Imagine

On August 7, 1974 a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire illegally rigged between New York's twin towers, then the world's tallest buildings. After nearly an hour of dancing on the wire, he was arrested, taken for psychological evaluation, and brought to jail before he was released.

In a report I heard recently about the incident, the most surprising question asked of Petit (according to him) was: why?

It seems the most important question. But to a Frenchman, apparently, it doesn't come to mind to ask that question about such an event. It's a cultural thing, maybe.

So.

Why not?

I wonder if it is because that question is really difficult, if not impossible, to answer.

We are all traveling in our idea bubble. We have developed them uniquely throughout our life time. How in the world could anyone else process in the course of a conversation or answer to a discussion question what we have processed in real time over the hours of our lifetimes?

You might have been messing around with some tight ropes and watching construction of the world's tallest buildings underway in a place across the world and been struck by a desire to one day do something as of yet unimaginable with tight ropes and those buildings. And you might not even understand why.

Some of the people on their trudge to another day at the plant on August 7, 1974 stopped and watched the man way up there on that wire. And it changed that day for them. And maybe they started looking at their own wires and the world's tall buildings and the air in their idea bubble changed.

Other people might have said. Hum. Why?

A biblical writer might be coming from a place of exile and isolation that we don't understand when writing about an event in the Old Testament. Babies dashed against rocks and brothers stabbing sisters by the thousands over a golden calf.

And we can say: that reminds me of something I know about.

Or we can say: Hum. Why?

Imagine that.

quitters sometimes win and winners sometimes quit

With apologies to Winston Churchill, Vince Lombardi, and my little league coach. Sometimes it's best to quit. Seth Godin wrote a whole book about it.

We are conditioned to stick it out no matter what: that quitting is a sign of weakness. That we have to bear the cross and that in any bad marriage, partnership, or ministry event: maybe if we just hang in there another time or two, we'll make it. I don't want to give up if the blessing is just around the corner.

If you think that dragging out the tables and setting up the information board and standing around waiting for people to sign up to help for the ministry is just about to really start resonating with people, maybe what you should do is not set up the table and the info board and see what happens. See who misses it. If somebody does, start meeting with and talking with them (a lot). And see what happens.

The new year's resolution probably has to do with getting rid of something bad or taking up something good.

Maybe it should have something to do with giving up something that is good. Just good. Just OK. Just nobody ever complains about it.

Quit something that's good so you can start something or concentrate on something that will be remarkable.

And if that doesn't work?

Hang in there. Stick it out. Never give up. You're probably just a pulpit announcement away.

Or quit.

See who (if) anyone misses it.

And join them in ministry.

powerlessness to the people

Tom Peters touches on incarnation in Re-Imagine!, his 2003 "new business Bible", designed to help leaders innovate in a disruptive age.

Peters writes about the power of the powerless. Getting things done isn't about power or official rank, it is about passion, imagination, and persistence. Finding yourself stagnate is more likely to occur when you are in an official capacity, trying to keep the status in status quo and trying to keep the trains running on time. By contrast, when you are without authority or not even on the org. chart, you are free to dig into an assignment and as Peters writes, "Raise Hell at Will."

You simply have to have a "cool idea" to get started.

Do you suppose God found Himself more able to implement His "cool idea" as a vulnerable baby or itinerant wisdom teacher than the most powerful, fearsome being in existence?

Is this a good strategy for us?

It seems more tempting to exploit the weakness of the opposition party rather than to spend time seeking out the strengths of our group.

Another bit of Peters wisdom states we are more likely to be faithful to our call by discovering what works and building on that instead of finding what's broken and trying to fix it.

Some say the incarnation is about trying to fix what's broken (born to die): others say it's about discovering what works and building on it (have life and have it abundantly).

The world is still seeking. What do you suppose they will find when they discover your ministry?

Are we prepared to share about our cool idea and engage the strengths of those around us?

Rules for quarterbacking ministry

If you see yourself as a quarterback for the ministry team (as opposed to head coach or owner) you might be interested in taking a look at Bill Parcel's Commandments for quarterbacks reframed for leaders in ministry.

1. Folks who are casual participants in the ministry or don't really participate don't really understand the framework the team is working in. Don't ignore them, but realize that they don't know all the ins and outs of what the team is trying to do. Ask them to come to the next ministry team meeting and get a recap of what's going on.

2. Don’t forget to have fun, but don’t be the class clown. Clowns and leaders don’t mix. Clowns can’t run a ministry event.

3. A leader in discipleship leads with her heart more than her mind. Know your passion and don't compromise it. Leaders in it for the obligation will not be able to overcome the dips of ministry.

4. Know your job cold. This is not a process without errors. Keep yours to a minimum. Study- theology, team building, leadership, and management.

5. Know your own team members. Who loves detail work? Who can write? Who needs encouragement? Be precise. Know your opponent (in ministry as well as sports, there is another team on the field).

6. Be the same person everyday. In condition, preparing to lead, studying your plan. A senior minister can’t prepare you for every eventuality. Prepare yourself and remember: impulse decisions usually equal mistakes.

7. Letting a bad idea go is a good play. Confusion, lots of work for little impact, lack of direction and focus are bad plays. Protect against those.

8. You must learn to manage the discipleship opportunities. Gifts assessments, play call, motions, core purpose, proper reads, deciding what to follow up with, when to start small and increase the ask or ask big then go to small. Timing, timing, timing: when to lean in, when to lean out, don’t you ever lose track timing.

9. Numbers are not how you’re gonna be judged (ultimately). Your job is to get your team in the discipleship growth and that’s how you’re gonna be judged.

10. When all around you is in chaos, you must be the hand that steers the ship. If you have a panic button, so will everyone else. Our ship can’t have panic buttons.

11. Don’t be a star of ministry. We don’t need any of those. We need battlefield commanders that are willing to fight it out everyday, every week, and every season, and lead their team to growth opportunity after growth opportunity after growth opportunity.

See the original commandments at billylegget.wordpress.com

Hostas and the Virgin Birth

I was reminded of the importance of believing and being able to articulate and defend the Virgin Birth during a Bible study recently. Without thinking about it, I have developed a kind of Virgin Birth Faith. I never felt a need to justify it or to be able to empirically prove it. But after this discussion, I sensed a need to revisit my understanding of the doctrine.

I appreciate the invitation to think about it, though, because I had to work through a little bit about how I have experienced the Virgin Birth.

I'm still working on it, but the one that I keep thinking about was a time I happened by a field of hosta plants in a nursery grower's field. It was in the late winter--way to early for hostas to be coming up. (Hostas go dormant in the winter and a field of them looks like an expanse of pots of dirt.)

I guess the sun on the black pots sitting on top of the ground "fooled" the plants into breaking dormancy early.

On the bright, chilly morning I encountered them there was steam rising and the plants were alive with a fresh born existence that seemed to have just happened for the first time ever. There was a discernible fragrance in the air I could only describe as fecundity.

The moment struck me at the time as a holy one. Something had happened out of time and by no doing on any human hands, really. But there was a responsibility for man to take part this "birth". Without some protection from the invariable late freeze or frost, the plants would surely die. There would be weeding (wedding?) and watering and fertilizing in the proper amounts in the seasons ahead. The plants would have to be carefully chosen and divided and repotted so there would be a crop for next year.

And that is my virgin birth experience. It doesn't measure up to the dogma that would be required to win a debate about it. It does, though, seem to for the couple of people I have shared with about it provide an opportunity to connect to each other.

I'm learning that our shared experiences are fertile ground for growth in community, authenticity to our true selves, and connection to God.

Dogma's good too.

But unless it happens to you, it's hard to understand and explain.

So over the next couple of days, I'm going to try to be aware of God's love among us instead of trying to make sure everybody understands it the way I do.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

On being grown

A buddy left a ministry event early because "she wasn't feeling well."

It wasn't like her, so upon reflection, I realized I had paired her working with someone she had "some issues with". There had been a misunderstanding. Some words might have been spoken carelessly. There may have been an email written and then send hit when some time and delete would have been better.

So I caught up with her and apologized.

Hey, I'm really sorry. When I asked you to help her, I was totally not thinking about your guys's troubles. It must of been awkward, huh? I'm really sorry.

Oh no. No. It wasn't that. I mean yeah we have had our thing, and at times I have tried to steer clear of her. But that wasn't it. "We grown." She was her same old happy self again. We're good. I really just wasn't feeling well.

I've heard this voice of community in other ways. "Being grown."

We are kind of like the brothers you never had. You can fight. I can disagree. But at the end of the day we love each other and nothing you can do or say can make us not brothers.

I want to be able to really talk about how I feel and think and not be afraid I'll say something to upset the Sunday school class.

"Being grown."

Sometimes when you are honest with me, I just can't look you in the eye.

It seems to "blow my cover".

I feel a need not to just steer clear of you but to pretend you don't even exist.

Sometimes when you speak a painful truth to me (and I always appreciate it when you take some time and consideration and even talk to others before you speak this painful truth to me), you become "dead to me."

I want to vote you off the island.

But, I find myself longing to "be grown."

And if you do, too:

Maybe we could even grow together.

bad dudes and good guys

I have been engaged in ministry with a young man from a local community in the hopes that our ministry there together might be incarnational in that he lives in the community our church seeks to grow with in God's Mission.

I had met a couple of young men from the neighborhood that I thought we might want to get involved in our community of community builders and engage them in some ministry opportunities.

No, he said, that wouldn't work. Those are bad dudes. They're into some bad stuff. They don't want to change or become better people.

I didn't understand. Weren't they precisely the kind of people we wanted to reach out to in ministry?

No. He said.

I didn't press the issue, but for a long time didn't really understand how he couldn't be excited about reaching out to "the bad dudes" to help them become "good guys" (quotes provided to emphasis we are all "bad dudes" and "good guys" at one time or another, but we are talking generalities here).

I got a little better insight into the concept by watching the movie Gran Torino.

Clint Eastwood's character is an aging, lonely widower who finds friendship and companionship with a couple of the good kids in his community. The community itself is also aging and "changing" in ethnic diversity and finding itself at the mercy of crime and gang activity.

The task is not to save the "bad dudes", but to protect the "good guys".

It's important to leave behind the 99 to find the one. But we have to protect the flock.

We have to have a certain amount of outreach to the "bad dudes". How do we best accomplish that?

Do we spend enough time and energy with the "good guys"?

Ultimately, as outsiders- 80 year old white guys- living among 20 year old "mongs", the "good guys" will ultimately have to "save" the "bad dudes". All we can really do is figure out what we are prepared to give up in order to fulfill God's mission.

At least that's what Clint did.

Baby Sitting Adults

A friend explained what he does for a living in succinct fashion: "I baby sit adults." The way he said it indicated that he didn't really like babysitting or felt that he shouldn't have to.

He was talking about, I think how he often had to take people step by step through tasks and jobs that didn't really seem that complicated: like you would a child.

I got the feeling that sometimes his colleagues didn't take the time to think through things and had to be walked through scenarios and lots of silly questions had to be answered.

I suppose there is a fair amount of that in any profession. But I also wonder if that is not a component of leadership that we have to embrace.

And if it is: maybe we need to rethink our perspective of baby sitter.

Maria in the Sound of Music was a pretty cool baby sitter. She had to earn some credibility with the children. She rose to the challenge and found how to connect. And she earned her way to a better position of leadership.

Ditto Mary Poppins. Except when her gig was done and she had achieved what she thought were appropriate results, she moved on.

Nurse Ratched of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, on the other hand (stretching the concept of baby sitter) provides a different take. Nurse is Ratched is a former army nurse. Her nickname is "Big Nurse", taken from the term Big Brother in George Orwell's novel 1984. This term refers to an all knowing authority. She wields control in every interaction she undertakes.

Over the years you have heard some baby sitter nightmares (they locked my kids out of the house because they were misbehaving) and some good things (they always clean up the kitchen even though I don't ask them to).

Maybe you have some babysitting experience and see similarities in how you engage others in ministry.

Maybe babysitting adults, really, is leadership. So when someone asks you what you do, you can sigh, shake your head and say: "I baby sit adults" or you can say: "I lead a mission".

At the end of the day, the two might not be too different. How successful you are might depend on if you take care of those in your leadership like Maria would or like Nurse Ratched would.

The next time someone at the ministry team meeting gets under your skin with a question that they and everyone else around the table knows the answer to (it's the same one they have been asking for the last two years and you have been giving the same answer to), just ask them what a few of their favorite things are.

And then maybe break out in spontaneous song.

Or: there is always electroshock therapy.

Keeping busy?

A blog post by Brian Ward reminded me of how cool the missional concept is.

It is kind of intuitive and it's kind of overlooked because of it's... simplicity--maybe?

I was also reminded of it when a friend described a mission project, with a wistful look in his eye, as being "really good".

Not like other things, he described, we do which seem like "busy work" sometimes.

I could vibe with what my friend was talking about.

Some stuff you do because you have to do it. And sometimes in the obligation you lose sight of the opportunity. Check out Keitharsis for more on this idea.

This is busy work. The wood to chop and the water to tote. And there is alot of it out there. We have to produce it. Or perish. And we can produce it by the ton.

What I like about the missional church is that there is very little busy work.

It's all "really good". Because it is all done for the sake of relationships and for the experience and for how it empowers others and yourself to want to do and be more.

We'll always have wood to chop and water to tote. It helps to consider who we are chopping with and what we are toting for. And then "busy work" can become "really good". And missions can become missional.

Thanks Brian. And good luck.

More yeses

In Managing the Non-Profit: Principles and Practices, Peter Drucker defines a customer as a person who can say "no". (p.55). Do you have customers? Are they just the people who come to your events? They can either come or not come. Do you spend most of your time trying to get all those people out there to say yes and come to an event?

What about the lay leaders you serve? They can come to ministry team meetings or not. They can offer their best efforts for your event or they can offer that effort at work or at home or at the ball park. How much time do you spend cultivating and giving good customer service to this group of customers?

How about the person you answer to as a staff member or as a volunteer? How much time should we spend giving them good value for their investment? Are they an annoyance that you put up with? A hurdle to overcome? It'll be tough for them to have very much customer satisfaction if you do.

And what about those you are responsible for leading as a professional?

Can they say "no"? Or do they have to say "yes"?

If they can't say no, you are not a leader, you are a manager and perhaps not a very good one.

If they can: how often do you get them to yes?

That might be an indicator of how good a leader you are.

Funny

You were feeling pretty good about the mission trip you organized to Sri Lanka. It brought together the "old-guard": missions is all about making converts with the "new generation": mission is all about living our lives together and learning more than you try to teach and earning the right to talk by listening. Lay leaders from the congregation were fully empowered to lead the trip. They put in lots of effort and made sacrifices, but you bet they felt it was worth it!

Their were some difficult moments, but the group came to trust each other and there was lots of social capital developed. People who were considered "outsiders" were empowered and there were 3 or 4 longer term relationships shaping up by the end of the trip. It was really incarnational, you know. I mean your team lived among the Sri-Lankans and made it a point not to eat at McDonalds and took part in Sri-Lankan festivals and even prayed a Sri-Lankan prayer even though you weren't completely sure you bought into the theology of it. And through it all, God's all encompassing love was at the center of discussions and projects, and devotions.

But when you got to the evaluation meeting, people were...sad.

They were let down. All their efforts and all the work seemed to go unnoticed by the church.

It was like pulling teeth to get people to sign up to be prayer partners. Someone from the facility staff had to drive the van to the airport because no one else had the time. Worst of all right in the middle of the drive to get people involved in the Sri Lankan outreach, the announcement time in Worship service was taken up by skits and promos for the upcoming wild game supper hosted by the co-ed softball team.

During the most critical time of sign ups for the Sri Lanka trip the children's sermon was about the Motorcycles for Jesus fundraiser which supported an outside group from South Dakota and didn't really involve anyone in your church congregation except for the one guy who rode the Harley Davidson down the center aisle that day during service to raise awareness for the fundraiser.

The Sri Lankan mission team was left thinking that their efforts to live out the incarnational, relational, experiential, and empowering nature of our Christian faith--that effort to engage this new paradigm of meeting Jesus, not just "taking" Jesus--was regarded by the church as less important than the wild game supper and the Motorcycles for Jesus fundraiser.

It's funny isn't it: how people determine what's important to the church?

Or is it?

--it happens

The bulletin articles, email announcements, posters, banners, inserts, fliers, handouts, brochures, pulpit announcements, closed circuit tv slides, postcards, webpages, and personal invitations we churn out everyday could as likely represent distractions as easily as they could represent valuable activities.

People are seeking investment opportunities. Which are hard to find when you are distracted.

People are looking for a return on investment.

James Coleman identified six forms of return on investment in this sense:

1. Obligations and expectations- If I do something nice or good for you or your cause, then you will reciprocate and do something nice or good for me or my cause.

2. Information potential- Relationships developed will increase knowledge and lead me to specialized information. I'll be in the know about stuff.

3. Norms and effective sanctions- I'll be rewarded somehow someway for selfless actions and I'll receive disapproval for selfish actions. This "My Name is Earl" approach sways me to work work for the collective good of the group and it's cause.

4. Authority relations- I submit to your leadership and you then have access to an extensive network of social capital that can be directed toward a specific goal.

5. Appropriable social organization- I committed to one thing and then the next thing I know, I'm involved in something else and I keep on through inertia.

6. Intentional organizations- I am brought together in an entity that benefits my group and it's cause as well as others indirectly.

According to this theory, most relationships are developed as by products of other intentioned actions.

So, does this discredit intentionality and pragmatism?

Or

Does this indicate that without intentionality, relationships don't happen?

Maybe the takeaway is that a clear cause, whether or not you advance it, leads to relationships.

And then you just have to see what happens.

Otherwise, you just spend lots of time seeing what happens.

And that's really just a bumper sticker.

Waiting to happen.