Have you reached your Potential?

After the first two weeks of school, I decided to give a break to Sol and Sarai, and I wanted to expend some quality time with them, so we went to Butterfly World at Coconut Creek, Fl. after school. During our 40 minutes journey, we where playing and joking starting with the traditional “Are we there yet” the minute we left the school… When we arrived, I was surprised when we walked in to a big cage and there were butterflies all over the place… Thanks God I brought my camera and I got some great shots. We explored the place, observed the worms, and some different stages on a Butterfly’s live. We learned some about the Lepidoptera (Scientific name for butterfly) and some other insects like the spiders, cockroaches, and other species on some museum. After that, we where to the mall and we got some food, jokes and fun at the Sawgrass Mills Mall and in our way home, we stop at the park to close a perfect day with my two little ones. I was amazed by the perfection in all the creation by G...

Here is my video for the Contest for MyNakedPastor.com

This week I started my GED writing course, and I just entered on the unknown world of grammar. I discover that there are many rules, different from Spanish, about Pronouns, Prepositions, Punctuation and more… and this is just the beginning. Since I started, I continued reading my books, but now I look the text from a different perspective. I star noticing the grammar and punctuation on my reading getting not just the content, but the grammar too. I slowed down my lecture, because now I’m more analytic. On the past, I was able to swallow a book on few hours, but now it is taking me more time to discover a hole new world that has been there always, but I was unable to look at it because my fast reading. To better explain this I'll use a Motorcycle example: If you are going from Miami to Tampa, you could make it in 2 hours on a Ninja Kawasaki ZX6-R or you can expend 4 and a half hours on a Harley Davidson... not just driving, but enjoying the road and the details around the way. Some ...

A.J. made this cool video... with lego pieces :) Great job!

Every day is unique, irreplaceable, and it only has 24 hours, no more, no less. I was reading about how much time we expend on different activities: We sleep 8 hours a day; we work another 8 hours five days a week, watch TV 3 hours a day, use Internet 2 hours a day, we expend 1 hour eating, we attend church and average of 40 times a year for one hour, and we have about 40 hours a year for social activities. This numbers translated: 2912 Hours Sleeping = 121 days. 2080 Hours Working = 86 days. 1095 Hours Watching TV = 45 days. 730 Hours surfing the Internet = 30 days. 40 Hours social = 1.6 days. 40 Hours Church = 1.6 days. What would you do with extra 45 days a year? I often listen the complain “I don’t have enough time for this or for that…” My question today is: What are you doing with your time? How often do you manage your time? The time… is yours.

Well, today I got my results from last week’s test and today’s test. Reading: 92% at Level 12, so I passed! Math: 100% at level 12 also (Surprised me because I didn’t know how to divide fractions and I just guess the best answer), so passed too. Writing: 72% at level … 5 (Fifth grade), so I’ll start with the classes tomorrow focused on reading & writing because it is related. From this experience, I learned that one thing is to listen and understand, another is to speak but in order to write, you have to suck the culture in order to be able to express on paper. I remember my first trip to L.A. I was working for a production company and according to my understanding all people at LA, speak Spanish, true, except on the facility I visited… Not a single Spanish speaking people, even the janitor was Chinese… so I made my self understandable using signs and gestures, and a little English I learned from Middle School… and because I was a customer, they tried hard to understand me, so I st...

When I started this blog, I made a commitment with myself to write every day, to be constant and make my best effort every day, to improve my writing, little by little but every day, and my goal is to become a better English writer as time goes by… this sound nice… like new year promises… but the true is that we need discipline to produce what we propose ourselves, and any laziness moment can become a great obstacle to reach your personal goals. Last Thursday, I start writing my daily post, but I was tired, it was a long day, and I was not 100% satisfied with the content, so I said to myself… Ok, tomorrow morning, I’ll be fresh and I’ll finish this and I’ll write tomorrow’s together… but then it happened that on Friday, I got a lot of things to do also, so I just start to write Friday’s post (Without conclude my Thursday’s one), then my Friend Freddy jumped in, some prints to do, my daughters had to go to the movies I had to pick them later… and the day slip from my fingers just like w...

Last week I went to Miami looking for a Wide Angle Lens for MyNakedPastor.com camera to provide a better view of what’s going on at Troy’s for 5 weeks. Here are to shots. One, a Wide Angle shot and two, another without. You see it is a better view. On my search of the lens, I visited several stores and also some parking lots. On the first parking lot there was an upset cashier, I pay and give them some encouraging words, not reacting on the way I was treated, may be she was struggling with some situation… I pray for her. On the second parking lot the cashier was with an I-phone, just grabbed my ticket and my money… no interaction at all. Never looked at me… and the third one, there was a nice cashier, she smiled me, greet me, and she wished me a great day… Three different persons, the same work, where is the difference? One word: Attitude. We all struggle with different situations every day, at work, at school, at home. No matter what is the circumstances around us, we can better use o...

Friday is my Free-day and the best day for me to read, relax, have some time with Dora, wait for Pani to know where she is going out, so thank God is Free-day. I meet today with Freddy, a friend who belongs to another Ministry, but we where always in contact, we work together for few years and learning on technology from each other. He will come to help me during the MyNakedPastor .com weeks, to have up and running the system for five uninterrupted weeks… planning, dreaming, figuring what kind of problems will exist, and also talking and fixing the world from our own point of view, what if Chavez this… or Bush the other… politicians in Mexico and other stuff... then we have lunch together ( laaaaate 3 pm lunch) and we enter some discussions about what he thinks of this and that… What is great, after all the discussion, we agreed on something, we have a great friendship. Friendship is not about to agree on everything, is about to understand how God created us unique, each of us, ...

Today was my first class day, and just coming in, I got my first test! To check my current knowledge, first, it was a Pre-test… so on this test it was reading, math and writing. First Results: Reading, 100%, (Is good to now at least that I can understand all I’m reading), Math, I got 96% (Ok I don’t remember how to divide fractions) and then… Writing. I check the sentences, read the questions several times… and I think I just got no more than 15%... the teacher just told me… “Well, you said you needed to learn writing…” I’ll get the right materials for you. She gives me the real tests (Now big books) for Reading and Math, and she told me that she will get one for writing next Monday. So I did the real tests, and it was fun, more than the questions, I was having memories about the time I learned the topic on question… it was something between nostalgic, melancholic and memories tests. I don got the results yet, but I’m pretty sure I got very good results on those tests… How different is...

We finished preparing the pre-launch website for MyNakedPastor.com and everyone is exited about this new series. It has a spot to submit your video to enter the contest to go to the “Naked Party” (I just made my own video and submitted). I’m learning about the RSS, XML & Twitter feeds on the link we added there, because, believe it or not, I didn’t know what it was a feed (Yes an outdated nerd… that stinks) and it is very cool, so, now I don’t need to visit all my friend’s blog, just get the feed and I can read all the updates all at once, great. Another interesting thing is the naked tools, that allow every one to include the code piece required to invite some one or just to share the fun of MyNakedPastor.com on the Naked Tools section. Well and what is this, all about this series? There is the explanation also: “The lead pastor, Troy Gramling, at Flamingo Road Church is getting naked! No...not that kind of naked, a new kind of naked. A nakedness that isn’t embarrassing; a nakedn...

Today I start reading the Book "Peppermint-filled piñatas" by Eric Michael Bryant, and as soon as i start reading, I was unable to stop reading it... it make me think about how can we move our ministry to become relevant, responsive, and reflective of the global community. He approaches the subject on a very funny way, starting with "The art of woo", I laugh from the beginning, I think I'll be blogging about the book on my next few posts... MyNakedPastor.com series will be relevant, and I believe that will change the mind of many as we approach the different subjects that will be covered by this series. Now, I’ll continue reading…

Today was the first day at school for all of my princess, also my wife start working as montessory teacher. Yesterday it was the run to be ready for today, Paulina was seeking for the best set to impact others… if this belt is with this shoes and backpack, if the hair… Sarai was checking on her uniform, every one wants to be prepared to impact others. When I was on Mexico, I was good on writing. I had a newspaper column, I wrote every day, but since I’m in US, I stop writing, and the worst thing, is that it is hard for me to express completely my thinking on a piece of paper, this is why I made a decision today, I enrolled on a English Writing class. I’m not pretending to become a great writer from night to day, but instead, I can learn a little every day. Blogging will become a very important piece of my learning, because I’ll be able to see my improvements from now, so… now I’m also, back to school. Discipline and planning are together and never is too late to start learning somethin...

The MyNakedPastor.com Series is a great technical challenge, because for five weeks we will be broadcasting Troy Gramling 24 x 7. This weekend Garland’s message for the Antology series was “Today Matters” oh… and by the way, Today is Garland’s B-Day… (Happy Birthday Gar), and it was about to be prepared, it’s funny, I’m trying my daughters and my to read or at least try to listen the Maxwell’s book with the same name… why? Because is important to be prepared. I’m sure if you watch this archived teaching when become available, you’ll agree with me how important is to be prepared, because every moment today will build the success for tomorrow. I’m sure this upcoming series will be not only successful, but also will touch many people’s heart, helping them to reach their God’s potential. We have been working preparing this series for about two months at least. One of the weeks Troy will be broadcasted from his car, and on that week he will have a travel to Tampa. So I got all the techni...

Here is another picture with our characters of the “Mystery Picture”. A great president for US, Ronald Reagan. Today, while I was driving back from Tampa, I tried to discuss with Dora about the John Maxwell book “Today Matters” so we start listening the audio book, before the first chapter ended, Dora, was snoring… (Look at the picture taken with the Streaming Camera), and I was by myself with my thoughts as companion. Then I remember how on every staff meeting we have at the office, Troy always prepares a Q&A trivia contest to encourage the team work and to have a little fun. The questions are always related to TV, or Music or something and every time, when the contest starts I always thing… I’ll be prepared for next meeting… and I’m feel frustrated about not knowing about the culture and history where I live, then I just listen to Maxwell to said “When opportunity presents is too late to prepare for it” and that’s true, now for me is to late to gain years and years of culture, ...

The picture inquiring about the couple in a lake, is Ronald and Nancy Reagan... Later today I'll post another picture that I have at my office, now, on my way back to Cooper City :) Ohhh and the winner is: Troy Gramling :)

Finally arrived at Tampa at 11:40… what a great city. The trip was great. We have poor coverage only from mile 150 to Naples… but after that, we got good signal almost all the from Naples to Tampa. There was people following the beta test from Barranquilla, Colombia, Texas, Florida, Mexico… and two engineers, Doug and Freddy who where monitoring my signal all the way long. There was few glitches, but now I’m making notes about it to be ready for the real enchilada… I really believe that the next series will be a great opportunity to reach many people… so… be ready for www.mynakedpastor.com series… Good Night!

Today We will be broadcasting live from my car, as a beta testing for the next FRC Series: MyNakedPastor.com and I’m setting up the equipment ready: 1 MacBook 1 Verizon Wireless Card 1 USB Creative Camera 1 FireWire 3 CCD Panasonic Camera 1 External Antenna with 11 DB Gain 1 Power Inverter MSN Messanger Windows Media Encoder V.9 Running So, let’s see what we can blog from this trip. I’ll have some beta tester viewers that will be sharing later their thoughts about this exiting test. I cannot wait the new series to start. This will be something completely different; I have great expectations on this Troy’s great idea.

I was able to chat with Steve and here is an update: Total chaos south of Lima, 510 dead, 1500 injured, 80,000 homeless. We're filling up a minivan with supplies tomorrow, bound for Pisco, the hardest hit area, and we're also putting together an FRC Lima relief plan for the area hit by the earthquake. We may go to Pisco next week for 1-2 days to deliver relief supplies in person with FRC Lima people. I'm going to do another blog in the morning with an update. I'm also going to be teaching live this weekend at FRC Lima on "When Disaster Strikes." The highway to Pisco is heavily damaged, that is the problem in getting supplies in. They're using the Plaza de Armas as an open-air morgue right now. An FRC Lima member has family in Pisco. They are homeless now, so we're sending them tents, blankets, water, etc

Today was the Open House at FRCA, my little daughter’s school, and Sol and Sarai where so exited to meet their new teachers… Me and Dora had to split… so Dora was with Sarai and Sol with me. Just walking in to the classrooms and looking around you can see and feel a safe place for my treasures, a place where they can get clear spiritual basis, that it is a really strong foundation for a future life. I Love FRCA…

Our Campus Pastor at Lima Wrote this update: Earthquake Update: 350 dead in Peru and 1,000 injured. Mass devastation south of Lima, in cities of Ica, Chincha, Pisco, 4-5 hours south of Lima. Houses, buildings, hospitals collapsed. We are trying to make contact with a pastor and with relatives of FRC Lima folks that live in the area. 60% of all houses collapsed in that area. Tsunami warnings all night in Lima, but may have passed. Many aftershocks all night as well. Damage in Lima less than in south, but still several deaths and much structural damage, particularly in center of Lima. Girls at orphanage are all OK physically, but very scared. Older girls were returning from school when earthquake hit, but made it back safely. They are all very scared today. We’ll probably go there later on today to be with them. We’re OK. Some structural damage to our building. Lots of things broken. Pictures fell off wall, broken glass, etc. Ran down 5 flights of stairs to escape from building with de...

I start praying for Lima, Peru and all the affected cities for this big catastrophe, is sad always to know about the life loses, and people injured. My prayers for all the people suffering and their families at Peru. I just remember 1985 in Mexico City, it was September the 19, at 7:18 a.m. I was getting ready to go to work when I feel a strong movement in my apartment, and after a very looong seconds, we loose power, and after that, several smoke columns emerged all around the city… the toll, more than 10,000 inhabitants where killed… there was a sad memory, I lost few friends on that cataclysm. One thing I learned after that, during difficult times, is a great opportunity for mercy, unselfishness and other great fillings to bloom. That is no time to think who is more or less important, and it is also a great time to show compassion, and love for each other. After the tragedy, I listen to many great stories about courage, and I’m sure that we will listen to great stories after this sa...

All right! I received some e-mails asking me about the couple on the picture of the posting “Priorities in Life” and guess what… I’m not telling you who they are but instead I’ll make a contest: Post a comment with the name of the couple… (your guess) and the first right answer will get a Free $ 10.00 Starbucks gift card! Clues: Is no me… (My wife is blonde). It was taken on 3/4/82 at Lake Lucky, Ca. It was taken on 1982. Is a famous couple.

The saying “Behind every great man there is a great woman” has variations. Behind every good man… Behind every successful man… And I’ll add my own: “Behind Every Great Woman is a Great Man” I do not really know a successful man or woman that reach the top just by himself, and this is because we where created to complement each other. We cannot try to reach our potential just on a selfish way, it has to be a team effort, and in order to reach the top of the hill, we have to re-set the priority in our life’s: 1. My relation with God 2. My relation with my wife 3. My relation with my kids 4. The rest of the world, (Ministry, work, friend other family) If you mess with this simple rules you may be accomplish some goals in your life, but you’ll never reach your God’s potential in your life and here is why: If I am in good shape with God, then I am strong enough to face the challenges on the relation with my wife. If I’m ok with God and my wife, together we can help our kids to grow and be s...

Some one asked today to a room full of church staff: Why do you do ministry? While I listen to the answers I ask my self why, and I made a quick time travel remembering how my life was. I was dead… I was having a miserable live, living every day with no hope, just waiting for the next day to come, and the next, and the next… destroying my life and the life of people close to me. Until one day when I accepted Jesus as my savior. On that day, I got new life, real life, a reason to be alive, with hope and a new opportunity on every day. I was able to enjoy life, my family, a sunrise, the rain, and I discover that God give to me gifts to be used to reach “dead” people, just like I was. That’s why I do Ministry, because I’m alive, because I can help others to discover that there is live on this earth, and there is a God who created us, who cares for us, and he loves us, and doing ministry, I’m part of God’s plan to reach people who need hope but more important than all, is because when they...

Last night I leave on my desk a cup of coffee, and today on the morning I found a large ant column from some hole on the wall to the desk, and to the cup… wow! After I cleaned my desk, I meditated on last night’s teaching on our current series, “Antology” about the Bread, When we enjoy a nice piece of bread, we never think how that bread reached our table… as the ants, they crop not for themselves, but for the next generation. I’m discovering why is it on the Bible one verse inviting us to observe… the ants!: Proverbs 6:6 6 Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! Just observing the ants, we have many lessons to get in order to reach our God's potential. If you where unable to watch the previous services (Last Week: Part one and this week, part two) you can get the teaching on the Archives Section for Flamingo Road Church. (By the way, now the teachings are avialble on English and spanish too)

Today I called my Uncle Manuel. He is celebrating his 77th birthday, and I talk to him for about 20 minutes. He lives at Morelia City, in Mexico and after some beautiful memories, we shared some toughs and I invited him to watch our live services on the Internet. He is one of my mother’s brother and he was always with a great attitude, smiling, funny and now he is thankful for the time God has giving to him to be strong, healthy and happy with his wife and sons… What is your secret? He told me, I wake up every morning early, give thanks to God, do some exercise and I eat healty food that “Mi vieja” (My aunt) prepares for me! Happy Birthday Tio Manuel! How great is to have a Internet Campus and to be able to share the experience with the people that we love, no matter where they can be… that’s why this is “One Church Where You Are”

Today I was making some video tests for our next series “ MyNakedPastor.com ” and while I playing with my hands in front of the camera, I was able to turn and watch my self with a 15 seconds delay caused by the live streaming trough the Internet. It was funny to my hands in to the camera and memories came to my mind: I asked once my mother if i was “The One”, the favorite, if she loved me more than my siblings, and she answered me with a great wisdom, she show me her hand and asked me: -what do you see? Five fingers, was my immediate answer, and she told me: “Well, son I have 2 sons and 3 daughters, for me they are just like my fingers; every one is different, but for me the all five are important, I love you as much as the others, but every one of you is special to me. You don’t need to compete for love, because God give me plenty of love for each one of you.” Since then, I start looking at my siblings on a different way, we where able to be united on all the times, for good and not s...

Matthew 18:3 And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” One of my computers was working really slow, the system was frozen a lot of times during one simple process, and it was unable to run several applications. I had to erase the hard drive, reload the operating system, programs and data, now it works fast… Would be great to erase our mind just like that, to remove all the things that are wrong and reload it with the “good” programs only… I think that we are getting old not with our age, but with our attitude, our mind, when we think we know everything, we stop learning, we stop dreaming and then we got old, we don't reach our potential Our Internet Campus is now reaching people all over the world, and soon we will starting groups that will be reaching communities that we never imagine, We must be ready to be with an open mind to be able to connect with other cultures, that will allow us to gr...

It’s exiting to think of the next series for FRC, www.MyNakedPastor.com . It is really hard to be authentic and real because by many reasons we are always hiding behind a Mask. What happen when you drop the mask? What happen when you are not in front of the people who are always close to you? How do you act? How do you react? What is the true minding of being a Christian? Now, can you imagine being on camera 24 X 7 and every one in the world being watching you? Well, this is it… This is our upcoming series at Flamingo Road Church, so if you don’t want to miss it, be ready for the Launching Series Party, on September 8th at 8 p.m. At the FRCLive.tv, our internet campus, we will be following closely this unique event.

I always liked photography. Since I was a Kid, I learn how to take Pictures, about exposure, light, Iso, Field Deep and so for. I build my own dark room and I remember that I worked like crazy to buy my first camera, to buy my first film roll and my first chemicals, then my second challenge was to get my own enlarger, that I got it few weeks later. It was a lot of fun for me and I became and amateur photographer. Whenever was possible I upgraded my equipment and accessories. I always kept my equipment safe, clean, secured. I was really jealous about to borrow any of my cameras or accessories to anybody. Is incredible what happens when the time goes one. On the last two years I neglected to secure my stuff and some of my equipment changed ownership, 3 Digital Video Recorders and two digital still cameras. I was upset because at some point I uncared for, and some one else got it. Recently I wanted to acquire a new still camera in order to use my old Minolta Lenses and accessories and aft...

It was a great start the first teaching of "Antology". We got a new and great look on the stage. The Internet Campus Attendance was above 600 people watching the service from all over the world, it was a great weekend. We all love comfort and easy. In fact there is some electronic "Easy" button, that you click and gives you some encouraging words, but in order to reach our God's potential, we have to walk away from our comfort zone and change from being an observer to become an actor, and when we start acting, we will face challenges, difficulties, situations. This weekend Troy talked about that topic and he give us 3 questions that we have to ask ourselves when we are facing a situation: 1. What2. Why3. What. Number one: What is happening? We must become an observer and slow down to think and observe the situation. Second: Why is that happening? Is there something we can do about it? Like Grandma said “if your problem has a solution why are you worried? If it h...

We got a lot of "new" today... New Series: ANT-OLOGY New Stage: (Look at the picture) New Website: http://www.flamingoroadchurch.com/ New Internet Campus: http://www.frclive.tv/ New Small Group: Ft Worth, Texas New Visitors: From Puerto Rico and Spain Thanks God for the all new things we can enjoy every day.

I watched last night the Movie “The Astronaut Farmer”, and it was a good entertaining movie about a Man who wants to reach his dream: To be on the Outer Space for once. One good thing I got from the movie (Beside it was a sweet moment to share with Dora), it was the leadership of the Dad, he was able to lead all the family to dream together, sharing the same vision, and when he struggles with failure, his strength came back from his own family. Tuesday, Troy was talking about Perseverance, and about quitting. We all have a great potential. God created us for that. The problem is that some times we are unable to reach our potential because we quit. To quit is a state of mind, is resigning to our dreams, to quit is continue doing life without dreams, just letting the day go on without grabbing the opportunity every day has for us. Every day is a new opportunity to face a new challenge, observe it, defeat it and grow… or just quite. The choice is yours.

Cheap Good and Fast are three choices that we cannot have all together. There are simple Math Rules: If you want it Good and Fast, is not going to be Cheap If you want it Cheap and Good, is not going to be Fast If you want it Fast and Cheap, is not going to be Good Just pure logic...

Finally, after several weeks of hard work, we have the new Beta site for FRC, on this new page will be easier to go and make changes, updates, colors. We have not the final graphic design yet, but the engine is running great! Aside the website, I was thinking on our life, how we need to be updated often, just as Paul said on Romans 12:2, “2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” When we don’t apply this in our life, we become rusty, and from time to time, we become obsolete, and what is harder, we will be apart from God’s will. Now I’m starting to build a new update engine for my personal life, not only to update (renew) my mind, but to do it often and fast. The Internet Campus is exposed to the most fast changing world, and in order to reach people all over the world we need to do it with a fresh and renewed mind, getti...

Last Night, my pastor talked us about the way we often see the problems. We have two ways to see a situation in our life, as a big problem or as a great opportunity. Some times I’m waiting for the opportunity to appear, but he just reminded us that Opportunity is made, not born. Some times we dream “I will reach this…. When I get that”, but we cannot be seated waiting for “something” appears on our lifes, so we have to go and seek the opportunity and to get up and running 3 verbs related with opportunity: See Opportunity Sustain it Seize it. The FRC Internet Campus is a great opportunity to reach people all over the world and I have to take some time to relax, think and start looking for the opportunities that are to come J By the way… today we will have a new design for the Internet Campus… so be ready to have a great surprise!