Purpose of Education in Spiritual Development

June 2, 2015

For a very long time, I’ve been concerned with the prevailing “wisdom” that education exists solely for vocational enhancement.

I respect the engineers and pastors and other professionals that I work with in my various “lives” who had the intelligence and tenacity to finish degrees, and advanced degrees, and even more advanced degrees. But that isn’t me.

I learned almost all the electronics, computer science, theology, biblical studies through my own “outside of the education system” education. The university was good. I have a degree. Most companies didn’t ask what it was in. They looked at my experience and I got several engineering jobs. And, I guess I did well. I’m pretty technical and love technology.

Mostly, I love learning. I want to know everything about everything. (To dream, the Impossible Dream….).  My unique perspective prepared me for my 10 career changes.

So, how many career changes have you had?

Here is a voice from the Silicon Valley venture capital community issuing a warning much as I would. In Hard-Core Career Advice for a 13-year-old, James Altucher notes, “[My experience] shows that school is too focused on ‘education leads to a job.’ This is not true anymore. “

He continues, “The reality is the average person has 14 different careers in their lives and the average multi-millionaire has seven different sources of income. So anything that is ‘one-job focused’ will create a generation of kids that will learn the hard way that life doesn’t work like that.”

I have always believed that education is necessary for personal growth. And beyond personal growth, it leads to social growth and understanding. It should broaden our awareness of the world around us and the people who are our neighbors—no matter where on earth they may reside. 

The best blend of education includes technical and humanities, institution training and personal study. My university education both in engineering and Liberal Arts formed a nice foundation. Unlike what some people I’ve interviewed over the years have believed, I never thought that an undergraduate course made me an expert in anything. In face, my graduate courses were not much better—but that may just be a result of the school I chose to attend. 

Engineers who have no art, literature, history or music education (whether self-taught or through a university) are usually too one-dimensional. They can solve problems, but they often don’t know which problems to solve. And personally, they are missing out on much of what makes life interesting.

On the other hand, humanities or social science majors who think that they cannot learn technical things are also missing out on an entire body of knowledge that would deepen their understanding of the world and help them read popular (i.e. news media) articles much more critically. 

So, I’m with Altucher. Prepare for many careers by obtaining a broad education obtained from many sources. Most of all, learn to read critically, think rationally and express yourself clearly whether written or oral. 

I just finished a long work of deep scholarship by N.T. Wright on the Apostle Paul. I understand the complexities of scholarship even though I am not one–technically speaking.

With effort, you could learn that, too. It calls for suspending emotional responses and seriously considering arguments. That is the way to greatly increase depth of learning–something seriously lacking in today’s so-called university education in the US.

One thing I’ve learned about people–simply possessing a degree is only an idicator of the perseverence of completing the program. It is no assurance of actual knowledge. That comes from reflection upon continuous learning. Learn continuously so that you can grow continuously.

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Drawing From The Deep Source of Life

June 1, 2015

She was confronted by the owner of the company where she worked. His demeanor was angry as was his usual way of relating. Frustration boiled over him like an untended teapot on a hot stove. 

He was accusing her of many examples of wrongdoing. She was confused. The accusations were either greatly exaggerated or outright fabrications. She has told someone something. Huh? The accusation was vague. She had done something–it had never happened.

Then at a deep internal pause, the idea crept into her consciousness–she had been betrayed. Someone was out to get her, promoting themselves at her expense.

There are only a few choices at that point. She was on the defensive. The other person had the initiative. She could fight back, but the owner was famous for never backtracking. She could refuse to play the game and just continue doing the best work she could–oh, and also begin quietly probing contacts for job openings elsewhere.

I have just begun reading a book called Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth by Samuel Chand. He opens with a chapter on betrayal.

While I was contemplating my own experiences with betrayal, this verse from Jeremiah was part of a daily devotional:

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of the drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. –Jeremiah 17:7-8

I love this metaphor. Jesus uses a similar one when he says, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.” Or also when he talkes about the Living Water.

When I’ve had some of these painful situations or when I’ve observed others going through the trials, I’ve seen where there is that life force that flows through life that provides strength and perspective.

Leaders who lack that life force drift into operating by pride, greed, narcissism. Parents not connected to the life force of God parent through intimidation (screaming) or by bribery. Others crumble into despair, depression, bitterness, anger, and hatred when going through trials.

I love to sit in contemplation of God’s Living Water flowing through my body and mind and soul. It’s the pause that refreshes. Then I can go and create.

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Leaders, How Well Do You Know Those You Serve

May 29, 2015

Recently the Keurig CEO made news by acknowledging in the face of declining sales that customers did not like the “lock-in” strategy of his new coffee machines. He had tried to use technology to assure that his one-cup-at-a-time brew machine would only work if you used coffee in his specially designed little cups (K-cups). No more freedom to use your own favorite beans.

Well, customers walked away and bought competing brands. (Duh!)

This week, the CEO of McDonalds, the fast food hamburger chain, also in the face of declining sales said that the company would change its grilling process such that it would provide hotter, jucier burgers.

Probably a genius industrial engineer goaded into finding cost-cutting processes changed the process of going from griddle to bun to going from griddle to a bin to a bun. As a result, burgers came out cold (on a relative scale) and dry.

Customers rebelled. They went elsewhere.

Leaders of organizations serve someone. Remember where Jesus said that leaders would be servants? Well, that wasn’t just for his 11 friends. It’s true today. And a leader forgets that at his peril.

Whom do you serve? Who is your customer?

If you are a pastor, do you realize that people want to be taught, not preached at? Do you realize the value of guidance to the point leaders?

If you are leading a team for buildings or missions or youth or whatever, do you know the wants and needs of your customers? Do you think of ways to serve them in ways to help them grow?

In business we talk about providing a product or service that helps someone solve a problem or improve their life. Notice the emphasis on “their”? Our thoughts, vision, effort must be directed outward toward those we serve or hope to serve.

When people become numbers on a spreadsheet, when we are focused inwardly on our costs or comfort zone, then we are in grave danger of failing. 

Then we wake up one day and realize that people have voted with their feet–they’ve left and headed for something or someone who cares about them and their problems.

How well do you know those whom you serve?

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Distractions Steal Your Awareness

May 28, 2015

They had important guests. A bunch of guys they knew had dropped by for a couple of days of relaxation and conversation. These were friends. But still, one had to show appropriate hospitality.

Two sisters and a brother lived in the house. One sister was busy doing the right thing. She was being hospitable. She asked the guests what they wanted to drink. She scurried around assembling a dinner for 13 guests.

Like most women in the situation, she was a bit frazzled. And a bit upset. No, more than a bit.

What was that worthless sister of hers doing sitting there talking with the guests leaving her with all the work? Doesn’t she know that men sit around and talk. Women prepare the meal. That’s the way it was then. That’s the way it had been for 1,000 years before.

So, she goes to the head guy and asks him to tell her sister to go help.

“Martha, Martha,” Jesus replied. You know you’re in trouble when he repeats your name. “You are distracted by many things. Your sister Mary has chosen the better way.”

Mary was focused on learning and growing and on the relationship they had with Jesus.

There Martha was, a chance to learn from the world’s greatest teacher. Right there in her living room. And she was distracted.

The guests would have been happy with whatever they could pull together to eat.

Distraction steals from your awareness. It therefore steals from the future. Awareness leads to focus. Focus leads to becoming. By focusing on the right things, a person can grow to be all that God created them to be.

What is today’s distraction? Or, even what is the distraction of the minute?

I sometimes need noise around in order to focus better. I can sit for two hours at a noisy coffee shop and focus better than in the quiet of my office. There are all those opportunities for distraction that I can tune out. In the quiet of my office, I can glance up at a familiar painting or at my bookcase, and my mind can go off on some tangent. I’m distracted.

Then I remember, don’t let distraction be a thief.

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Charity Will Never End Poverty, Opportunity Will

May 27, 2015

She visited Africa. Saw a poor, rural village where women had to walk miles for their daily water. Feeling deep emotions, the woman pulled out her check book and paid for a water well for the village.

It was a great act of kindness. 

However when she returned after several years, she was dismayed to discover that the well was not being used. It had not been used for some time. The people in the village had a well, but it had no “water department.” There was no one trained to maintain the well. Calling in a maintenance crew from the city was far beyond the reach of the local people.

People in another area once lived off the fruits of their farms. Then large corporations entered the area with the idea that the climate was great for growing crops that would be in great demand in North America and Western Europe. 

Colluding with corrupt local and national government, the company bought all the land, threw the farmers off their land, and hired them back at extremely low wages to grow the crops. That happened many years ago in places where pineapples grow. We enjoyed pineapple. The people now had no way to grow their own food and not enough money to buy it. They were modern slaves in effect.

Ethical business

That same effect happened with coffee. By the time ground coffee reaches the grocery store, it has gone through so many “middle men” that there is not enough money to pay the farmers.

I have bought whole bean coffee for years “fair trade” from a small roaster in Tennessee–Just Love Coffee. Fair trade coffee cuts through the layers and pays the farmers a fair price for their labors.

The next step is “direct trade.” A local roaster buys beans directly from farmers he met while on a short-term mission trip. 

Is it possible to run an ethical business that benefits the community, employees, suppliers all the way to the grower?

I think so. I’m an angel investor in a coffee shop due to open in 4-6 weeks just down the street from where I live. High Grounds Cafe touts a “quadruple bottom line.” (The Website is under construction, too.) We will buy our beans fromthe roaster I just mentioned.

The quadruple bottom line?

  • Spiritual
  • Economic
  • Social
  • Environmental

The working foundation is to be ethical in all our dealings–whether with the building code people, employees, customers, community. And the farmers who grow our beans.

I’ll have more to say in the future. Next month I’m heading to Colorado Springs for a conference of Christian business people with the same outlook. How can we help plant sustainable businesses in areas of abject poverty? Something that truly changes the lives and outlooks of the people rather than just handing out money.

Money is essential help following a disaster such as we just witnessed in Nepal. But giving money is not a sustainable aid package. Changed lives–that is sustainable.

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Conversation With God

May 26, 2015

I sit and try to meditate opening up myself to an experience with God. My thoughts distract me. 

I refocus, breathe deeply and regularly. Focus on God (I repeat the word to maintain my focus). My thoughts distract me.

Eventually I think, “I’m having the same thoughts. They keep repeating on me.”

That’s when it finally dawns on me–maybe, just maybe, God is trying to tell me something. Perhaps I’d better explore those thoughts. Maybe he’s telling me to do something. Or call someone. Or prepare for an adventure.

Mostly, we are not taught to pray. Or, we are taught in the way of prayer during a church service, or the beginning of a class, or grace for meal. It is us talking, usually aloud, to God. We’re usually asking for something. Or complaining about something. Or ordering him around to get him to do what we want him to do.

But what if we listened?

There are people I have met who believe that God doesn’t talk anymore. It may have happened to Elijah. Maybe to Jesus. Maybe even to Paul. But, not anymore.

I feel sorry for those people. What is it that they are missing out on because they have not paused and listened.

What does God want from us in prayer? What he wants in general–a relationship. When you converse with someone with whom you’re in a relationship–unless you’re a complete narcissist–you expect the other to listen to you and you listen to them. That would be a conversation.

What will it be like when God says, “I’ve been telling you that for years!”

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Of God and Country

May 25, 2015

Today is Memorial Day in the United States. My great-grandmother always called it Decoration Day–a day to visit the graves of deceased family and place flowers. “Decorate” so to speak.

This confused me as a child because it was generally called Memorial Day–a day set aside to remember and honor veterans of the US military, especially those who died in war or conflict.

I grew up and still live in Middle America. The Midwest. It’s a place where, for at least 150 years, people blend God and country. A visitor, from say England or Zambia or wherever, to one of many church services would walk away confused if the people were worshipping God or worshipping their country.

It’s a complex range of emotions. And I know that that is not unique to Americans.

It’s interesting to watch the Wolf Hall series on PBS. It’s the story of England’s King Henry VIII and Cromwell, his “fixer.” The theme reflects the movement of political power, already begun in small ways, from “Rome”, meaning the Pope, to the country. You’ll hear Cromwell occasionally mention are you for England or for Rome. It bacame national.

I’m a disciple in that regard of Roger Williams who first proposed separation of church and state. That idea became a part of the US Constitution. I think that was because many of the Founders did not like the idea of the state collecting taxes from everyone that are spent in support of just one, state-sanctioned, church. They wanted the state out of the church business. I rather like that idea.
So, people like me have two buckets, if you will. There is worship of the one true God and loyalty to the country where I live. Today is where we exhibit the latter.
Or, we watch the Indianapolis 500 or CocaCola 600 auto races. Or, like me and thousands more who go to soccer tournaments. Or see it as a weekend for family gatherings and cookouts.

Whatever. I’ll not be critical. Except for the politicians who sent us into wars of pride and arrogance rather than the wars that truly protected the country. And remember those who died and those still suffering residue from those wars along with their predecessors veterans of the just wars. 

God bless them all.

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Lacking A Core Equals Leadership Weakness

May 22, 2015

“It’s all about the core.”

That is the foundation saying about the exercise regimen called Pilates. In Yoga, we also work on the core–your abdominal, lower back, and glutes. We do Plank, Boat, Bridge, Crocodile, and several other poses designed to strengthen the student’s core muscles.

It takes a strong core to sit straighter, stand straighter, project strength, and build good health.

You work on your core in every session. It degenerates quickly. Oh, and for you men–the famous “beer belly” is less due to beer than to weak ab muscles.

What happens when a leader has no core?

A good leader is a joy. A toxic leader–abusive, manipulative–you can run from. But a leader without a core breeds frustration.

Maybe they are just so entirely self-absorbed that they don’t really care about others. Or maybe there is no belief, goal, direction, or passion.

They sit in meetings without contributing. They let staff go where they wish. If a staff person decides to do something that is detrimental to the whole, they don’t take them aside and lead them into an understanding of the whole and how their actions affect that.

How did this person in the leadership role who has no core of leadership get there? Maybe a fluke of the organization where corporate appoints a district manager. Maybe money. Maybe the other leaders bailed and this person was the last one standing.

If you find yourself in this position, when you’re just not sure where you stand. When the organization you’re supposed to lead is floundering unsure of direction or purpose–that is when you had best make like Jesus. Before he became a leader and assembled a team, he spent 40 days in the wilderness. 

Just so, you had best take a personal retreat. This can be alone or with a mentor/coach. It is time to search for your purpose, your goals, your core values. Define these. Write them. Print in large font, frame them, put them on your office wall.

Set a direction and start sailing.

If, on the other hand, you work under such a leader, then you have a situation. If you are the one on the team who recognizes the situation, perhaps in meetings you subtly guide direction through questions and proposals in such a way as to convince others as to the direction the organization should be going.

You can be a leader without being The Leader.

The danger lies in the situation when the team all recognize the weakness. If the team all have differing agendas, then heaven help the organization. It will be split in a dozen directions with no core and wind up like the middle-aged guy with the beer belly.

Go work on your core.

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You Cannot Serve Two Masters

May 21, 2015

“I just don’t like the idea that I’m a slave. Where is free will? Don’t I have free will?”

The word translated as slave in Western European languages from the Greek has been a stumbling block to many. Nineteenth Century atheist philosophers pounced on that language in their newfound glory of the individual human as a reason to reject Christianity.

My friend in our small group probing the depths of the letter to the Romans gave an honest reaction to Paul’s statements that once we were slaves to sin and now we are slaves to righteousness.

I doubt Paul and my friend interpreted the word the same. For Paul, the theory was not forceable captivity against our will. It was a choice.

Jesus said, you cannot serve two masters. You must choose.

When you choose righteousness, you acknowledge that as your “master.” Much as a disciple tries to be as much like his teacher as possible, when you choose righteousness, then you try to live as much to that standard as possible.

Every day you are faced with little and not-so-little choices of how to act. As you remember to choose to be like your righteous master, you choose to do good. Soon the response is automatic. You become a righteous person. 

I don’t mean that in the sense of self-righteous–a phrase that denotes a person who points out all the shortcomings of others in an obnoxious manner. But in the sense of a person you’d truly love to be around because they seem to care about you, are concerned for your well being, at peace with the universe.

The other master that many think of is free will is the “do my own thing” master. This is tempting. Until we discover that we have been living a life captive to our desires which are easily manipulated by advertising and peers. 

This choice is much older than even Paul and Jesus. Proverbs is full of the same warnings. 

Translators are traitors, as a friend reminded me a few days ago. The concept Paul had in mind was that of a person who attached himself to a master–most likely for economic security. But maybe also out of respect. Not so much coercion. 

Which master will you follow? Choose wisely.

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When Studying Practice Discernment Using Sources

May 20, 2015

Look at this, she said bringing out a printed page from a Website. Look at what they say.

“The NIV [New International Version] says this.”

This Website says this.

I’m not sure when they removed rigorous study from university undergraduate courses. These days, I often think many graduate courses of study are the same.

Not that I was a great scholar back then, but I have met and hired people for many years who will tell me, “I took a course on that in college, so I am an expert.”

My comeback in 1982 is what I would still say today, “You took an undergraduate course. You barely have an introduction to that field.”

More and more I’m coming across people with seminary degrees, M.Div., who seem to have only a superficial understanding of the Bible. Take a look at the curriculum of many seminaries today. What in the world are they really learning? Are they getting a proper foundation for a strong faith with ability to teach. (Not to mention my real pet peeve–no leadership training and experience. They send their students into churches to be leaeders when they have no clue. And those of us in the congregateions are much the poorer for it.)

But with Bible studies popping up like dandelions in the spring, where are the teachers with a background of serious study?

Oh, let us just Google it.

Google helps us find stuff that you could never find. When I was a graduate assistant, my professor had me researching for a chapter of a book he was writing. I lived in the library for a while. Found little.

But….

Google is only discerning when it brings you ads that the algorithms suggest would be interesting to you. Especially in Bible study, it will give you what it finds.

If you are using that for your education, you could easily be led astray. Theories and half-truths abound like an exploding rabbit popoulation. 

Picking your best guides should not be left to chance. Don’t believe everything you read. As I writer, I understand the irony.

By the way, the footnotes in your study Bible–they are not part of the Bible. They are the words of a scholar. Mostly they are of great use, but still consider the comments carefully.  And paraphrases. Beware.

Take care. Use your God-given brain to think about things before just clinging to a theory.

Again I warn, be careful and think thoroughly about what you read.

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