The So-Called Ordinary

It's an ordinary day. 

Today I'm preparing for an interview with The Bridge radio network. I wrote a little blurb for their newsletter too. It's all about Easter, ministry, and a book by Wayne Cordeiro I'll be featuring this month titled: "Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion." Easter is the big month for pastors and the tough month for pastors. Flames fanned higher nearly always lead to burnout or symptoms of burnout. 

Later today, Shannon and I go to a hospital in or near NYC to visit a young friend and ministry partner who has succumbed to cancer. Apparently, she'll be gone soon. We heard she's already in a coma. Her husband, family, and other friends will be there. Her daughter is a year older than mine. We went to Africa together twice, in 2004 and in 2007. Dear friends.

For all the emotions I'm feeling concerning all of this, I realize that everything I'm going through or talking about today is ... ordinary. This is ordinary human life and ordinary ministry. So-called ordinary life involves death, so-called ordinary ministry involves burnout, and redemption can only be redemption through Jesus' death on the cross. 

I guess that last one's not so ordinary ...  

Pondering Paroxyms

I was talking with someone today about bitterness at work. One of the teams at one of the places I work is in the midst of experiencing little blow-ups, always putting the ones loosing their tempers at great disadvantage. People loose it for many different reasons, but the intriguing thing is how inviting such behavior seems to those struggling with bitterness. People always want to say what they shouldn't say, as if this will help them feel better. It never does. Maybe I've blogged on this before. Sorry to be a bore if I have, but here's a few observations on this beautiful spring afternoon:

1) If someone gets in your face over something, they will do it again over something else. If you want your present relationship with this person to continue, decide that you are going to take it when the person goes postal next time, because the one thing you can be sure of is that there will be a next time.

2) If your response is curiosity, you'll still have to shake off the muck from your encounter. If your response is outrage, you'll have a tough time shaking off the muck from your encounter. 

3) If you are in authority or have competency, others may really resent you for it. Don't assume their resentment, but if you discover that it is indeed present, don't be surprised.

4) When someone mistreats you, you don't have the option of returning their mistreatment and keeping your integrity intact. You must remain above the fray. Stand up for yourself, but don't bite back. In war and football, the best defense is a good offense. This is not true, however, in interpersonal relationships.

5) God can use people's embarrassing emotional explosions for His own purposes. See the end of Acts 15. One ministry became two. The word for the "sharp disagreement" between Paul and Barnabas is most closely related to the English word: paroxysm. Paroxysm is a literary term for loosing it.     

The Slow Work of Sunlight

Spring is here, at least per the calendar. It is a time for new life, not in the abstract sense, but in the literal, tangible sense. You can see it. You can see it on the ground in the form of green grass and flowers. You can see it in the trees in the form of green leaves. You can see it. A green world around us becomes lit up by sunshine. In fact, all this new life is powered by sunshine. Photosynthesis is the term we learned in school. Light from the sun causes an organism to come to life. So does the process work in our spiritual lives. Slowly, with sufficient exposure to the warm, nourishing light of God, our souls come to life. It's a good thing too. This last winter was particularly cold and long for some of us. The best thing about it now is that it is over. I'm not just talking about physical winter. I'm talking about inner winter. Hardened, frozen, hostile landscapes aren't just outdoors. Spring, then, is a season to do three things:

1) REACH UP - Just like trees seem to be reaching for the sun, so reach for God. Far from hiding from or apologizing for where life comes from, trees are like visible statements about the sun. Healthy trees let all know that they depend on and derive all their glory from the sun.

2) REACH DOWN - All the sunlight and green that we can see with our eyes tells of something else beyond the reach of our eyes. Trees grow when their roots grow. Trees are healthy and strong when their roots are healthy and strong. The true beauty and life of a tree is invisible to the eye. Roots are a tree's secret life. Our secret life as believers is no less important. Read Matthew 6.

3) REACH OUT - Every healthy tree has new branches and new leaves. Some Christians could use an encouraging reminder of this. The "new" part of new life is forgotten or forsaken by some. What new things are you doing this spring to express and enjoy your new life in Christ? How is the light of God doing new work within you and through you into the lives of others?     

Themes

Days can have themes. So can seasons. One strategy for lifting your thinking above a day's situation is to name the theme of what you're going through. Try it. The theme for the day may be 1) overcoming, 2) relearning an old lesson, 3) dependence on God, 4) playing it cool, or 5) being yourself - to name a few examples. The circumstances will suggest the theme. Finding a theme can help with your sanity. Anytime you can link the things that happen to you in a day or season so they form a coherent narrative, you feel less like you're reacting to everything that happens to you and more like your inside a story written by someone who was trying to make a point. The truth is: you are. That someone is God. Chances are good that He actually does have a theme for your day that lines up with His plans for you. Why not ask Him? 

"I know the plans I have for you ..." He says.

The Blog Abyss

Do you ever hit the "next blog" button on these Google blogs? It can take you anywhere. I've found that only about half of the time the blog is in English. And many blogs are indecipherable. They seem to be half-formed thoughts; something akin to the plots of dreams. Some make no sense and show no potential for ever making any sense. Others are tightly controlled sales blogs that look like they're tended to hourly. They offer stuffed dolls, clothing lines, or innovative products for parents. Every once in a while you stumble across something vile. There's a"flag blog" button for these blogs; we police ourselves in this interesting mental world revealed by the blogosphere.

Still, there are trends. If you click "next blog" twenty times you will consistently pick up on three things:

1) People want to express themselves.

2) People want to be understood on their terms.

3) People want to connect well.

These are important for anyone working with people to understand.  

You need a sabbatical

You need a sabbatical. At the risk of having snowballs thrown at my head in the church parking lot, I recommend a sabbatical. You need the time to think, read, talk, organize, and evaluate. I'm not kidding. I could even go so far as to say this is a word from the Lord. Hmm? Come to think of it, isn't there some stuff in the Bible about this? There's a word in the Bible that's like sabbatical: sabbath. How strange. The words must be related in meaning since they look and sound the same. Imagine actually stopping everything for one whole day every week. Who does this? Who has time? Time. Maybe God is on to something. Imagine the whole world taking a snow-day like today once a week, even through the Spring and Summer. Except, instead of frittering the morning away on Facebook, all would be into another book, a much older one, you know the one. 

Maybe I should describe my sabbatical as our 60-day snow-day with Jesus. Of course, I spent a month of it in warm, sunny, central Florida.

I guess I better wear a helmet as I walk between the church and the CE building next weekend.    

Welcome Back

Welcome back to all who read this blog. It's been a while. To say Shannon, Kelsie, and I have had a good time would be an understatement. It would be an understatement of scope, not merely quality. This is because the most powerful, valuable, amazing thing on earth is time. We had time. Maybe this is something you need. Time is a great gift from God. Many people these days are losing their jobs and finding something wonderful that comes with it: time. Nothing can take time's place. Everything important in life happens in the context of time. Love, forgiveness, faith, vision, and truth are all things that grow in the soil of time and all things that suffer for a lack of time. In a world of time-saving devices that consume our time, it was nice to be given this gift of time. If I can call my sabbatical a success, it is because I didn't squander this gift. God helped me know what it was. He helped me know its value. My one and only life is made up of time, and time is a gift that runs out. May God help us all today to make the most of our time. Thanks for reading. It's good to be back. Let's restart our conversation.  

Things Necessary for Leaders, part 6

Merry Christmas!

This will be my last entry until after my sabbatical ends on February 25, 2009, Ash Wednesday. 

Although this entry will be published on December 25th - the first day of my sabbatical - I've written it earlier. Also note that I may not be able to publish comments during these two months. Feel free to leave them for me though, as long as you're willing to wait to see them posted. 

There's something poetic here. The last of four things necessary for leaders I'm writing about is survival. Survive success. Most people don't have to face this one, because, frankly, most people do not know success in their lives. (Sorry if this stings.) My suspicion, however, is that almost everyone knows that there is a problem with success. Success is a type of death. You could see it in the Olympics this summer. An Olympian who despite all odds wins the gold and stands on the podium is also someone who no longer has a reason to live. Victory is a funeral of sorts. To survive requires intense concentration and change. The unconscious awareness of this may in fact be the big block to success in many peoples' lives. Who wants to see their dreams die? Yet this is what happens when one succeeds. 

If all your life you've wanted to climb to the top of Mount Everest, and you do it, now what? By far, most deaths on this tallest of all mountains occur on the way down from the summit. People die on the way down. They get careless because, compared to the ascent, the descent is pointless. The key to surviving success and not dying on the way down is to constantly redefine your goals. Once you reach the top, now your goal is to get down. It must be your new goal. The old one has to almost be forgotten - forsaken even - in order for you to bring your best to your next steps. Even if you don't think you have ever been successful, in order to take things to the next level in your life, you have to "delete" all your old success files from your memory. (Sometimes these are based on others peoples' lives or sheer fantasy.)

Leadership success is a funny thing. It requires balanced celebration. If you don't celebrate it, you hamstring your heart; you won't have the strength to do your best in the future. If you overcelebrate it, you steal from it and your future. May God give you these problems and the character to navigate them effectively! Nehemiah had them. I'll let you read those later chapters in Nehemiah. They are interesting. His personal success was definitely on his mind. And we still refer to it today! Wow. His is truly an inspiring and informative account. May God bless you in 2009 and make you into the leader He's called you to be.     

Things Necessary for Leaders, part 5

Do the big thing. Big is the word. The big thing you do flows from your big gift. Your big gift, the biggest thing you are able to do, lights up your big dreams. The big expectations you have in life are rooted in your big dreams. By big gift, we mean here that thing you really have the talent and training for. Note the ongoing reality lesson of "American Idol." People with big delusions do not make it. If you can't sing well, you won't go far in a singing contest, no matter how much you "believe" in yourself. So, by saying "do the big thing" we are saying:

1) Know God. He wants our lives to matter. He puts in each of us a unique mix of potential, abilities, and experiences, which, if He is invited in faith to help Himself to, He can make much of. 

2) Know Yourself. What are you good at? What are your REAL talents and abilities? Have you developed them at all? Has your life prepared you? Nehemiah lived and worked in the presence of the highest grade leaders of his day. When the problem found him and he dared to pray, God had already immersed him in years of a certain type of leadership school, having been the cup bearer to the king. What about you?

3) Know Life. Do you understand that nothing replaces hard work and discipline? Or do you believe the commercials that say you can get 6-pack abs from pills or an electric belt you wear around your waist? If you haven't worked hard so far, you're in trouble. If you're not willing to do the hard work, you're going nowhere. If you are looking to others to open doors for you, they will remain shut. If you are blaming your lack of success on a lack of help from others, no one will help you. You get the picture. If you don't, then nothing more I write here will help. 

4) Know People. Nehemiah was not a jerk. This is important. I've encountered many people over the years who mistreat other people and expect success in life to follow. Theirs is a strange form of math. It doesn't add up. If you send nasty e-mails to someone, you won't win them over. If you lie to people, they won't trust you. If you take credit for the work of others, others will not want to continue working with you. If you disrespect leaders, you won't get their help or support. Nehemiah even treated his worst enemies with a certain grace. Read and you will see; he knew people. He knew how to rally the frustrated, recruit the help of kings, resist the attacks of foes, and reassure all that his was a mission from God. He didn't get mired in the petty. No one doubted that he had come to do the big thing!

How about you? 

Things Necessary for Leaders, Part 4

More on step 2: "Let the problem find you." If you have eyes to see a problem, you are already qualified to do something about it. Maybe that something is prayer. Maybe it is prayer plus action of some kind. How do you know the difference? The prayer will tell you. Actually the Lord will tell you through your prayer. If you pray and get peace about your response to a situation, the something you're supposed to do about the problem is pray and no more. Do not underestimate the power and importance of prayer. If, however, you pray and something stirs within you, you get more upset, you have to rush to find paper and pencil to write things down - this sort of thing - then God may be calling you to pray in order to take action concerning this problem. Nehemiah prayed. Action followed. If his task was to pray and no more, he would have remained a cup-bearer to the king. The minute he prayed his job was doomed. From one perspective, his life was over. The same thing can happen to you. They're right to say, "Be careful about what you pray for." Be sure you're prepared for life as you know it to end. Seriously.