It's always nice to receive encouragement, although, tonight, my encouragers didn't know they were doing just that.

You see, recently, we made a few changes on the fshbwl, one of which means that the blogs of site users are featured on the front page of the site under the "live" heading. The basic idea is giving visitors and opportunity to look in on the lives of people who are trying to live out this faith. As a result of this change, I'm far more aware of what others are posting.

Well, tonight, as I was clicking through "live", I ran across this post which is basically a summary of earth in the elemental life. Then, the next post I read in "live" was this one, which really jives with the whole idea of wind in the elemental life.

So, where's the encouragement? It's always cool to see that you're not way out there in what you're thinking and, if nothing else, you're resonating with others. Thanks for the encouragement Paul and Jay!

My final talent, once again, doesn't sound like something you'd think of as a talent, but, again, it blends in very well with my other talents in that I'm a learner. It doesn't matter if it's formal or informal, I love to learn, which is why, more often than not, I'm in the midst of multiple books on a variety of topics that, more often than not, apply to some specific project that I'm a part of.

The key advantage I see in all of this is that, when going through the process of seeing the system, coming to understand all of the connections, envisioning a future, and determining how to get there, there's bound to be something I don't know enough about and it demands that I learn more in order to accomplish the goal at hand.

So, given how all of my talents link together, I'm forced to ask how I can use them in a way that they are strengths in ministry. Given that so much of what I'm good at is conceptual, the obvious answer is that I need to focus on projects that are either very conceptual, or projects that involve a number of other people who need someone like me to provide an overall direction so they can make it a reality.

Given this, right now, Genesis certainly doesn't play to my strengths because I've never had a core of people to help make the ideas become reality (this was made really clear when I started helping out at Christ). With the fshbwl, our current structure of me needing to track multiple authors and make sure they're turning in content is something I'm horrible at, which is why I default to writing more and more of the content, even in areas where I'm not strong. Of course, some changes we're going to make at the 'bwl will fix this in the near future. the elemental life is great with my strengths ... although the marketing side of it is an area where I'm seriously lacking.

How about you? How do you play to your strengths? Or are you struggling as you seek to work in areas of weakness?

My cerebral talents continue with the fourth on the list, futuristic. I'm one of those people that's always looking towards tomorrow and coming up with ideas for what could or should be.

Once again, I can see how this links into my other talents, and how each one up to this point weaves together in a way that allows me to look at what is, understand it, look at where things are heading, and help others see how we can get there. In a sense, I think blending this gift with others is truly a blessing in that, without the others, I'd envision a future that ignores the past and is ignorant of the present. This is part of why I'm not a fan of typical approaches to strategic planning, but think that the Church Unique approach offers a very healthy alternative.

But once again, the problem is, if I don't have people working with me in order to get us there, then it will never happen. I can see it all day long, but I struggle to step into the everyday and bring things to fruition, a reality characterized by my answer to the question, "If you had a mulligan for the past three years, what would it be?" My answer was quick and clear, "Before doing anything with Genesis, I'd have spent however long it took to develop a solid core team of missional Christians who were going to move into the city with me."

The other struggle with this is characterized by a question my life coach asked me the Friday before the fshbwl launched, "What's next?" It's far to easy for me to get something going, see the launch as the end of the journey, and then move onto something else. I'm horrible at maintenance. I think that's why the opening blog on the fshbwl site was as much for me as it was for everybody else.

I'm curious, does anybody else who's taken the strengths finder see all of their top talents weaving together the way mine do, or is that just a product of my connectedness?

It sounds a bit odd to describe my top talent as a talent, but according to the strengths finder, my dominant talent is connectedness. So, what does that mean? Basically it means that I'm a systems theory kind of guy who doesn't see the individual parts, but rather how all of the parts work together.

There are a few places where this has come in handy for ministry. One is systematic theology, which, in turn, really help in the writing of the elemental life which is, essentially, a basic, life application, systematic.

It's also been quite helpful in hermeneutics because, when I read a passage of Scripture, I can't help but think of it in light of the entire Biblical story. Of course, the primary place I use the interpretation of Scripture is preaching and the 27-Hour Service on the fshbwl.

For me, the biggest challenges with having this talent comes when talking with people who don't have any sense of the butterfly effect. People who see commonalities amongst various cultures, things like religion, marriage, and laws, not as a sign of some distant common story, but as nothing more than coincidentally matching cultural constructs. The same could be said for people who have no sense of responsibility towards others and or feel a overarching human imperative to love our neighbors.

Since this is so foundational in the way I see and understand the world, it's the place I naturally start from when talking about faith. At the same time, when people don't see things this way, it can be a blast to help connect the dots. In many ways, this is what I've been doing in ongoing conversations with people in downtown Denver.

So, does anyone else out there see things this way? What other ministry benefits do you see? What other challenges come to mind?

I don't know about you, but between my duties at home, with the fshbwl, Genesis, and the eLife, I have a slew of different project areas in my life and I'm constantly trying to keep myself organized and up to date on what needs to be done. Then of course, because I work from home, my office, and my laptop, I need access to my task list from a number of locations. Moreover, I'm not particularly good at mental notes, so, if something is going to make it into my task list, it needs to get there immediately.

So, what's my solution? Remember the Milk. Remember the Milk (RTM) is, at the most basic level, an online task list that allows you to categorize and tag your to-do items, but, the real beauty is the way RTM mashes up with other applications.

For example, when I'm sitting in a meeting and am reminded that there is something I need to do, I can text Twitter with a "d rtm" command and my task will be added to my task list. Or say, when I'm in the car and I recall something that needs to be done. Using my bluetooth I can speed dial Jott, identify it as a message for RTM, and use their voice recognition software to add a task to my list.

Then of course there is the integration with gMail (or a google aps mail account) through a Firefox extension. The result is that my task list sits right next to my inbox and, I can easily add messages that I need to follow up on later to my to do list (which then allows me to tag and archive the message and keep my inbox empty).

As if that wasn't enough, I'm also able to share specific task lists with other RTM users so, Anita and I have some shared items and, if there' something she wants me to get done around the house, she just drops the item in our shared list and I get the hint (sometimes).

Of course, because I'm not always online, RTM also works with Google Gears so, on my laptop, I always have the latest version of my task list and, if I change anything offline, the next time I log on, everything will sync. This will get even better when I get an iPhone and can use the RTM page specifically designed for the iPhone.

RTM is a wonderful tool that I'm sure will only get better over time.