who will miss you when you're gone?

A friend has found his blogging groove which is good news for all of us that follow Keith Jennings in his various blogging manifestations. It looks like the sweet spot will be helping non-profits discover "what business they are really in."

Keith has been kind enough to help me try to figure that out for a while now. I accused him of trying to make me do hard work that I didn't really have to do when he asked me the question recently:

"If your organization ceased to exist, who would it affect and how?"

This was difficult because step one was to figure out: what is it that we do?

Is there one common goal that our entire organization ascribes to?

It's discipleship, right?

What does that mean, though?

Is the group that meets once a week to do needlepoint really trying to accomplish the same thing that the group that meets once a week to talk over the Bible and what it means to them?

The people who find the church a convenient place to take their kids for dance and soccer: do they even care what we are trying to accomplish? What's the next most convenient place that they would have to go to if they couldn't come to our place?

Peter Drucker claims that not only are the needlepointers and the bible studyers and the soccer moms trying to accomplish the same thing, but that every non-profit (faith based and otherwise) is trying to do the same thing.

He says, in Managing the Non-Profit Organization that the one mission we all have in common is "to satisfy the needs of the American people for self-realization, for living out our ideals, our beliefs, our best opinion of ourselves." p. xvii. And that is just in the preface of the book! He continues to say that the non-profit organization exists "to bring about a change in individuals and in society." (p3)

Now, here's the thing. I have pondered the question "If your organization ceased to exist, who would it affect and how?" and have thought about it from a few angles.

And here is what I'm wondering with a somewhat troubled sense:

Do you suppose that the people who would miss it the most are the folks who want to change the least?

And, for me, here's the most important thing about this thought:

If that is true, who's fault is it?

Mine.

And since your reading:

Yours.

So. What are we going to do about it?

I got you!

I was unable to make it to a ministry opportunity recently. I was suffering from a physical ailment that had immobilized me. The event wasn't overly important, but I really wanted to "make an appearance". I knew also that we needed some sort of staff representation and to have a problem solver on hand should one be needed.

I contacted an intern who works with me in what we call the community development office of our organization. Our self assigned task is to make sure events and discipleship opportunities go as well as possible and that the stories and ideas of the ministry are spread to highest degree we can attain.

I sent him a text that morning: I can't make it to the event today. I need you to be there and help out.

His response via text:

Ok and i will show up and represent for our department because we're a team and since you can't make it, i will pick the ball up and take it all the way. I got you!

I realized for me, the discipleship opportunity was in the texting that morning.

Discipleship because I relied on someone else and someone else came to realize the importance and the integrity involved with the interdependence that we live in together as members of "our department".

I realized how much a 20 year old intern with no formal professional training or real stake other than a slightly-better-than-minimum-wage-part-time-job understood about team, community, love, and our cause.

I kind of also realized how rare it is to see from those of us who are highly trained and educated and have a full time career at stake in the cause.

I hope I can be better about making my colleagues feel that I will represent them in difficult times, and that ultimately: "I got you!"

receivers and givers

"What about helping suffering people--starving [homeless] and such? Sure. Do it. It's [the way]. But do it without attachment. To be attached means that you identify with your role as the GIVER of help. This in turn casts the other person in the role of RECEIVER of help. Such identifications with roles may fill bellies, but it increases human distance. A conscious being knows that there is neither giver nor receiver... there are only empty bellies, storehouses of wheat... and effort required to move wheat from storehouses to the belly. It is OUR wheat, our belly, our effort. And when all this energy has been transferred, a conscious being realizes that nothing has happened. Thanks are absurd... does your left hand thank your right hand?"

-Ram Dass, Be Here Now

A recent day of outreach was made remarkable in that its organizers sought to provide opportunities for traditional receivers to take on the role of givers. There were complications, but it was mildly successful.

The NA group took up collections over months. Enough was donated to cover the costs for materials to put wood preservative on an aging deck at a local rehab center.

One of the organizers of the outreach project ran into one of the women enrolled in a treatment center who would participate. "I can't wait 'til Saturday," she said. "What's Saturday?" said the organizer, unsure if he remembered who she was. "It's the day of outreach, of course," she said.

And all of the church members who typically occupy the role of givers?

They came together for communion.

And, at least for a few minutes, all the givers were receivers.

A problem solver

Bobby Bowden, in an interview on ESPN, spoke about his role as head (embattled) football coach of the Florida State Seminoles. "I'm just... a problem solver," he said. He doesn't call the plays, draw out the diagram, or wear the headset. Or at least he doesn't say much into the headset during the game.

I think I know what he is talking about. I was thinking through an event coming up that involved a few different volunteers who don't really know each other that well. They have all sorts of gifts. And strong "leaders".

I was thinking: "We better send a problem solver with them."

The problem solver won't know how to run the bobcat, she won't know how to apply the paint, or how to really spread the mulch properly. She'll just make sure the people who do know how to do all that have a chance to share their gifts.

She will make people feel welcome, and valuable, and people will say, at the end of the day: "That was fun."

Do you qualify?

test or toy catalog?

My older daughter works at a toy store and from time to time has to take a test over new product lines and learn about and verify her knowledge of the new items so she can be a better salesman.

She was going over the latest "packet" of toy information recently and complaining about how she wishes she didn't have to take these product tests.

Shortly afterward my younger daughter came into the room and saw the product packet and exclaimed, "Yay, a toy catalog!"

Which begs the question: your Bible study curriculum, ministry team agenda, leadership book, or event calendar-- annoying work obligation or toy catalog?

Would you flip from page to page and pick the one item on each page you would most like to have (that's what we used to do with the Sears Christmas catalog every year at Christmas time.)

Or would you just as soon cheat off someone else's product test so you didn't have to actually learn about the new stuff.

k

I overheard a colleague share that she would text the information to another colleague.

It struck me as odd because the textee, as far as I knew, barely communicated via e-mail, and I would have never imagined that she was a texter.

"Oh yeah, I have to," she said. "It's the best way to keep up with my grandson."

She exemplified, I think, an important aspect of leadership.

Do you know how to best communicate with each of those in the care of your leadership?

Or do you just say things like: "I don't text."

I have a friend who, if at all possible, refuses to use microphones. When speaking to a moderate size group, if a microphone is provided, he'll most likely not use it.

"I hate those things," he says.

The microphone isn't for his edification. It's there to make his audience more able to hear him.

So do you ever hear yourself say:

"I don't facebook."

"I don't twitter."

Is what you're saying:

"How I communicate with my ministry team, my accountability group, or my colleagues is more about me than them."

Who do you call on the cell phone and not leave a voicemail because you know they'll call you back?

Who do you facebook rather than e-mail because they check that more regularly?

Who would rather you call them on the home phone rather than the cell phone?

Who always responds to a text faster than a cell phone call?

Who returns your voice mails with an e-mail?

Who do you have to text that you are sending an e-mail: e-mail coming--please read it?

Who do you have to include, in caps on the subject line of an email: ACTION REQUIRED?

Who's on outlook and who's on i-cal when it comes to calendar invitations?

If you don't know, you might not be leading as well as you could.

What's the best way for me to get in touch with you?

What's the best way for you to get in touch with the people most important to your leadership?

What's the best way for you to keep up with the people you love?

dumb luck, tragedies, coincidences and you

Commentator Ira Glass, in a recent podcast about stories of people who believe a book changed their life, cited sources of real change in peoples' lives: dumb luck, tragedies, and coincidences.

True?

Could someone's life be changed by an idea?

Or by a community of changers?

Maybe we should just wait for the next tragedy and leverage the change that comes from that.

Has your ministry, disciple class, event, 3 year term on your ministry team, kindness, voice, apology, encouragement, appreciation, note, sleepless night, idea, failure, invitation, poster, bulletin announcement, graphic, talk, powerpoint presentation, webpage, insert, volunteer opportunity, mission trip, blog post, pulpit support, willingness to listen, or e-mail ever changed someone's life?

Or: are they all just our contributions to some jumble of sacred coincidences?

Where do you most often see life change? (And I know: A lot of what we do--we never see the outcome.)

Do you suppose we need to spend more time, energy, and conversation in those places? We do, after all, see some of them.

Or do we just keep hoping for dumb luck?

Or, maybe: Ira Glass never met you or sat in on a ministry event you helped plan.

Important, but not so imoprtant

I heard an interview with Ernie Banks on NPR recently. He was talking about his career and life. He spoke about the first time he walked onto Wrigley Field and how he knew: that was where he was supposed to be.

He shared that he understood Mr. Wrigley had an apartment in the park and Mr. Banks really wanted to talk him about the possibilty of living in it so he could spend more time there.

And then he shared one of his secrets to success. To realize the job is very important, but not so important.

I think I am beginning to understand. In as much as Ernie Banks is one of the most beloved baseball icons of all time, he found out the relative unimportance of baseball by pursuing its importance at the highest level.

A contradiction.

To realize that what we do isn't so important, we have to become the best at it.

Is there anything to learn about ministry from a bygone ball player?

Its not sour grapes. And its not throwing in the towel.

More like sweet fruit? Reaching for the brass ring?

Where is it for us?
What is it for us?

Warning: contents may adversely affect your health

Does the Gospel inform your leadership in ministry?

If God learns things--Adam and Eve would eat the fruit of the Tree when given the chance, Abraham would sacrifice his son, Job would soldier on in tough times; but have some questions, drowning the earth isn't the solution to man's penchant for living apart from Himself--did he learn anything through his incarnation as Jesus?

Did he learn about the ferociousness of evil that would claim his life on earth?

Did he, as Dennis Green famously said about the Chicago Bears, surmise as he died: "They are who we thought they were!" ("It is finished.")?

If you aren't sure, I recommend you check out the movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

It might change the way you think of what happens when goodness--love--takes on the condition of the despised to help them find wholeness. (The outcome still involves death and hope, but from a different perspective).

So when do you move ahead with the event, project, mission, trip, or dinner even without knowing the outcomes or predetermining what success will be?

Are you willing in love and compassion to take on the stripes of the downcast, the ignored, and unlovely to live out your understanding (and the organization's understanding) of the Gospel?

Or:

Does the Gospel not matter?

Does God know everything and there is nothing else for Him to learn?

What about you?

Those in the care of your leadership: what are you willing to take on so that they may find wholeness?

Would it kill you to find out?

The shame of the lame

I saw Eli Manning limping around on the highlights of last week's NFL action, and for the first time I can say about an NFL player's "injury": I know exactly how he feels. I've never had a concussion or a torn acl, or a separated shoulder, or a pulled hamstring. But I have had more than my share of plantar faciitis agony. Like Eli.

It's not a football injury per se. But then strangely, I started thinking about how if feels to be limping around. In life and on the football field.

Folks on the other team notice and they smirk and they think and say: "We got him." Oddsmakers start trying to figure out how to properly evaluate what how your injury will sway the confidence people have in the ability of the rest of your team. Your teammates will try to get you up off the field so others won't know of your vulnerablity. (Take a look at Tim Tebow's teammates trying to get him up off the field after his concussion a couple weeks ago) I can remember a time or two when I was laid out to have people say: come on- get up man- people are watching.

I hate having people ask me: "What's wrong? You OK?" When my tendon is acting up, I try to take the back way and act like everything is fine.

It's difficult to acknowledge a limp. It's hard to be aware of the limp of others and when to try to get them up off the field and when to ask them what's wrong and when to pretend like you don't notice.

There is a unofficial interesting trend I am noticing. My 22 year old colleague expressed genuine excitement about going to see Rob Bell on his Drops Like Stars Tour because he was going to be talking about suffering. As a 22 year old Director of Youth Ministry at a large church, he knows a little bit about suffering.

My 14 year old daughter spent some time last evening showing me the Drops Like Stars book at Barnes and Noble last night. It's about suffering she explained. As a freshmen in high school, and a girl no less, she knows about suffering- affluent american style.

It seems like lots of times we are in the business of living in a suffering-free-way. If you only believe this, or do this enough, or give enough of your time here, you won't have to suffer. You won't have to limp. You won't have to lie on the field unconscious. People won't look at you and say: "What's wrong?"

But I'm encouraged by the genuine respect and interest some folks around me are sharing for suffering.

I'm trying to say to those who sometimes don't agree with my idea, my vision, or my leadership: I appreciate you. You're probably suffering and our ministry together is about acknowledging that. And not trying to fix it or sell you on my way. Just to acknowledge it, talk about it, and agree that when we come to ministry: we all bring our gifts, and intellect, and our Christianity.

And we bring our humanity and our grief and our suffering.

And we limp along, hopefully together, in our love of God and one another.

hard conversations α 1/(difficult conversations)

I was trying to say, in the title, that the number of hard conversations (conversations that result in someone being hurt or some significant life change or significant relationship change happening--usually negative) are inversely proportional to the number of difficult conversations (having to talk about the elephant in the room, or showing "how much you care", where behavior is "called out" so that positive change can occur. "Is it just me, or is the emperor not wearing any clothes?") aka "come to Jesus" meeting that you are willing or able to have.

Side note: The symbol for inversely proportional (that's an alpha symbol) is the same for proportional? For inversely proportional, you just have to put one over one side or the other? HUH!

John Maxwell, in the 360 degree leader, illustrates the difficult conversation with an example of a manager who took someone under his leadership and explained that odd personal ticks (he hummed and sat on his hands--literally-- when under stress) were holding him back. Wha-la, once the employee realized this, he quit doing it and was on his way to success.

Now, I haven't had the chance to have a difficult conversation that ended up in the quick fix of Mr. Maxwell's example. I have have had conversations in which the person I engaged basically said (not in so many words): "Well I don't hum...or sit on my hands: and if I do, so what? You're just out to get me."

I even have had a colleague describe these types of conversations as "blowing their cover", so they no longer will make eye contact with you, or basically acknowledge that you exist. They move on, or just have a permanent "personality conflict" with you moving forward.

Dan McCarthy, in this blog post, writes about difficult conversations, good and bad, he wishes he could have with folks who were doing very well or very poorly in the work place. It makes you wonder, if you could have these types of conversations, in how many cases could a hard conversation be spared?

Are we prepared for the difficult conversations? Have we amassed the social capital necessary?

Are the difficult conversations that lead to hard conversations just as valuable as the difficult conversations that stave off the hard ones?

My "go to" difficult conversation: "Things don't seem to be going as I think they should in our area of ministry together. What is your thinking on this? What are a couple things I could do or do better to make this thing more faithful to our mission?"

And please, don't be afraid to have a difficult conversation with me.

I'm here to make friends

I heard about a blog by Rich Juzwiak on This American Life concerning a line often heard on reality TV shows: I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to win the prize, to be the last one to be voted off, or to win the girl or the guy. But not to make friends. This is often heard when someone does something despicable and this is their way of not having to feel bad about it.

We can't be friends with everybody. That would dilute the meaning of friendships. But we should be open to friendships that develop. Maybe we should even seek them out as the ultimate way to change the world.

One of the core values of Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore that a book group discovered was the authentic friendship that developed between the upper middle class do-gooder and the homeless artist that he unwittingly befriended. But in all the discussion that ensued about how we can take part in the life changing work that makes the book so compelling, no one touched on befriending a homeless person as a way to go.

We have mentor programs and big brother and big sister programs, but not friend programs. Because I guess it doesn't work that way. I even tried to develop a frientor program one time: no takers.

But we can't stick our stake in the ground and proclaim that "we aren't here to make friends" either.

I went on a college visit last week and was fortunate enough for my daughter to spend some time with some friends at the school we were visiting. They became friends because they were in her youth group and because I had been on mission trips with them and because my wife has become great friends with one of the girl's mother.

All because of the church.

As one church pulled up to unload all of it's stuff at the community outreach program, a couple of friends from another church pulled up and picked up their friend to go and do a project in a community garden.

Programs and friends doing stuff together. Two different ways to go. Which one has the best chance to make a difference? Which one do we focus on more?

We're here to make friends. Me with you. You with each other. And them with us.

It would be a lousy script for a reality show, but do you think the church can work with it?

Comfort in the Contradictions

I have a friend who has unwittingly saved me tons of time and has maybe staved off a heart attack or stroke that a few days ago seemed inevitable.

I shared with him the seeming madness of our Christian interpretation of what Karen Armstrong refers to as the ultimate reality (God).

I mean:

People who post a sign on their nativity scene that reads: "Born to die." And the minister I heard on the Day 1 radio program who said that Christianity is based on "just action and not on right belief, that acknowledges that Charles Darwin was correct, that moves away from original sin and blood atonement and back to the just and ethical teachings of Jesus, that regards Jesus' death as a sign of human blindness rather than divine love, that approaches the complex issues of gender and sex with understanding and sophistication, that employs the best of scholarship to read, understand, and apply the truths of Scripture, that gets its head out of the other-worldly sky and turns its hands to the issues that face this world, and that helps move Christianity out of the dark ages and into a place of meaningful participation among the peoples of the world in this post-modern time."

People who say we (Jews, Christians, and Muslims) worship a different god. And the people who say we worship the same God.

People who can explain when something happens to their liking that "it was a God thing". And people who say you can't even call [ ] by name.

The author that writes God wants to help you find your car keys if you lose them, or holds in high regard when and where you take your vacation. And the philosopher who says we can never know God as he is in himself.

The idea that the bottom line is how many souls we save. And the idea that we are flawed embodiments of God's love and the soul saving and the eternal issues are up to God.

Stewardship is about the business of the church. Stewardship is between you and God and is a spiritual issue.

We gotta get God back on the public square. God is everywhere.

We are created in God's image. We're worm dirt.

And then my friend shared with me:

Contradictions don't frustrate him. They validate him. And God. And since I care for him so much and believe in him so much, I felt validated too. By the contradictions. Instead of frustrated.

The lesson is that I thought the goal was to get everybody on the same page and that peace and harmony was the ultimate objective. You would have to get the right people on the bus. And lots of people off the bus. And you have to all come around to some "both and" understanding.

But I think now I can rest in the contradictions. Uncomfortably. (contradiction, huh)

Not in a cynical way of: well that's just the way it is, you can't change it.

But in the way of: if there are contradictions, maybe we are doing our work and living in the tension that is faith.

And God.