show your strength

people show their strength in a variety of ways.

some might never fail to show up for a meeting you call 2 minutes late.  every time.  two minutes.  late.

some might not respond to an email asking for input.  until you call them and then ask them in person.  it's not that they don't have time or overlook it.  it's just how they show their strength.

some people don't offer any discussion during discussion time.

and some don't reply to you when you give a answer.

they just let it hover above the group.

they seem strong.

other people make sure that people are empowered to take the limelight and lead the group or the effort with their full and visible support.

some people show their strength by giving it away.

or at least sharing it for a while.

Don't know or don't care

A New Yorker Magazine cartoon that stuck with me was one depicting a presentation with a flip chart with a scrawled pie chart proclaming 60% of the people don't know the math and 40% of the people won't do the math.

Or something to that effect.

Which raises a question about the 80/20 rule we sometimes talk about around the church and other organizations.

Is the 80% the 80% because they don't know about the events or because they don't care about the events.

And is it OK to talk about people not caring about an event you put on?

Not that they are apathetic, don't know what's good for them, and if they would only participate we could transform their lives type don't care.

Like, you know, just not interested in that right now.  Or: that just isn't something they are interested in or appeals to their particular intelligence of learning or they just aren't "ready for that yet" type don't care.

Is there a certain due diligence of making sure they have opportunities to know about the event before you have to say: "We need some new events," or "We have to spend more time gettting people connected to communities of people they care about", or "The people who want to know about something will find out about it"?

Maybe, just maybe, we need to spend more time cultivating authentic realationships with a few of the people who we know care about something.  (But for your own safety: keep the trains running on time).

That, though, will take some time.

Maybe even an eternity.

We should probably grab a Snickers Bar.

A Plow and the church staff

Positive feedback propels you and your ideas forward.  It is affirming.  It feels good.  We all crave positive feedback.

Not so fast my friend.  It's important not to disregard negative feedback.  Don't just embrace it.  Don't simply grit your teeth and get through it:  "They just don't understand.  They have been around here long enough.  The last supervisor/boss/CEO let us do it that way."

Nay: seek it out.  Attach yourself to it and go to work against it.  (Not against it like futile resistance--against it, but rather like generating positive results in tension with it.)

A friend who is old enough to remember watching a farmer plow a field with a horse (mule maybe?). Compares the process to plowing with a horse or mule.

The horse provides positive feedback.  As long as you keep the horse feed and healthy it'll pull all day in what ever direction you want it to go.

The plow, on the other hand, seems to hold things back.  It's a pain and literally a "stick in the mud."

But without it; no ground gets broken, no crops get planted, and no food gets eaten.

The person on the board or the team who never seems to like your ideas is really helping you break ground and produce crops.

And if you ever hear a member of your organization complain that if you ever want to kill an idea, give it to the staff just tell him:

"Hey, haven't you ever seen a farmer plow with a horse?"

How can I help you?

No, I mean really.

This isn't just for customer service people or the guy behind the counter.

Like, I'm trying to figure out expectations and what it is that I can do to help you in your efforts in ministry to God and the world.  So why did you call me?

I'm pretty bad about just jumping in there everytime you say you want to do this that and/or the other.  Because, I guess, I basically figure that's my job. Or maybe it just that people often seem so uninterested in ministry that I jump at a warm body that says they want to do something.  Anything.

I often don't ask "How can I help you?" because it, to me, comes across as: "Sorry, that's not my station", or "I'm on break", or "I'll tell me supervisor", or "I don't know, I just work here" type of a thing.

And if I ever do, it's not like "How can I help you?" (emphasis on I- what can I specifically, uniquely do?)


I'll just come out and see what you want to show me without any real desire to help or without any capability to help or provide what you need.  It'll take lots of time, effort and energy away from the things I think are really important, but oh well: I tried.

I fee like if you want something, I better drop everything and come help.  Otherwise it might come across as "Failure to plan on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on my part".  And that seems so...cold and unministryish.

But ultimately, you might not realize my strengths, abilities, and connections really don't match up at all to the task you wish to tackle.

Then again, that could easily come across as "I don't care."

...maybe I don't.

Is that OK?

Are we still good?

If so: maybe now I can help you.

On connection, caring, and being terrified

I was reminded recently of one of the key components of groups of people who make significant change through movements and causes.

In his article comparing old school movements to causes and movements based on social media such as Facebook and Twitter, Malcolm Gladwell traces the roots of sit in's to four college buddies.

While not necessarily talented, gifted, or skilled at civil rights organization or leadership,  the four guys cared deeply about the cause of equality.

And they cared deeply about each other.

As we prepare our ministry teams for the coming year, select committee chairs, seek out volunteers for the Sunday school teachers, or organize the team to go to Costa Rica, one of the most important characteristic to look for is a willingness to connect with and get to know others.

In reading Gladwell's take on the four young men who participated in the first sit in at Woolworth's, another collective characteristic attributed to them jumps out at me:

The four students who first sat down at the lunch counter were terrified. “I suppose if anyone had come up behind me and yelled ‘Boo,’ I think I would have fallen off my seat,” one of them said later.

In consideration for a leadership team: are we willing to write into the volunteer job description: "Must become connected to cause, be willing to care for others, and be terrified from time to time"?


If not, can we really expect things to change?

The devil made me do it...or my lack of cortisol did

Ever heard the theory that Satan goes after ministers or people in authority in the church with, like, a special fury?

"Being in a position of power also may make people feel that they can do no wrong. In recent experiments, Dana Carney, a psychologist at Columbia University's business school, has found that acquiring power makes people more comfortable committing acts they might otherwise be reluctant to commit, like lying or cheating. As people rise to a position of power, she has shown, their bodies generate more testosterone, a hormone associated with aggression and risk-taking, and less cortisol, a chemical that the body generates in response to stress.

'Having power changes you physiologically, reducing your body's internal feedback that tells you which actions are good or bad,' says Prof. Carney. 'Power temporarily intoxicates you.'"
-from the Wall Street Journal

So if something can be scientifically explained does that detract from the spiritualness of the truth? Does it somehow validate it?

Are you more likely to be on your guard from an attack from Satan or from being hormonal?

Is it, in fact, helpful to think that Satan is somehow more interested in your downfall than in the downfall of a member of congress?

Whatever gets you through the night.

Or maybe:

Whatever keeps you from ruining your life and the lives around you.

Lost camels

Henri Dunant found the Red Cross in the 19th century on three principles: impartiality, neutrality, and independence. Dunant sold the idea to potential donors around the idea that not only was the mission of the Red Cross "the Christian thing to do", but that it was an economic boon to countries going to war because the work of the Red Cross in its mission to rescue, feed, bathe, and bandage the survivors of war, it reduced the cost to the governement.

In his survey of books concerning humanitarian efforts in a recent New Yorker magazine, Philip Gourevitch pits this idea of humanitarian aid (savings to the cause of the need for the aid in the first place) against the vision of humanitarian aid of Florence Nightingale. Part of Nightingale's mission was not only tending to the agony of human suffering brought on by the political ambitions of the governments involved, but being realistic about what was causing the agony in the first place.

Gourevitch quotes Sadako Ogata who worked with the U.N. refugee agency as saying "There are no humanitarian solutions to humaitarian problems."

Solutions must include a political component as well as a humanitarian one.

So, do spiritual problems have spiritual solutions?

It seems difficult to engage in solving someone's eternal dilemma without being realistic about the political, emotional, financial, economic, organizational dilemmas that dilemmas that we all face simultaneously.

In declaring the impartiality, independence, and neutrality of the solution we offer do we actually embue suffering rather than honestly alleviate it?

A man tries hard to help you find your lost camels.

He works more tirelessly than even you.

But in truth he does not want to find them, ever.

-Ali Dhux