Bailing Out (12/28)

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Some of you are thinking I’ve finally realized that February’s twenty-eight days have got me and my pitiful blog beat—so I’m bailing out.

Oh so no!

What I’m bailing out on is a book I’m reading.  Am I the only one who has trouble doing this?

I’ve made appointments with myself.  I’ve laid down on my own couch and asked myself penetrating questions.  I’ve even paid myself for the counsel and booked another appointment.  But no answers.

Why do I feel compelled to finish a book?  It might be a hope-the-best-part-is-still-coming attitude.  Or it could be a simpler desire to not quit—a thought that somehow the quest of finishing will be worth itself.  Or it may be simple stubbornness that says, “This book isn’t going to get the best of me.”

Well, I’m getting off this train.

I’m 2/3 into a memoir.  You could even label it a “spiritual” memoir, if you’re into labeling.  It’s not a bad book.  I’ve read much less fruitful pieces.  But I know the hours I already sunk into its pages, and I know the more that finishing will require, AND I know that my available hours are only decreasing.

So I’m saying, “Enough!”

“Of making many books there is no end”… that’s from Solomon, 3000-ish years ago.  He didn’t know the half if it!  So I’m upping the power of my screening process.  If I AM what I read (or something like that), then I just want to maximize my page consumption.

And current memoir… you are out.

To the authors out there, you’ve got about thirty pages to get me.  Being flooded in writing, I’ll gauge your tone, character, and substance.  If it’s what I need, I’m in.  If not, there’s plenty of shelves where you can hang out with friends.

Jonah in Pictures (11/28)

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Tomorrow, I’m speaking about Jonah. We’re just skimming the whale part. The image we’ll grab is more about a plant, a worm, and a wind.

In my web-travels this week, I found this sweet series of artwork done by Robin Jensen.

Below, in fascinating picture form, I give you Jonah…

jonah-intro-4a

This next one is getting featured in tomorrow’s lesson. It’s titled “Jonah: Hot and Bothered”.

And for this final piece, I feel the need to include the artist’s caption: “Mission accomplished. The worm goes home…”

Makes you wonder who the prophet in the story really was!

MacSpeech Dicate (10/28)

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dictateFor some time now, I’ve been intrigued by this program from iMac (for my Mac). I’ve been curious to see what it might be capable of, and I’ve had a few ideas for creative ways that I might use it.

So yesterday, I took the plunge and put my money down. Today I’ve spent 30 minutes or so training the program to recognize my voice (and) training myself to dictate to a machine. For the most part, the accuracy is pretty decent. However (I missed a comma here) I can see that it’s going to take some practice to become a proficient dictator. I’d like to think there are many hours to be saved if I could learn the skill, so perhaps it’s worth a little more investment of time.

If any of you are curious to know more about this program, don’t hesitate to leave me a comment. I’d be happy to try to answer any questions you might have.

Until then, I’ll spend hours in a room by myself talking aloud to my cyber friend.

PS: This blog entry was dictated using this program. In the brackets I’ve added clarification where errors took place.

Winter (9/28)

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I’m in a coffee shop a few days back and overhear a conversation.  The table next to me had three ladies chatting to each other.  Any of the three of them, stretched just a bit, could have been Saturday Night Live characters.

As they’re packing up to leave, I hear this bit…

“She sure wasn’t looking forward to winter.  It’s turned out to be one of the warmest winters we ever had.”

My mouth almost fell open.

Where had she been living the past five months?  This is the winter when it took me until last week to get in a broomball game.  This is one of the winters that Canada geese will tell “great escape” tales about.

One of the warmest winters we ever had?

Apparently Java Express serves up harder stuff than what’s on the menu if you just ask for it.

Re-Thinking Leadership (8/28)

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What follows isn’t mine.  It’s from the blog of Charles Kiser, who works with a church plant in Dallas

He speaks of attending a conference, where he had the chance to share a table with Neil Cole, who’s written a book called “Organic Church”.  Basic idea of this book: Church is most what it’s supposed to be when it’s small and highly reproductive.  Cole focuses on making disciples who make disciples and start new churches – even in the confines of people’s homes or in coffee shops.

Kiser then goes on to reflect on his church’s leadership challenges, which I’ve only observed in… oh… every church I’ve ever seen.  But his is unique in the sense that their needs are pushed to the forefront by their rapid growth.  Yeah, I don’t see that in every church–my own included.

So take it away, Charles…

We’ve been facing leadership development challenges in the Storyline Community — in a good way. More people are participating than we have leaders to lead. So, wondering what might be ahead for us, I asked Mr. Cole: “How long does it take before a person becomes a disciple and is able to lead and care for a house church?”

Cole said, “Well, that’s easy: 3 years, 6 months, 29 days, 8 hours, 22 seconds.”

And he stared at me. Then he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “You know I’m making fun of you, right?” I

said, “Yeah, I got that.”

He went on to say that there’s no formula or identical pattern for developing leaders. Then he said something very profound that I’ve been chewing on this week. “In the institutional paradigm, leadership development is about getting people to do something for you (e.g., lead a group, teach a class, preach a sermon, develop curriculum, etc.). “In an organic paradigm, leadership development is discipleship. Leadership is about following Jesus so closely that other people want to follow you because they think by doing so they might also be able to follow Jesus more closely. Skills and logistics flow out of a disciple’s relationship with Jesus.” Then he put in a plug for his new book, Organic Leadership.

He’s right. The easy part is teaching people the skills of event planning, conversation facilitation and connecting with people.

The hard part is seeing passion for God cultivated in people such that it’s contagious and other people follow because they want that passion.

It challenges me as a leader, too. Am I contagious? Are people following because they see a passion for God in me that they want? Am I a person of character? Those are much deeper questions than “Can I run a leadership development group well?” I thanked Neil Cole for being patient with me.

I’m still deprogramming from institutional ways of envisioning leadership.

I always knew it wasn’t just about doing, but this gave words to a few of my fuzzy thoughts.  This makes the quest to invest in leaders more challenging; it also makes it something that actually looks worth doing.

As for the deprogramming from institutional ways…

That’s likely a post for another day.