The other day I noticed that my Timberland shoes are wearing out. I love these shoes because I bought them at an 80% discount and because they are waterproof, a key feature for rainy East Bay winters.

The shoes depicted above have been worn out mainly on the sidewalks of Berkeley, California. Our town is very compact (100,000 people in 10 square miles) and values walking or biking over driving. So developing our relationship with the community means taking the time to be out on the street with people every time we get a chance.

As the soles on my Timberlands have gotten thinner and thinner, I’ve noticed that our relationship with Berkeley seems to develop in four stages:

1. Tourist: I started out in this community as a guest armed with statistics from Google, demographics from a consulting firm, and a handful of stories about people I met in coffee shops. This first stage is about being a visitor and involves more observation and analysis than relationship. I felt this way for quite a while in Berkeley, taking in everything but risking very little, especially as I walked though the culture shock in the early months.

2. Resident: In this phase I commit. The reality that I actually live here begins to set in and I work through accepting the fact that my new address is really where I live. The statistics are behind me at this point, and I am beginning to understand the culture of the place in its own terms, letting it speak to me in its native language, so much of which is in the little things like bumper stickers and the aroma of fresh pizza on Telegraph Ave. Digesting numbers and ideas now gives way to meeting the actual people who make up all those charts and graphs.

3. Citizen: A community’s citizens take a kind of ownership that tourists and residents do not. A real citizen takes part in the activities the city offers, and starts to feel a sense of attachment to the place. For instance, I attend community and campus activities all the time now, often showing up for lectures and exhibitions at Cal, and have even joined a Berkeley writers club and the Chamber of Commerce. My relationships become deeper and more cooperative when citizenship takes root, and I begin to risk more and more of myself.

4. Neighbor: This stage is about the willingness to make sacrifices for the sake of the people I’ve met. Of course, I have in mind the parable about the Samaritan Jesus presented as an answer to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” He is teaching that a real neighbor is someone who helps without conditions, who cares for me when they don’t have to.

• When I know the average square footage of a Berkeley house, I am a tourist.

• When I know the first name of the people who live next door, I am a resident.

• When I attend a baby shower across the street, I am a citizen.

• When Janet takes a pan of homemade enchiladas to the woman who is recovering from surgery next door, we are neighbors.

These phases aren’t intended to be chronological. Of course, we should all be neighbors immediately and all the time. But we’re not.

It’s a process that develops over time. But it’s the only way to make the gospel loud enough to be heard in my town.

So how is your sole days?

Be a leader worth following,

Worth listening to for those of you who want to master leading well.

Homeostasis doesn’t distinguish between what you would change for the better and change for the worse.  It resists all change.

The people we know as masters don’t devote themselves to their particular skill just to get better at it.  The truth is, they love to practice – and because of this they do get better.

Life at its best… (according to pop culture) …is an endless series of climatic moments.

Music, movies, TV, sports – almost every form of diversion you can name provides a climatic moment in 30 seconds at best or 3 hours at worst.  Mastery simply demands a different path – a very counter cultural one at that.

The dabbler loves to try new things. They pour themselves into their newest sport, hobby or relationship. The intense initial investment pays produces quick progress, that quickly fades. Unwilling to invest for the long run, the dabbler quickly tires of the plateau and moves on to something new – repeating the process over and over again.

The obsessive is very focused on results. They work hard to achieve them. They study diligently, practice compulsively and measure progress obsessively. When the inevitable regression to plateau occurs they double their already passionate pursuit. Until the inevitable fall finds them out of gas, unable or unwilling to get up and try harder one more time.

The hacker may look like they are on the path to mastery when they begin. They develop a certain level of competence. They continue to practice – for awhile – until they conclude they are good enough. Mastery is exchanged for mediocrity.

Which begs the question – which one are you?

Yes, in the spirit of authenticity I’ll go first – world class hacker here.

Learning any new skill involves relatively brief spurts of progress, each of which is followed by a slight decline to a plateau somewhat higher in most cases the than which preceded it. The curve (above) is necessarily idealized.  In the actual learning experience, progress is less regular; the upward spurts vary; the plateaus have their own dips and rises along the way.  But the general progression is almost always the same.   To take the masters journey, you have to practice diligently, striving to hone your skills, to attain new levels of competence.  But while doing so – and this is the inexorable fact of the journey – you also have to be willing to spend most of your time on a plateau, to keep practicing even when you seem to be getting nowhere. (p14-15)

Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl.

The Secret of Guidance, by F.B. Meyer

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, by Eric Metaxas

Viral Churches, by Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird

BTW – the links are all to the Kindle versions, but you can easily click over to the paper ones.  (Or just buy a Kindle here.)

Any suggestions on what I should read next?

Check out Todd Henry’s post on this.  (Todd’s blog and podcast are brilliant – well worth following.)  He says,

The more structures we have to navigate in order to do our work, the more difficult it is to do our best work. When we are required to resolve the dissonance of complex systems, reporting relationships and accountability structures just in order to get our objectives and check off our direction we will begin to lose our drive to do brilliant work. Over time, this complexity only pulls entire organizations toward systematic mediocrity.

Sometimes you need to ask what system can we build to help us do this better.  Sometimes you need ask what system you can demolish in order to free people to do their best work.