: Day Dreaming :: 4|2010

1. : Day Dreaming :: 4|2010 dream dreams that are destined to fail without divine intervention

2. When was the last time you daydreamed? Have you dreamed about life goals, ambitions and the full life? What legacy do you want to leave behind?

3. Pre-Dreaming (pre-work) • Men for Marriage (Men-only) • http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/trial/marriage-and-men • Living a Good Story, an Alternative to New Years Resolutions • http://donmilleris.com/2010/01/01/living-a-good-story-an-alternative-to-new-years-resolutions/ • Let Story Guide You • http://www.marshill.org/teaching/download.php?filename=MTExMTA3Lm1wMw%3D%3D • Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

4. Pre-Dreaming • Questions: • “What If?” Questions?: What If we could bring peace to the continent of Africa? What if I reconciled with my parents? What If I held a fundraiser? • What legacy do you want to leave behind? Let your creativity soar… …where do I start?

5. Dream GOD SIZED Dreams Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Consider the lilies. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don't let what's wrong with you keep you from worshipping what's right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze a new trail. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don't try to be who you're not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away. Chase the lion! ~Mark Batterson Source: http://www.evotional.com/2007/08/lion-chasers-manifesto.html

6. Story – Donald Miller • What dreams will never be achieved? What stories would never be told? What people will have never been touched? – if you were hit by a bus. • The greatest stories involving the protagonist risking everything • Source: http://www.marshill.org/teaching/download.php?filename=MTExMTA3Lm1wMw%3D%3D

7. Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life • “Fear is a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life." • “We were designed to live through something rather than to attain something, and the thing we were meant to live through was designed to change us. The point of a story is the character arc, the change." • “A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.” • "If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation. If I got any comfort as I set out on my first story, it was that in nearly every story, the protagonist is transformed. He's a jerk at the beginning and nice at the end, or a coward at the beginning and brave at the end. If the character doesn't change, the story hasn't happened yet. And if story is derived from real life, if story is just condensed version of life then life itself may be designed to change us so that we evolve from one kind of person to another. "

8. Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life • "He thought about the story his daughter was living and the role she was playing inside that story. He realized he hadn't provided a better role for his daughter. He hadn't mapped out a story for his family. And so his daughter had chosen another story, a story in which she was wanted, even if she was only being used. In the absence of a family story, she'd chosen a story in which there was risk and adventure, rebellion and independence." • Here’s the truth about telling stories with your life. It’s going to sound like a great idea, and you are going to get excited about it, and then when it comes time to do the work, you’re not going to want to do it. It’s like that with writing books, and it’s like that with life. People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen. But joy costs pain. • "It wasn't necessary to win for the story to be great, it was only necessary to sacrifice everything."

9. Quotes • "We can do no great things, only small things with great love.“ ~MT • The journey toward your Big Dream changes you. In fact, the journey itself is what prepares you to succeed at what you were born to do. And until you decide to pursue your Dream, you are never going to love life the way you were meant to. ~The Dream Giver

10. I-Heart Revolution We see these imbalances, and we say “That’s not right, that’s not fair.” But all too often that’s all that we do, because for us to do anymore is actually going to cost us something. And if that’s where it ends, perhaps then it’s fair to say that when we ignore the prostituted child, we actually lend our hand to their abuse. That when we ignore the widow and the orphan in their distress that we actually add to their pain. When we ignore the slave that remains captive that it’s us who is entrapping them. That when we forget the refugee that it’s us who is displacing them. That when we choose not to help the poor and the needy, that we actually rob them. Perhaps the only fair thing to say is that when we forsake the lives of others, we actually forsake our own. ~ Joel Houston Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4NlyZqJhwk

11. Setbacks & Go Hard • If you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived! • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tjYoKCBYag • Lecrae - Go Hard • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGJOvYHw_RE • http://reachrecords.com/lyrics/2646 • Facing the Giants • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vB59PkB0eQ • Disney Pixar Up - Married Life - Carl & Ellie • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GroDErHIM_0

12. The Story Climax: “Well Done” • "I don't wonder anymore what I'll tell God when I go to heaven when we sit in the chairs under the tree, outside the city........I'll tell these things to God, and he'll laugh, I think and he'll remind me of the parts I forgot, the parts that were his favorite. We'll sit and remember my story together, and then he'll stand and put his arms around me and say, "well done," and that he liked my story. And my soul won't be thirsty anymore. Finally he'll turn and we'll walk toward the city, a city he will have spoken into existence a city built in a place where once there'd been nothing."

13. Take Aways / Next Steps • Starters / Tools • http://www.43things.com: see others’ ambitions • http://www.mindmeister.com: Put the word “Dreams” as your center and see where your mind leads you. • Make lists • Follow-up/accountability • “Blasting through Blocks”: write down all your angers/fears related to finishing a project • Keep Dreamin! • It's all about sharing! Just talk about it. Watch God move!

14. Appendix: Other Ideas • Have a dream room • Dream outside (lay in the grass dreaming into the clouds) • Big Dreams can and DO happen! • http://www.bigdreamgathering.com/big_dream_videos/ • Wild at Heart: Every woman wants an adventure to share. She doesn't want to be the adventure; she wants to be caught up in something greater than herself. • The beauty of dreaming big is that it leads to praying for great big things... which essentially goes from our mind's ideas to our heart's overflow and into action. ~Kate Bertrand