel Gibson), we spend hours talking or reading about it. It suddenly reminds us that celebrities aren't super-people. No one pretended to think they were perfect, but these stories emphasize their imperfections and let us see their humanity - good and not-so-good. In other words, these people are flawed and imperfect like the rest of us.

Vera-Ellen has been dead for nearly thirty years, and yet I somehow found myself feeling sad as I read of the eating disorder from which she suffered for most of her life and of the devastating loss of her child. It confirmed something: we are all human beings who need connection, who need to hope in something bigger than us, and most importantly, who desperately need to know we're loved and that our lives matter.

Much as her maternal misadventures have shocked the world, Britney is created, designed, and loved by God. I pray she has come or will come to realize this and that her self-worth would be found - not in her dress size or in being a good mother despite a relentless entourage of photographers and journalists, but - in how valuable of a human being she is. George W. Bush, despite some political blunders and failed policies, is a person of great worth to God, and for all we know, may yet serve his country in very positive ways in post-presidency (Jimmy Carter has done some of the greatest work of his career after his short term in office, and Bill Clinton - who also had his share of political and personal blunders - has also managed to do a world of good since his presidency).

Where is your worth? How valuable are you? You may not be lining the newspapers (which may not be a bad thing), but you are a superstar to the One who made you. Feel good. Feel blessed. And know you have a world of possibilities in front of you, no matter how many times you may have messed up.

Star Trek: Old Ideas with New Energy

2008-11-25T21:32:00.000-08:00

There was a guy I went to high school with who had learned the entire Klingon language. Seriously. I guess if he ever finds himself trapped on board the Starship Enterprise with Patrick Stewart, he'll feel safe. I'm sure this guy is probably a nice guy AND I'm pretty sure he's still single. (Everyone knows that Star Wars is way cooler than Star Trek! Let's hear some props for Obi Wan, yo!)

JJ Abrams (co-creator/producer, Alias, Lost, Heroes) has wildly reimagined the Star Trek franchise in a way that will undoubtedly find a different kind of fan base than the ones who have spent their lives driving to Deep Space Nine conventions. Abrams is heeding the example of Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) and Martin Campbell (007: Casino Royale), bringing a fading classic back to life...and doing it in style.

While I never much cared for the original Star Trek franchise in any of its forms and generally tended to not have much to talk about with guys like Klingon Guy, I have to admit I really like the new direction of the upcoming 2009 Prequel (and by "prequel," I mean that Abrams is literally throwing out everything you thought you knew about Star Trek and revamping the franchise all over again). I think it will do for this franchise what Batman Begins and Casino Royale did for Batman and Bond.

Convinced to see the film yet? Check out the teaser below (though the film actually doesn't release until May 2009).

Star Trek Teaser from Blac Ren on Vimeo.

Thanksgiving, Part 2: One-Word Thanks

2008-11-25T18:45:00.000-08:00

Today, I asked everyone following me on Twitter and my Facebook friends to think of one word to sum up one major thing they were thankful for this Thanksgiving. I got some interesting responses. This past Sunday in my children's ministry, we asked the same thing of the kids and got some interesting answers. One kid even said, "Plants." It was hard not to laugh when he said it with such a straight face. This kid really liked plants.

So, here are some of the one-word responses I got back:

* Health

* Job

* Plants (2 more times - I'm starting to think they were copying the kid I mentioned)

* Life

* Faith

* Change (don't know if they were referring to Obama's win or if they received a few quarters)

* Bush (this one probably wasn't thankful for 'Change')

* iPhone

* Laughter

* Trees (okay, people, stop playing off the kid comment.)

* Hope (that one was mine)

* Starry Skies (this one cheated, but was original enough I had to include it)

* Others (don't know if this one meant other 'people' or just other things nobody included - if it's people, that's cool; if it's just a lazy way of saying 'whatever anyone didn't say' - that's cheating and it should be disqualified.)

*I am grateful for my parents who will be taking Grace for the afternoon tomorrow! Not one word, but oh well. (this wasn't one word, but was from my wife - who had had a very stressful day with our kids)

These were all thankful people. What are you thankful for? Think of one word to sum it up and comment below.

Thanksgiving, Part 1

2008-11-22T18:43:00.000-08:00

There's a home just down the street from our place that decked themselves out for Halloween. They didn't go so far as to make a haunted house out of a storage shed or place an artificial graveyard in the front, but it was festive enough. Fake cobwebs, a giant stuffed spider, and two very-well-designed Jack-o-Lanterns gave the holiday its proper props. After Halloween ended, the decor went down and up went a new set of decor: this one with green holly and white lights circling it.

If you want to get a feel for exactly when to decorate for the seasons according to the holidays that best represent them, walk into a Hallmark store. In September and October, you'll find pumpkins and "cute" skeletons smling. And in November and December, the keepsake ornaments are out and snowmen deck out the greeting cards.

Now, I won't go into the over-commercialization of these festivities. There are plenty of bloggers with big opinions on that subject, so you can Google them if you're interested.

Is it just me, or is there something we're forgetting? Latent spiritual meanings aside, we've got one holiday that recently ended where we get enough candy to warrant a week's worth of dental visits, and we are decorating for a holiday where the snowmen and trees remind us that there'll soon be gifts under those trees.

Thanksgiving is one of the most under-rated and yet most over-rated holidays on the calendar. It's over-rated because when most of us think of it, the first image to pop into our minds is turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, Macy's and a New York block full of giant balloons, and football. It's under-rated because the last thing most of us - myself included - stop to do is contemplate the historic national importance of the holiday and greater spiritual importance lying beneath it.

In the morning, I'll be delivering a children's sermon on Thanksgiving, and I have missed it again. I've worked so hard at bettering myself and staying focused on goals, and I've allowed myself to get frustrated when things didn't seem to go the way I hoped. I've read all the right books, I've listened to all the right audiobooks for success, and it didn't hit me until I was working out tonight. I was listening to the Robbie Seay Band and singing along with one of the songs when I suddenly realized that the answer was right under my nose.

I couldn't remember the last time I had genuinely given thanks for a specific blessing in my life. I had written the 1,000 Rocks story, and I had still forgotten. I'm grateful for the music of RSB and a children's sermon that I WROTE to help me remember what it's all about.

What about you? What is it that you can genuinely say you're thankful for?

For me, I'm most thankful this year for hope - hope for better things ahead, hope for all you may have ever dreamed, and hope that life is what we make of it.

A Challenge to Worship Songwriters

2008-11-21T07:42:00.000-08:00

For 15 years, the modern worship movement has been gaining ground, becoming one of the most popular genres of music in the market. Hillsong, the Passion Movement, and Christian bands like Third Day and Mercy Me have fanned the flame of this movement from the ancient hymns to the modern hymns of today. While the new songs are catchy, upbeat, and emotional, they are usually composed of little depth and simplistic theology. Many of these songs sound like any love song on pop radio, only the listener and worshiper somehow knows they're about God.

Don't get me wrong: I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with simplistic love songs to God. As a worship leader and songwriter, I've led almost all of these songs and written a bunch just like them. There are some great songs out there, and God knows I am in favor of a lively, vibrant sound with distorted guitars, driving bass, and loud drums. As a worship leader and a pastor, I think church should be the most driving and exciting hour of the week. Most people are not lining up outside the church doors to come in and sing "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."

But I do think worship songwriters and worship leaders need a new challenge. One listen to Chris Tomlin's new album, "Hello, Love," and it sounds like a repeat performance of his last two studio albums. What I'm afraid of is that the thrilling drive of rock worship that has now defined the sounds of Tomlin, Hillsong, the David Crowder Band, and Mercy Me has become a canned formula for how to write easy songs that make teens and college students dance.

To read the lyrics of classic hymns like "All Creatures of Our God and King," "Come Thou Almighty King," and old Negro spirituals like "Soon I Will Be Done With the Troubles of the World" is to read deep theological thoughts and painstaking honesty. To read some of the Psalms of David is to read content that - in today's world - might warrant a Parental Advisory: Explicit Content label or an "R" rating in terms of some of his violent wishes against his enemies. While they may not be the most "sound" theological thoughts King David ever had, they certainly do express a brutal honesty and a vulnerability seldom seen in today's modern worship.

As a worship leader, I have begun work on a new worship music project, and I've set the following challenge for myself as well as for other worship leaders and songwriters.

I don't believe every worship song should be as deep as St. Augustine, and some (including some of my new songs) should definitely be easy and fun; but I think it's time for worship songwriters to take a step back from the canned formula that's worked for 10 years and put some real thought into what we're writing.

And in this new writing, I think it's important for worship songwriters to look beyond just the same old message as "me and Jesus, Jesus and me," or "Jesus died for me, so I will live for him." Freedom from sin and death are certainly worth singing about, but so are the teachings of Jesus. I think it's time to open up the modern liturgical thinktank of ideas and include songs about justice and about the Kingdom of God. The hymnal writers thought this was a good idea. And I don't think it makes a song less spiritual to ask questions and to be honest about our struggles on Earth. I think it makes us fallable humans in need of a Savior, and I think it's healthy to express the beauty, the questions, and even the doubts that make us the human beings created by a mysterious and infinite God.

Free Thanksgiving Curriculum for Kids Ministry

2008-11-19T07:04:00.000-08:00

If you are a children's pastor or a director of kids, feel free to download our latest Thanksgiving curriculum from AquaLife Kids. Click here to download.

No TV, I'll Just Watch It On Hulu

2008-11-18T21:06:00.000-08:00

This morning, I decided that, rather than keep hearing my preschooler Grace ask me every 30 seconds if she can watch PBS Kids on our one television, I would give in and watch the Today Show live on MSNBC.com. A little while later, my wife asked me to join her to watch an episode we missed of The Office on Hulu.com.

Ten years ago, if you wanted to make sure you didn't miss a favorite TV episode, newscast, or game, you would have to figure out complicated instructions for a VCR that would diminish video/audio quality. Five years ago, you would press two simple buttons and let TiVo or any other DVR do the rest. It would keep most of the quality and you could save on videotapes.

YouTube changed everything. For the first time, if you missed a big news story, wanted to see a funny SNL clip again, or watch an instant replay of the game, you could stop whining, log onto YouTube.com, search for the clip, and choose from 1 of 10,000 clips of the same scene. The ability to embed this video into blogs, social networks, and emails made this website a world changer.

Major networks and media companies have honed in on this and expanded upon it. In early 2008, Hulu.com developed the largest compilation of full length episodes of TV Shows and Movies. Thanks to the magic of advertisements, it is absolutely free to viewers.

Ordinary people with creative minds decided to take an idea like video clips and build an empire on it. What ideas do you have? Everything starts with an idea. What's yours?

We All Want to Be Heard

2008-11-18T21:05:00.000-08:00

I've posted a lot about Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace lately. I was thinking about these things and how addictive they are. I still don't think I have most of them figured out yet. What I do notice, though, is that the Facebook status bar, Twitter, and Pownce are becoming huge. That 140-character limit text box gives people (including me) the chance to tell the world how we're doing and what we're doing.

I've heard the argument, "No one really cares what or how you're doing," but I'm not really buying that. Not saying it isn't true, but I don't think that's really the full scope of what people are dealing with.

First of all, I think most people really know deep down that no one is that interested in reading their day-to-day unfolding life story. Deep down, though, I think there's a part of us that keeps posting, keeps dialoguing, and keeps waiting to see if anyone will comment or respond because we all have a deep internal desire to be heard.

This is why people blog. It's why we get on MySpace and Facebook and spend hours on end sitting behind a computer screen. It's why AOL Instant Messenger dominated the chat world and the internet for fifteen years. We keep posting because there's a hope that someone will read it and be impressed. There's a hope that someone will think it's cool that we were updating our Facebook accounts while at the mall. Okay, maybe that's just me.

We all want to be heard, and we all want to know that our thoughts, our feelings, and our very lives are validated. To this, God has given us the gift of community. What's your community of friends like?

You're Never Too Old for Puppets

2008-11-18T21:02:00.000-08:00

The Muppets invaded NBC's Today Show this morning, November 13, 2008. Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira, and Al Roker were "locked out" of their studio while Muppet look-a-likes filled in for them, addressing such vital news as Obama's choice of Cabinet picks and interviews with Law & Order star Christopher Meloni.

Jim Henson, the founder and creator of the Muppets, may have been one of the most brilliant creative minds of the 20th century. It's hard to imagine, but puppets once only came in one kind, marionettes. Henson was one of the masterminds behind the idea of a softer puppet with a more flexible mouth and arms. Kermit the Frog is not only a pop culture icon, but was one of the first hand puppets ever. PBS, a slew of early education teachers, and virtually every children's pastor and director I know, owe a lot to Jim Henson. Henson and fellow Muppeteer-turned-filmmaker Frank Oz also made puppets a major source of humor, something else children's pastors can thank them for.

The Muppets have long been a pop culture phenomenon, moving beyond children's entertainment and making their way into feature films, prime time television, and proving to be a major PR boost for late night talk shows, news programs (like on Today), and advertisements. It proves that you're never too old to appreciate puppets!

How Facebook Changed Everything

2008-11-18T20:57:00.000-08:00

OMG! Like, everybody's on Facebook now!!! LOL!!

Okay, that was lame. But, seriously, Facebook has risen to become the new king of social networking. According to PC Advisor, Facebook has garnered more global visitors in 2008 than MySpace, which dominated the social networks since its inception in 2005. The new statistics put US social networkers in the same category as the UK, where Facebook has beaten MySpace since September 2007.

When Facebook originally launched in late 2004, it was designed as a simple network for college students to interact with each other. Since opening the network to anyone in 2006, it has begun to gain momentum for its simplicity and ease of use, which began to rise above its more mainstream competitor, Myspace.

In the last year, businesses, artists, musicians, churches, and causes have used Facebook as a vital marketing tool. Nearly every major business idea's marketing plan includes launching a page or group on Facebook. Facebook also paved the way for companies to network via LinkedIn.com, FaithBase, and BlackPlanet. Facebook also changed the face of American politics forever, as was made evident in this historic 2008 election, not just because the Obama team hired Facebook co-guru Chris Hughes, but because they built their entire campaign around a digital grassroots movement. This would have been unprecidented in 1996 or even 2000.

Here are some rules for businesses looking to market on Facebook:

* If you're a business/church/cause/etc., make a page, NOT a profile. (I realize MySpace allows profiles for everything, but the days of this are over. Profiles are made for people.)
* Design groups only if you intend to update them.
* Make use of media networks like YouTube and Flickr.
* Be active on the Facebook community.
* Once people associate you with your company, update your status often.

You may notice some people (like me) seem to be updating almost constantly. Many people micro-blog - a three-line status update on what you're doing now - using a network called Twitter, which can be used to automatically update your Facebook status. You can "tweet" by texting, mobile applications, or on the web.

One thing you'll find is that each of these types of social networks (YouTube, Flickr, etc.) are all made to use with Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace.

Extraordinary Life

2008-11-18T20:56:00.000-08:00

I've spent much of my adult life studying the rise of famous people - entrepreneurs, actors, musicians, world leaders, writers, etc. The predominant question I've had is, How did these people rise out of nothing and attain the success they would come to experience? In the early days of the 20th century, a broke young South Carolina boy named Napoleon Hill traveled to New York City in hopes of studying the lives of successful people and emulating their success. The first multimillionaire he met, Andrew Carnagie, took Hill under his wing and sent him on a quest to interview and study more than 500 of the most successful entrepreneurs of the time. These men included Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and future US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1937, Hill published these stories in the infamous business manual, Think and Grow Rich.

Hill quickly began to discover some common elements among each of them:

+ A strong belief in a Being (or "God") much bigger than themselves that was very much active in past, present, and future history.
+ A strong creative mind that had different way of looking at the world than most people around them.
+ The ability to clearly picture their desire and maintain a definite focus and purpose.
+ The self-discipline to shut out all negative voices and influences, never allowing anyone to deter them from their course (this includes well-meaning friends and family members).
+ The discipline to take decisive action each day in some way toward their goal, never losing the mental image of their desire.

This idea is not a new one. It has been a staple of Judeo-Christian theology through the biblical writings of Moses, King Solomon, St. Luke, and the Apostle Paul. It's been echoed by modern authors and speakers such as Robert Schuller, Tony Robbins, and Ken Blanchard. We've seen it lived out by leaders like Lincoln, Kennedy, and even George W. Bush. In business, we see it evidenced by modern day giants like Donald Trump and Richard Branson. These men aren't perfect and have made mistakes along the way, but they somehow understood the connection between a strong faith in Someone bigger than themselves, an unwavering sense of purpose, and a commitment to action, no matter how seemingly small.

Some Christian readers will argue that many of these people aren't famous for being "Christians." My response is this: Neither were the heroes of the Hebrew scriptures (Abraham, Moses, David, and Solomon), as Christ had not come on the scene by a long shot.

The book of Acts in the New Testament points to Saul (Paul) as part of the crowd at the stoning of Stephen. I do find it interesting that the first verse in the 8th chapter of Acts finds Saul "there, giving approval to his [Stephen's] death." (Acts 8:1, NIV) To read on, we find Saul imprisoning followers of the way of Jesus, but never a mention of his taking part in the murders of any. I don't know whether it never happened, but St. Luke never mentions it. In my own mind, I wonder if this might be a slight difference between Saul and his fellow Pharisees? Does God select Saul because God notices that, deep down, there is a part of Saul that cannot bear to actually cause violence himself, even if he is watching it? Maybe this part of Saul is a different kind of thinker from his typical crowd (See the second +), even if he isn't even aware of it. I don't know this, I can only speculate. Still, we see the other parts (+'s) develop later in Saul's/Paul's story.

Are you living the life of your dreams? What is it that makes you come alive? What is the dream that, when you think of it, causes you to smile and to see a spark of hope ahead? Might it be God getting your attention? Maybe points (+) 1 and 2 are beginning to unfold, trying to awaken you to the rest.

At any rate, changing our lives requires first changing the way we think. This is one of the reasons it's so crucial to surround ourselves with people who think differently than us. You may be around a group of people all thinking in the same way, but you'll also find that most people are not doing extraordinary things or living extraordinary lives.

Extraordinary living requires extraordinary thinking. Remember, the "life to the full" that Jesus teaches doesn't begin when we die...it begins now.

The New BryanThompson.tk

2008-11-17T20:26:00.001-08:00

I've done it. I've officially decided to move my blog from boring old Wordpress.com to Blogger.com. I originally started out on Blogger and always liked the ability to add my own HTML without restriction.

Blogger v. Wordpress

2008-11-04T11:13:00.000-08:00

I have hosted my blog at Wordpress.com for nearly two years now, and with Blogspirit.com before that. Blogspirit is highly outdated and Wordpress is great with the exception of zero HTML integration from the user (at least for free). Has anyone else had to make such a big decision of moving your blog? What were some advantages and disadvantages to making the Blogger switch?

About Me

2008-02-01T08:44:00.000-08:00

My name is Bryan, and for more than a decade, I have been a motivator and pastor. I love helping people realize their full potential and then go and do something with it. I have had numerous interests and have had even more jobs and career paths. I’ve struggled with knowing just what I wanted to do in life and have gone spastic into all sorts of areas. I can tell you that this is a pathway to nothing but burnout.

Passion is all about grabbing hold of the one thing that sets you on fire more than anything else. It’s about realizing that there’s a place for all of your interests, but honing in on the one desire that moves you to action, and then to take decisive action toward that one desire.

We’ve all heard sermons and seen movies that tell us that we can truly have what we want in life. I believe this is true, and have experienced it on a number of levels. But what really makes the difference is knowing what you want in the first place.

I began this blog more than two years ago in an effort to help people find ways of growing and evolving as citizens of Earth. I believe I can help you. More than that, I think we can help each other. Be a part of the conversation and let’s learn from one another.

And do keep in touch! Comment here. Follow me on Twitter. Befriend me on Facebook. And network with me on LinkedIn. Let’s talk.

Not Satisfied With BlogSpirit

2006-09-19T14:04:00.000-07:00

Not sure if we're fully satisfied with it.

THOMPSONLAND

Here's my cover song tribute to The Beatles: All You Need Is Love.

Thompsonland is Moving!

Contest Time: Enter to Win a FREE eBook of "The Dreaming Highway!"

How You, Too, Can Be a FAILED Blogger Like Me!

It's Time to Kill Comic Sans!

6 Writers That Will Thrive Now that the Printed Page is Dead

Why More People are Switching From Outlook to Gmail, and Why You Should Consider It, Too!

How to Create the Most Productive Environment to Write Creatively

What Do You Read to Keep Your Mind Awesome?

How to Create a Dynamic Resume that Gets Results

My Dad

Unfulfilled Dreams, Former Childstars, and the Life and Death of Gary Coleman

Top Things I'll Miss About Portland: And YOU!

Top Things I'll Miss About Portland: Dutch Bros. Coffee

Top Things I'll Miss about Portland: The Skyline

Top Things I'll Miss About Portland: Tri-Met

Top Things I'll Miss About Portland: Hot Lips Pizza

You And Your Heart - New Single from Jack Johnson

Top Portland Stuff I'll Miss: POWELL'S BOOKS

My 2-Year old decided to show me up on the piano.

Back to the Midwest and a New Adventure

So my kids are having fun today. I think we'll be hearing Radio Disney all day.

Learning to speak Swedish for the day.

Beautiful day for a walk home from work!

New Music from Robbie Seay Band

Five Best BBQ Joints in the US!

True Story: What Fiction Teaches Us that We Wish We Didn't Know About Ourselves

Our New Edition (or Why I've Been So Blog-Lazy)

What Tiger Could Learn From David Letterman

The Accidental Science Experiment

Practical Reason to Buy My Book #2

Daily Reasons to Get My Book

Want to Win a Copy of My Book? Post Your Weirdest Dream!

Help Me Sell 7,000 Books by December 2010!

The Choice to Be Intentional

Thoughts From the Quarter-Life: Mortality

Book Review: Outliers - The Story of Success

My review

IKEA and the Generational-Cultural Shift

Book Review: The Shack

My review

Two Months, A New Job, and Half-Way Across the USA Later

I Should Blog More

Aren't These Really the Same Show?

VLOG Episode 03

The Transparency of Heathens and Pastors

How I Became a Spammer :(

RIP, John Updike (1932-2009)

Write Your Own Obama Inauguration Speech

Why Your Resolution Will Fail in 2009

Top Posts of 2008

Yes, I Do Update my Facebook Status Too Much: A Twitter Shout-Out

Airports: The Ultimate "Community" Metaphor

'Blago' Connection?

VLOG Special Edition // ORIGINS

Coming in January: HELP!

An Interview with Jay Leno

VLOG Tuesday // STRESS

Bizarre Night in Oklahoma

Faith Lessons from a Towel Salesman

Tinseltown: One Leg at a Time

Star Trek: Old Ideas with New Energy

Thanksgiving, Part 2: One-Word Thanks

Thanksgiving, Part 1

A Challenge to Worship Songwriters

Free Thanksgiving Curriculum for Kids Ministry

No TV, I'll Just Watch It On Hulu

We All Want to Be Heard

You're Never Too Old for Puppets

How Facebook Changed Everything

Extraordinary Life

The New BryanThompson.tk

Blogger v. Wordpress

About Me

Not Satisfied With BlogSpirit