Modern Ekklesia

Introducing the ModernEkklesia Blog Hosting Discount!

Rodlie Ortiz — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:03:09 +0000

Would you like to start a self-hosted blog, but are afraid that it costs too much? That’s what kept me away as well, to be honest. Several months ago, I decided to make the leap from a free Blogger (Google) hosted blog to a self-hosted WordPress blog. I was able to use a discount code that made it quite cheap to get started.

So I’d like to do the same thing for you so you can get started with minimal expenses!

I created the promo code “modernekklesia” that you can use when signing up for a year of hosting with Dreamhost that will come out to less than $2.00 a month ($1.86 to be exact). Yup. It’s true. You can prepay for the whole year and it’s $22.40 for a whole year of hosting. This includes a free domain when you register and unlimited data so you don’t have to worry about a thing.

After that year, the price goes to $8.95 per month. If you’re serious about blogging, though, I think it’s more than worth the investment for all the options you get with a self-hosted blog.

I use Dreamhost for this blog (ModernEkklesia) and have recommended it to others. So just wanted to spread the love so you can have a discount to start off. So remember, use promo code: modernekklesia

Happy blogging!

[image by quack712]

What Is The Best Way To Find Sermon Illustrations?

Rodlie Ortiz — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:27:28 +0000

Recently, one of our readers asked the following question:

“I want to incorporate more illustrations in my sermons (i.e., more stories), i admire people who can dig out of their rich experience, but my experience is a bit limited, so where would you suggest i go for relevant, truthful stories illustrating how the gospel can impact our lives?”

I have my own ideas, but I’d like to open it up to the community here. So this is your time.

How do you find illustrations for different messages that you give and present? Please click here to leave a comment.

[image by helloromeo]

Most Popular Post of August 2010

Rodlie Ortiz — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:03:32 +0000

Oops! I just realized that I forgot to post the most popular post of August.

So here it is. The top post for the month of August was: “Learning From the Leadership Style of Steve Jobs.”

Enjoy!

Simple Video That Explains What A Missional Church is About

Rodlie Ortiz — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:20:32 +0000

Thoughts?

Leadership On the Line: Book Review

Rodlie Ortiz — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 02:32:11 +0000

I have a love/hate relationship with leadership books. Most of them give all sorts of interesting tips and tricks for doing something that you want to do. Most deal with cosmetic issues. What most leadership books don’t do is to evaluate underlying assumptions and issues that cause us to think about why we do what we do.

That’s why I appreciated the honest evaluation of Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linksy in their book “Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of LeadingLeadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading.”

One of the central claims that Heifetz and Linsky make is that leadership can be a dangerous undertaking when leaders confuse how they need to react to a set of problems. Leaders, they say, face two main kinds of problems. The first are technical problems. These are issues that can be solved by the leader by applying procedures or tools that are readily available. These are issues such as cutting budgets, streamlining processes, firing people, and the like. The second kind are adaptive challenges.

They say:

“Without learning new ways–changing attitudes, values, and behaviors–people cannot make the adaptive leap necessary to thrive in the new environment. The sustainability of change depends on having the people with the problem internalize the change itself” (p. 13).

In other words, they require people to be able to adapt and make changes in themselves in order to address and meet the need of the issue.

Note the danger when leaders try to apply the wrong solutions, though:

“When people look to authorities for easy answers to adaptive challenges, they end up with disfunction. They expect the person in charge to know what to do, and under the weight of that responsibility, those in authority frequently end up faking it or disappointing people, or they get spit out of the system in the belief that a new “leader” will solve the problem” (p. 14).

They give many examples including that of Jamil Majuad, the former president of Ecuador that came to office in January of 2000. The country was in the midst of an economic meltdown. Many were loosing their jobs. Inflation became a problem. And the people wanted him to find remedies “for which other regions and localities would pay the costs.”

They say:

“The people did not want him to tell them they had to change. He made several trips abroad to plead for help from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and U.S. Treasury. He consulted many worthy economic experts…He came to see that any practical solution would require each region and sector of his society to endure considerable pain, at least in the short run” (p. 16).

The problem was that he did not adequately communicate to the people the kind of sacrifice that would be necessary. He did not prepare them for the change or set appropriate expectations. He set about trying to fix the problem, but he did not challenge them enough to make the changes that only they could do. He was eventually forcibly removed from office.

I wonder how many of the conflicts and problems that we face deal with us as leaders trying to apply technical solutions to adaptive problems?

One of the best recommendations they make for every leader is to take time out and find some purposeful “balcony time” (p. 51). They use the metaphor of dancing to delineate this. When you’re in the middle of the dance you see your partner, and you’re caught up in the excitement of the moment. But when you’re on the balcony, you can actually see the patterns taking place on the dance floor. So they recommend taking some time every week to spend time thinking and trying to get some perspective on what’s happening in your organization. I’ve heard of some leaders that take an entire day of their week to devote to processing ideas. I’ve heard of others that take a half day.

Overall, I quite enjoyed the book. It does get a little technical in places. But it does make you stop to evaluate your own leadership and the kinds of wrong fixes we’ve all tried applying in the past.

So what about you? Have you ever dealt with adaptive issues in the wrong way? What do you do to get some “balcony” time?

[image from Harvard Business Review]

Two Online (and free!) Leadership Conferences You Won’t Want To Miss

Rodlie Ortiz — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:49:40 +0000

You may know about these already, but just in case I wanted to give them a shout out.

Beginning on 9/09/2010 The NINES conference will be beginning. There will be over 150 speakers that have submitted 9 minute videos in which they teach on leadership. To get more info on the speakers and to register click here.

Also, on September 9-10, there will be a leadership conference webcast for THE FORUM 2010. There will be some big names form the business world presenting as well.

After the NINEs is presented, they’ll usually have a link where you can watch the videos later, from just the speakers you want to hear from. The Forum, though, will just be simulcast once and then it’s gone. So I would give a little more priority to watching The Forum.

Below is a video for the Forum:

2010 National Leadership Forum Webcast Promotional Video from Michael G. Barrett on Vimeo.

Enjoy!

Modern Ekklesia’s 200th Post Celebration!

Rodlie Ortiz — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:54:10 +0000

Here’s a high five for you!

On September 15, 2009, we celebrated the 100th post of Modern Ekklesia here. And almost exactly a year later we’ve arrived at the 200th post!

Yaaaay! So I guess we’re averaging about 100 posts a year, which is about two per week, which is just right, I think.

So, to celebrate and to say thanks you to YOU, we’ll be having a giveaway!! I love those.

We’re giving away some free “iNotePads.” They’re notepads that look and are the size of an iPhone, and are courtesy of SonicPrint.com. Write your grocery list on there, pretend that it’s a real iPhone and talk into it, or use it as origami paper…the use is up to you

To receive one, just leave any comment here below and I’ll randomly select a few winners. So once again, just wanted to thank you for making this a place of dialogue, encouragement, and learning! Keep it up!

[image by ChernobylBob]