Terry Storch Dispatch w01.2019
Dispatch w.1.2019
Twenty Years and counting!
January 1999... this week twenty years ago was a HUGE transition in my life and when I followed my calling into full-time ministry. After dropping out of college and spending seven years choosing different career paths, I ultimately landed in (pre-internet) telecommunications. I've been in telecom sales, sales engineering, management, consulting, and multiple business startups - one of which was purchased and later taken public - God had different plans for my life.
Back in 1999, Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas allowed my first step into ministry. Fellowship was where I came to know Jesus, where I met my wife, and eventually where both Reese and Reia were introduced to the church. We've got some great memories there! Eight years later, God called our family north to Life.Church. It was a big step of faith, but the uncertainty has played out into a great decision that God has blessed beyond our comprehension.
Eight years at Fellowship Church, and twelve years at Life.Church results in twenty challenging, sharpening, shaping, growing, overwhelming, painful, stretching, exhilarating, disappointing, beautiful, glorious, amazing and blessed years serving full-time ministry! Thank you, Jesus!
2019 WORD
I've been thinking a lot about my word for 2019. Last year’s fantastic word, “Listen”, brought great focus and attention to my life. This will be my eleventh year to choose a word and you can see the full list here. As I have been praying and processing, a specific word continues to come up which was first introduced a few weeks ago by my mentor, J. Lee, without him even knowing it. My 2019 word is Sustainable. As I said above, I just rolled past twenty years in ministry, and I have no plans of doing anything else. As I enter my mid-forties, I must start doing things differently to be able to have another twenty years of highly effective ministry. I might not be able to outwork my twenty-year-old self...but I can be twice, three times, or even fifty times more intelligent than my twenty-year-old self. This is the year I dive deep into mental models, and into becoming smarter, wiser, and healthier. In 2019, I will build the right processes and habits to enable the Sustainable life that will produce the legacy to which Jesus Christ has called me.
2019 will also bring a new productivity tool, the Bullet Journal. One of my personal favorite productivity tools and one that I highly recommend is the Productivity Planner. As someone who loves all things productivity, I am looking forward to the Bullet Journal! I believe it will bring some needed flexibility, as well as a new system to learn and master. Interested? Here are a few videos to help you get started: Personalized Setup, Minimalist Setup, First Bullet Journal Setup or you can simply Google it.
December 26th we dropped Reia off at the DFW airport and picked her up on January 2nd. She was in London over New Year’s and had the opportunity to cheer with the All American Cheerleaders in London’s New Year's Day Parade. Reia had the time of her life, touring and visiting my favorite city in the world! To all of you who helped make this happen, we send a very special THANK YOU!
A friend of mine ended 2018 with his life in pieces. He was kicked out of the house, his wife wanted a divorce, and his kids would hardly speak with him. After many calls and messages, he agreed to join us at one of the LIfe.Church Christmas services. My friend rededicated his life to Christ, came back the next day for a second Christmas message, joined us the following weekend, and is now signed up for baptism.
A light of hope is glowing in the distance as my friend is now in counseling, meeting with a group of men, reading his Bible daily with a few of us via the Bible App, and his wife is willing to meet with a pastor.
I share this story to give you hope that no matter what your 2018 looked like, your 2019 can be the best year yet. Many of us are praying for my friend and his family...and I want you to know, I am praying for you as well. I pray that 2019 will be a year full of blessings, growth, and favor of God on your life!
RECOMMENDED WEEKEND READING
Going into the new year, you may include the very basic concept of a "Stupid Filter" into your thinking. I enjoyed Seth Godin’s quick 'Stupid Filter' read. Perhaps this concept might be better suited to daily decisions, however, this idea reminds me of Charlie Munger and a core line of thinking he and Warren Buffett leverage.
“It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.” - Charlie Munger
Every leader needs to make time to think. Do you schedule think time? How about reflection time on your day, week or month? This was a good read as a reminder of how important thinking and reflection time truly is. This was one of my favorite parts of the Productivity Journal, by having built-in reflection and processing. I really like Bill Gates thoughts on this topic in his reflection of 2018.
“Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.” - Peter Drucker
NOTEWORTHY
Samsung is set to add Google Assistant support to its 2019 TV lineup, according to Variety sources. The firm currently only offers Bixby and is looking to add audio tuning features that would map a room and optimize its sound for the environment. - Read More
Google Assistant tops Loup Ventures annual smart speaker test. Assistant understood 100 percent of questions, answering 87.9 percent of them correctly. Siri placed second with an understanding rate of 99.6 percent, answering 74.6 percent correctly. Third was Alexa with an understanding rate of 99 percent and an answer rate of 72.5 percent, while Cortana was last understanding 99.4 percent of queries, answering 63.4 correctly.- Read More
Amazon saw three times as many product orders via Alexa compared to last year's holiday sales. Marketplace sellers sold more than half of all items ordered, helping the company set a new record for products sold during the holiday season. In 2018, Amazon shipped 1B items for free to Prime members in the US alone. - Read More