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.