Category Archives: Ethos

Book Review, Ethos, Leadership, Popular Culture, Questions

My Experience

As repeated polls have revealed, when asked what they spend most time talking about with their child, her As, Cs, or Fs, more than 70 percent of parents say the Fs.
-Marcus Buckingham

Was that your experience because it was mine? Everytime I brought home a report card or a progress report hardly two words were spoken to me about my good grades. The conversations always revolved around how bad one grade was and what I must do to turn it around.

Usually that wayward grade would be in some math class. My English grades were always high and I did very well in Science and in History because it is in those subjects that my strengths lie. I knew deep within my heart that I would never excel at math. I could only get a little better.

However, that isn’t what the world believes. Maybe it isn’t what you believe.

According to Marcus Buckingham, formerly of the Gallup Organization, 61% of people believe that you will grow the most in your areas of weakness. Really? I will grow the most in my areas where I’m weakest?

It has been my experience that simply cannot be true. My weaknesses shouldn’t be ignored (I would have failed if I had completely ignored those math grades) but they cannot be my focus. According to Buckingham, a far better use of my time would have been spent working on my strengths. That what I kept yelling whispering to my parents all those years ago.

Maybe that is why Buckingham’s work has really connected with me. Last October, I heard him ask the grades question. Twelve years of arguments and frustrations all came flooding back to me in that instant. It all made sense to me. Instead of being encouraged to focus on my strengths I have been told my entire life that I need to focus on the areas where I’m lacking. While the motivation behind this belief is all well and good it is merely a wild goose chase.

According to Buckingham, to learn about success you must study success not failure. Studying failure will teach you more about, well, failure.

I’m more interested in success anyway.

Check out Marcus Buckingham’s Go Put Your Strengths to Work. Click on the link to watch a preview video.

Also check out Trombone Player Wanted. A great video resource to supplement this great material.

I will be attending another seminar with Buckingham on Wednesday. I am absolutely stoked about this event. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Until then- focus on your strengths not your weaknesses!

Ethos, Ministry, Resources

Don’t be an Eliphaz

Last night I was going through some of my files on teenagers and grief. I came across this article from Youth Specialties written by Renee Altson. The main thrust behind the article is walking students through the process of grief and disappointment and frustration with life sans the pat answers.

As ministers we like to have answers-the right answers.

People expect us to have answers-the right answers quickly.

As Alston says in the article, we are a culture of quick fixes. While I’ve only been doing ministry for a handful of years, I know that nothing in this life or in adolescence or in the journey of faith comes quick and easy. Pains aren’t quickly forgotten. Wounds don’t heal over night. Blurbs about faith and purpose and God’s will ring hollow in the ears of teenagers dealing with loss.

The youth pastor patted me on top of the head—not with tenderness, but with a dismissive, condescending motion. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. “Just remember,” he said, “God causes all things to work together for good. God won’t give you anything that you can’t handle.”

I wiped away the tears that had started to form and forced a smile. Walking away, I thought, “Dude, you have no idea what I’m going through. I don’t even know if there is a God anymore.”

We live in a world of instant gratification. We can have almost anything we want on demand. Fast food, fast Bible lessons, fast relationships—everything comes with a money-back, feel-good, 30-minutes-or-less guarantee.

Today’s Christianity has bought into that kind of mentality,as well. Got a broken heart? Jesus can fix it. Feel overwhelmed by sadness? Cast all your cares on him. Feeling stuck between two decisions? Just trust and obey.

What are we offering our students when we give them pat answers and tired clichés? Are we teaching them that we buy into the notion of instant pleasure and quick fixes? Are we setting them up for a life of disappointment and doubt?

The pat answers given to me throughout my lifetime, particularly during my adolescent years, almost did me in. They brought guilt and shame—a sense of never being good enough, of never being godly enough. I struggled constantly with these quick fixes that just didn’t work for me. I’d confess, repent, and accept Jesus into my heart—I really would. And nothing would feel any different. So I’d do it again, repeatedly confessing and repenting in an attempt to feel the answers that were supposed to be there. I’d pray for hours, asking Jesus into my heart again and again. Why didn’t he fix me? Why didn’t God give me strength? What was I doing wrong?

In the end, swamped with frustration and sadness, I didn’t blame God or suddenly decide it was Jesus’ fault. I blamed myself.

One of the problems with pat answers is that they’re usually taken straight from Scripture and therefore contain some element of truth—enough truth to distort; enough truth that, when offered, seems real.

We don’t offer lies to our students, we offer half-truths. We offer the resurrection without the agony of the cross. We offer the ascension without the garden of Gethsemane. And we end up with students with half-truth lives—students who won’t know how to survive the difficulties they face; students with weak faith that is easily uprooted by winds of disappointment and doubt.

What can you do to help ground your students? How do you get beyond pat answers? Do you even want to?

Face Pain

You must befriend the reality of hurting people; you must acknowledge some wounds that are so big they may make you ask, “Why, God?” and even “God, are you there?”

One of the problems with Christians is that we feel we must constantly defend our faith so zealously, we don’t know how to let God handle the huge issues. We try to minimize our situations and lives so we don’t need a big God. Big pain requires a big God.

Embrace Unknowing

A million years of theology doesn’t speak to the heart like a genuine “I don’t know.” And let’s be truthful—there are some things we don’t know.

We can guess. We can come up with alliterative phrases that describe the atonement, the purpose of sin, the meaning of redemption; but when it comes to this student in this moment in this situation, we all too often just don’t know. Pretending that we do leads to pat answers and dishonesty.

Allow for Process

There’s a lot of pressure in the church to be okay. It’s subliminal, from upraised hands during the worship chorus to kneeled moments during the altar call, but it exists.

Many people will expect you to fix the hurting kids in your ministry. After all, you’re the youth pastor. But it’s important not to rush the process. We don’t serve a God who expects us to be put together; we serve a God who suffers with us in our sufferings, who weeps with us in our sorrow.

Listen

Sometimes the best words are no words at all. A lot is unsaid in those quiet, intimate moments. Much is conveyed in quiet breathing and simple sharing of space. And in that silence, you won’t damage someone’s heart. You won’t minimize his pain or tell him what you think he needs to hear or what you want to say.

Just be with her. Be with her without feeling a need to fix her. Listen to the cries of her heart. Offer them up to God.

Pat answers are dangerous. They minimize our God and they minimize us. They turn our religion into something that God never intended. And they diminish our light.

I’ve been reading through the book of Job this week.

What has struck me is how quickly Job’s “friends” resort to offering up the pat answers. One minute they are they sitting quietly and comforting Job (11-13) and the next minute they are offering up “explanations” and “remedies” for the cause of Job’s calamities.

I know why Job’s friends felt the need to speak up. I’m sure that the silence was deafening. The weight of the situation often compels us to speak. We have a need to rationalize and explain away things that we can’t/won’t understand.

Grief is hard enough without us adding the pain and shortsightedness that pat answers bring. Teenagers feel everything so deeply. Walk them through it slowly.

I can’t explain the reason behind what happened to those students yesterday in Alabama or what happened to those basketball players in Atlanta this morning.

What I can do is offer a shoulder for crying, an ear for listening, and a whisper for a prayer.

When people are dealing with grief and junk that the world has dumped on them I am reminded of the words of St Francis of Assisi:

Go into all the world and preach the gospel and use words if necessary.

Time over quickness. Walking over running. Presence over pat answers.

link

Discipleship, Ethos, Ministry, Theology

Life is Meant to Be Lived in Connection

There are two over arching themes that keep popping up in and around everything I am watching, reading, listening to, and talking about. You could chalk it all up to coincidence but I believe that it is God whispering something important to me.

He’s saying, “Don’t miss this! If you didn’t see it there, watch this! If you couldn’t hear me there, how about this! Check this out. Did you see it?” God wants me to know something and he doesn’t want me to miss it.

The first whisper that I’m hearing is that Life is Meant to Be Lived in Connection.

In What I’ve Been Watching
The entire third season of Grey’s Anatomy has revolved around connections.

George’s father died and his need for connection sent him and Callie running to Las Vegas for a weekend wedding. Izzie is still reeling from losing Denny and struggled with losing the only connection she had left with him: an 8.7 million dollar check. Burke and Christina spent the first half of the season in an intense secret that kept their relationship intact but their pride has kept them from reconnecting since their secret was revealed. Merideth and Derek’s relationship has grown over the last few weeks but death threatened to take that precious connection away. And in the latest episode Merideth and her mother were finially able to connect if only for the last time. And these are just the main story archs.

Heroes has proven that the world hinges on our ability to connect with one another.

Even the producers of Lost have come to this realization and have tried to reconnect with their audience. When Lost returned this February, the producers were featured in a “here’s-where-we’ve-been-please-don’t-quit-watching-we-can-catch-you-up” special. It seems to have done the trick.

We are all connected. We are called to connect.

In What I’ve Been Reading
Andy Stanley has done it again with his book Creating Community. The book has me rethinking what I’ve traditionally called community.

We are all connected. We are called to connect.

In What I’m Listening To
I’ve been listening to Pink Floyd’s Is There Anybody Out There?. This live album is the audio chronicle of one of the wildest musical concepts in rock ‘n roll. During the concert, a wall was constructed that seperated the band form the audience. Talk about losing connection.

We are all connected. We are called to connect.

Discipleship, Ethos, Faith in Action, Stories, The Word

Not in the Earthquake

1Kings 19:1-13 TNIV

The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?””

Who would have blamed Elijah for looking for God in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire? Certainly not me.

One chapter ago, Elijah was riding high on seeing the LORD nuke the holy snot out of his sacrifice on Mount Carmel. The prophets of Baal found themselves completely humiliated in their false service to a false god and it was all down hill for them from there.

Then along comes Queen Jezebel’s threats and Elijah runs away hiding himself in despair.

Elijah wanted to die he was so depressed (19:4-5). Although angels attended to his physical needs something in Elijah was still lacking. Anyone who has ever suffered through a season of depression knows that it is your spiritual needs that must be met in order for you to move forward.

In this need, the LORD showed up.

After the display on Mount Carmel Elijah would of course be tempted to look for God in the loud roar of the wind or in the rocking of the earth or even in the heat and sulfur of a great fire but if he had only looked in those things he would have missed that gentle whisper. He would have missed the LORD.

Over the last few months, I have been trying to remind my heart that while God can be found in the big and amazing things going on around me He can also be found in the gentle whisper of the rhythms and patters of life.

While I have stood in awe of some amazingly huge God moves recently, I have been more humbled by the whispers of God in my life. In being humbled I have grown closer to my Father and my heart has become, day by day, more sensitive to His ways and more sensitive to the world around me.

So what have I been hearing? Where and how do I hear the faint cries of the Almighty? What is the LORD trying to say to me through this season of life and ministry?

If I told you now I wouldn’t have something to post for later.

For right now, just take some time and do a heart check.

Are you only looking for God in the big things- the wind, the earthquake, the fire- or are you open to the whisper?

Books, Ethos, Faith in Action, Politics, Stories

Challenge With My Coffee

An estimated 300,000 child soldiers now fight in the more than 50 violent conflicts raging around the globe. Far removed from the world of pundits and journalists, policymakers and diplomats, a 13-year-old boy names Ishmael Beah became one of these young warriors in Sierra leone, Africa. Now in his mid-twenties, he courageously tells of the horrific road that led him to wield an AK-47 and, fueled by trauma and drugs, commit terrible acts. In poignantly clear and dauntless storytelling, Ishmael describes how he fled brutal rebal soldiers, traveled miles from home on foot and gradually regressed to a life of raw survival instncts. Yet, unlike so many of his peers, Ishmael lived to reclaim his true self, emerging from Sierra Leone as the gentle, hopeful young man he was at heart. (Reading Guide)

Childhood is a precious and sacred thing yet it can be taken away in one fell swoop by evil men intent on taking power by any means necessary.

Ishmael Beah and I were both born in 1980. While I grew up in the comfort and security of this country Ishmael and his family were living thousands of miles away in the African nation of Sierra Leone. While I was going through the supposed trials and tribulations of junior high, Ishmael was living through a very real hell fleeing from rebels in a land torn apart by war and unspeakable savagery. In 1993, Beah was kidnapped and forced into an army made up of his peers- mere children. The whole idea of children forced into fighting a war is despicable yet this evil happens everyday. The only way to stop this treachery is to become aware of it and to become vocal about its abolition.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishamel Beah is his account, in his own words, of his capture, torture, and malipulation by the hands of his captors into becoming a child soldier. Beah was able to escape but the same cannot be said for the thousands of other young boys snatched from their homes and huts everyday. Beah story is harrowing and needs to be told.

A Long Way Gone is on sale now at your local Starbucks. Pick up a copy and get educated. There is also a reading guide bookmark available at the POS.

Over the next couple of days, I will be blogging through the book. I will be posting additional information on how you too can get involved. If you would like to read it with me drop me a line and let me know that you are interested. Also, on March 6, I am planning on attending the book signing and conversation with Beah at the Starbucks on Greenville Ave in Dallas. Let me know if you are in the area and you want to attend with me.

There are fires burning that need to be put out. It’s time to let your actions speak loudly.

D'oh!, Discipleship, Ethos, Ministry

Everything Matters

While preparing for my (tentatively titled) “Gospel According to Starbucks” series, I’ve been reading Joeseph Michelli’s wonderful book, The Starbucks Experience. In the second chapter Michelli writes that part of Starbucks success lies in “the amazing ability of partners (employees) to zero in on the minute details that matter greatly to customers.” That has been the case in almost every Starbucks I’ve visited. The floors have been clean, the shelves have been stocked and kept in order, and the stores seem to be running on all cylinders.

Regardless of what others say small details matter just as much as everything else. That’s why my jaw dropped when I saw this picture on Seth Godin’s blog yesterday.

I don’t know who should feel worse, THe PeoPLE who designed ThE Ad or the people who approved it. Plus, although lawyering is a real word it comes across as a little too Napoleon Dynamite when coupled with the capitalization problem and bragging about being 16th in the nation with said skills.

Get the small things right and the rest will fall in place. To whom much has been given much will be expected.

Discipleship, Ethos, Faith in Action, Leadership, Ministry, Religion, Theology

Great Reminder From a Great Man

“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority. If the church does not participate actively in the struggle for peace and for economic and racial justice, it will forfeit the loyalty of millions and cause men everywhere to say that it has atrophied its will. But if the church will free itself from the shackles of a deadening status quo, and, recovering its great historic mission, will speak and act fearlessly and insistently in terms of justice and peace, it will enkindle the imagination of mankind and fire the souls of men, imbuing them with a glowing and ardent love for truth, justice, and peace. Men far and near will know the church as a great fellowship of love that provides light and bread for lonely travellers at midnight.”

-Dr. Martin Juthur King, Jr.

Books, Church Planting, Discipleship, Ethos, Ministry, Popular Culture, Religion, Review

Beginings

2 Comments

..all God’s people carry within themselves the same potencies that energized the early Christian movement… Apostolic Genius (the primal missional potencies of the gospel and of God’s people) lies dormant in you, me, and every local church that seeks to follow jesus faithfully in any time. We have quite simply forgotten how to access and trigger it. This book is written to help us identify its constituent elements and to help us (re)activate it so that we might once again truly be a truly transformative Jesus movement in the West.

The first book I decided to tackle in 2007 is The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch. Although it looks like a regular book it is dense and thick and that makes me all excited inside.

In the introduction Hirsch asks the $64,000 Question:

How did the early church grow from being a relatively small movement to the “most significant religious force in the Roman Empire in (just) two centuries?”

Hirsch explains that by most estimates the early church had grown to about 25,000 people at the close of the first century. Two hundred years later, conservative estimates put the church at 20 million strong. That is incredible growth. Hirsch throws a wrench in your answering of that question by reminding you that this growth happened in spite of the follow:

  • Christianity was an illegal religion at this time
  • No church buildings like we know them
  • The cannon was being put together during this period
  • No institutional or professional forms of leadership
  • No seeker-sensitive, youth groups, worship bands, seminaries, commentaries, etc.
  • It was actually hard to join a church

Ok, can you answer the question? How did they do it? 25 thousand to 20 million in 200 years?

Before you answer Hirsch adds this:

But before the example of the early Christian movement can be dismissed as a freak of history, there is another, even more astounding manifestation of Apostolic Genius, that unique and explosive power inherent in all of God’s people, in our own time- namely, the underground church in China.

When Mao took power 1949 the Chinese church was estimated at 2 million. Mao set out to wipe China clean of all religion focusing explicitly on Christianity. Those in senior leadership were executed, church property was nationalized, missionaries and foreign ministers were deported out of China, and public meetings were banned by threat of imprisonment and death. This still occurs even today.

When foreign missionaries were finally able to return in the early eighties they expected to find a severely diminished church. The found that the church in China had grown to 60 million.

Hirsch says that by looking at the growth of the early church and the Chinese church we find that elements such as “the strange mixture of the passionate love of God, prayer, incarnational practice, appropriate modes of leadership, relevant organization and structures, and the conditions that allow these to catalyze” allow something remarkable to take place.

I am very much looking forward to reading this book. If the inrtoduction is any indication than I am in for a wild ride through these pages. One can only hope.

TheForgottenWays.org
Discreet and Dynamic: Why, with no apparent resources, Chinese churches thrive.

Book Review, Ethos, Leadership, Ministry

In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day: Book Review

I’ve be experiencing a sense of synergy as of late. It seems that everything that I’ve been reading or talking about has all centered around the idea of taking the risk.

That’s why it came as no surprise to me that Mark Batterson‘s newest book, In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day, continued pushing me to reflect upon the nature of uncertainty and the desire within me to put it all on the line.

In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day is all about taking risks. The title comes from what seems like one of the most insignificant passages in all of scripture. 2 Samuel 23:20-1 tells us all we need to know about a man named Benaiah:

There was also Benaiah son of Jehoiada, a valiant warrior from Kabzeel. He did many heroic deeds, which included killing two of Moab’s mightiest warriors. Another time he chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it. Another time, armed only with a club, he killed a great Egyptian warrior who was armed with a spear. Benaiah wrenched the spear from the Egyptian’s hand and killed him with it.

In Texas we would call Benaiah a hoss! I had to read the story over and over in every translation of the Bible I have available to me to believe that this story was in there. I had never heard it before and now I can’t stop thinking about it. What an incredible dude!!! But according to Batterson, we can all be lion chasers like Benaiah, every single one of us.

Batterson believes that God uses “past experiences to prepare us for future opportunities” but warns “those God-given opportunities often come disguised as man-eating lions. And how we react when we encounter those lions will determine our destiny.”

See, Benaiah could have walked away from the Moabites because he was out numbered, he could have avoided the fight with the Egyptian, and he could of certainly steered clear of the lion but would he still have been hired as a bodyguard for David which eventually led to him taking over as commander of God’s army. I’m not sure. According to Batterson, “God is in the business of resume making.”

The book is a great read. Batterson’s style is engaging, funny, and at times, incredibly challenging. Using stories from his own experience in the risk-taking world of church planting Batterson grounds the book firmly in reality.

The book is presented well and it can be read very quickly. Each chapter has a summary and questions for further thought or to be used within a small group setting.

Batterson is the pastor at National Community Church in the nation’s capital. I have been reading his blog, Evotional, for quite some time and I have benefited greatly from his thoughts and his heart for ministry. (Evotional has the best banner pic hands down)

I am highly recommending this incredible book to everyone that I know. It isn’t your typical book where you highlight your favorite passages and then place it on the shelf to be forgotten. Batterson dares you to move asking “What lion is God calling you to chase?”

After reading In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day I made some pretty difficult decisions about taking on some big, hairy lions in my life. Opportunities have presented themselves and I pursuing them. I don’t want to miss out on what God has planned just because I was too afraid to move.

So right now, I’m out chasing lions with my Dad. Take the risk. Come and join us!!!

ChasetheLion.com