Arrogance Is Unbecoming On You

December 4, 2015

The Greeks had a word for when a person began to think too highly of himself–hubris.

Mom had a phrase, “You’re too big for your britches.”  (That would be pants for you younger people.)

The writer of Proverbs talked of wise leaders seeking good counselors. The writer, Solomon, should have taught his son better. The ruler of Israel following him rejected wise counsel, listened to foolish ones, and destroyed the kingdom single-handedly.

It grieves me greatly that so many examples of dysfunctional leadership are found in schools and churches.

The local school board containing a couple of new members asked questions of the superintendent regarding a rather suspicious proposal. The superintendent replied (as quoted in the local newspaper), “I’ve been at this 25 years and know what I’m doing.”

I have a message having “been there and done that and got the T-shirt”, arrogance does not become you.

Some friends are avowedly pagan. Yep, you read it right. You might even need to look up the word. It’s a nature religion.

Why? Pathetic leaders in their churches when they were younger. Sometimes I wonder if church leaders have driven more people out of the church than any other reason. (Maybe a research topic for a prospective DMIN candidate?)

I have witnessed examples of poor execution of servant leadership. That does not deny the importance of pursuing that type of leadership. A humble leader puts others first. He seeks wise counsel. She remembers her priorities. Humbleness works. Arrogance leads to a fall.

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A Life of Service

December 2, 2015

It was somewhat “accidental” that the government sent him to work with youth in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the US.

You wonder how much of an accident it was. For the government, it was a form of punishment for not being drafted in the VietNam War era. He chose service.

There are people who love to quote passages from the Bible such as all things work for good for those who have faith. Whether God was behind the decision or God worked in the moment, the decision led to a life of service.

After some years of service, he went into business. But the service continued. He began adopting children whom no one else would care for. Severe handicaps and abuse. Some would never be able to leave his care (also his wife’s by the way who shared the entire journey).

He and his partner were good at that business thing. Became quite wealthy. The resources enabled the growing family to build a suitable estate to house them all.

A life of service done in the name of God. A life of service of which he never boasted. He and his wife “just did it.”

I heard the story once. It stuck. It makes me wonder what I’ve done with my life. Christians used to call this feeling “conviction,” in the sense of being convicted of a crime.

Stories such as this from my lifetime force me to recall Acts 2 and 4 where the church grew rapidly because of the way the members of the fellowship lived and cared for people.

Our witness of the power of Jesus gains credibility when done from a life of service to others.

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What If We Had a Ceasefire?

December 1, 2015

CEASEFIRE!

I’m sure it was “bumper sticker philosophy.” I have no clue what the rest of the words were on it. But the one word blared out distinctly.

Then a line of thinking began. What is it about that word?

Ceasefire describes a momentary (or hopefully longer) cessation of hostilities between the combatants. Rifles and artillery fall silent. People can breathe. A certain amount of relaxation seeps into the body and the group.

What if we invoked that word a little more often? And in other contexts?

Here’s a thought that I believe a large majority of Americans would go with–what if we took Nancy Pelosi (leader of the “liberal” wing of the Democrats in the US House) and Jim Jordan (leader of the “conservative” wing of the Republicans). What if we forced them into a room together and wouldn’t let them out until they forged a ceasefire?

Maybe we could get them to work within their differences (which are OK in themselves) with the purpose of an effective government? Let’s stop shooting at each other and see how we can work toward some common objectives–say the overall welfare of the people of the US?

Then I heard about white, male, Christian who took his firearms to a crowded shopping area that contained a Planned Parenthood clinic and started shooting.

What if we had a ceasefire among all the competing brands of Christianity? What if we learned to live with the variety of opinions and then focused on living out the commands of Jesus? Very simple–love God, love your neighbor.

Yes. A ceasefire. We need one of those. Maybe we could begin with the Christmas season and then extend it.

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Base or Grace

November 30, 2015

Kick ’em when they’re upKick ’em when they’re down

Kick ’em when they’re stiff

Kick ’em all around

Dirty little secrets

Dirty little lies

We got our dirty little fingers in everybody’s pie

We love to cut you down to size

We love dirty laundry

Don Henley – Dirty Laundry

Someone asked the small group if there had been any progress made in society since Jesus.

“We’re still Romans 1 people,” replied the resident Reformed follower. “People are still sinners and commit the worst of sins.”

Don Henley’s 1982 scorching put down of mass media came to mind. All the newspeople you see on TV and read in magazines (of a type anyway) and newspapers seem to delight in Schadenfreude–taking pleasure in other’s problems and misfortunes.

However, that sort of news would have died away long ag0 instead of lingering into this century only because there are plenty of people who drink at that fountain.

Maybe we have not progressed beyond our base instincts as Paul so accurately described in the opening of Romans.

I don’t know how accurate the description is, but my view of the worldview of Reformed and Fundamentalist  theologies is that they are always looking at the downside of humans. Followers seem to be more dark and dour. While acknowledging grace, they focus on the bad. They are Romans 1 people.

My response–looking at society in general–focused on the great advances of society because of the influence of followers of Jesus. Hospitals and education to name a couple. Even though evil still exists in the world (as it will always until the “new earth and new Jerusalem”) much of the world is much more “civilized” than ever. And many areas are struggling to break free of the past.
Romans 1 people? Yes, we all start that way. Many stay there. However increasing numbers of people are now Romans 8 and 10 people. We live under grace. And many of those are following Jesus’ commands about loving our neighbors. And this draws more people into grace.

I live in grace and in the hope that it brings. Rather than focus on “dirty laundry”, I rather focus on the hope of changed hearts under grace. 

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Productive or Busy

November 27, 2015

Seth Godin asks:

Is productive the same as busy?

No one complains of having spent an entire day doing ‘productive work’. Busywork, on the other hand, is mindnumbing.

It’s possible that if you have a job where your tasks (your busy-ness) is programmed by someone else, that being busy is your job.

For everyone else, though, busy might be precisely the opposite of productive.

 

David Allen has updated his classic book, “Getting Things Done.” Recommended–highly.

 

Thinking

 

How do we wind up on the “productive” side of Godin’s question?

 

We do it by thinking. And then by defining “next actions.” The key is to think through all the “stuff” you must do or accomplish, defining just what the desired outcome looks like, and then figuring out all the things you must do next–“next actions”–to further your project.

 

Few things contribute to work anxiety more than finishing a task and then wondering what you should do next. If you have disciplined yourself into a way of life like GTD and are using a support application (I use Nozbe with great success).

 

As we reach the end of the year and we begin to reflect on what we accomplished relative to what we had hoped to accomplish, perhaps now is the time to get serious about productivity.

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Thanksgiving

November 26, 2015

They set up camp in a new location not really knowing what to expect. The winter was unbelievably harsh. Many of the community did not live through it. Their neighbors showed them how to  plant crops and shared their bounty to help them. The people gathered for a celebration dinner to remember their blessings.

Thanksgiving

A time of commercial hype. “Black Friday” when the retailers begin to show a profit for the year resulting from early Christmas shopping. A time of overindulging in unhealthy foods. Sitting around. And not only in America. I just finished listening to a podcast featuring two Polish guys talking technology–and  Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

We can pause and check out how many things we can be grateful for. Mine:

  • Skills that can be used to educate and help people
  • A ministry that serves people
  • Friends who encourage
  • Family (well, most of them 😉  )
  • Living where I live, even if I don’t agree with the politics of those around me, we can differ without shooting each other as is happening in much of the world
  • Good health (well mostly)
  • Prosperity

Happy Thanksgiving. What are your blessings?

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The Status of Your Heart

November 25, 2015

John Ortberg, author and pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, has called Jesus the first cardiologist–“He is always interested in the state of your heart.”

We use metaphors of the heart often in our culture. In meditation we use breathing to calm the heart, slow the beating, bring order to the body. We talk about heartbreak. There are affairs of the heart.

Kevin Roberts, executive chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi a creative agency, recently wrote about the status of the heart in relation to the brain.

“We often think of the brain as the command center, responsible for how our whole body functions, but scientists now know that the heart in fact sends more signals to the brain than the brain does to the heart. The heart therefore affects how we think and function emotionally; conscious awareness comes from the brain and heart working together,” wrote Roberts.

We were taught in elementary biology that the brain does not really control the heart. Turns out the heart really is the center of our being.

Roberts says, “Perhaps this shouldn’t really come as a surprise. From everyday experience we know that when we are calm and the heart beats steadily, we are more able to think clearly. When we are in a stressful situation or panicking, our heart tends to race and our clarity of thought is hindered making it more difficult to think, remember or learn. So different emotional states send different signals to the brain and affect our cognitive functions.”

We really do need to check the status of our hearts. Not only from the view of keeping it calm. But also from the view of such things as empathy, gratitude, joy, love. Let’s inform our brain about the higher gifts.

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Praying For Discernment And Changed Hearts

November 24, 2015

The headline was made for clicking–“Rick Warren: Paris Happened Because We’re at War with God.” I clicked. The article really wasn’t like the headline. Watch what you click online.

But it made me think.

There is evil in the world. We read it in the Bible. We can see it if we only keep our eyes open. I don’t blame Islam. Many followers of The Prophet are offended and aghast at the atrocities supposedly done in his name but which are just pure evil.

We also know both from the Bible and from experience that the only good comes from changed hearts. We need changed hearts to guide our reaction to circumstances.

A serious  question is whether people caught up in evil can escape and have a changed heart. Our only response from a distance is to pray for those changed hearts.

As for the article, there is no explanation for the comment. It came during a prayer. That is where we need discernment. There is so much sloppy thinking, uneducated opinion, cynicism, and bait for page views (and advertising money that come with them) on the Web, we really owe it to ourselves to practice discernment.

Praying, discernment, changed hearts (especially our own). Spiritual formation. It never ceases.

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Bringing Down The Walls That Separate

November 23, 2015

Business writers (like me) often write about new technologies that promise to “break down the silos” of the various departments within an organization–for example, manufacturing, finance, engineering, maintenance.

The same can be true in other organizations. A church may have organizations (committees) around finance, buildings, worship, children ministry, youth ministry, missions. A church without a strong leadership team will discover that each of these have become a silo working independently often at cross purposes wasting resources.

Herod’s Temple in Jesus’ time had a wall beyond which non-Jewish people could not traverse. They were not allowed into the holiest of the areas. Paul the apostle had a problem when he was accused of bringing a “Greek” into the “Jewish” area.

Today we are still busy building walls. I read something about a bunch of governors wishing to erect a wall to keep refugees from the war in Syria out. Others desire a physical wall to keep Mexican people out.

We have church walls–even among varying persuasions of Christians. I remember playing guitar for a Mass in 1970. Father Ottenweller looked at me and said, “Someday, you will be able to take communion with us.” Well, 45 years later, still not true.

Several of my sources suddenly are all teaching on Ephesians. There is a chain of scholarly thought that this letter was not written by Paul. I guess these are the anti-Catholics (against priesthood that can be found implied in the letter). I’m not a scholar. This pretty much looks like a letter of Paul. And the second chapter has some interesting imagery. It talks of tearing down the walls that separate us. As Paul said elsewhere, “There is neither Jew nor Greek; male nor female; slave nor free; for we are all one in Jesus.”

Somewhere along the line, we as a people keep forgetting the simple facts of Christian life. We are meant to be wall removers, not wall erectors. Go find a wall to knock down today. And tomorrow.

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Is It Better To Be A Hands-On or Hands-Off Manager

November 20, 2015

A great example of this is the section on task-relevant maturity. This part of the book became very personal for me as it taught me how to formulate the most useful management question that I use in interviews: “Is it better to be a hands-on or hands-off manager?”

Venture Capitalist and author Ben Horowitz wrote the introduction to the latest edition of Andy Grove’s classic book, “High Output Management.” He published it also on Medium. He included this classic question.

What was your initial reaction when you first read that quote? I bet that answer is an indicator to how you manage.

My first reaction with very little thought was, “Yes.”

Grove said, “It depends.”

As a leader, you must observe your co-workers. You must  provide the focus of the organization and an understanding of each person’s role. Then you observe how they are doing.

Some people just take off and start doing. They don’t need someone to tell them what to do next. Or how to do it. They are creative and motivated. Just pull gently on the reins to keep them on the path and get out of the way.

Some people, often new one to the organization or inexperienced ones, need more guidance. Perhaps a few more 1-on-1 meetings to ask questions and provide some guidance.

Knowing your people, their strengths, their motivations, their weaknesses, and then acting appropriately will reward you with a high output team that enjoys the journey.

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