TheHighCalling.org: Interviews

An Interview with the President of Disney Parks: Al Weiss

Marcus Goodyear — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Al Weiss’ official title is president of worldwide operations for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. According to Disney public relations, “He is responsible for operations at the company’s theme parks and resorts spanning three continents and including the Walt Disney World Resort, Disneyland Resort, Hong Kong Disneyland and Disneyland Resort Paris. He also oversees Disney Cruise Line and Disney Vacation Club.”

And Al is a Christian. He is active in his church, First Baptist Church of Kissimmee, and he serves as Chairman of the Board for Vision360, a national church-planting organization. Recently, Al Weiss spoke with TheHighCalling.org about his work, his faith, his family, and his priorities as a leader in all of those places.

What’s the best leadership lesson that you’ve learned from your time at Disney?

In an organization as large as Disney, no one individual could possibly know what’s going on in all places. So I have to hire a great team that has all kinds of skills and expertise and then rely on them to perform their functions. My goal is to make sure I hire great people who have leadership skills, because some of the people who report directly to me have 60 thousand people working for them. Then I figure out ways to serve them so they can be successful.

What’s the best leadership lesson you’ve learned from Vision360?

Vision360 is an organization that was started about three years ago to target the need for more churches in the greater Orlando (Disney World) area. But we quickly sensed God wanted us to expand this model for church planting around the U.S. Now our focus is not on one geographic location, like a Disney park, but on the globe. So we are looking for people who have a global heart and mindset to reach across the world through church planting. To me the lesson is the same: you’ve got to have key leadership in place that can relate to and motivate people and set the right tone and environment for success.

So you’re President of Worldwide Operations for Disney Parks, which is a huge organization, and CEO of Vision360, which is growing. How do you keep your perspective, find balance in all of this?

I keep my priorities in place. My relationship with the Lord is first; my family is next; ministry and career are behind that. I make decisions that ensure I have success in all these arenas. About five years ago, our very athletic daughter was in her first year in college. She was going to play fast-pitch softball and basketball—about 90 games a year. I’d made a commitment to be there for her. Then, I got offered a job in California. If I’d taken it, I would have missed the majority of her games. So I turned it down. In the next four years, we got to see her play in about 80 or 85 games a year. There are times you have to make decisions to reinforce the priorities in your life. If you do that consistently, you’ll have success in balancing those things that are important to you and keeping them in the proper perspective. I have one life to live, one calendar, and one set of priorities. I live my personal life and my business life by the same priorities. It makes everything easier for me because I’m living my life one way.

How open are you about your faith at Disney?

I don’t go out and talk to people about my faith on a regular basis. Many people know I’m involved in Vision360 and that I go to church on a regular basis. People know my parents were in ministry; my dad was a church planter when he grew up. We have many Bible Studies on our property; I’ve been asked to speak about my faith to those groups. In the corporate world, I think the most important thing is to do your job to the best of your abilities. At the end of the day, that’s what they appreciate and care about.

One of Disney’s philosophies is that everyone in the park is a cast member. What are the challenges in remembering the value that every employee brings?

Every time you’re in a big company with unions and negotiations, there are times where it can play out in the media in a negative way. For me, the key is to make sure we respect each person for what they do and we give them proper credit. After we’ve trained our employees and given them the tools they need, the most important thing we can do for our cast members is to make sure that if they choose to have a career, they can have a career with us. We ensure that this happens by promoting about 75 to 80% of our management needs from people right within our company. You’re also accountable to stockholders and board members.

How do you balance the needs of your stockholders with the needs of your guests or even the needs of your cast members?

If we’ve set the right tone and environment for our cast members, they are going to want to deliver great experiences to our guests. If we are delivering great experiences to our guests, they talk about us in a very positive way. They walk away having a great vacation experience, and they come back more often. I call that our “Circle of Life” where we’re satisfying all those constituencies, because we’re giving the cast a great experience, we’re giving the guests a great experience, and then you get a return on your investment to the shareholders.

Do the shareholders ever get impatient? I’m thinking back to something I read about what happened at the parks after 9/11.

I don’t think we have had many impatient stockholders after 9/11, because what we did was a pretty amazing yeoman’s feat. We had a pretty significant drop in business right after 9/11. We had a certain targeted cost reduction we needed to make to continue to achieve a certain level of profitability that would be received well by Wall Street and the shareholders. We decided that we were going to find that level of cost reduction without laying people off. That ended up being a pretty smart decision. You would have laid cast members off into a market where everybody was laying people off, and they wouldn’t have been able to find jobs so they would have gone on unemployment roles, and been a burden to the government. Just months after 9/11, our business started ramping back up. We very quickly moved up to good levels, and we would have hired most of those people back.

So, you’ve been with the company for many years, since 1972, right?

I’ve been there for 35 years! I started when I was seven [laughs]. No, I’d just graduated from high school, and my first job was to go into the Magic Kingdom and clear the cash registers back to zero. It was called a “z-run.” We would get a receipt from the cash register of the sales for the day and take them to cash control. They’d bring the money down in a locked bag with a receipt on the top saying how much money was in that bag. We'd match up those receipts, put them on a spreadsheet, put them in the vault, and then send them to the bank to get counted and deposited.

During those 35 years I’m sure the fantasy has broken down for you a couple of times.

There have been times where maybe I didn’t think I was promoted in the organization as quickly as I should have been, but I can honestly say that every single role that I’ve had, I’ve loved. I’m in my 22nd different job at Disney, and the first 22 years I had 20 different jobs, so I was moving to a new job just about every year. I never really got a chance to get bored. What I did was I really got immersed in those jobs; I tried to do the very best I could and let the results of what I did pay off.

Do you have a favorite memory from your time at Disney?

I go back all the way to my first job. I would go up on Main Street to clear those cash registers back to zero; the park would be empty of people, the lights would all still be on, and I’d walk into one of the most magical fantasy places in the whole world. It was so amazing to walk around the park at that time. For me, that was one of the coolest experiences that I’ll never forget in my life.

Do you have a favorite memory of your time with Vision360?

Just seeing God’s hand upon this ministry. I could talk about miracle after miracle that has happened as a result of just doing what God asked us to do. Through Vision360, God has put us together with amazing people from around the world, and with gifts of land. We’ve started planting churches in Orlando—we’ll have at least 15 in 2008. What we’re seeing in these churches is a very good family environment. There are many, many individuals who come and feel like they have a safe place to go, a place where they can be supported, they can be loved and cared for.

Interview with Parker Palmer, Part 2

Marcus Goodyear — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Ten years after its first release, Parker Palmer is republishing his book of encouragement for teachers called The Courage to Teach. The book helped countless teachers and other professionals to recover meaning in their work lives, in the midst of troubled, sometimes toxic systems. Recently, TheHighCalling.org spoke to Mr. Palmer about helping teachers and other professionals reconnect with their vocations and reclaim their passion for work.

The Center for Courage and Renewal builds "circles of trust." How do people create these circles in a workplace dominated by fear, jealously, and unhealthy competition?

This concept of a circle of trust is spelled out in detail in Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life. The purpose of each circle of trust is to make a safe space for the soul to speak. The kind of workplace you describe is the quintessential unsafe space. Many people in workplaces of that sort want to find their way toward identity and integrity, but they are surrounded by distrust, envy, power plays, and so forth. I think churches have a huge role to play in this. We just received a large grant from the Lily Endowment for a project at our Center that helps us teach pastors and lay leaders around the country how to build circles of trust. Virtually all of them are taking this back to their churches. So now we have doctors, lawyers, and teachers in the church sitting in safe places getting in touch with their deepest callings as Christians and human beings. The next step is for these people to gain a kind of strength and new capacity to take what they’ve learned in the safe places into a more challenging, even hostile environment.

Can you give us a concrete example of what this might look like?

We have teachers in these circles learning how to ask honest, open questions that aren’t disguised as advice. They’ve worked at developing this new muscle of communication in a safe place.

They say things like, "In a staff meeting, somebody said something I absolutely disagreed with. But instead of speaking in opposition, I asked an honest, open question." They expressed their desire to understand more deeply what the other person was saying and why they were saying it. Suddenly things start to change. Instead of a pitched battle between two points of view, the person who first spoke is feeling like someone is listening to them, and the person who asked the honest, open question is actually listening. The vision here is to change the dance with each other just a little bit in all of the daily, practical, on-the-ground things that we do with each other. If we don’t change the dance, pathologies keep multiplying themselves in the workplace. For example, a doctor in a hospital who is disdainful of the nurses is cutting off an important avenue of communication that may someday bear on the well-being of a patient because the nurses are afraid to say anything to this person.

What do you think are some of the biggest spiritual challenges facing leaders today in any profession?

We have so much work to do in every profession to bring the institutional context in which we do our work into line with the highest values of our professions. Catholic priest Ivan Illich wrote a book in the '70s. A passage in Deschooling Society went something like this: "Just because we have hospitals, doesn’t mean we have health care. Just because we have schools, doesn’t mean we have education. Just because we have courts, doesn’t mean we have justice. And just because we have churches, doesn’t mean we have faith."

If you look at HMOs or public schools these days, a lot of them put obstacles in front of the good people who work in them. Individuals would like to serve patients or students well, but institutional circumstances prevent it. There is incongruity between the highest values of their profession and the institution in which they work. We must encourage leaders to ask critical questions about the integrity of the institutions in which they work. We must equip leaders to be wise about how institutions change. A lot of our institutional structures divide the communities of work that they are supposed to be holding together. Schools, for example, tend to force teachers to privatize. Each of them has so much individual work that there is very little opportunity to form community with fellow teachers or between teachers and administrators. This dynamic needs to change, so our institutions depend on the strength of community within them. Leaders must attend to community building within their institutions, or they are actually undermining the quality of work that can be done.

Can you give an example?

A dramatic study became available a couple of years ago. It is detailed in a book called Trust in Schools. Two scholars, Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider, at the University of Chicago studied the effort of school reform in the Chicago city school system. During the '90s, they asked two very simple questions: "Which schools have grown most in their capacity to serve kids well?" and "Which schools have not grown or even declined in their capacity to educate young people as measured by standardized tests?"

Their study looked at factors that would explain the difference between those two sets of schools. They looked at every external variable that you can think of. How much money did the schools have? What were their governance models? How about their curriculum teaching technique? Or their in-services? Not one of those external factors had any real explanatory power. The factor that explained a huge amount of difference between the schools that succeeded and the schools that failed in serving kids well was named "relational trust."

If you had high levels of relational trust between teachers and administrators, between teachers and parents, you were much, much more likely to be able to serve kids well than if you had low levels of relational trust. Statistically it was astonishing!

What did they learn about this relational trust?

First, if you had leaders who cared about trust, kids were much, much more likely to get served well than if you had leaders who didn’t value it. They also discovered the correlation between relational trust and success on behalf of kids, held constant no matter how much money was involved or how well-funded the school was. So you could have a very rich school with low levels of relational trust, and they would be failing kids. You would have a poor school with high levels of relational trust, and they would be helping kids. So what helps relational trust along? That loops us right back to where we started this conversation. It’s inner and spiritual work around questions of ego, envy, anger, greed, suspicion, and paranoia. All of these kind of inner demons are examples of inner darkness that gets in the way of trusting each other.

It turns out that those things also get in the way of successful implementation of institutional mission. That study, called Trust in Schools, could just as easily be titled, Trust in Hospitals or Trust in the Justice System or Trust in Business. A building full of people who trust each other, no matter what kind of work they’re trying to do, can do that work better than a building full of people who don’t trust each other. Trust is a huge variable. The only question I have is, "Why do we keep imagining that the answer lies somewhere else?" This—relational trust—is a secret hidden in plain sight.

Interview with Parker Palmer, Part 1

Marcus Goodyear — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 06:00:00 GMT

What advice do you have for public school educators who are trying to serve God in their daily work?

School educators are the subjects of intense public, media, and political criticism. They are often misunderstood, berated by larger society. Public education is hard-pressed by "No Child Left Behind." The motives behind the bill were to hold public education accountable to results, and to make sure all schools measured up, no matter how many disadvantaged children they serve. Unfortunately its major impact has been to get children to pass standardized tests. Teachers find themselves having to "teach to the test," which is very different than trying to educate the whole child to become a whole adult. Kids get factoids, rather than dealing with deeper educational tasks, with values, with relationships, with questions of character, ethics, and one’s own vision for one’s life. Education is in a world of trouble. Teachers need help to sustain their vocation. The Courage to Teach is aimed at nurturing the teacher’s heart. If they bring their truest, best self, or as we Quakers say, "that of God and every person" to their work as educators, they will find courage to resist those things that deform education and ill-serve our children.

You have said, "Good teachers join self, subject and students in the fabric of life." How does a Christian do this in public schools without indirectly imposing their faith on their students?

In the early years of the American experiment, Quakers were persecuted, even hanged, on Boston Common by other Christians who were threatened by their beliefs.

So I don’t have any romanticism for the good ol’ days when someone’s religious beliefs could dominate our public processes and public institutions. But I also have very little patience with a system of education that ignores the questions of meaning, purpose, and value. I don’t want to go back to Boston Common, but at the same time I want to open public education to the profound questions of meaning that young people have in our times. I think in a public school classroom, it’s possible to help young people with questions, meaning, purpose, who they are and why they are here on earth without ever sending a child home saying to Jewish parents, or Muslim parents, or atheist parents, "Mom and Dad, this teacher is trying to turn me into something else." We owe children a gracious, open exploration of these questions, and adult companionship, without trying to engage in the sort of proselytizing that crosses the church/state barrier in inappropriate and destructive ways.

What is dangerous about proselytizing?

As a Christian, who grew up Methodist, I was deeply influenced by the scripture in 2 Corinthians that says, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us." I think those earthen vessels include our language, and theological formulations. I think the mystery of God, and the mystery of God in Christ is so vast. It’s idolatrous to claim that my church is the one who has been able to boil that down into a right set of words that everyone must agree with.

You’ve said, "The sense of self is very closely tied to what people do." How does one bring identity into a profession, without losing oneself to that profession?

You’re asking, "How do we live open-heartedly in the world without having our hearts broken?" At 68, I have come to a simple conclusion: I have a choice to make.

Either I live with my heart open, investing in my work and taking the risks that come when the expression of my own truth might get me crosswise with people. Or I exist in my work and in the world in a closed-hearted way. To me this choice is a no brainer, because to be in the world in a closed-hearted way is to risk a kind of spiritual death, a death of integrity really. As Thomas Merton said, most of us live lives of self-impersonation. To be in the world as an impersonator of yourself, when selfhood is your birthright gift from God, is an insult to your Creator and certainly a diminishment of yourself. I have learned to choose to be in the world in an open-hearted way, because pain itself is a sign that I’m alive. Being open-hearted is my only chance at the joy that life can bring.

So why is living with integrity so difficult for us?

Our work institutions compromise the integrity of their mission. Public schools try to win favor under "No Child Left Behind." Some HMOs and even hospitals are more interested in the bottom line, rather than the well-being of the patient. In these examples, the personal integrity of teachers or physicians become threatening to the institutions in which they work. When personal integrity threatens institutions, the Jesus story happens all over again. He was crucified, because his integrity got him crosswise with the major institutions of his time, with the arrangements of power. The Christian story has moments that contain a penetrating, sad, and sometimes depressing description of reality. But ultimately, the Christian story is hopeful. We can stand in the midst of a death dealing reality, open-hearted, bringing new life, taking the risk of threatening the hard-heartedness of institutions.

In this new life that comes from being open-hearted, what is the relationship between renewal and courage?

A powerful book in my life is by a Guatemalan poet named Julia Esquivel. A political refugee in Guatemala, she was forced into exile. For simply trying to help her grade school students survive, she got on the wrong side of an oppressive regime. Esquivel wrote a book of poetry, Threatened with Resurrection. When I first saw that title, it just turned me upside down. I was raised in a church that said, "Death was the big threat and resurrection was the great hope." But here was a woman of great courage and integrity saying, "Sometimes a living death is more comfortable than being truly resurrected, which is a threat." She means if you can tamp down your feelings, get your heart in a box, and not get crosswise with anything that’s wrong around you, maybe they will not see you. Maybe they will ignore you and let you live your little private life. But if you embrace resurrection and new life, God knows what you might be called to. The teachers who suddenly understand their calling is not to satisfy the people who make the tests but to serve the children, these teachers need resurrection or renewal. They need the courage to act on what their hearts say. The doctors who remember they have taken a hippocratic oath and say to themselves, as one physician said to me a while back, "You know I work in an HMO, which has me right on the edge of violating my hippocratic oath three or four times a week." That’s a person who will need courage to act on his renewal of heart.

When we start connecting and bringing our identity to work, suddenly there’s a tremendous pressure to avoid failure, because our egos may be tied to our performance. How do we reconcile that?

I think ego is strongest when we are not in touch with our own identity as children of God. My ego, or false identity, is the piece that tells me that I’m something special, that I’m not anybody’s child, that I’m the leader of the pack. That’s the piece of me that doesn’t want to fail. The failures I’ve experienced and the pain brought as a result were because I was working heavily out of ego. When one works out of ego, the aim is not to serve your patients or your children. Instead it becomes about winning, looking good, and not being deprived of one’s perks. Identity and integrity rightly understood are the antidote to ego.

It’s baffling and troubling to me that there is this Christian cult of success that I actually think is very ego driven. So many Christians have embraced this cult of success.

So by contemporary standards, you’re saying that resurrection isn’t a success story?

If you read it as a success story by contemporary standards, you’re distorting the fact that Jesus did none of the things that contemporary success cult members tell us that we can do by believing in him. Jesus opened himself to shared suffering with the poorest and the most oppressed. The right belief will not make my bank account bigger, my reputation brighter, and all things well.

Inner and spiritual renewal doesn’t reduce our stress or get us comfy with life.

For me, the most powerful meaning of the cross and of Jesus’ life is God’s willingness to suffer with us, to bring redemption and meaning out of that suffering, with a sense of purpose.

Are we called to suffer or to be renewed?

We Quakers have a saying that renewal is about getting in touch with "that of God within me." When people do this, they hear more clearly their calling. And they recognize their need for courage to walk this path to which they’ve been called.

What I Really Need Is Goodness

Paul Seebeck — Wed, 21 May 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Our partner ministry, Laity Lodge is pleased to have Dr. Marva Dawn as their speaker at the June 5-8 retreat (along with Mark Roberts, the Senior Director and Scholar-in-Residence of Laity Lodge). Marva is a highly regarded theologian and author. She'll be speaking on "a sabbath way of life" out of her latest book, The Sense of the Call. This book, by the way, was recently honored by the Academy of Parish Clergy on its list of Top Ten Books of the Year.

Though Marva is respected and loved by thousands throughout the world, she's new to Laity Lodge and TheHighCalling.org. So, to help you get to know her, we asked Paul Seebeck, who frequently does interviews for The High Calling of our Daily Work to introduce us to Marva. Here is Paul's story.

An older looking lady in a worn dress needs help as she shuffles her way to the speaker’s podium.

“When I was with my husband on the phone last night, I just started crying,” says Marva Dawn. “I realized I loved my husband even though I didn’t feel it.”

I had never met Dawn, an internationally renowned theologian, author, and educator. I also haven’t read any of her 20 books, not even two of her most famous works: Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship for This Urgent Time, and A Royal "Waste" of Time: The Splendor of Worshiping God and Being Church for the World. So I wasn’t sure what to expect at a pastor’s conference at Regent College in Vancouver, BC, where Dawn was leading us through cries of lament found in many of the Psalms: “How long, Lord?” “Why?” and “Where are you in this God?"

Physically handicapped, Dawn wears a leg brace, and is blind in one eye. She tells us about her tears and her lack of feelings for her husband first. The latest medication for her malady of physical infirmities is taking its toll. But she doesn’t wallow in physical or emotional pain. We are hooked by her strength. We are open to hear how our human emotions are stronger than our intellect—often because of a lack of affirmation growing up. Yet in our cries of feeling forgotten before God, we can learn to train our heart, our will, to become stronger than our emotion, by letting God in and practicing trust in the gifts of divine kindness.

At the end of the session, I ask Dawn what she wants Laity Lodge to know about her.

“That I’d like to be as good as my husband is,” she says. “He is so gentle, so self-sacrificing, so willing to serve.”

When Dawn is introduced at speaking engagements around the world, they always joke about her four masters degrees (she also has a Ph.D. in Christian Ethics and the Scriptures from Notre Dame).

“It’s a good thing for me to be made fun of for that,” she laughs. “I’ve always been so driven in academics, but what I really need is goodness, the kind that my husband has.”

Dawn has never been to Kerrville but is “doubly excited” to be at Laity Lodge. A cousin in Austin who is dying of a brain tumor has told her how wonderful the community is. She is looking forward to being in the surroundings at Laity Lodge, as she opens herself to what God’s spirit might be asking her to teach.

“My blindness,” she smiles, “has me learning this awareness as both a spiritual and physical practice.”

Suddenly I’m aware that our focus for this conference was the spiritual practice of crying out to God, yet what I remember most about being with Marva Dawn, is the laughter we shared.

Talking with J. I. Packer, Professor in Theology at Regent College

Steven Purcell — Sun, 04 May 2008 06:00:00 GMT

J. I. Packer is a Board of Governors' Professor in Theology at Regent College; Vancouver, BC. He is author of many books, including the bestseller Knowing God. Additionally, since 1966, J. I. Packer has worked closely with Howard Butt at Laity Lodge—where the message of TheHighCalling.org originally began.

In this special interview, we sat with J. I. Packer on a porch at Laity Lodge and asked him questions about faith, work, vocation, and daily life. Portions of this interview are available as online videos as well. We embedded some clips below for fun.

What does God say about vocation?

The word vocation means "calling." And right at the heart of vocation is, I believe in every case, the sense that God has called one to do what one is doing. The sense of being called comes out of thinking and praying about what one has been gifted and so fitted to do and which of the options for life activity is the best one. Never let the good be the enemy of the best. And then, as one thinks about these things and prays about these things comes the sense, "Yes, this is what God has called me to do." And all honest work is worth doing for the glory of God, and we may find ourselves called to do any honest work that we're fitted for.

How do we offer our everyday work to God?

The first thing I think is to make sure that the work we're doing is honorable work that can be offered to God. Smugglers, so they used to say in the 18th century, and drug dealers, so I say in the 21st century, can't really offer their work to God because it isn't honest labor. But assuming your work is honest labor, think of the glory of God as you plan it and perform it. God made us for honest work. And we glorify him by doing honest work. And pray that God will enable us to do it well and that he will accept it and use it. Use it to make the world a better place than the world would be without it. Then we've done what we can.

How can Christians view their daily work as worship?

Worship is honoring God in every appropriate way. W hen one's labor is labor that one feels called to, then one is fulfilling one's vocation as one pursues it. I think it's a matter of conscious, deliberate prayer. "Lord, I offer you this. Make what you can of it. I'm doing it the best way I can to serve you and to honor you. Help me to do it as well as I'm capable of doing it. And make it a blessing to other people."

How can Christians view their daily work as ministry?

Ministry means service to other people. And all work, it seems to me, is oriented to the welfare of other people—directly or indirectly. The answer to your question, I think, is to be conscious of your work as service to people by asking the question, well how does this work serve and help people? Once one sees how the work is going to help people, then pray for their blessing through the work. I think that's the way to go.

What is the greatest challenge facing the Church today?

I think there's no doubt that the greatest challenge facing the church of the west in 2007 is that the culture is being secularized all around us. We're living in an era of post-Christianity. And we are losing younger people. Which means that we do need to make a special effort to project the Christian life of wisdom and truth and—well, what should I call it?—contentment, really, Christian contentment to younger people. There's a quality of life in Christ that the world knows nothing about. And it makes life infinitely richer than life would be without it. Young people today have mostly been brought up in homes where the Bible isn't read and taught. They don't say grace. They don't have family prayers. There's no religious component therefore in the upbringing that the children get. And all the influences of school and the community projects in which young people get involved, all those influences are away from and out beyond Christian concerns. So the church needs to take a deep breath and go for young people, it seems to me. When the church has secured the faith and the loyalty of young people, and Christ has used the church to bring young people to himself, and young people's work is strong. Well, then through the young people, the church must labor to capture families. Family Christianity is something basic to Bible Christianity. And we've got to try and get it back. We'll be swimming against the stream all the way. But that I see as the top challenge.

Then after that, the second challenge is keeping the waters of the stream of Christian faith and teaching clear and not—how shall I say it? I was going to say polluted but that's a hard word, so let me change it. I can't think of a kindly word. Not infected? That's no kinder really. But by other ideas. Modifying Christianity in terms of other religions. Modifying Christianity in terms of secular ideas. This is ruinous and it mustn't happen. So the church has to work hard to make sure that it doesn't happen.

Are you saying the Church should make a space for young people?

Yes, I'm saying that. I'm saying more than that. The church first must get its act together in terms of what used to be called catechesis, catechism work. That is a plan, a syllabus, for teaching young people Christian basics. When you look at the youth work in a lot of our churches, you realize that just about everything is being done except teaching the folk the basics. So much is amusement. So little is teaching. And I do want to see things changed on that point.

Where did your desire to write originate?

I always enjoyed writing when I was very small. And I was asked to write things early on before I was ordained actually. And I wrote them to oblige the people who asked me. I never thought of myself as a professional writer in those days. But I came to think of myself as one who clearly is called to be a professional writer when a book of mine published in1958 became a bestseller—Fundamentalism and the Word of God. It sold 20,000 copies in its first year. And it's still in print as a matter of fact. And its success made me think, "Oh well, obviously writing is meant to be a major part of my ministry." Then, some other books of mine succeeded in the same way, and so the conviction that writing was actually the central activity of my ministry got stronger and stronger. Though I'm not sure I should say the central activity. I should say a central activity because just in terms of the satisfaction that it brings me and I hope the usefulness of it, it is parallel to and on par with the work that I do as a teacher in the classroom at Regent College. Where I just love teaching, and shall go on teaching as long as my mind holds together.

You've spoken at Laity Lodge for many years. What first brought you there?

An invitation to bring my family to Laity Lodge which came from the top man, Mr. Butt, and which was conveyed to me and my wife in England. We were still living there at the time. This was in 1965. And I immediately found myself wanting to come and share with this ministry because I was so completely at one with this vision.

That's encouraging! Mr. Butt has been given a powerful vision.

It's always seemed to me obvious that lay vocation is as important as clergy vocation. And the church is only healthy when the laity are being taken seriously in ministry within the church and in testimony and witness and work outside it. So it didn't take us very long to agree that next year, we would be very happy to come as a family. And I was asked to do four weeks on the trot expounding scripture. And I said, Yes, I will happily do four weeks on the trot. So in 1966, we came and I did it.

And I found that Laity Lodge was just as significant as it had sounded when they had explained it—only more so. It's a beautiful setting with beautiful buildings. And for me a very delightful climate. And Laity Lodge has had my heart really—from 1966 to the present.

What do you remember of your first Laity Lodge experience?

The family came, that's the first thing to say. We were put into Lodestar, the new house as it was then. The first thing when we walked in was that a scorpion fell to the floor out of the ventilator or the light I'm not sure. And there it was wriggling in the contorted way that scorpions do. And that stuck in our minds all the time that we were here.

What do you see as the significance of Laity Lodge's work?

I see Laity Lodge as a pioneer institution. I've sometimes spoken of it as a prophetic institution. Meaning that it has at its heart a potential for reshaping the future in a good way. It spreads something which is right at the heart of Laity Lodge's own sense of its place in the order of things. The sense that in the Christian community, the distinction between clergy and layfolk is secondary. What is primary is the sense that we are all together in Christ. We are all on par in Christ. We are all of us called to serve Christ, and to live in fellowship with each other as we do so. In other words, just putting in terms that Laity Lodge has usually employed, we are here to ensure that the laity are taken as seriously as the clergy have ever been. And to lead if we can, to lead churches and Christian communities everywhere into a way of living in which the contributions of the laymen, the work of the laymen, the ministry of the laymen, the laymen's work in the world and in the church is seen as just as important as the work of the clergy in the church. I think that's a vision that has yet to be caught in the world church. And I celebrate the fact that Laity Lodge carries the flag for it. And I hope that Laity Lodge will continue to carry the flag until the point is taken everywhere.

Talking with Micheal Flaherty, President of Walden Media: Part 2

Marcus Goodyear — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Micheal Flaherty is the president of Walden Media, a company he co-founded with his former college roommate, Cary Granat, to produce films, books, and interactive programs that tie directly into school curricula. Acclaimed for such films as The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe; Charlotte's Web; and Bridge to Terabithia, Walden Media aims to recapture imagination, rekindle curiosity, and demonstrate the rewards of learning. Producing both original works and adaptations of acclaimed children's literature, Walden Media projects are enhanced by comprehensive outreach and supplemental programs for teachers, librarians, and parents. Upcoming releases include The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) and Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D (2008).

As company president, Flaherty guides Walden's vision across all business units.

Flaherty lives in Lexington, Massachussetts with his wife Kelly, his son Christian, his daughters Eileen and Reagan, and his dog Jumbo.

>> Read Part 1 of our interview with Micheal Flaherty

How did your vision of "recapturing imagination and rekindling curiosity" at Walden Media come about?

When we first started the company, my business partner's oldest daughter and my brother, Chip's, oldest daughter were asking all the great questions—everything from the physical things to how far is the sun from the earth, how many planets are there, to more interesting questions about love and about the meaning of life. I remember us listening to them and my business partner Kerry saying, "It's kind of sad, but there seems to be some calendar moment when your children stop asking you the big questions and lose their curiosity about everything. Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to create media that kept kids asking the big questions, while it kept them excited and interested?" That was the origin moment for the idea of the company. We named it Walden, because Thoreau was a great independent thinker. He was always asking questions.

We did something interesting at our church this past summer. After the service, we could stick around and ask questions. It’s always interesting to me to see people that have been going to church for so long always coming back to some of the more basic questions about prayer, unanswered prayer, the problem of pain, suffering, justice. It’s interesting to me to see that people are still asking the big questions, you know, after a lifetime of studying these things.

I have a lot of interest in fantasy, which is one of the things you guys do very well. What's your reaction to some Christians who argue that fantasy leads to interest in the occult or that fantasy is just escapism and nothing more than that?

I always want to be careful about that, but I do know that J. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis both addressed it head on. Lewis, in particular, in his letters to children did such a great job addressing this and addressing the importance of how fantasy doesn't detract from reality, but it actually makes us more aware of it.

Do you think there is such a thing as a dangerous story or a story that we shouldn't tell or that we shouldn't learn?

I was brought up to never say never. It's different for me, because growing up in my house stories were so central, whether it was comic books or literature. Every story that we read and every movie that we saw, we saw in the context of family, so we had plenty of people to talk about that with.

My son recently saw Flushed Away, with his grandparents. He talks about it constantly, but he won't watch it with me, because something in the movie scared him. Sometimes he'll ask me, "Do you remember this part in Flushed Away?" Then, I'll remind him again that I haven't seen the movie. What you experienced growing up reminds me that I need to experience as many of these stories with my kids as possible.

It would really give you a common language. Shared stories give plenty of things to reference. It makes it a lot easier to reference the Gospel, because kids start to understand it. One way to answer questions is by referencing stories and referencing the people in the stories.

In Philippians, Paul says to focus on whatever is true, noble . . . What do you do when you have a story that has moments of ugliness and things that aren't noble? How do you make decisions about that?

Paul didn't shy away from the fact that the human heart is capable of every darkness. To appreciate Paul, and to appreciate the wisdom in that saying, is to appreciate where he had been in his life. Paul would not be as interesting and compelling a character if we didn't understand what got him to that point of wisdom. I think that in order to understand the true and the noble, you have to have glimpses of their counterparts. I think that it's critical for all of us to recognize that nothing is beyond reconciliation and nothing is beyond redemption. So, even if we've gone to those dark places, or those places that are less than noble, or less than praiseworthy, we have that ability to be the creation. I think that's one of the problems, so many people feel that's beyond them. When you talk about things like praiseworthy and noble and good, what about the people who feel like they can't reclaim that or recapture that, because they've experienced so much that's counter to that and so much that's opposite that? I think people need to know that the praiseworthy, the good, and the noble are always within our reach, regardless of where we've been.

What's the relationship between maintaining the purity of that message—so to speak—and the financing of that project?

The intersection of art and commerce is always a tricky one, and nobody has the formula. In music and in theater and in film, the most profitable stories tend to have these great themes of brokenness, redemption, and reconciliation, but also be stories that the whole family can enjoy. So we're already hedging our bet. Just in terms of the mission statement, we are appealing to the broadest possible audience.

In states like Texas, teachers are now required to teach media literacy. So from a sales standpoint you have not only the entire family, but also teachers as potential clients.

Teachers are the toughest accountability group on the planet. You have to defend every choice that you make, and you know we've gotten to understand the difference between faithful and literal. As hard as you try to be a hundred percent true to the text, film is a different form of media. There are choices that you need to make in adapting a book to the film, but teachers have been very helpful explaining "here are the critical characters, themes, and plot points that you can't miss, the non-negotiables." That's always been a basic help for us as we're developing these projects.

I like that phrase, "the difference between faithful and literal."

We have to go back to that after every single film. People wonder why this certain aspect of the book wasn't in there, or why we added a different element to the film.

Why do you think people feel so strongly about these stories?

I think that they can remember, not just the story, but the time and the place where they read that story. It's as close as a family member in terms of the memories that it conjures up.

So if you mess up the story, you're messing up . . .?

You're messing with a part of their personality, because stories really do form us and shape us. I think people are properly protective of them.

>> Read Part 1 of our interview with Micheal Flaherty

Talking with Micheal Flaherty, President of Walden Media: Part 1

Marcus Goodyear — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 06:00:00 GMT

As company president, Flaherty guides Walden's vision across all business units.

Flaherty lives in Lexington, Massachussetts with his wife Kelly, his son Christian, his daughters Eileen and Reagan, and his dog Jumbo.

>> Read Part 2 of our interview with Micheal Flaherty

Walden Media marketed the Narnia movies to churches. What were the specific ethical guidelines in line when you did that?

We always go after the core audience. With Narnia, there are several core audiences: the Sci-Fi audience, the fantasy audience, the literary audience. But there is also the faith audience. We thought we should make people aware that this film based on this great book is coming out. We were very careful. Even though our expertise is in educational curriculum, it's not in developing faith curriculum. We decided faith leaders, pastors, and parents, if they wanted to teach the faith aspect, could create their own materials. We let church people know the film was coming out. We made clips available. Beyond that, in terms of how to use that or teach, we let people come up with their own ideas.

Walden Media, though, does seem to be merging education and entertainment. How do you keep balance in your movies where on the one hand you avoid mere eye candy, but on the other hand you avoid creating moralist propaganda?

The latter part is what we guard against the most. The key is to be as faithful as possible to the story, that's our North Star. Sadly, I do think there is this artificial distinction drawn between education and entertainment. I think of some of the best media out there, Les Miserables. I've seen it 11 times. Then I went on to read the book. I read more about Hugo and more about the French Revolution. Something that initially was pure entertainment for me sparked a surge for learning in me that no textbook or class in school could have ever done. So, for us, if we can tell terrific stories that bring up terrific scenes and also introduce us to terrific people and terrific events in history, then the educational stuff is inherent.

So you're assuming really good art inspires people to take action and become creative themselves?

For my birthday, my wife got me Rembrandt's painting of the Prodigal Son. She also bought me, Henri Nouwen's book that he wrote on the Prodigal Son, which is about his reflection of spending several hours of looking at the painting when he was visiting in Russia. I've never really been captured by art, but it's unbelievable what that painting has sparked in me. It's sort of the tale of the Prodigal Sons, plural. For the first time I really understood that, I looked at the painting, and I could physically see unconditional love. I could somehow understand love, and also understand brokenness in a new way. I've heard so many sermons on that parable; I've read that parable so many times in the last 30 years. But it's unbelievable what this one painting and Nouwen's reflections on it have done for me. I can't think of holier work than planting and nourishing life-long learning in children and adults and getting them to ask the big questions.

How do you teach children to ask the big questions?

I think by getting them to fall in love with the stories and not be scared of failure. It's terrifying for me to see now what's happened to kids, particularly from kindergarten to third grade, where pretty rigorous instructions on mathematics and all kinds of things are largely supplanting fantasy play and storytelling. These kids are under such tremendous pressure at such young ages! We have a great person here who runs our educational development, Randy Testa; he's been a teacher forever. He was Robert Coles teaching assistant for a long time at Harvard. Robert Coles' wrote all the great books about the spiritual life for children.

How do you deal with it, though, when people are skeptical about your vision and message?

By being a constant presence and recognizing that winning trust in the educational community is going to take several decades. When we first went out there with Holes, we would go to conferences and the teachers were rolling their eyes, and they said, "Here we go again, another media company coming in to parachute in and help us market their movies. They'll make their money and then leave." Then they saw us the next year with Winn Dixie and the next year with Narnia, then the next year with Charlotte's Web. We're slowly winning their trust. It's going to be a lifelong mission for us.

Can you give any news about when Screwtape or Dawn Treader will come out?

The first time I spoke with you, I had just received the first draft of Dawn Treader. Literally as we were speaking it was there on my desk. I hadn’t even opened it up yet. I couldn’t wait to read it, though, because Eustace is one of my favorite characters.

Dawn Treader is moving very well. Michael Apted, who directed Amazing Grace, is directing it. He also directed Coal Miner’s Daughter and a bunch of others. He’s a great director. He’s the president of the Directors Guild.

Screwtape on the other hand is just a really tricky adaptation.

I think a big part of being faithful to that work is keeping it dark in a way that's probably going to bother some people. I don't know how that works with movie profitability, but Screwtape always takes the approach of the demons. They have to be the heroes—even if they're tragic heroes—for it to be faithful to what Lewis did.

We're trying to find that balance between the comedy and the stakes. We’re working hard on the script. One of the questions we're asking is how do you show the real transformation that happens inside a person.

Screwtape keeps encouraging the patient to go through the motions in his daily life and work.

You just nailed the entire paradox of this project. The book is so clever, because Screwtape is saying things like, "Have them write the check out to Unicef." Just have him writing, saying, "Oh boy, this is going to hurt." It goes back to that great Corinthians passage, you can do all of these things, but if you do them without love, it's worthless. We're trying to figure out how to illustrate that. What I love about Screwtape, what I love about the Gospel is all this external behavioral stuff that too often people confuse as central to our faith, is just an element of it. What really matters is the outpouring of love and the reflection of love.

It strikes me how much "God is love," and when we love what we're doing and when we get other people to love it, there's truth in it. I'm excited to see what comes out of it.

I wish I had said that. That's very well said.

>> Read Part 2 of our interview with Micheal Flaherty

Rome Hartman, Executive Producer and Emmy Award winner

Paul Seebeck — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 06:00:00 GMT

In 2007, Rome Hartman was hired by the British Broadcasting Company to develop and serve as executive producer of a new one-hour nightly newscast aimed at U.S. audiences. A multiple Emmy Award winner, Hartman was previously executive producer of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and a producer for 60 Minutes.

Rome, why did you agree to do this interview?

I have a policy of saying yes to just about anything Howard Butt and the folks at Laity Lodge ask me to do. I'd cut Howard's grass if I thought it would make him smile. Howard's Laity Lodge Leadership gatherings have been a real gift to me. They've helped me figure out what the higher calling of daily work means, and how to live it out.

So what have you learned about "glorifying God in your everyday life?"

I think God gave me the tools to be a journalist, and I hope in putting these skills to use, I'm honoring him. It's about trying to be good at what I do, whatever the professional setting, trying to treat people well, and trying to tell the truth. But we're all "works in progress," aren't we? I've met a few people in my life who do seem to naturally radiate God's grace. But for me, it's a never-ending journey—an aspiration that I fail at pretty regularly.

How difficult was it leaving CBS after not being able to move the Evening News out of 3rd place?

It's hard anytime results don't live up to expectations. And it's frustrating to see your efforts misunderstood. But it's a tough business. I knew that going in. It's also good to have a regular reminder: "Hey, you. Yes, you. Remember, you're not in control." I also felt a wonderful outpouring of affection and appreciation from friends and colleagues at the very moment that I was knocked off the high-wire. I really felt like during that time of professional loss, I was reaping what I had sown. There was one note that rang through some of the 500 emails I received that first day. People felt that I had cared about them, tried to help make them better, that I had served them in some way. That was cool for me to hear.

What have you learned about God in the midst of all that you have experienced in broadcast journalism?

I find God in the people he's created—in their smiles, their kindness, in their God-given gifts, in their passion to accomplish. My jobs have allowed me to meet thousands of fascinating, inspiring people. One of the first stories I did as a producer for 60 Minutes was a profile of Thoralf Sundt, who was a neurosurgeon at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He was able to fix aneurisms in the brain that other doctors wouldn't touch. People came from around the world to see him after their doctors had said to them, "I'm sorry." Dr. Sundt would routinely fix them and save their lives. I remember thinking as I stood there in his operating room, this man has truly found what it is God had equipped him to do and is honoring God by doing it day in and day out.

Any other stories stand out in your memory that reflect the kind of person you are?

In 1996, I produced a story about a program called STRIVE. It's a three-week-long work-readiness training program, which attempts to prepare some of the hardest-to-employ people in the country—folks with welfare, prison, and/or drugs in their past—for the world of work. This was just as federal welfare reform was taking effect. We filmed for three weeks in a classroom in the basement of a housing project in Spanish Harlem. Every day, these folks with problems that would have kept me from even getting out of bed came down those steps ready to learn and to improve their lives and their kids' lives. I've never been more inspired and never seen God at work more directly.

You've been incredibly busy launching this new world news program for the BBC. How do you find the right balance for your spiritual life in the midst of everyday challenges that work and family bring?

I'm afraid that often I don't find the right balance. I've been meeting with a group of guys for almost 20 years. When we started out, we spent a lot of time talking and praying about this issue: work-life balance. All these years later, we're still talking about that. We'll never get it right, but we'll keep trying. It helps to have a wife who supports your professional aspirations, but can also give you regular reality checks when you let things get out of whack or lose perspective.

I worked in New York for two years while my family lived in Washington, DC. We handled it and stayed strong, but only since it's been over have we been able to reflect on how hard it was on all of us. Home is just where I'm needed, and my wife, Amy, is whom I'm meant to be with. That has become really clear to me. I'm home now. It's so nice to see Amy, to sleep in my bed. It's exciting to enter into that phase of life with both of our sons in college, to watch them grow and learn and find themselves and become men.

At this stage of life—how thrilling it is to be engaged in providing a newscast at the BBC for an American audience?

It's an incredibly exciting opportunity, and a big challenge. The BBC is profoundly ambitious. It really does aspire to be the best, to cover the world better than any other organization. Americans need to know more about the world . . . to see smart and sophisticated coverage of places and people and issues and events all around the world. What could be better than to be in the middle of an effort to provide that?

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One of the questions Rome Hartman has heard the most over the years from Christians is this: How do you manage to be a believer in the mainstream media? Here's just part of his answer from Christ in the Workplace , a labor day sermon he delivered at Falls Church in 2007:

"I think that it's hard to be God's person or a follower of Christ no matter what one's profession. There's a current danger all of us face. We can choose to construct our lives now in such a way as to almost never see or hear or read about anything that we disagree with. We can find television and radio shows and newspapers and commentators and websites and blogs—especially websites and blogs—that all pretty much reinforce our view of the world. It's the function of technology and the marketplace. There's an explosion of media outlets of all kinds. But fewer and fewer of them aspire to offer diverse points of view or inspire to balance and objectivity. Instead they preach to the choir, reinforcing the viewpoints and sometimes the prejudices of the core audience and demonizing the other side. I think we need to resist the temptation to retreat into these information bubbles, where we only listen to those who reinforce our own point of view and tell us what we want to hear."

Read the full transcript of "Christ in the Workplace" on our site, or purchase a recording of the sermon from Falls Church for $4.

Francis Collins: Love God With a Scientific Mind (Part II)

Marcus Goodyear — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Ten years ago, the average person had probably never heard the word "genome," but Francis Collins was already the director of the Human Genome Project. It's a project many are calling the most important scientific undertaking of our time.

In 2000, Collins publicly presented the first draft of the human genome alongside President Clinton. According to his New York Times bestseller, The Language of God, Clinton's speech on that day took a surprisingly spiritual turn: "Today we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, and the wonder of God's most divine and sacred gift."

In The Language of God, you talk about intelligent design as a "God of the Gaps Theory." Is the statement you just made relying on altruism as a "God of the Gaps Theory"? Who's to say that altruism isn't going to be chemically explained someday?

I think that's a very appropriate question, and I would not rest my faith on this argument that altruism is an indication of God's presence. I think it is an interesting argument; I think it's unlikely to be displaced by the sociobiologists, but I would not be horrified if some other explanations come along that seem to provide a naturalistic explanation for these human motivations. We have to be careful about trying to attach any kind of observation about the natural world as a definite proof of God's existence, but these arguments can be an interesting way to help skeptical people begin to think about what it might look like if God were not part of our world. Would these kind of altruistic impulses exist? Would good and evil have any meaning at all if our world is purely an artifact of evolutionary pressures? I think most people would be very alarmed at the idea that our concepts of good and evil are illusions imposed upon us simply by natural selection. That doesn't seem to jive with our own human experience. Even atheists bridle at that conclusion.

C. S. Lewis talks about those kinds of pressures in The Abolition of Man. He says, "Each new power won by man is a power over man as well." What power do you think modern genetics is winning, and how do you think that power will be held over others?

Some people are concerned we will use these technologies in ways that are not consistent with God's plan for our lives—to enhance performance or to design the next generation of human beings, for instance. Although most of those scenarios are scientifically unrealistic, I'm proud that the Human Genome Project invested a substantial amount of our budget in the ethical, legal, and social issues. A cohort of really remarkable scholars, lawyers, social scientists, ethicists, and theologians are quite engaged in some of these discussions. No single person is going to be able to make the decision about what boundaries we ought not to cross.

You describe DNA as the language of God. How has your study of DNA changed your understanding of God's Word, the Logos, that John writes about? "In the beginning was the Word."

Logos carries broad connotations. The Word is God; the Word was with God; the Word is Christ. For a scientist studying how life works looking at the language of DNA, it is not a wild connection to compare the language of life, that DNA alphabet, to what God was doing when He spoke life into being, including all of us. So how do I put together what I know as a scientist about life through the language of DNA, and what I know about God as the creator who speaks life into being? In the Greek terminology that's Bios, the word for life, through Logos, the word. I call this BioLogos: life through God speaking His Word.

Jesus, the Word, said to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself; these are the two greatest commandments. What does it look like when you love God in your daily work?

That's a great question. Notice that Jesus added mind when he rephrased the commandments, adding that to what you find in the Old Testament. I find it very interesting that Jesus does call us to love the Lord our God with our minds. That is a wonderful exhortation for scientists who use their minds to explore how things work. The tools of science are also a way to love the Lord your God, a way to worship. That's what it feels like to me. It's an incredible privilege to explore God's creation and get new glimpses of God's mind with each discovery. To see God's hand in science greatly expands the joy of the enterprise for me, and I say that as somebody who was once an atheist. I know what science is like without God, and I like it a lot better with God.

What does it look like when you go to work and love your neighbors in your daily work?

As a physician, I study DNA with the hopes that it is going to provide medical benefits to people all over the world. This seems to me like an incredible opportunity. Do you know what is spilling out of the research efforts around us? Discoveries about heart disease and cancer and diabetes that are going to change the way we prevent and treat these diseases. The tools of genomics are now being applied to malaria, the greatest scourge on this planet, one which I as a volunteer missionary doctor, marveled over and feared when I was in Africa trying to take care of patients with this disease.

I've heard people say BioLogos is just another name for Christian evolution. Are you comfortable with being the spokesperson for Christian evolution?

I see evolution as God's plan. As a scientist who studies DNA, I cannot avoid the conclusion that the evolutionary process is in fact how God worked out that creative plan. Some people express concerns that evolution is inconsistent with a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2, but 1,600 years ago St. Augustine had already explained why a literal reading of those passages is risky and unnecessary. Certainly those passages of the Bible have been debated for centuries without theologians being able to agree precisely on their meaning. Beyond that concern, I see no conflict in what I have learned about living things from the study of DNA and what I know about God's plan as a creator—right down to the creation of you and me, and our having this conversation.

One of the great tragedies of our current era is that evolution is being portrayed as a threat to God. If science is God's gift to us, along with the intelligence to explore his world, God could hardly be threatened by what we discover. It's all his creation. The truth is the truth, and it's all God's truth. I reach out as much as I can to my Christian brothers and sisters and try to make a case that this is an unnecessary battle. We can embrace evolution as God's plan and worship him in the process, without feeling anxious or apologetic.

Francis Collins: Celebrating God Through Science (Part I)

Marcus Goodyear — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Ten years ago, the average person had probably never heard the word "'genome," but Francis Collins was already the director of the Human Genome Project. It's a project many are calling the most important scientific undertaking of our time.

As an outspoken scientist, Christian, and theistic-evolutionist, Collins sits at an incredibly controversial crossroads. Many Christians fear his defense of evolution while many Darwinists shun his faith. Regardless of where you stand on these issues, there is no denying that Christians can learn something from Francis Collins' approach to worship and scientific research.

The scientific community and the religious community are both characterized as being hostile toward each other. Do you experience that conflict in your daily work?

There are certainly pockets of hostility in both communities, but I don't know that it's part of the mainstream. As somebody who works in the scientific community everyday, I generally find a respectful attitude towards people of faith.

We're not as much in the minority as some people think. Surveys would tell you that 40% of working scientists are believers in a God who answers prayer, and that's a lot bigger number than many people would have guessed. But in the scientific community, there's a kind of taboo about talking about faith. That topic will empty the seminar room about as quickly as anything you could bring up. There's a sense that it's not an appropriate topic to discuss at work. People are concerned that you're stepping outside of the scientific method, which in a certain way is true. There's also a concern that you might offend somebody if your particular religious beliefs are different than theirs, and scientists don't want to get caught up in those kind of arguments in the middle of the laboratory.

Nobody wants those kinds of arguments in their workplace.

In the religious community, there are certainly pockets of antagonism towards science, particularly the kind of science that involves studying DNA and the evidence for evolution. But in the main, most believers are actually intrigued by science and see it as a way of understanding the grandeur of God's creation.

What have you learned about God specifically through the study of genetics?

Oh goodness! Practically everything that we are able to uncover by studying DNA, the instruction book of all living things, is for me a reflection of the amazing awesome creation that God has put in place. In The Language of God, I compare this notion of DNA, which is this information molecule, as being the way in which God spoke life into being. As a scientist who is also a believer, virtually everything that we uncover day after day about the human genome and how it works is also a glimpse of God's mind. My work is a celebration of our understanding of nature, but more importantly a celebration of what God has done.

By the way, I loved the interview you did on the Stephen Colbert Show about your book.

That was a white-knuckled experience. But his show reaches an audience that scientists and believers don't often get to talk to, so it seemed like it was worth the risk. It was a lot of fun actually.

Now that your book has been out for awhile, has there been any response from the scientific community?

The majority of reactions have been positive. Some were just curious. They said things like, "Oh wow, I didn't know you believed that." And "How did you get to that perspective?"

I do get a fair number of emails from scientists who have felt rather lonely as believers. They were delighted to see somebody writing about how science and faith can come together in harmony. Then, yes, I get a smattering of much more negative responses from scientists opposed to religion of any sort. But some of those have actually led to interesting dialogues back and forth.

What specific issues of leadership did you face while you were working on the Human Genome Project?

The Human Genome Project was an international team effort unlike anything that had ever been done in biology before. The challenge was to convince people to work together in harmony, to divide up the labor in an equitable way, to try to be sure that the hundreds of people working on this project all were given some credit for what they were doing. They weren't just cogs in a wheel. We had to take full advantage of the incredible intelligence brought to the table by some of the best and brightest scientists of our generation.

Then you gave all of the data away.

Absolutely! I think when history looks back on this, that will be one of the defining characteristics of the project. This is the kind of information that just ought to be in the public domain and not used for commercial purposes. There was some resistance as you can imagine, but open access was the right answer. I think human altruism won out.

Human altruism?

Yeah. In fact, I think human altruism can be seen as one of strongest signposts to the existence of a personal God. I can see no fully satisfactory explanation for it coming from biology. But if God was seeking to develop a relationship with us, this altruistic impulse would be an interesting place to find a leaning towards Him within ourselves.

Talking with VeggieTales Founder Phil Vischer

Nancy Lovell — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 06:00:00 GMT

NOTE: The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything--A VeggieTales Movie, written by Phil Vischer and directed by Mike Nawrocki, opened Jan. 11, 2008, in theaters nationally from Universal Pictures. For more information, go to www.veggiepirates.com.

What does it mean when God gives a dream, and the dream comes true, and then it dies? And what if the dream envelopes a whole lot of people before it dies for them too?

And why would a man who achieved early and spectacular business success stop using the word “dream”?

At age 21, Phil Vischer had created VeggieTales to make cartoons with content. To staff the work, he incorporated Big Idea. By his early 30s, he was helmsman of the biggest animation enterprise between New York and L.A. By his mid-30s, he was in bankruptcy court. In his new book, Me, Myself and Bob, the man who left his ocean-liner sized dream by life raft turns and looks back with hard-won wisdom.

Phil, you built an empire on your ability to shrink sometimes complex theology into small bites. Can you shrink the story of your career?

You want me to summarize?

I wasn’t trying to start a career. I was responding to a burden I felt to try to offset the negativity coming out in media, in pop culture—the negative messages, the unbiblical values, that saturated the amazing stuff. I wanted to make amazing stuff too. But I wanted to flip the polarity on the values.

That led to entering the world of video production, then computer animation when it was beginning, and always looking to pick up more skills and access to the tools to tell the stories God put on my heart.

That led to me attempting, in 1990, to make a kid show pretty much all by myself, in my spare bedroom, with a little help from a couple of friends. I got part way into it and realized I needed staff. And that started Big Idea productions. So I didn’t really want a company. It wasn’t a goal. It was a goal to work, and along the way I needed a company.

Then the good work took off and started going like crazy. We just kept adding to the staff and building the company, and somewhere along the line, I started reading business books. And my focus shifted from good work to the company. I decided I was going to build the next Disney and be the next Walt, and that became my new focus. By the year 2000, we were the largest animation studio between the coasts. We were named one of the top 10 studios to watch in worldwide animation by Animation Magazine. I was one of the 10 people to watch in worldwide religion named by a PBS special. It seemed like all my dreams were coming true. Three years later I was sitting in the back row of a bankruptcy court watching the whole thing put in a box and sold to the highest bidder. That was a fun three years.

Plenty of entrepreneurs have built empires that eventually went down in flames or out the door with the highest bidder. What prompted you to write about it?

That was also not part of my plan, but people kept asking me to. I started telling my story and people came up and said, “You need to write that down.” I thought, “That’s not what I do. I write fiction for children, not nonfiction for grownups.” Finally I said, “All right, God, I will right one chapter. If that goes well, maybe I’ll keep writing.” The one chapter was a lot of fun to write, and I kept going.

Did you learn anything about yourself in the writing process?

The book was a summary of what I’d gone through and what I’d learned, so there wasn’t anything necessarily new in the writing of it. Initially I was asked to deliver an address at Biola University, and I had to figure out what to say. They asked me to do spring commencement during the time I was in the midst of bankruptcy. And I couldn’t think of anything to say. So they asked if I could speak at the commencement at the end of the semester? So I said, “Okay, God, you’ve got five months to explain this to me. And in that five months, he peeled the onion, unpacked my backpack of baggage from my entire life, and showed me what I’d been dragging around.

If God helped you start Big Idea, why did he let it fly out of control? If he called you to give it life, why did he let it die?

I was trying to follow the call I felt he placed on me. Once that started working, once it became successful by the world’s standards, my ambitions grew and I began grafting on personal desires, personal goals, personal dreams that weren’t necessarily a part of God’s call. Soon I’d confused my own dreams with God’s will, muddled them horribly. I was spending most of my energy pursuing my own dreams and becoming more miserable every year.

My dream of being the next Walt Disney was not what God wired me to do. It was affecting my health, my marriage, my kids, my employees. I was increasingly miserable, run down, burned out . . . pushing a rock uphill. He never asked me to push. I think he took a step back and said, “I'll let you run with this and find out how it goes.”

In hindsight, it was a divine mercy killing. He stood back and let my dream fall apart. I saw that it wasn’t what I needed, and that my fulfillment comes not from anything I dream up or pull off with my own power.

So God wanted the business to die to teach you what you needed to learn?

I don’t believe it was God’s intent that I run into a wall at 90 mph. But I believe he has an incredible ability to take the pieces of our shattered dreams . . . take our disasters . . . and turn them into gold. I don’t believe he planned the demise; I handled that myself quite effectively. But he was there to pick up the pieces and say, “Will you listen to me this time around?”

I can understand God’s teaching you through disaster and suffering. Why drag so many employees down with you? As you acknowledge in your book, some of them relocated to Big Idea from halfway across the country.

That’s part of the consequence of my decision, at the end of the day: His reluctance to override free will. And I made business decisions that cost many other people a great deal. In his divine wisdom, God can turn that into something good. People have told me how much they appreciate their years at Big Idea, what they learned through the layoff and getting new jobs. Some went in entirely new directions and found new ministries. Everyone is on a journey, and God is weaving everyone’s life in a story if they’re willing to listen and be part of it. What happened to a lot of people through Big Idea was largely through my choices. . . .

Did you always take responsibility or was that, too, a process?

At first, I desperately wanted to blame someone else. It’s very uncomfortable to accept the blame. Even in bankruptcy, I thought it was spiritual warfare. God was going to ride to the rescue and keep it going because what we were doing was so important. I wasn’t listening to God, pursuing God. I was pursuing impact, success—measured in fairly good terms: helping kids and families. But that was my god: success, ministry success. And we don’t have the impact God has planned for us when we’re pursuing impact; we have it when we’re pursuing God. That was probably the single biggest lesson of all: I was simply chasing the wrong thing.

Working in the Christian sphere, you think somehow you’re immune to garden variety greed and ambition.

You can be a banker or a senior pastor but still chasing the same stuff.

Also, I came from a spiritual show biz family. My great grandfather was a radio preacher, and my mother was performing on the piano for radio audiences when she was five years old. I have a heritage of being upfront and onstage. The need creeps in to look good while you’re doing it, and it’s a really dangerous thing.

During the hard years—those three dark years you refer to—when you prayed, what was that like?

My life was so noisy and . . . it’s difficult if you haven’t developed a lifestyle of walking with God and listening to him. It’s difficult in the middle of a crisis when the building is collapsing and everyone is screaming to suddenly hear God’s quiet still voice. I kept going back to my premises: God called me to do this. He’ll make it work. I never thought: what if I’m horribly off track?

But if I’m dong all the right things for all the wrong reasons, is my premise still valid?

What a great line, “if you’re doing all the right things for all the wrong reasons.” Were you still thinking of God in quid pro quo terms? “I’ve done all this for him; he must do X for me?”

I think so. It was, “I’ve got my calling, and I’m off to work. And I’m going to work very hard.” And God could do nothing but honor that.

You may have just recited the American Christian work credo.

We don’t want a relationship as much as we want a contract, an obligation, a transaction. I push this button and I get this. It’s predictable and doesn’t require a tremendous amount of time or thought about the relationship behind the vending machine. Even now people hear my story and say, “How do you hear God’s voice? How do you know?”

What’s your answer?

The secret is there’s no secret. You spend a lifetime walking with God and learning to hear his voice. Every now and then he’ll break in dramatically and you’ll build an ark—but no, before the ark Noah walked with God for 500 years. God doesn’t pick kids out of Bible college and tap them. It takes time to build a relationship with your wife or your Creator.

So in your mind, is there such a thing as a Christian business?

Business with Christian ownership, Christian values, Christian goals . . . I think a Christian business needs further definition. We had the same discussion about Christian movies. Is it a movie made by Christians? For Christians? Or a movie that has accepted Jesus as its Savior and is going to heaven when it dies?

What kind of movies do you make?

I make films infused with and illuminated by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Some will be overtly biblical and/or educational. Others will simply tell stories of life on a broken planet. But all will carry the scent of the Gospel.

From your experience, how would you say a Christian should or can approach business decisions?

[Laughs] Yeah, that’s its own book right there. I think there’s a difference, first of all, if your business is a means to accomplish a call God has placed on your life. If so, then what happens falls into one category. If it’s your means of putting food on the table—you reupholster furniture because you enjoy it and make your living that way—you’re in a slightly different way of finding God’s will in your business. He does have a point of view on your honesty and integrity, and that goes for whether your business isf your ministry or an outgrowth of your need to put food on the table.

A calling and a job are spiritually unequal?

There are good works we are called to that God has prepared us to do that may or may not involve how we earn a living.

But God gives us work.

People have done horrible things through daily work. There’s a danger in sanctifying it categorically. There’s a distinction between what you do and how you do it. Anything can be done with integrity, nobility, and charity . . .

My fear is the notion that “do all things for the glory of God,” when misapplied, can allow us to resist overcoming inertia to actually follow a path of ministry. I’ve got a great business selling insurance and I can do that for the glory of God. So that little nudge I feel when I hear about people in Rwanda—well, I’m doing this to the glory of God so I don’t need to do that.

There’s holiness to Paul’s call to lead quiet lives among the heathen, taking care of yourself, meeting your own daily needs and having that be a witness. At the same time, he was talking to people being persecuted, vilified, and blamed for the burning of Rome. And leading quiet lives was a good witness. Considering how loud and obnoxious many North American Christians have become, there’s another reason to go back to modesty and quiet. God has prepared good works for us to walk in that may involve how we feed ourselves and may not. Letting him lead us into that work is more important than finding the holiness in an accounting job. [Yikes. Feels like I’m singling out accountants.] How about . . . “Letting him lead us into that work is more important than finding the holiness in a job we have assumed simply because the pay was good.”

So you hear God’s voice and feel hs nudges. What about people who don’t?

If you’re walking with Him daily, you can’t not bump into needs. And it will be clear that you have been equipped to meet some of those needs. And that may take you out of your comfort zone. It may change your vocation; it may be adjunct to your vocation. Parker Palmer said vocation is “the intersection of my great gifting and the world’s great need.” Where I get concerned is when we aren’t looking, when we’re ignoring the world’s great need because we’ve found a vocation that’s quite comfortable. And we sit behind a verse—I can do all things for the glory of God—and the world screams out for help and we do nothing.

If you say, “I’m a hedge-fund trader for the glory of God,” and the majority of your earnings are benefiting no one but yourself, I’d say you are a trader, but I’m not sure if it’s for the glory of God. Paul said quite plainly, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.” He didn’t mince words. If my life’s work benefits no one but myself, I really don’t think I’m following the teaching of the Gospel.

I’d be hesitant to say how another person should spend his money.

We are Christ’s hands and feet, ambassadors of reconciliation. The question is: how is that coming across in your life?

So how does God direct you now that you’re listening?

There’s the big arc that he’ll do in the future what he’s done in the past. You can look at what he’s done through you—and if the next thing you want to do is completely out of alignment, there may be a red flag. Then there’s scripture: what has He called us to do on a daily basis? And if every day you’re pursuing him, then you’ll hear from him. That’s biblical. Not 100 percent of the time, but you will hear from him when your decisions affect what he’s calling you into for his redemptive purposes on earth through you. He has a point of view and he’ll share it—through friends, through scripture, through circumstances. Paul very often said, “The Holy Spirit told us to leave this town.” He also said “We decided to go here.” There’s a mix of him working under more overt communication from God and his making choices based on his understanding of the situation. There’s no formula, but I have had clear direction at key moments in the last years.

Who do you want to read your book, and what message do you want readers to walk away with?

My hope is that it’s got something to say to anyone who has had a dream, whether a business dream or a life dream or a family dream. That’s really what it’s about: what does it mean when God gives you a dream and it comes to life and then it dies? We as Americans need to examine our dreams.

So say you meet a gifted 22-year-old, uncannily like yourself at that age. From the spare bedroom of his house he begins to boldly merge entertainment, theology, creativity, and the latest in technology and marketing. He turns to you for advice, and you say . . .

[Laughs] First of all, I’d say “Hey, read my book.” Secondly, I’m writing articles on my website he ought to read. Third, I’d say, “Watch what I’m going to do next, because it’s designed to help people exactly like you.”

What do you mean?

Well, now I’m working on the way kids like I was 20 years ago will get their start. The first purpose of what we’re doing next is to raise a generation of Christians who know what it means to live the gospel. The second purpose is to provide the means for the next generation of Christian storytellers to find an audience. Let’s see if we can pull that off.

You’re speaking now of Jellyfish Labs?

Yep. It’s too soon to describe quite yet, but what we’re developing is a model for how we can minister to kids through media over the next 15 years, just as VeggieTales videos and DVDs ministered so effectively over the last 15 years. We live in a changing world, and new conditions create new opportunities.

Near the end of Me, Myself and Bob, you list lessons learned . . .

If you paraphrase my whole book, no one will go buy it.

Very funny. Okay, talk about what you’re doing now and what you may be doing differently in terms of business and spirituality?

Number one, I have no long-term goals. And I will have none unless God gives me them explicitly. That’s partly a distinction between mission and strategy. Mission is your calling in the broadest sense to make God visible on earth so that others can experience his love: the way he wires me and moves in me. I’m fairly certain my personal mission involves doing that through story and kids interacting with media. So that is what will drive all my long-term thinking. I won’t say in the next 20 years I’m going to build X, Y, and Z.

Does that mean you’re not dreaming?

You mean brainstorm? I brainstorm constantly. But I don’t use the word dream because there’s too much emotional baggage. “A dream is a wish your heart makes,” as we’ve all learned from Walt Disney—either Sleeping Beauty or Snow White or Cinderella—the gospel according to Disney that has affected our society. The emotional longings we attach to our “dreams” often say more about the unmet needs of our childhoods than God’s calling on our lives.

Do you pray differently now?

My perspective at Big Idea, what drove me was always, was “how far have I gone, and am I gaining on Nickelodeon, MTV . . . the ones using the attention of our kids for selfish gain? I need to catch up with them.” I was always measuring results and comparing myself. The big difference is focusing not on results but obedience: What has God asked me to do today, and am I doing it?

To answer the question: I find I spend more time now praying for other people. I spent more of my time before praying for my plans, my dreams, myself.