Gary Mintchell

Author Archive

Ease of Use

May 5, 2021

I got up this morning, and, as always, I prepared for making coffee and taking my supplements then grabbed my iPhone.

No, I don’t check social media or email–except to see what Jon Swanson’s latest thought is. I awaken my phone with a tap and face ID, tap an app icon and check the weather, tap another app icon and pop up my Hey email client and check out 300 Words a Day, and I tap a third app and get a report on my night’s sleep from my Sleep Number bed.

This morning there was a flashback to the early days of personal computers. I used to buy a motherboard, serial cards, graphics cards, display cards, and whatever else I was playing with. I’d assemble into a case (I must have rebuilt a half-dozen computers using the same case). Then an operating system was installed. Then applications. Each was time consuming to install and tricky to use.

And Steve Jobs said in the late 80s that he wanted to build a computer that anyone could easily use.

The iPhone came in 2007 with the app store not long after. And he did it. Grandmas pick up an iPhone and click apps and send and receive messages, check the weather, FaceTime (or Zoom) with friends or grandkids, check on the stock market…

When I get stuck trying to remember the exact Bible verse or song lyric for this blog, I pick up my iPhone and do a quick search of the Internet.

I think of Jesus as sort of that Steve Jobs type. He came along and said we didn’t have to assemble the computer and add the operating system and tinker with things to get it to run. He said we didn’t have to memorize all 613 (or whatever the number is) laws of the Jewish scriptures and then live our life in fear that we may have broken one.

Jesus left commands and instructions that were easy to remember and follow. Love God and love your neighbor, love one another as he loved, go into the world and make disciples. Pretty much it.

But first, when we get up every morning, we have to turn on the operating system by getting into sync with the Spirit. Prayer, meditation, reading are the key, even if only for 15 minutes. It sets our hearts in the right direction. We are ready to just live the day. No worries about eating the wrong thing or touching the wrong person. Just live in the Spirit with Jesus as a guide.

Although I do miss tinkering with the electronics 😉

Posted in Living | Leave a Comment »

Make a Difference

May 4, 2021

The author discussed the Apostle Paul’s speech before a Jewish synagogue and then compared and contrasted to a speech before a council of Greek philosophers in Athens. The only common point was the conclusion centered on the fact and meaning of the resurrection of Jesus.

The approaches and arguments could not have been more different.

The conclusion?

Paul wasn’t trying to make a point. He was trying to make a difference.
Irresistible, Andy Stanley

When we open our favorite social media app, perhaps we could pause and consider–am I just trying to make some point? Ah, ha! Gotcha! Boy, that was a zinger.

Or perhaps we close the app and go out to be of service and make a difference in a life.

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Edging Toward Normal

May 3, 2021

I’ve been back in Ohio this weekend for my first soccer weekend in two years. Sunny. Temperatures in the 70s. Beautiful weekend.

Of course, I witnessed all the varieties of personalities and emotions that are exhibited during competition. That would just be humanity. But 600 kids having fun and hopefully growing some. 1200 more or less parents cheering them on. Given 95 games very few examples of poor sportsmanship.

There is money to be made by the clubs sponsoring these American youth tournaments–of which there were four in southern Ohio this weekend. But not mega-millions.

We can contrast to the money grabbing of a half-dozen owners of the world’s largest soccer clubs recently. While our kids were playing, parents had mobile phones out tracking the events at Old Trafford in England where fans put on a giant protest about the owners of Manchester United leading that money hunt.

Once again, humanity. On the one hand, good competitive environment providing opportunities for kids. On the other hand ego, pride, greed.

Every moment of every day in which we draw breath, we get to make that choice. Are we helping other people? Are we wrapped up in our own pride and greed?

Choose wisely.

Posted in Deciding, Service | Leave a Comment »

He is a Liar

April 30, 2021

No, I’m talking about the politician on the other side. That may be true. Or not. And your guy may be, also. Or not.

I picked this up from the Apostle John. He is teaching what Jesus taught. Remember when Jesus was nearing the closing of his “sermon on the mount?”

John said, “Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar and the truth is not in that person.”

I can think of three times Jesus explicitly told his followers what to do:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind; and, your neighbor as yourself.

Love one another as I have loved you.

Go into all the world making disciples…

How many people do you know that say they know Jesus with their lips, yet the way they live and relate to people does not show love?

We should not point fingers. We should, if at all possible, exercise that love muscle and try to lead (teach) them into the right relationship. Sometimes just a word awakens those who are asleep.

Second question. Harder.

How often do I say I know Jesus, yet my actions disprove that and make me a liar?

I am heading back “home” to coordinate referees for perhaps my last soccer tournament after a 33-year career. I’ll be interacting with more than 200 people in a competitive situation. Ask me Monday how I did.

Posted in Love, Witness | Leave a Comment »

Time To Grow Up

April 29, 2021

The same or similar observation from different sources often hit me at the same time. My first thought is about how it applies to other people. There is a momentary feeling of superiority if it is one of those moments of self-awareness. Followed, of course, by the convicting thoughts–what does it say about me?

Author/philosopher Mark Manson was on the Guy Kawasaki podcast. This podcast is released on Wednesday mornings. My ritual is to listen to this podcast while I’m cleaning floors. Makes the time go.

Manson said, “We have become a nation of babies.If we don’t get our way, we go on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram and complain.”

Later in the day, I’m reading in Greg McKeown’s latest book, Effortless. His first book, Essentialism (which I highly recommend) sold more than a million. McKeown (pronounced mc-kune) wrote, “We live in a complaint culture that gets high on expressing outrage, especially on social media, which seems like an endless stream of grumbling and whining about what is unsatisfactory or unacceptable.”

He is the second writer I’ve run across recently who talked about trying to change his own habit of complaining by adding a habit of saying something of gratitude to counteract the complaint. And was shocked at the realization of how much they complained seeing that they both thought of themselves as positive and upbeat people.

I’ll pause while you and I ponder on how much complaining we actually do.

Back to Manson. Kawasaki followed up on the comment about how we seem to be complaining babies by asking about how to become an adult.

“You become an adult when you give a shit about something beyond yourself,” Manson replied. (You have to realize he wrote a book where the title drops the “f-bomb”.)

I think he’s on the track with Jesus and John and Paul and the gang who talked about becoming spiritually mature when you love (action verb) one another.

I guess it’s past time for all of us to grow up.

Posted in Service, Wisdom | 1 Comment »

Try Not, Do or Do Not, There Is No Try

April 28, 2021

“Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.”

This is quoted to the best of my memory from Yoda in the original Star Wars trilogy. Note: I read once that there are two types of sci-fi movie people: Star Wars or Star Trek. I am the former.

This line of thinking began with someone telling a gathering that he was a Christ-follower.

So with no commentary about that person, I started thinking that if you must tell people you are a Christ-follower rather than that just being obvious by the way you talk and act, then perhaps something is amiss.

We should see in someone’s behavior what they are.

Then, in my imagination, I had a conversation with someone where I said, “I try to be a disciple of Jesus.”

That’s when I was condemned by Yoda. There is no try. Do or do not.

That is the question for me…and for you. What do we do?

I gave up fighting a long time ago as a youth when I saw the futility of it.

I gave up arguing a long time ago because I saw the futility. The last time I let someone push my button is burned into my memory from about 15 years ago.

I gave up protest marches 50 years ago because I thought they were futile.

I just make an effort to treat everyone as a person formed in the image of God. When I slip, I vow to not let it happen again.

Doing is a way of life–as in following the command of Jesus to love just as he loved.

Posted in Disciplines, Living, Love | Leave a Comment »

Getting A Reboot

April 27, 2021

I am writing this on my older iPad Pro, because my new MacBook Air is getting a software update and is rebooting.

That sort of means going back to the source and starting over—only with new or updated software or operating instructions.

Sometimes I go in for a reboot, too.

I’m currently reading a book that made an impact on me 2-3 years ago. If you are curious (and I highly recommend the book), it is Irresistible: Reclaiming the New that Jesus Unleashed for the World by Andy Stanley. He is answering the question, what makes the American Christian church so resistible in our culture?

Reading the book of Proverbs from the Hebrew Scriptures every January is a form of reboot for me. As is going back to read Matthew chapters 5-7 from time to time.

You have to return to the source from time to time for refreshment.

Then you must venture forth to practice what you preach in the world.

There is a rhythm to life. We must find it for ourselves. A rhythm from silence and solitude to service and love—not love in the sense of so many American religious and political leaders, but love in the agape sense that Jesus, John, and Paul talked about. It’s a doing for others as Jesus did for us.

Find your rhythm. There is one for daily life. There is one for yearly life. It takes practice.

Posted in Disciplines, Living, Love, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

Doing What I Can

April 26, 2021

I don’t ignore the news. That is hard to accomplish and probably not wise. However, I don’t immerse myself in it. That, also, would not be wise.

The easy thing for a Christian is to pretend to be an ancient Hebrew prophet and expound on hypocrisy and godlessness and the evil of people who disagree with me.

But that is merely ego-centric.

The news and pictures I’ve seen coming from India regarding the impact of the failure of the government to tackle the Covid crisis with the resulting deaths have moved me to deep sadness. And that is repeated with perhaps less drama in some other populous countries.

As an adolescent student and young man, I harbored a great dislike for the writings of the Apostle Paul. Later, I discovered that it wasn’t Paul himself, but the way people went through his writing and picked out parts they liked and build legal frameworks around them.

So, as a civil rights and anti-war person, I totally misunderstood what Paul wrote in the 13th chapter of Romans. Here, he expounds a view, not that the government is always right (and I wondered what he’d have written had he been living under Nero at the time), but that government is placed here by God to bring order and justice and the like to society.

We can see throughout this pandemic the differences in political leadership and the various impacts upon the societies. Leadership in the government is important. All the leaders made mistakes–just some learned and adjusted and some, well, failed.

But I’m not here to be an ancient Hebrew prophet predicting God’s judgement upon them all.

Instead, what is the response I can make when I learn about all this immense suffering. I cannot write a check with enough zeros to provide vaccines and healthcare for the world. But I can write a check. And I can encourage those I meet. And I can support good leaders.

Living in the dominion of the heavens that Jesus had announced doesn’t mean that I change the whole world. I can change me and influence those around me. And so can you.

It’s kind of like Arlo Guthrie singing at the end of Alice’s Restaurant—and it’s a movement, yes the Alice’s Restaurant Massacre movement. We can participate in the share the kingdom of heaven movement and learn from Jesus’ story of the good Samaritan. Help where we can.

Posted in Compassion, Disciplines, Leadership, responsibility | Leave a Comment »

Self Deception

April 23, 2021

Jesus is bringing his teaching session toward a close. Studying the message afterward, we can read through and then read again. So, we notice a message he wishes to drive home to his listeners.

Do you know that the subheads so conveniently placed at the beginnings of sections are not part of the scripture? Just like chapter and verse numbers, some nice editor added those to make it easier for us to read.

The subhead for this paragraph in the translation I’m using (NRSV) says, “Concerning Self Deception.”

Jesus says, “Not all who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.”

I have come across people who say that you only need to say the magic words and everything will be all right.

Jesus continues, “…but only the one who does the will of my Father.”

The concluding paragraph uses the analogy of the the wise person who builds a house on a solid foundation who is the one who hears Jesus’ words and acts on them.

I think we have a theme.

I also think Jesus knew people. He knew that it’s easy for us to convince ourselves we do well when we don’t.

Maybe we think that we ate a healthy diet yesterday, conveniently forgetting about the chips and cookies. Maybe we convince ourselves that we are saying things that are true when we are actually just justifying actions we know are duplicitous.

Self awareness is one of the keys to wisdom. Self deception follows our every thought. It’s a struggle we often do not realize exists. It’s all so clear to us…until someone points out the emperor has no clothes.

Avoid self deception. Seek self awareness…even when it is unsettling.

Posted in Awareness | Leave a Comment »

Check Your Fruit

April 22, 2021

Jesus had been teaching. He pointed out a number of actions we should be doing. As he begins summarizing the teaching, he answers the question listeners may have had in mind–“how will I, or anyone observing me, know I am following your teaching?” He also answers the question, “Whom should I believe?”

So, he answers, you know people by their fruits. Good trees cannot bear bad fruit, and bad trees cannot bear good fruit.

Some people cannot gain insight through metaphor. I wrote recently about a chemical substance. Someone replied with the chemical formula and some actual physical effects. The concept of a metaphor is tough.

If you are an engineer and like things more concrete, then try substituting “results” for “fruits.”

Looking back on your life or that of someone who is trying to teach you, check out the results of what you’ve done and said.

Do you leave people better off than when you met?

Did you buy a hungry person a meal? Give a coat to someone cold? Provide transportation to a doctor? In your teaching, have you inspired people to help others or have you provoked people to harm others?

Your fruit is what you’ve left behind in others. Hope fully it’s a nice, ripe, juicy fig, not a rotten apple.

Posted in Doing, Service | Leave a Comment »

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