Every New Day

How to Make America Great

2016-07-23T13:29:00.000-05:00

Like many Americans, I was fairly troubled by last week's Republican National Convention. The theme, of course, was Make America Great Again, Donald Trump's campaign slogan. He's a pretty inspirational guy, which is nice because sometimes the nation seems like it's lacking inspiration. Unfortunately, he's inspirational in all the wrong areas.

There's probably not really anyone who disagrees with the idea of making America great. I have some questions about the "again" part, as I'm curious which past greatness he's referring to - without getting into ugly details, I hope we can all acknowledge that every period of our history has been marked by some very awful things that we are guilty of.

I don't mean to be excessively cynical or gloss over great times in our nation's history. We've undoubtedly had amazing times of innovation, discovery, and helping others at home and abroad. And there's no doubt that we've lost some of that in the past few decades, as we've started to lag behind other nations in education, infrastructure, and scientific breakthrough, not to mention losing some moral high ground in our entanglements abroad. So if we can acknowledge that we've had very dark days in our history, and if we can dispense with the "again" part, then what would it take to make America great?

One of the things that troubled me was watching a video of convention attendees trying to cover up a sign that said "No Racism, No Hate." It's possible that they took simply great issue with the organization sponsoring the lady (Code Pink, which is a “women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect our tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs"). But perhaps the people trying to silence her ought to have taken a moment to think about how it doesn't send a great message when you try to grab away a sign that says "No Racism, No Hate." If there's a message we could all get behind, you'd think it'd be that one.

I think that's part of the symptom of our perceived lack of "greatness". We're against all sorts of things, ready to take a stand against anyone or anything that appears to contradict our own positions. But we aren't really for anything. Much of last week's convention seemed to be aimed at all the things that are terrible and terrifying about our world, and some equally terrifying solutions to those problems. Perhaps the reason people are inspired by Trump is that they don't have anything else to be inspired by.

Most of our rhetoric has revolved around problems. The right groans about abortion, LGBTQ issues, immigrants, terrorism, welfare programs, and so forth. The left groans about inequality, tax cuts for the wealthy, gun control, militarization, climate change, and so forth. They both clamor the loudest when they're arguing against each other. Sometimes we all do this - we get caught down in a rut of seeing all the problems around us and lowering our eyes to the muck and filth we're wading through. In those sorts of times, the best thing is to lift up our eyes.

We need visions for a better future that don't involve blatant racism, sexism, and violence. The right has failed to cast a vision that involves making America good and moral for all people. The left has failed to cast a vision for an inclusive government that is actually efficient. Nobody is interested in saying, "What if we committed ourselves to having the best education system in the world, regardless of the cost, because it's worth it for our future, our competitiveness, and our citizens?" Nobody says, "What if we committed ourselves to being 100% driverless vehicles in 15 years because we're tired of having more than 30,000 people killed on the roads every year?" Where is the politician saying "We're going to fund the planting of 100 million trees in the next four years because we can all be glad about either the climate benefits or the beautification"?

We've been distracted. As they usually are, each distraction was variously catastrophic and significant in itself, whether the attacks of 9/11, the constant race violence or gun violence, the movements on social issues, and so on. The mark of a successful initiative, however, is whether or not it can mind a distraction while remaining focused on the goal. During the Civil War, the North was noted for continuing remarkable investment in infrastructure and building westward even while dealing with the biggest threat to the nation's existence before or since. The 1960s were a tumultuous decade to say the least, including the assassination of a President, but by 1969 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were still standing on the moon.

Social issues, economic issues, climate change, violence...these are all very important discussions to be had. But if we put our entire focus on them, we won't become a great nation, we'll only sink into global insignificance.

13 Critical Professional Competencies to Learn in your Twenties

2015-12-11T15:11:00.000-06:00

Now that I'm safely out of my 20s and rockin' the world of a 30-year-old professional, I feel like I can make a list like this. It's based purely on my own experience and talking to friends. Some I think I did reasonably well at, some took me all 10 years to learn, and others I'm still working on. What other things would you add to this list?

1. How to Strive for Excellence
You won't turn in an A+ effort on every project, but when it's time to, you should be able to. Learn how to focus in on something and turn in results that are far beyond the bare minimum and you'll gain the respect of your coworkers and supervisors. We all know people who are famous for doing the minimum necessary. Don't be that person.

2. How to Dress for the Occasion
This skill goes for the office just as much as for your personal life. Your twenties is the time when you can start slowly putting away all those t-shirts and let yourself be seen out in public casually in collared shirts. Your wardrobe should be ready for anything from a formal dinner to a night out, and you need to know social dress code cues. In the office, don't be afraid to dress a notch nicer than your peers. It'll set you apart.

3. How to Write Well When You Need To
When you're texting your friends, use whatever grammar you like. But when you need to, you'd better be able to compose a well-thought-out email or letter with impeccable grammar and spelling. This helps people take you seriously.

4. How to Teach Yourself a New Skill
No matter what job you find yourself in, you're doing to be asked to do something that you don't know how to do. Rather than sitting back and waiting for someone to show you how, go out and gain the knowledge yourself. Today with the Internet and YouTube, you can teach yourself to do just about anything imaginable if you're dedicated to it.

5. How to Follow Even When You Disagree
Everybody falls somewhere in a chain of authority, whether you're looking at your boss or thinking about a legal structure. And everyone regularly has the opportunity to obey a supervisor's instruction that they dislike or comply with a policy or law with which they disagree. There are times for speaking out, and there are times for putting your head down and getting done what you're asked to do without question.

6. How to Get the Most out of Excel
Excel is the under-appreciated workhorse of offices worldwide. It's the program that is approachable to just about anyone on a very rudimentary level, but can stretch to handle unbelievable complex systems and functions. If you're a pro at Excel, not only will you be able to do things your coworkers only dream of, but you'll be able to manage your household finances successfully.

7. How to Manage Your Schedule Effectively
We all have that friend or coworker who always seems to double-book themselves or forget about meetings. Having and keeping a calendar is mandatory. Smartphones and online calendars make it ridiculously easy to manage your own calendar and even share it with your spouse or family. Everything goes in there. For bonus points, schedule your own time too - looking ahead even one week to think about what you'll want to accomplish will make you far more productive and effective and give you more time to relax fully, knowing you aren't forgetting things.

8. How to Organize Your Work Systems
Be known as the coworker who never lets things slip through the cracks. Be knowledgeable of your own systems and how they work. Everybody's is different, but everybody needs to have some kind of system for at least their to-do list and for their email. Don't lose emails without taking care of them, and don't miss deadlines because you forgot about a project.

9. How to Take Ownership of a Project
Unless you forever want to be a peon in the workplace, learn how to take a task or project over. Supervisors are always looking for people who can be trusted to take care of something fully without needing to be micromanaged. Be able to take something from concept to completion without excess supervision.

10. How to Build Your Margins
On a piece of notebook paper, the margins give you space if your word goes a little longer than you planned. In your life, margins work the same way. Don't schedule yourself down to the minute unless you want to be perpetually late. Allow extra time for unexpected things. The same goes for managing your capacity - don't run yourself to exhaustion every day or forever try to do an inhuman amount. Just like living without savings for emergencies, if you don't have margins, even small unexpected things can completely derail you.

11. How to Focus on Other People
The art of conversation and networking is all about focusing on the other person. Strive to talk about yourself as little as possible and ask good questions. You'll find yourself the center of attention and the leader in the room without even trying.

12. Know Your Mentors
It takes a village to raise a child, but this doesn't end when you hit 18. We all need mentoring relationships until the end of our lives, and they go in all 3 directions: up, out, and down. Find people who can teach you things, find peers who can journey along with you, and find people you can pour into. There may be professional, spiritual, intellectual, or other types of mentoring relationships.

13. How to Prioritize
Life is really just a series of decisions about priorities. Anything along the lines of "I don't have time" is simply a cover for "It's not a priority for me right now." Know your big-picture priorities, how to prioritize projects, and then know how to be honest about them with people.

What Star Wars May Have to Teach Us about Terrorism

2015-11-17T13:12:00.000-06:00

I re-watched Return of the Jedi last night in preparation for the upcoming release of The Force Awakens. The original trilogy was George Lucas' masterpiece of analyzing the relationship of good and evil, giving a valuable statement to the world as great art does.

"Anger, fear, aggression - the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will." - Yoda's dying words to Luke

Could Yoda have something to say to us about our world today? Somewhere after World War I the world began to change, from a place where nations warred against nations to a place where ideas warred against ideas. We like to portray it as good versus evil, and while this is a generalization and "all generalizations are dangerous" (Alexandre Dumas), how does good overcome evil? Good becoming evil in the process of trying to overcome evil is one of the oldest literary themes.

"He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Daesh (ISIL), al Qaeda, Boko Haram - these types of forces in the world feed not from a religion, but from hatred. It's what they breathe and live on. It's what they seek to instill. Whether it's hatred of other Muslims or hatred of Westerners or hatred of Christians, it's an extremist viewpoint that ultimately seeks the destruction of the world, of unifying the world by purging everyone who is different.

"The hate is swelling in you now. Take your Jedi weapon. Use it. I am unarmed. Strike me down with it. Give in to your anger. With each passing moment you make yourself more my servant." - The Emperor, goading Luke

The answer to terrorism (I dislike this word but it's the most convenient at the moment) may be quite a bit more counter-intuitive than we think. What if going to war is exactly what the enemy wants? After all, Daesh's taunting social media videos sound a lot like the Emperor's taunting Luke when you think about it. If your enemy keeps trying to get you to do something, there's a good chance you shouldn't do it, even if you don't quite know why yet.

Terrorism breeds on hatred, so what if the answer to terrorism is to stop the hate? We know by now that killing terrorists and bombing their forces doesn't stop them because it doesn't do anything about the hate. Killing bin Laden didn't destroy al Qaeda any more than killing the Emperor didn't destroy the Empire or the Dark Side (taking a guess at the upcoming plot of the new Star Wars release). More pupils will always rise to take their places in evil as long as there is hatred to build on.

There's another source of terrorists, other than hatred, that we've also known about for a long time. It's poverty. Just like we knew in the Cold War that poverty breeds communism, now we know that poverty also breeds terrorism, even if only because it's a paying job that purports to give dignity and a purpose to those who have none of the three.

"A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." - Proverbs 15:1

Perhaps our fearful, angry responses leading to xenophobia, intolerance, and hatred are exactly what the enemy is trying to produce in us. What if those responses are actually fueling our enemy? What then? If that's the case, our response should be as exactly opposite as possible.

Could it be that the best response is to welcome the refugee and overwhelm them with our love and compassion? Could it be that the answer to devastated and conflicted states isn't an army of soldiers but an army of doctors and civil servants? What if, rather than "nation building" at gunpoint, we practiced "nation building" with a flood of diplomats and engineers?

"Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord. On the contrary: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." - Romans 12:17-21

I don't have all the answers to complex political and global current events. They require a nuanced view from professionals who study the issues. But I know that we've rarely tried to overcome evil with good, and rarely responded to hatred with love. I wonder if doing so might be how the world can defeat the hatred and poverty that lead to evil, rather than forever being doomed to striking back each time evil pops up.

When we praise God....

2015-10-09T10:01:00.000-05:00

Have you ever noticed that people tend to throw out the phrase "Praise God" pretty regularly? It's often a sigh of relief when they hear some good news from somebody, or an exclamation at the end of a story about how something really great happened to them. It's the everyday-life version of the sports superstar pointing to heaven after doing something amazing, as if to minimize all the hard work and involvement he or she had in it.

We use it in big things as well as in small things: "My spouse got a job finally, praise God!" or "I found a parking spot, praise God!" I'll be the first to say that God cares about the little things every bit as much as he cares about the big things, but I'm a bit troubled by this phrase. Not, of course, because I don't think God deserves credit for doing good things. It's more because I think we're shortchanging God when we do it.

Our praise of God shouldn't have any connection to things that happen to us. If we claim to love God and worship Him, then He is the Lord over every moment of our lives, regardless of what we're doing. So we should be praising Him whether we are celebrating a good thing or sitting and watching TV. We should be praising Him whether we're in church or peeling potatoes. Our acknowledgement of God's involvement in our lives is completely independent of our circumstances.

But there's something even a bit more sinister at play when we throw out a "Praise God" or a "Thank God" after good news. If we praise God for good things that happen, then by implication we're not praising Him for things that we perceive as bad. When a friend has been struggling through unemployment for months and finally gets a job, we act as though God finally came through, when He never stopped being involved.

God isn't a god who only gives us things that are "good." He hasn't failed when things don't turn out nicely. We aren't meant to struggle through the hard times and party when times are good. We're meant to seek God in all things, praise Him in all times, and press onward steadily whether we feel like it or not. It's better to take the bad with the good than to ride the roller coaster of success and failure. It's better to tread onward than to alternate sprints and falls.

There's nothing wrong than saying "Praise God" when good things happen. But if we can't say it when bad things happen, then we're subtly missing what God is looking for in praise.

Parenthood, From a Non-Parent

2015-08-22T11:10:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I'm not a dad. I've been married a little shy of 4 years, but we don't have any kids yet. It's been a pretty intentional decision on our part, for a variety of reasons. We've both got interesting and exciting careers. We've got a thriving life together full of friends, hobbies, travel, and family. And it's also, unfortunately, a subject around which we both feel some negative emotions.

Part of the reason why I feel negative emotions when I think about having kids, and it's something that my wife and I have discussed in depth, is that I feel a stigma around kids when I'm around some families with children. Our American culture kind of revolves around kids, and they have a script for young families like us.

The script started with dating. You were supposed to plan a kind of extravagant engagement, then a really special wedding. Then you were supposed to get a pet and buy a house. Then you are supposed to get pregnant, and plan a unique and exciting gender reveal. Next you decorate a cuter baby nursery in your house than any of your friends. Then you have the kid, give it a creative name that not many other kids have, and start posting monthly pictures on Facebook. Starting with the first birthday, each birthday party needs to be more extravagant and memorable than the last. Repeat the kid thing, then fast forward 18 years.

For one thing, my wife and I kind of feel out of touch with that script. Sure, we've walked part of that road already. We had a wonderful engagement, but it was kind of a private affair for us, our families, and her friends. We loved our wedding, because it strongly reflected our values and who we are (but a lot of our guests may have found it weird). We are total dog people and we love our house. It's the next steps that have us really uncomfortable, though. I totally get parents who walk it - you're super proud of your kid, love them like there's no tomorrow, and want everyone to know it. It can just have something of a negative impact on people with different values.

For years, we've both heard enough stories of extreme themed birthday parties to make us poke our eyes out. We've been barraged with the "Just wait until you have kids" and "I remember when we used to have free time" and "I haven't slept in months" and "You don't understand because you don't have kids" until we feel unworthy to stand next to parents and wonder if we actually do want to have kids. Perhaps it's our basic human need to feel like we're better than others that can cause us to make our lives sound super tough, but sometimes it seems like parents want to make it sound unappealing. I've even heard parents who had challenging kids disparage parents whose kids slept through the night and didn't have colic, as if they did something wrong!

If you've seen this movie you know why it's relevant here.

Look, it's not that I think kids are some kind of annoying distraction from life. I certainly don't intend to neglect my family or become a workaholic. That's selfish. Parenthood has a lot to do with making sacrifices for your kids, and I doubt that many parents regret any of it. We have some wonderful friends who have a great attitude toward parenting and are inspirational to us. I'm just not sure that some of our American kid culture doesn't contain a few too many elements of vain parental boasting in front of our peers. Parents who can't afford or don't want to rent a bounce house, a snow-cone machine, and a band for their 3-year old's birthday party aren't any less parents than those who can. Parents who can't afford or don't want to stay home and enroll their kids in 4 sports each aren't less capable than those who do. How much you do or don't do for your kids doesn't necessarily make you a better or worse parent. I figure it's got to be more about the values you pass on and the love that you show.

It's also not that I think I've got a better recipe to parenthood than all the current parents out there. It's exactly the opposite, in fact. I have no clue how to be a parent, and I feel that acutely from all the stinging comments about how I am clueless. I have great respect for those who are out there doing it 24/7. Someday I'll be there and I'll be figuring it out on the fly, too. It's just that when non-parents like myself hear all about how being a parent is the hardest thing ever and look at this perfect hand-painted Mickey over all my brand new furniture, it doesn't really make us look forward to it. Facebook allows us to share these little windows on our lives that give an incomplete picture.

Katie and I will have kids some day, I'm sure. And I have no doubt that we'll get a little over-sharey with a picture or two of them on Facebook, and adjusting to a new rhythm of life will be challenging. But what if we don't decorate a baby room? What if our kid's first birthday consists of us and our family over with a cake? What if our lives continue to be about ministering to people, building community, and serving the ministries we love, but with the addition of a child? We'd like to bring a child into our world so that they learn our values and vision, not go into the child's world and use them to show off to our friends. We're not so sure that we want our kids growing up in a family where they are the Center of All Things.

Can we please, for the sake of young married couples like myself, stop making parenthood seem daunting and unappealing? Can we get a little less advice, a little less peer pressure, and just be part of your lives along with your kids?

But then again, what do I know? I'm not a parent yet.

Where Does It Go?

2015-07-18T13:09:00.000-05:00

Anyone can be disturbed by the state of America. Most people are dismayed at the gridlock and ineffectiveness of government. Everyone except the donors and the recipients are outraged at the outsize effect of money on the political system. The military and intelligence forces seem to alternate between spying, torture, and civilian drone casualties. Corporate greed seems to be unchanged by the recent Great Recession. Every time someone is killed by the police, mass riots get larger and more violent, whether or not the police were justified in their work. The socially conservative among us also aren't shy about pointing out the continual slide of morality in the nation.

Democracy and capitalism have a great deal of upsides to them. Democracy, at least theoretically, gives the people a voice and establishes numerous checks and balances against abuses of power. Capitalism allows for the accumulation of wealth unlike any other system and encourages competition, innovation, and rewards success. However, the systems themselves, if unchecked, can have harmful consequences. They both need to be held tight within a society that values the good of all rather than self-interest, the doing of what is right rather than what is expedient, and the respecting of minority voice rather than the unlimited rule of the majority.

It's not hard to see the rise of the "protest" age of America. Everyone has something to protest - for/against gay rights, the potential abuses of police power, corruption in government, and so forth. Our incredible connectedness makes this possible, and our tendency toward argument and anger makes it increasingly vitriolic. Whether our indignation is aroused by the idiocy of some store clerk or a government action we disagree with, we're all-too-ready to fight back in some way. Some level of this is valuable - without standing up for something and against something else, we'll never move forward, and that store clerk will never improve. Taken to the extreme, however, we continually see riots in the street.

The world is moving toward revolution. The Arab Spring may have only been a precursor to a larger worldwide movement. However, whereas the popular uprisings in these Middle Eastern and African nations were largely unsuccessful, the next round may be successful. Many people in democracies feel increasingly fed up with their governments. Some people believe that people in governments that tend toward censorship, such as China, North Korea, Turkey, and others are on the road toward revolution as well. Can these governments continue to hold power by controlling the media? Can democracies survive the increasingly bitter divisions within their populations?

Thinking specifically of the United States, it seems to me that the nation is approaching a crossroads. Either the political system will have to unite behind a charismatic statesman (as sometimes happens in wartime as well), or the increasingly divided people could eventually come to the need of revolution. I also wonder what other system of government would be effective other than democracy. Sometimes I'm fascinated by the thought of an open-source experiment in constitution-making. If the people of the United States were, through some massive online process, to write a new constitution, what would it look like?

We can't underestimate the significance of the Internet for democracy and capitalism. I think it's possible that we'll look back in 50 years and see that the advent of the Internet was the force that created a new system of government. On one hand, Internet makes it possible to reduce the distance between the government and the people in the representative system, but the founders of our republican democratic system were wise to create the distance because there's no way that the entire citizenry could be informed enough or wise enough to vote on everything. We need to ask the question, however, whether our elected representatives are informed enough or wise enough.

Taken as a whole, the democratic system largely invented in the 1780s for the fledgling new United States of America has not evolved significantly in the past three hundred years. It's worth asking whether the accelerating pace of human and technological development necessitates some substantial new evolutions in democracy. For example, what if the lower house of the bicameral system were abolished in favor of a new method of frequent referendums and voting by all people? I'm no political scientist, but it'd be interesting to see such conversations play out.

The people are starting to stir for something. Why do people riot? Because they feel unheard any other way. The Occupy movement wanted to bring a change, but it wasn't entirely clear what change they wanted. Both are changing the conversation, however. The upcoming Presidential election is very interesting - we're developing into a three-party state (Democratic, Republican, and Tea Party) which I'm actually not entirely opposed to. A viable third party could be a very interesting addition to our governmental system. Regardless, the two most "interesting" candidates right now, and two of the most rapidly-ascending, are Trump and Sanders, who also happen to perhaps be the most "extreme" in either direction. What are the people saying? Where are we as a nation going?

Confession of a Messed-Up Christian

2015-04-13T19:56:00.000-05:00

Different people have different things they are good at. Some people are great at seeing the big picture, others better at figuring out the details. Some people start things but never finish them, and others can't come up with any new ideas but can make somebody else's work beautifully. Me? I'm good at asking questions that I can't figure out the answer to. I see things as if from outside them, ask an impossible question, and then I'm messed up completely.

Take all the international trips I've taken, for example. I grew up thinking in terms of mission trips. You travel, share the Gospel, help build a house, and then return home changed by the experience. It was powerful, and fun, and I don't regret a single trip. But I started to get confused. What makes a trip a mission trip? I was exposed to many of the questions around short-term mission trips, and realized I agreed with them. I couldn't figure out what it would mean to be a "missionary" or go on a "mission trip." It was, at once, a category both too broad and too narrow. I ceased going on mission trips, though I never stopped traveling with ministries. I have volunteered several times overseas now, as a construction volunteer, a volunteer leader, a business volunteer, and so forth. My wife and I are traveling again this summer to visit friends and family in two ministries and encourage people.

A similar sort of thing is happening with the so-called "Christian" life at home. I used to have a clear conception of what a Christian life was. I used to raise my hands in church, I used to have regular quiet times with my Bible, I used to be in small groups. But somewhere along the way, I think I lost track of what these things meant. They became facets of the life I was supposed to be living, kind of like how when you propose you're supposed to have a super-creative idea and post it on YouTube, or when you announce your pregnancy you're supposed to one-up the last couple that did it. These were just things that you were supposed to do as a Christian.

Somehow along the way, I just kind of stopped doing most of these things. Even though my wife is the music leader at our church, I'm more often found building a relationship in the back or serving in some little way that needed doing. Especially since getting married, I've just never quite found out when you're supposed to do a 45-minute quiet time every day. I don't think I've been in a small group Bible study since 2011. I discovered that I really feel at home in life when I'm spending my evenings with my hands in the dirt in the backyard or running my miter saw in the garage. Between hosting people in our home, enjoying life as a married couple, working on our house, and trying to get at least one really good international trip in per year, it's amazing how regularly my wife and I look at each other and just sigh, "Our life is so awesome." We're busier than ever, but just loving all the things we're involved in.

In the midst of it all, I've discovered some different rhythms of life. My mind is constantly on the weather, how long it's been since I watered our flowers, how the sun is going to move with the seasons and affect our growing, and so forth. My budgeting seems to look more like finding out just how much money we can give away, and using our money in the most valuable ways, rather than saving it for later. I can't shake thoughts of how it's just been way too long since we had such-and-such over for dinner, and rather than picking up the latest inspirational Christian book, I battle to make time to read classics of literature. I quit listening to Christian rock radio and opt instead for classical music (I get super excited when one of my favorites comes on). I go out of my way to build relationships with neighbors and constantly think of how my wife and I could minister to them.

I often wonder if I'm in a bad place spiritually. I wonder if God gets angry with me for never finishing that inductive study of Isaiah, or if I've just forgotten Him in a life that is far too busy. Then I go back to that really awful skill that I have of asking ridiculous questions. Why is our definition of a Christian life patterned like this? Who says church is supposed to look like this? What did a Christian life look like through the ages, during times when Bibles weren't readily available or church was something you did in your home a few times a week with your closest friends rather than on Sundays?

My faith and Christian life is a bit unusual, but whose isn't? The hallmarks of mine include such unusual things as having my phone interrupt me at regular liturgical hours of prayer (and usually angrily dismissing God's interruption of my busy plans, then feeling bad about it later). I found a few devotional books that I really like and I read them over and over again. I work at a Christian ministry and it makes some people happy to call me a missionary, but I'm pretty sure I'm just an operations director. Some people probably look at me and say, "You don't have good small group and quiet time habits now, what are you going to do when you have kids?" Answer: probably still not be in a normal small group or do a daily quiet time. It's been a long and ongoing process to remind myself that this actually doesn't make God angry with me.

I ask these sorts of questions and tend to deconstruct things until there isn't much left. I'm not very good at putting it all back together into something coherent, so I usually end up just living a life that is inexplicable to others around me. I can rarely defend my sometimes self-contradictory viewpoints, or formulate a good alternative to what I'd like things to look like if I don't like the way they are now. I have, however, regularly been able to find things in life that I thoroughly enjoy, and I've regularly been able to build deep relationships with people around me (Christian and not).

One thing I think I have put together, however: I don't think God scripted out a "Christian life." It looks to me like He created a bunch of unique people and called them to be Christians. As somebody said, "Christian" makes a great noun but a terrible adjective. Living my life as a Christian rather than trying to live a Christian life has been a challenging and confusing journey, but one that I'm enjoying traveling. I'll let you know someday if I figure out the answers, but don't hold your breath - that's not something I'm good at. I'll be happy to ask unusual and impossible questions with you, however. Give me a call anytime.

Good Guys Wear White, And So Do Bad Guys

2015-01-28T20:08:00.001-06:00

Last month, I was deeply troubled by the report that the CIA tortured prisoners during the decade since the 9/11/11 attacks on the United States. I can't say I was surprised, but I was troubled. Primarily so, I think, because although they admitted that some practices may have been illegal, the primary defense from the top was that it was fair because it led to the capture of top Al-Qaeda leaders. Since when was "the ends justify the means" a valid moral argument? If this is becoming a valid and acceptable moral argument, then we as a people are in deep trouble.

Of course, the argument isn't a new one. After all, our own United States joined the group of nations who have used weapons of mass destruction against civilians when they killed between 129,000 and 246,000 people in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Of course, the primary argument was to end the war sooner. This may have been true, but does it justify the bombs? Regardless of the outcome, an enormous number of noncombatants, including of course women and children, were killed and maimed. I have a fundamental problem with the argument that the ends justify the means. If the process of getting to a goal is tainted, is not the goal tainted as well?

Integrity is a notion that can't be overstated. We think of integrity in terms of doing the right thing, but the base meaning of the word has to do with consistency and a whole mass working together as a whole. Integrity means that the outer shell of a spacecraft doesn't have the smallest seam in it. It means that the prison doesn't have a single unlocked door. And it means that all of the actions taken to get to a goal are just as praiseworthy as the goal. The ends do not justify the means. First, because we never know the exact ramifications of our actions - what if no good comes of our evil means? Then we're stuck with evil. Second, because just how evil are we allowed to be in pursuing a good? Who is to judge at what point the good outweighs the evil? Third, because it's probably more accurate to think of life as a constant journey, not as a series of ends...where do you draw the lines between means and ends?

It didn't terribly surprise me that there was a lack of morality in the decision to torture prisoners. It's a common misquote that "America is good because she is great, and if she ever ceased to be good, she would cease to be great" (Tocqueville is claimed as the author, but he did not write it). Nevertheless, I think it's telling that the quote continues to be so prevalent. People want the USA to be a "good" and upright nation. They want to look to America as a bastion of freedom, liberty, and good morals. Unfortunately, they're looking in the wrong place. Please don't immediately assume that this is an America-bashing post - that isn't the point. If you don't believe me, read to the bottom.

America isn't exactly the standard-bearer for the ethical high road. While the point of this post isn't to accuse the USA of all sorts of moral failings, it requires a great deal of amnesia to ignore them. Here in Texas we can't forget 1846, when American troops forcefully claimed a disputed territory with Mexico after the Mexican government refused to sell it. After claiming that the Mexican army had attacked them on American soil, a declaration of war allowed American troops to invade and capture all the way to Mexico City. Of course, we also can't forget how in 1776 we declared that "all men are created equal" and eleven years later declared that black people only counted as three-fifths of a person. It took us 21 years to ban the slave trade, 78 years to officially end the practice of slavery, and 133 years for women to get the right to vote.

Today, we still have 122 inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison, of which 46 are slated to be detained indefinitely because they are dangerous but there isn't enough evidence to bring them to trial. Clearly, habeas corpus only applies within the United States. The USA also provides unconditional support to Israel, despite their continued apartheid against the Palestinian people (opinion), possible illegal occupation and settlement, and possible war crimes. This support angers nations worldwide that either support Palestinian statehood or are more impartial. Americans have long been active in meddling in foreign affairs, to questionable moral standing. Politifact analyzed 20 instances within 30 years of American military intervention and found that 3 clearly qualified as invasions because ground troops entered another country without international backing. The number of apparent CIA attempted assassination attempts has been claimed to be as high as 50, and a number of them are public record. Of course, we also know today that the government spies on its own citizens and even those of friendly nations.

It's beneficial for many to claim that the United States is either a "Christian nation" or that it was founded on "Christian values." If these values included the forceful taking of land from the native inhabitants in the name of God, then I suppose that could be true. After all, we're still taking and consuming everything in our paths today, but it's for ourselves rather than for God or destiny (quote). We were founded not as a Christian nation, but as a nation of religious freedom. However, it's helpful for Christians who are waging a culture war to claim a central place in American society, and it's helpful for political figures to claim that they are fighting to restore America to a Christian, moral place.

These arguments, however, are not only based in fiction, they are troubling. Equating America with Christian values would mean that the rest of the world would view American actions as Christian, from those listed above to media lewdness. Furthermore, waging a culture war to claim America as a Christian nation is a fundamental misunderstanding of our place in society as Christians. One of Martin Luther's less-known doctrines, but one that apparently underlay his entire theological structure, is that of two kingdoms. He argued that we are simultaneously citizens of two kingdoms, which he called the "right hand" and the "left hand." In the left, it's a realm of active righteousness (doing good through works), government, law, and society. In the right, it's a realm of passive righteousness (being good through grace), spirituality, and worship.

How do these three items fit
together, again?

We live in both of these realms at once. As an author blogged recently, "Why on Earth would a Christian at any moment of history expect anything other than difficulty at combining faith and citizenship?" Our role has never been to live in perfect harmony with society, and to expect that is to misunderstand the Bible. I've always taken great meaning from the role of God's faithful in exile as Jeremiah exhorted - seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which God has sent us. Not to consume or copy society, but also not to uselessly condemn and critique it. Cultivate it, just like God originally commanded us in Genesis 1 (Andy Crouch).

My objective in working through this post, where I consider American moral failures, is to make the case that our proper citizenship is to stand with one foot on both sides. It's not unusual for people to accuse me of being un-patriotic, but I'd like to think it's because I only have one foot in American citizenship. My other foot is in God's kingdom. From that perspective, I have no qualms about criticizing the actions and attitudes of my own nation. America is not a Christian nation, it is a nation. There's no doubt that she has done an enormous amount of good in the world, and that she has often stood for the right things. There's also no doubt that she has often messed up big time.

When it comes to my citizenship in America, I choose to fight for and support the nation even though I often have sharp differences with it. This is the nation of my birth, and I will defend it. It's not a defense that overlooks wrongs, it's a defense that looks to right wrongs, make amends for mistakes, and go on a path for good going forward. Sometimes it seems like we're moving the right direction, sometimes it seems like we're falling backward. Regardless, however, my hope is not in the American government. I want the nation to do right, but it's only half of my citizenship. I don't expect the nation to become a place that I am in perfect alignment with. I won't even fight for that, because this nation is about "e pluribus unum", not my way or the highway. My more important citizenship and home is in the kingdom of God.

Ultimately, my freedom is not found in the stars and bars of the American flag, it's found in the cross of Jesus Christ. He alone is freedom, and when I exchange His freedom to cling to American freedom, I'm exchanging something of true value for something that will let me down. America screws up because of sin - the same reason people shoot up schools and commit acts of terrorism. Our world needs a hope that comes from the Gospel found in the Bible, not the hope that comes from the white stripes that stand for "peace". An earthly kingdom will always disappoint, but a heavenly kingdom will always save. Come, Lord Jesus.

Growing Up in Faith

2014-12-29T10:13:00.000-06:00

This post will be a followup to my previous post on growing up in our society. In it, I discuss the disappearance of adulthood, why growing up is still valuable, and a few thoughts on how one might go about growing up. In this post, I'd like to consider the same principles as they apply to Christians and the Church.

How do we grow up in faith? What's the road map for spiritual maturity in our Western churches today? For the most part, there is a pretty consistent formula that is presented to us. Come to church regularly, develop a personal devotion time at home, give more tithes and offerings, volunteer more at church, and be part of a small group. These things are all excellent steps to growing up as a Christian. But are they all that we have as a Church?

I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure it
never works like this.

The Bible has a few places where it talks about "growing up" in the faith. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 3, talks about growing up from being infants to eating "solid food." The author of Hebrews 5 may have borrowed this language, if he isn't Paul also, to talk about growing up from milk to solid food as a mature spiritual adult. Other places that talk about spiritual development, such as Ephesians 4, tend refer to issues of good works. Does growing up in faith and practicing these good works of the life of a disciple, then, refer to things like tithing and being active in serving the local church?

I don't believe so. Just as our society may have traded a child/adult divide for a world in which adults act like children, is it possible that our Church has allowed spiritual maturity to be optional and even forgotten what it means to be a spiritual adult?

I was talking the other night with a youth worker who helped parents understand that their children having doubts about their faith wasn't a thing to fear. Many of our spiritual forefathers struggled with great periods of doubt and pain and even anger at God. Doubts may be one of the first, and most recurring, stages of spiritual maturing. If we are afraid to enter even these stages, our growth will probably be stunted.

Sometimes churches may inadvertently limit the possibilities for spiritual growth by failing to offer sufficient challenges. Most churches try to keep Sunday morning services approachable for new believers and guests of members. Where, then, does the growth come? Small groups are the obvious answer, but many churches struggle to find enough qualified small group leaders to lead groups, and many small groups focus on the common need for community as much if not more than the need for deep growth in spiritual maturity. The new movement in small groups is to make them missionally-oriented, which is also valuable, but still not places for emphasizing the "solid food" of spirituality.

And what exactly is that "solid food" of spirituality? I'm inclined to think that tithing and volunteering are more likely traits that Paul and the Bible authors would have considered infant prerequisites, not qualities of a mature disciple. What other paths might be available for spiritual growth that aren't highlighted in our churches?

Spiritual maturity
probably requires great
amounts of facial hair.

My first instinct is to look to the past for examples of spiritually mature forefathers. The giants of the faith that we think of, such as Ignatius, Hudson Taylor, St. Francis, William Carey, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, St. Patrick, Hildegard, and so forth are all quickly noted. They were marked by radical devotion to the faith, prolific authors and musicians, fearless missionaries, and more. They are excellent examples, and of course Hebrews 11 gives us a great introduction to the faithful even further back in history. What types of paths do they show us? Here's a few that jump out at me:

Monasticism - When's the last time you heard that term in your church? Have you ever heard your church encourage a young person to spend an extended period of time in isolation and devotion to rules to grow in spirituality?
Liturgy of the hours, Celtic and Puritan prayers - Throughout history, people have taken "pray without ceasing" to mean to regularly interrupt yourself to pray. The Celtics and Puritans have a great tradition of having prepared prayers for various occasions. One could imagine having prayers printed above the coffee pot to pray every morning!
Heart prayers - Some spiritual fathers have described meditating on simple prayers such as the "Jesus prayer" (Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner) to the point that they actually become as natural as breathing, and that each breath literally reminds them of the prayer. Now that's praying without ceasing!
Prophetic and charismatic - While many are afraid of charismatic gifts, I can't help but think that 1 Corinthians 12:31 is a key part of spiritual maturity. Eagerly desire more spiritual gifts, even the scary charismatic ones!
Friars and Clares - Founded by St. Francis, these orders emphasized poverty as necessary for discipleship. We think that's extreme, but it sounds a lot like what Jesus taught...and yet voluntary poverty is never considered a virtue in our churches. We don't even really challenge people on stewardship!
Mysticism - Some Christians may fear cultish behavior when getting into mysticism and spiritual experiences, but they've been a part of Christianity for two thousand years. Under proper guidance and spiritual authority, they could be incredible parts of Christian discipleship.
Contemplation and Examen - Spending time in meditation can take all sorts of different forms, whether contemplating Scripture or, as in the case of Examen, contemplating oneself. Self-awareness and charting one's own spiritual growth would fit in well with our society's love of to-do lists and strategic plans.

These are just a few - it's not meant to be an exhaustive list, and one is not more right than another. They are all different paths, and people can go down separate paths and still walk with God on each of them. My point is that they are all paths that we've largely forgotten in our modern Church, with its emphasis on "morning quiet times" as the primary objective in spiritual growth. Many of them are challenging and audacious, but then again when has the easy route been the best one? Those challenges that are hardest are often the ones that we get most excited about, and the ones for which we most rise to the occasion.

Some people lately have been kicking around the idea of the "Dones" as a subset of the "Nones" - as in those Christians who are quitting churches and not looking for new ones because they are "done" with church. Nones as a whole are those who have no church affiliation or religious beliefs for whatever reasons. This article is an example (although it blames "dones" on a lack of community). I believe that part of the desire of those in my generation to quit church is because we aren't being challenged enough. Even if the community is nice, it does eventually get tiring to keep hearing the same basic sermons over and over again, and keep getting solicited to volunteer for the same programs over and over again. After a while it just gets boring.

If we're having the challenge of lots of Christians walking around whom our church fathers and apostles would consider to be spiritual babes, and we're having the challenge of Christians leaving churches and wandering on their own, perhaps it's time to revisit the idea of spiritual growth. Perhaps churches could take a look through history at the ways that Christians have experienced spiritual maturity, and present some of them to their members. I'd like to see church pastors and growth leaders becoming experts in leading spiritual growth. Too many spend all their days planning church services and doing the logistics of small groups. These jobs are of course critical and good, but where's the actual spiritual growth leaders? If Christians aren't challenged, we will never grow, and we are likely to get bored and wander.

Time To Grow Up!

2014-12-22T15:46:00.001-06:00

Growing up is hard to do! I'm 29 years old and somehow it doesn't feel quite like I could be old enough to be a grown-up. Am I really an adult? Surely I am, but it must be something peculiar about our society that someone who has lived nearly three decades can not quite feel like an adult.

If you're up for a longer, more academic read, I'd recommend The Art of Manliness' recent blog post on "The Rise and Fall of the Secret Society of Adults". For the majority of you who won't read it, here's a quick summary. For much of human history, childhood didn't entirely exist - kids were simply miniature, deficient adults until they were fully capable of doing all the things adults can do. However, at some point, children began to be seen as something to be nurtured and taught, and there became a separation between children and adults. Adults dressed differently, talked differently, and understood things that children couldn't. In very recent times, however, things have reversed to where once again there is little distinction between children and adults, but this time it's the other way around: adults now are just like kids but bigger and older. The author has a point - adults now dress like kids, talk like kids, and rarely grasp at complex subjects.

It's hard to say whether people are right who say that adolescence is a 20th century invention, but the term certainly seems to be. Once upon a time, however, a child who had hit puberty was basically an adult. Teenage years are now spent in school and under the authority of parents. Many youth now spend up to age 22 or 23 in school, with college, few living what could be seen as a marginally independent or self-sufficient life. The rise of "boomerang" kids who continue to live dependent on their parents after college and the growing confusion of my generation as to exactly what we want to do with our lives means that it's not uncommon for people nearly 30 to be still unmarried, on a murky career path, financially insecure, and largely immature. I'm certainly not blaming anyone or even saying that there's anything inherently wrong with this system. After all, when life expectancy is 50 you have to grow up much faster. When it's 80 you can take your time. I merely want to point out that growing up is vastly delayed in our society from where it was even 100 years ago.

I do feel, however, that there is still inherent value in growing up, whenever it does happen. I don't believe it makes sense to bring down all of society to an 8th grade level. Who doesn't recognize a certain bit of beauty in the powerful orations of history from men who spoke at a highly educated level? Isn't there still some reverence for those who can read and learn from works of literature more advanced than Hunger Games? I ought to take the moment to tangentially say that I don't mean to venerate adulthood at the expense of having a youthful heart. It was just last week that my coworkers and I took a break to invent games involving a miniature soccer ball and an empty trash can in our office. You can grow up without giving up fun and frivolity.

Why grow up, however? What's the value to society in having adults who are grown up? In other words, why shouldn't all of society dumb down to the lowest common denominator? Firstly, I believe the qualities of adulthood are highly valuable to society. A developed sense of personal responsibility, greater self-control, a desire and capacity to contribute meaningfully to the world, and expanded maturity for leadership and wisdom are just a few of these qualities. Secondly, as the aforementioned wisely note in another post (most of the way down), you can't have an entire society dumbed down - somebody still has to get things done. The world of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood is only possible because of the world of adulthood. Thirdly, because although we have all sometimes remembered our youth fondly and longed for days when we could relax without a care in the world, being an adult is immensely satisfying. Making a positive contribution to the world, taking care of business, learning about and mastering complex subjects, and serving those around us are benefits of adulthood that we miss if we remain in the comparatively "easy" world of childhood.

I'm interested in what kind of things are part of this growing up process. There aren't a lot of resources available for people to learn how to grow up. You kind of have to go searching for it. For example, I decided a couple of years ago that it was worthwhile for its own sake to dress like an adult (getting married and actually having the money to buy real clothes was elemental to this point, as well). I "dress up" for work, parties, and events without anyone expecting me to, and you'll probably have a hard time seeing me in public without a collared shirt of some sort. Why? I am an adult, and my clothing both has an impact on me and on the people who come into contact with me. When I'm dressed like an adult, I behave like an adult, and people perceive me as an adult. Dressing like an adult doesn't make me an adult any more than sitting in a garage makes me a car, but these sorts of details are like individual puzzle pieces to a great collage.

What other things are helpful to the growing up process? Trying to spend more time in the company of people older than I am is probably a key part of it. Trying to learn how to have adult conversations is necessary. Reading literature and following current events are two other things that I'm trying to do. These things, I believe, help to reclaim a bit of the "secret society" of adulthood. I'm also conscious of how I spend my free time. While many in my generation are playing video games, I am learning things, working on my house, volunteering, and spending time socially. I'm ready to grow up and start to work on a new definition of what it means to be an adult in our new Western society!

Outsourcing Christian Responsibilities

2014-12-15T22:11:00.002-06:00

Blunt post coming...sometimes I feel like writing a quality piece, and sometimes I just feel like saying something. This is the latter.

Is it possible to outsource the responsibilities of a Christian? I'm not sure, but I think we Americans are sure trying. Let's see if I can situate the scene: we've got a culture that encourages taking the easiest route to things, a church culture that encourages a wide gulf between "professional" Christians and other Christians, and a church culture that rarely teaches the harder parts of discipleship, preferring to allow anyone in. Every once in a while you find exceptions (the Art of Manliness blog comes to mind for the first, Watermark Church comes to mind for the third where I understand they revoke your membership if you are not involved beyond Sunday morning). I think most people would agree with these three qualities of our society, so if we connect them, we get...outsourced responsibilities.

Okay this picture isn't really related, I just think
it's funny. And maybe hitting a bit too close to
home for "incarnational" types.

I believe that it is possible, today in our broader Christian church, to hire missionaries and pastors to do the jobs that the Bible calls all Christians to do. There are pastors out there making a full-time job out of being part of their neighborhood associations, school PTAs, volunteering to lead community activities, and write blogs. We call it "incarnational" ministry and extol the value of being part of the community and cultivating what is already there, which is excellent and beautiful. Except...this isn't a special calling for missionaries and pastors. These things are the general responsibilities of all Christians. This isn't a criticism of missionaries who are raising support and making a full-time job out of this. I hope that their extra free time enables them to take these activities to the next level and develop something strong and sustainable.

No, this is more an observation that we all need to be involved in our communities. We may not have all the free time to do ten fun things in our community every week, but we can all do one or two. Ten people involved in two things each every week is better than two people involved in ten each. If we cannot get involved, maybe we have gotten ourselves too busy for our own (and our community's) good. Since moving into a new neighborhood this fall I am trying to figure out a variety of ways to get involved and get to know people. I'm no expert but I know that this is a non-negotiable, and it's not part of my job...it's part of my responsibility as a Christian. Thank you to the pastors who are leading the way in this...now let's go find one and join them in what they're doing!

Where is All the Quality Journalism?

2014-10-20T17:13:00.000-05:00

What is the role of a journalist? It's a rapidly-changing world these days - every word is up for grabs for re-definition. Journalism is a blurry field right now. Just where are the distinctions between formal news, alternative news, and amateur blogs? People have long been upset that the formal news services are owned by big-business interests and tend to lean a bit partisan, but I think we have a bigger problem today. This blurring of the lines has led to a confused and misinformed population, which I think is a very dangerous thing.

I'll take two examples from current events. First, the big one everyone knows about - Ebola. This was a crisis in Africa, then we got a few cases here in the USA and media coverage exploded (this act in itself is a bit shameful, but that's another topic). Sadly, despite the very clear and repeated coverage from the formal news services that Ebola is NOT a very transmissible virus, and despite the fact that we've known about this virus for almost 40 years, alternative news sites and independent bloggers are continuing to spread confusion and panic. The sign that they're having an impact is that even pretty respectable people believe that the formal news services and the government are withholding key points of information to intentionally deceive us. This is so absurd it doesn't even warrant continuing.

The second case is a smaller one, and it concerns a recent news story that the mayor of nearby Houston was forcing a group of pastors to turn over their sermons for inspection. This was so rapidly pulled out of context that even my own church sowed some fear yesterday that we're nearing the point when the government will be snooping on what we say in church. The truth is so far from that - in fact the lawsuit began when Christians sued the government related to the government's claim that churches had misled citizens in signing petitions. The city has clearly stated that they never had any intention of scrutinizing the church's sermons, but merely wanted any information related to how they promoted the petitions.

Alternative news services are a dangerous curator of content in a social society, where people rapidly and easily share media among each other. Although it's often recognized that this rapid sharing also comes with a benefit - a very short memory - it's still dangerous to see journalism that is so sharply and intentionally one-sided spread so widely. It seems that the formal news media, who once upon a time attempted to be nonpartisan, have been forced to share the stage with overtly partisan services. And it's then further compounded by independent bloggers expressing their unfounded and uninformed opinions (the fact that this would include me is an irony not entirely lost on me). Sadly even the formal news services, bowing to this pressing competition, often prefer to exert a competitive advantage through rapid-fire soundbites and quick-response breaking news, which can reduce them to poorly-researched articles, mistakes arising from speculation, and more.

Where is all the quality journalism? Where are the writers who are producing long-form articles that attempt, in an unbiased way, to analyze issues and events and present a more thorough understanding of them? Why are we, as Western news consumers, so short on attention span that we can't process journalism like that? Back to my question - what is the role of a journalist? I believe that their role today is to strike a balance between presenting the breaking news and disseminating understanding to the population at large. They must be able to clarify things and communicate them concisely and accurately. Specialization will be needed so that journalists can actually understand the issues they are reporting on. The industry needs a new code of ethics. The citizens of a developed and educated nation deserve better.

People Weren't Meant to Live this Way

2014-05-18T18:25:00.003-05:00

I was especially inspired the other week by a phrase I heard on TV. To catch up, watch this video about a man's journey to find his mother. She was from the jungles of southern Venezuela before she married an American and moved to New Jersey. After some six years, on a visit back home, she decided she couldn't go back to the States. She said, "People weren't meant to live this way." (2:45 in the video) In particular, the isolation and unfriendliness of the people stuck out. Indeed, most of the people in the world today (and especially throughout history) live communally. We modernized Westerners are a bit unique in that we don't.

Take security, for example. In Dallas, if you want to secure your belongings, you lock them up and get an alarm system. Last summer living on the outskirts of a city in Peru, when some youth were harassing our compound, our security guard urged us not to be afraid, saying "I know their families." Or how about finances. For my family, if we want to ensure that we'll be financially taken care of later in life, we open IRAs and sock money away. In a community mindset, you raise your kids well and be a blessing to many people around you, and nobody will let you struggle. What about people around us? In my apartment complex, the number of patios with never-used furniture signals our desire for something we never make time for.

I'm interested in the community we might be missing. I don't think the issue is intellectual - we know we're missing it. Loneliness is rampant in the States. As I mentioned, we all have patio furniture. We do say hi to people when we walk the dog. We're frequently encouraged by videos that remind us to notice those around us. As of today, 38 million people have seen that video. But we won't change. Culture is accelerating around us, there's too much pushing us away from each other.

There's nothing wrong with any of these developments, most of them are beautiful and useful and meaningful. But they are rapidly sweeping away an entire way of life that even survived industrialization...but has succumbed to technologization. We won't return to an older way of life, and I'm not suggesting we try to. But somehow I long not to allow it to be forgotten. There's too many valuable artifacts from it.

Are there ways in which we've built our lives in ways that people just weren't meant to live? I think there may be. This post isn't going to change anybody's life. That's fine. Mine hasn't entirely been changed yet either. But I'm thinking about things, at least. Maybe that's all we need to do - just be conscious of what has gone before and what is happening now.

Paying attention is a good start. Reading books is another. Being willing to think about other perspectives, in a both/and mindset rather than an either/or, will get us a long ways. Simply interacting with people who live differently will transform us. I suspect that, although David Good's mother (in the CBS video) probably largely returned to her life at home, she was forever changed in some ways. And I guarantee that David is forever changed by experiencing her life.

Up, In, Out...and Around

2014-04-14T21:01:00.001-05:00

In Christian ministry, the triangle "lifeshape" made popular by 3dMovements, the group that came from a remarkable ministry in Sheffield, England, has become very well-known. They popularized the idea of boiling down the essentials of a Christian life to 3 directions - in, out, and up. Essential discipleship for a group, then, is to reach in (fellowship), out (mission), and up (worship). The same goes for an individual, which was perhaps first popularized by Henri Nouwen. His integrative spirituality led him to propose that spirituality is intertwined with psychology, ministry, and theology. Thus, for him the authentic Christian life was a series of three movements: from loneliness to solitude (in), from hostility to hospitality (out), and from illusion to prayer (up). These three directions of life are very useful for patterning life.

I'd like to propose an addition. Perhaps it's intuitively contained in the "out" portion of both ideas, but I think it warrants being identified as unique. I'd like to mention a third model here, one from Christian development circles. Bryant Myers described transformational ministry as one that restores fundamental broken relationships: those with ourselves, God, others, community (systems), and the environment. In the currently popular book When Helping Hurts, the Chalmers Center combines others and community to make a four-fold model of ministry. I'd like to do it differently: combine community and environment to make a pyramid, rather than a triangle:

The ministry model might call it participation. The Nouwen pattern might call it the integration of spirituality and vocation. He could have called it the movement from isolation to involvement. I call it the piece that reminds us of the connectedness of all things.

I strongly believe that we live in a connected world, and that thus our life isn't involved simply in movements up, in, and out, but also in the participation with what is around us. One of the most beautiful and most neglected pieces of Lutheran theology is Luther's concept of vocation. We have a job, we have a community, we have a government, an economy, an ecology, and countless other systems that we participate in daily. This "fourth" movement of the spiritual life leads us out into that world as disciples. Our participation in the world is part of our spirituality.

What happens in this movement to the "around"? We engage with the world and its systems. We contribute meaningfully and positively to our workplaces. We engage with our community on their terms, rather than simply on ours. We have some involvement in the political and economic issues that so powerfully affect us and others. We participate meaningfully with the environment as God's gift to us to be cultivated and nurtured. We even recognize broken and sinful systems, such as those of oppression, poverty, and suffering, so that we can be salt and light in the world.

So, as individuals and as faith communities we can see our discipleship as ministering to ourselves, others, the world, and God. Let's separate the "around" from the "out" to especially remind ourselves that our positive influence isn't just limited to the people around us, but to the systems as well. It bridges Luther's split of the "two kingdoms" of God and the world, bringing us out into both as citizens of both. It conveniently reminds us of the 4 points of the cross. It even brings us back to the people of God in exile, in Jeremiah 29:4-14, seeking the peace of the city, participating in the city, and living expectantly for His return.

What do you do with free time?

2014-03-12T11:56:00.000-05:00

It's no secret that for the past four or five years, I've almost completely eliminated free time from my lifestyle. Of course I was working full time, but in the past five years I've also done an 18-class masters degree, helped start and run Ndoto for a couple years, helped start nonprofits in Ethiopia and Peru, dated, gotten engaged, and married, started playing softball regularly, volunteered for 12 weeks in South America, and tried to maintain some sense of relationships, at least with family. Basically, "unscheduled" time has been something that happened only every few weeks. I have no regrets over how I've spent my time, but there is one unfortunate consequence.

I'm not really sure what to do with myself when I'm not "working."

I realize that there's something dangerously wrong with me when I decide to take an evening off from work and then can't think of anything to do other than slouch on our sofa in front of the TV. I suspect that, if calculated, I would be found to spend at least 75% of my waking hours in immediate contact with some sort of digital display, whether a computer, a TV, or my phone. Most of my relaxation time is dependent on digital screens too, including TV, movies, and games. How did I get so dependent on a technology that is so new, in historical terms? For all of human history, how did we survive without these digital devices?

It's tongue-in-cheek, of course, because humans seemed to get along just fine doing all sorts of things, like "going outside," as I think it's called. I hear that once upon a time, people actually sat together and didn't do much of anything, except perhaps talk. It's rumored that there was a time when families played games together (before the Wii). A few people had these things called hobbies. But for the most part, people lived dreadfully boring lives when there wasn't instant digital entertainment at their fingertips. Glad I live today.

This summer, I finish my grad school, and I have to say I have had a bit of fear regarding not having schoolwork to occupy large chunks of my evenings and weekends. What, oh what, will I do? I'd like to give my eyes a rest from digital screens for a while, so I'm starting some controls now to keep me from going down that road. I've already started trying to drastically limit my use of a phone prior to breakfast and after 10pm. It helps me get in bed faster and up sooner and probably helps my sleep quality. I'm also thinking of giving my brain a rest from all that thinking, and working with my hands a bit. Simple carpentry and gardening sound very pleasant to me. And, I think I'll work on rebuilding those relationships I've let slide in several years of constant working.

Of course, if/when we end up having kids, that'll all change, but maybe I'll just get them addicted to digital displays from a young age so I can continue with my gardening.

Where We Are Heading

2014-03-03T17:24:00.001-06:00

Over a few beers a couple weeks ago, some friends and I got to discussing the future of self-driving cars. It seems like we're headed that direction in a hurry, and I'm fascinated by the implications of that. Don't think it's happening? Look around you. For some time we've had cars that can parallel park for you. Now we have cars that can hit the brakes for you to avoid a collision. Driverless cars already exist, and several companies are predicting a mass-market version by the end of the decade. Perspectives differ on exactly how they will spread into the market, whether extremely slowly or rapidly, whether all-at-once or just by implementing certain features at a time, but I think we are undoubtedly heading that direction.

Why wouldn't we head that direction? We humans are overall terrible drivers. We make an enormous number of mistakes, whether it's because we are not paying attention or because of things we just can't know. In 2012, 34,080 people died in motor vehicle accidents, meaning you have about a 1 in 10,000 chance of dying in a given year on the roads. Those odds are far too high. How could those odds be decreased? By taking the human factor out. The government is already calling for car manufacturers to accelerate plans for cars to talk to each other. The next step will be for cars to drive themselves.

What happens when cars are capable of driving themselves? Well, lots of things, if you think about it! It totally changes the game. We need fewer police officers and traffic lights, which saves the government money (they can either cut taxes or spend it on something else more useful). We won't need to pay as much in car insurance (there will be fewer wrecks, and if there is one you're more likely to be owed money by the manufacturer of the car's computer than another driver). Most households will only need one car (you can just send it back to get another family member once you're at your destination). You could even monetize your car when you're not using it, through a smartphone network like Lyft. You can rest, work, or do anything else you'd like while commuting to work. We won't need such large roads, as cars will move more like a flock of birds and less in traffic jams. We may even need less parking spaces, if cars aren't staying where their owners are!

There are things to be considered in all of this. Cities are moving to be more pedestrian-friendly. How does this coexist with new developments in driverless cars? Cities also traditionally expect infrastructure investments to last at least thirty years, meaning that investments taking place right now will still be in place when we have self-driving cars. Thus, if city managers aren't taking the future into account, they are making mistakes as we speak. Or, are there more challenging ethical issues to be considered, based on the fact that computers will not be able to avoid all collisions? Additionally, how do we ensure the safety of a system that could be hacked, reprogrammed, or damaged?

I love thinking about the future, and I'm excited for what could come in the future - a safer, quicker way of moving about! I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject in the comments!

Why I Became A Hippie

2014-02-17T13:00:00.001-06:00

Over the past six months or so, I think I've become a hippie. A few intentional changes to my life, and a few more planned in the near future, might warrant a few derogatory terms or critical glances. After all, nobody really likes the tree-hugging organic urbanite except other tree-hugging organic urbanites, right? What's the deal with those hippies, anyways? I think a little explanation might be in order.

The story kind of begins last summer. My wife and I abandoned our desks for twelve weeks to volunteer with a mission organization down in South America. There were a variety of experiences in Bogota, Quito, the Amazon rainforest, and Lima, but most of our time was in the desert in north Peru. Sometimes I think that taking a step away allows you to see things with a different perspective and learn a lot. Then I read through Jen Hatmaker's book Seven. It's a printed blog of a rebellion against excess, or, dare I say it...a hippie journal. Then I enrolled in a new class at seminary reading the New Testament. Reading it again was eye-opening in a number of ways.

All those things combined changed my perspective on a lot of things. My first insight was that all of my life is interconnected spiritually. Of course I've long known that my Christian faith isn't confined to Sunday mornings and just before mealtimes. But I don't think I had ever thought about something as silly as recycling as part of my faith before. I hadn't thought about how my purchases might be part of my faith.

Another insight came from periodically touring the city garbage dump in Trujillo, Peru. Some friends had a ministry there, and we went a few times. People worked there, in the dump, sorting through the trash to look for things of value to sell. It was a pretty horrific scene - noxious fumes, smoke, smell, grime, animals...all you can imagine. Startling but Obvious Realization: Trash goes somewhere. Here in America we're great about pretending that trash bins are the final landing place for trash (they magically empty themselves too). It's utterly invisible to us, but that stuff does end up somewhere.

I also realized that nature is a great thing we've tended to forget about. There's a natural cycle to things, from soil to plant to plate, from season to season, so forth. The earth yields a great deal of bounty that we don't see because it's not as marketable. And I feel a bit more alive when I'm eating such natural and simple products. My whole body feels different when cleansed of processed foods and artificial things. Where we lived, most of our food was also almost entirely locally-created. It's nice to think that when you buy something, your money is actually continuing to cycle into the community you are living in.

My parents raised me to be reasonably conscious of energy usage and whatnot, but with my newfound connectedness to the earth, I feel more responsible for my little segment. Christian development literature speaks of breaking free from poverty in terms of four fundamental relationships: with God, yourself, others, and creation. Now I think I have an understanding of what it means to be reconciled to creation. Thus, the changes I've been making in my life that might be, I admit it, hippie-ish.

Consciousness of our garbage. I am now working hard to recycle everything I can. When we move into a house I will begin to compost. My goal is to reduce our waste disposal to less than the combined amount of composting and recycling. Shouldn't be too difficult. Along with this comes saving trimmings from veggies to make broth and tossing meat trimmings and bones into a pot for stock. Reducing waste comes in all form.
Better food choices. It's worth paying a bit more to get local and/or organic food. Our food prices are artificially low due to government subsidies, unhealthy shortcuts, and artificial ingredients. I don't mind paying the real price to support a small business or get products that don't make me wonder what I'm putting in my body. Part of this is knowing how an economy works, and being conscious of where my money is ending up, as far as I have control of it. This, to me, is really what stewardship is about.
Loving the earth. Our planet is beautiful, and full of bounty. It's a miracle, and it supplies our every need, even those we take for granted. We have got to appreciate it, admire it, and take care of it. I look forward to composting and gardening, just to be more connected to the earth. In our concrete jungles it's too easy to live separated from what gives us life.

Learning to Love the Church Again

2014-01-16T12:36:00.000-06:00

This post is going to be hard to write. It's hard because it's reasonably autobiographical. The thoughts, however, apply to many. The roots of church-dislike began outside the Christian world. Secular humanism as a worldview naturally mixed with Christianity to produce a sort of spirituality that commonly espoused, "I am spiritual but don't like organized religion." It's not a surprising philosophy, and many have commented that within it there may even be a kernel of something that could restore Christianity to the type of movement that Jesus founded. Unknowingly, however, as this became the dominant American philosophy on religion, syncretism (the mixing of religious beliefs) re-appeared to allow the idea to take a strong hold within our churches. This is where we find ourselves today with many church-hoppers and those, like me, who struggled within the churches we called home. Our fervor for God hasn't diminished, but we are disturbed and sometimes angered by our churches.

People have many reasons for disliking their own churches. My church mishandles money, they say. My pastor is dishonest. Our leaders care more about numbers than about people. The worship music is low-quality. I feel lost in the crowd. The church doesn't care about mission to the community or internationally. What makes this anger at our own churches so prevalent and challenging is that most of the assertions are probably pretty accurate. Our churches are, by and large, massively broken places where we mistake a family for an organization and go in a different direction than where the Holy Spirit is going. We don't get mission, and don't care for people as we ought to. All that is to say that when I speak of learning to love the church again, I don't mean learning to ignore its problems, or learning to realize that the church actually is on the right track. I mean learning to love it.

Perhaps the task I'm up against is really to talk about the word "love." It's probably being confused with "like." I make a point to tell my wife that I love her, but I also make a point of telling her that I like her, because they're different things. You can, and probably should, love things that you don't like. Not liking something is a feeling you have based on yourself - your own preferences or values. Love is entirely other-focused. Love doesn't change based on what the other person does.

That's what I mean when I talk about learning to love the church. When I left church-work to be a businessman at a ministry nonprofit, I actually left my church too. For about a year and a half I hopped among a variety of churches. I came back a few years ago because I felt God calling me to (it was part of the journey that inspires the title of this post). It's taken me a while, however, to feel like I could love the church. Still not sure I'm there, honestly. And it doesn't stop at my church. In my job we work with a number of broken churches, and I see some unfortunate situations. I can look at many of them and think, "That's not the church that Jesus founded, that isn't what He wanted it to look like." But I have to look at them and then think, "That's exactly the church that Jesus loves." After all, that's what Jesus said. He calls the Church as His bride, and there's going to be a wedding.

Some speakers have made much of the wedding traditions surrounding Jesus' culture when he called the Church His bride. The marriage is arranged, and the "betrothed" are for all intents and purposes now married. However, the groom leaves to go prepare a home, and the bride begins to prepare herself and the affairs of the wedding. After a time, the groom comes back to get her, there's a procession to the new home, and then there's a huge party. If we, therefore, are the bride of Christ, our role right now is to prepare ourselves. I'm concerned, however, that in our (read: my) efforts to criticize the church into being what we think it ought to be, we've missed Christ's own instructions of what we are to be.

A Bible concordance search of the term "one another" leads to a quick survey of what God says the church should be like. He doesn't, unfortunately, mention things in the way we wish ("Then Christ said, 'No church shall spend more than 50% of its annual budget on a new building.'"). He just doesn't. Instead, He says:

"Be at peace with one another." - Mark 9:50

"How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?" - John 5:44

"You ought to wash one another's feet." - John 13:14

"Love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another." - John 13:34

"Outdo one another in showing honor." - Romans 12:10

"Live in harmony with one another." - Romans 12:16

"Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you." - Romans 15:7

"To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?" - 1 Corinthians 6:7

"When they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding." - 2 Corinthians 10:12

"Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace." - 2 Corinthians 13:11

"Through love serve one another." - Galatians 5:13

"Bear one another's burdens." - Galatians 6:2

"Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." - Ephesians 4:32

"...bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other..." - Colossians 3:13

"Encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing." - 1 Thessalonians 5:11

"See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone." - 1 Thessalonians 5:15

"Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works." - Hebrews 10:24

"Do not speak evil against one another, brothers...Do not grumble against one another, brothers." - James 4:11 and 5:9

"Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another." - James 5:16

"Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another." - 1 Peter 4:9-10

"Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another." - 1 Peter 5:5

"Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." - 1 John 4:11

I give such a long list on purpose. If you just read a third of them and then skipped to this paragraph, go back and read them. I know that's what you did, because that's what I always do. In addition to being a great list of instructions - each one that could convict each of us at different moments - together as a whole they paint a great picture. Even with omitting the verses that repeat a call to love one another (there's a lot), we can still see a picture of great love. It's overwhelming love, in fact. Counter-cultural love. And it's the love that I'm not very good at, which is why I'm writing this post.

If we are thankful that God, through Christ, accepted us as we were - as messed up, broken people - then we ought to do the same for our brothers and sisters....and for our churches. If we accept Christ's forgiving love, but judge our churches for not measuring up, the Spirit is quenched within us. We are not allowing It to work, and we are being bullies. You can't be forgiven a great debt then turn around and demand payment from others. In the same way those of us who are married know that, when we were engaged to our spouses, we knew we were marrying very imperfect people. We loved them anyways. Christ is engaged to the Church, and He knows it's really messed up. If we seek to be more like Christ, we will seek to love the Church the way He does. He doesn't give up on the church and put His energy in parachurch ministries. It's through the Church that God reaches into the world, and I would even go so far as to de-capitalize that and say that it's through the local church that God reaches into the world. If we minister to people but never connect them to a church, we are not ministering fully to them.

Just to be clear for us ministry folks, I do not believe that we have to connect people to megachurches, or even mid-sized churches. I believe there is a lot of promise in home-based churches, just like they looked for much of the first century of the Church. But we must establish churches if we won't connect new disciples to existing ones. We cannot live and operate as Christians seeking to do ministry without engaging with the local church.

So, back to me. I frequently don't love the church. Disagreements over direction, actions, priorities, and more cause me to put up a wall, and sometimes when I show up on Sunday morning my heart is far from ready to worship God. This is my sin. My job on Sunday morning is to worship God. Anything I've let distract me from that has become, by definition, an idol. I need not gloss over challenges, but I must not become disgruntled, cynical, or divisive. None of this means that we can't disagree strongly with a brother or sister at a voter's meeting. It has to do with our attitudes, not our preferences. This is how I'm learning to love the church, despite the challenges.

What can we do?

We need to reconsider our mental states on Sunday morning as we drive to church. It's easy to focus on the things we don't like, or the people we don't like. As we drive to church, we need to redirect our thoughts to, "I look forward to being with God this morning, and I'm thankful for the unique opportunity that my church gives me for that." We can of course be with and worship God any time. The music, the sermon, the sacraments, and the community, however, are unique.
We need to accept one another in brotherly love. We don't have to agree or even entirely like each other. When I read the list of instructions above, however, I see a family. We love each other despite our disagreements and differences. Christ accepted the ugliness that I was and am, and I ought to similarly accept others. If I'm avoiding somebody on Sunday morning or harboring anger, the love of Christ is not in me. A disagreement I'm having with someone should not even begin to affect the warm handshake or hug with a smile that I offer them at church (what's the modern translation of a holy kiss, anyone?).
We need to spend real time together. If I'm really generous with my time and get to church 15 minutes before the service starts, and leave 10 minutes after it ends, that's only 25 minutes I've granted to the community, likely with at least a dozen people. How much relationship, or honesty, or love, have I shared in the 2 minutes I had with each person? Almost none. Unity, which Christ calls us to, requires honesty, and honesty is impossible with these sorts of shallow relationships.

Practical Advice for Managing your To-Do List

2014-01-08T11:44:00.001-06:00

I've been asked by some people for my system of organizing my tasks that I've developed. Over the past several years of working at LINC North Texas, my job description has continually had more and more things added to it. I work in a variety of different areas and tasks at once, constantly juggling projects as diverse as building maintenance to accounting reports, and from video production to researching in scholarly journals. I've had to constantly have an eye toward enhancing my capacity, continually monitoring and giving myself feedback to improve. I believe that anyone can grow their own ability to work efficiently and effectively.

One common criticism is that personality rules the day when it comes to effectiveness at work. This is undoubtedly true, and different types of responsibilities also require different ways of managing work. If your job is to develop relationships, the way you organize your work will look very different from someone whose job is to keep the wheels of a warehouse running. However, whether the task is a person or a form, it's still a task, and it still needs to be managed well. My own personality isn't nearly as high-organization as you'd think - my dominant characteristic is relational and I chafe in high-detail organization and management duties. Still, here's a few of the things I've learned, with my own systems included for example. Hopefully there are universal applications in some of these things, and some adaptation can work for a variety of different types of personalities and roles.

1. Environment matters.

The very definition of productivity.

Or is this your preferred work environment (Jack included)?

It's not surprising, but the environment you're in makes an enormous difference in how productive you are. I, as an extrovert and team-oriented person, shrivel into near-worthlessness if I'm stuck alone for 8 hours...unless I have a single, exciting, and results-bound project to work on. If I know I'm going to be alone in the office, I can't have 5 different minor tasks planned, or some really mundane data entry, or a long-range ongoing maintenance task that will never go away. It needs to have a definite finish point. I also know that my mindset will be affected by the clothes I wear. If I wear jeans and a polo, I have a very different mindset at my desk than in a dress shirt and slacks. It's just subconscious. Lighting matters, though in the office I'm in I am unable to make it what I want it to be. I could go on, but you get the point.

Organize your physical space as well. I have 4 different types of papers that I constantly deal in - bills, contributions, receipts, and HR papers. So I have 4 filing trays for them, plus a fifth for other stuff that I should probably hang on to for a while but don't want sitting out. There's always those papers you are currently involved in, so I have one stack for those. There's also always those papers you are working on, but you are waiting for something before they become relevant to you again. Those go in a different stack so they don't clutter my direct workspace. You can also think about what you're looking at. Your mindset at work will be different if you're looking at a computer, a bookcase, a picture of your spouse, or a window.

Make sure some things are not immediately convenient to you. Researchers have long known that sitting at a desk for long periods of time is not good for you in a variety of ways. Frequently getting up will help you physically and also mentally. For me, the copier and my files are in a different room. I also recently removed the trash can from my desk. I found that the majority of my stuff was recycling anyways, so now I have to get up every time I throw something away or recycle it. A final note - figure out whether music helps you, and if so, what kind. Music helps me a lot, but only if it's reasonably gentle and light on vocals.

2. Don't let things fall through the cracks.

One of the quickest ways to non-verbally inform a coworker that they are not important to you is to ignore them. Whether it's not replying to an e-mail, or forgetting things they've asked you to do, when we let things slip through the cracks we are not just decreasing our effectiveness, we are letting our teammates down. A little bit of systems thinking is necessary here. How does communication happen in your workplace? If e-mail is heavily used, you've got to become a master at managing your e-mail. Set up a system for yourself - an e-mail in the Inbox means one thing, an unread item means another, an archived item still another thing. Yes, you can mark items "unread"! My system is not to delete something out of my inbox until no more input is needed. Thus, my inbox constantly carries around a manageable list of items that will need followup at some point.

From time to time, audit yourself to see if things are falling through the cracks. Think through the system - how could something get lost? Patch any hole you think of with some kind of plan. The solutions will be as varied as the problem and as varied as your personality. Your workplace of course contributes to this. I have one coworker who builds armies of different-colored post-it notes around her on her desk. Everything is somewhere visible there. If the communication in your workplace is more verbal, have a designated "meeting" notebook where you take notes every time you sit down to talk with someone. Once you get back to your desk, incorporate the notes into some sort of a to-do list. Which brings me to:

3. Manage your action items in three ways.

There are three ways of seeing your to-do list. The first is as a broad overview of everything you are working on or need to work on. This can include some very long-range projects and things that are permanently on your desk. The second is as a "Steven Covey First Things First" way, where you identify and prioritize the things that need to get done. The third is as a simple to-do list of what you plan to get done in a set period of time. If you have a wide variety of responsibilities like me, employ all three methods for optimal effectiveness. For me, I have a piece of paper permanently on my desk where I have a list of projects organized by area of my job. Currently I have 4 large sections, 12 projects, and 21 action steps on it. I also have other areas of the page marked out as a shopping list (since I do purchasing for the team), as a "parking lot" (things I'd like to do someday, but not for a while), and for "open items" with my supervisor that we need to discuss at some point.

For the second way of seeing the list, I flip to the back side of that list of projects. I have five weeks at a time (that's how much fits on the page). For each working day over the five weeks, I decide on one "goal" for the day. One project that will be the majority of my focus for the day. I usually plan out the week on Monday, sometimes leaving the last day or two to plan once I get closer to be more flexible. I've learned which days I won't accomplish any big tasks on, and I've learned each week needs a "catch up" day for all the little things that didn't fit elsewhere.

For the third way of seeing it, I keep an online "to-do" list. It's a daily list. Each day before I go home I plan the next day's to-do list, based off my first two planning pages. If something didn't get done, I leave it on there for the next day. Over time you learn to realistically understand how much you can get done with the other demands that will appear unexpectedly.

These ways of seeing your tasks will vary widely based on your role and personality. I have known people who have a list on their to-do of people - anyone who comes to mind that they want to connect with for any reason. Your projects may take the form of questions or problems if your job requires more critical thinking. Perhaps an entire day is devoted, not to "Do all the expense reports," but to "How do I improve the teamwork within the accounting department?" An entire week may be dedicated to "What can we do to regain market share?"

In conclusion....

This is all about finding something that works for you. These general headings are universal - environment, plugging the holes, and managing tasks. The systems, however, will be widely varied. The one constant throughout, however, is awareness. You have to be aware of your own systems, however they've developed. Not having a plan is, in fact, a system in itself, though an inefficient one. Improving capacity and effectiveness in these ways will take some time and some creative thinking, and some time developing the systems. You may have to do some major cleanup of your e-mail box, or design a Word document you can use as a graphical illustration of projects. This kind of work, however, will always prove worthwhile. Covey calls it "sharpening the saw," as you are taking time away now to make your future work better and easier.

Re-Imagining

2013-12-31T10:01:00.000-06:00

It's fun sometimes to dream of different things. To get creative about different ways of imagining the world. In our natural minds, we can only imagine the world in the ways that it has been modeled for us. We feed off the examples in our past to determine how we look at the world. It's very difficult to step outside of them! You can see exactly where my spiritual life comes from by examining about a half dozen examples in my past. You can understand my professional life by the same process. The way I handle my money. The purchases I make. We, as social humans, get a lot of how we operate from seeing how others operate. If it works for them, it must work for me too. This is all well and good until one of two things happen: what if our examples aren't accurate, or what if all our examples agree?

Teresa of Avila

What if they aren't accurate? Examples of commonly-accepted though well-rebutted groupthink are too numerous to mention here. Recently I posted here about re-reading the Bible and suddenly having my eyes opened to different realities. For the past couple of months I've really been asking a lot of questions about my life, because in some ways I wonder if the examples that have been set for me of spiritual life are accurate. I see the same things examining the lives of remarkable spiritual leaders throughout history. Some people just seemed to see the world completely differently, and live their lives in a totally different way. What if I struggle to pray because I haven't seen an example of someone who gets it right, the way the Bible describes it? It's not just spiritual things - maybe I organize my time because my society has shown me that productivity is the key to value. What if that's just plain wrong - if my life would be more fulfilling and more significant to others if I sat at my desk less, neglected more "important" duties, and spent more time building community?

Pakistani Savings Group

Or what if all our examples agree with each other? Wouldn't that cause us to stagnate, to get stuck? Nearly every restaurant, when asked for vegetables, provides either a salad (of 1-2 types of greens) or a couple basic veggies in a bowl. They, and the canning industry, have led us to believe that God's good earth only has about a dozen types of vegetables. Or, if everybody I know says the way to be sustainable in retirement is to save 10% of your income every year in a well-diversified portfolio, wouldn't I assume that's the only way? What if there were another way, one based on a community of generosity where people and family members owe so many financial debts to each other that they stop keeping track of them and just take care of each other? In America, it's assumed that every adult needs their own car and if a place isn't on a road it's not accessible. Why? What if cities spent as much money on public transportation as they do on roads, and drastically decreased the number of highways? Why can't that be a possibility? I'm convinced that by expanding our horizons of examples and influences, we can unlock other potential scenarios. We could see through the fallacy that there is one clear path through life, and discover great things.

Just give me this sunset
and I'm at peace.

This past summer, Katie and I spent twelve weeks in South America. Sometimes I still struggle to know why exactly we did that, if I'm honest. It was valuable for a variety of reasons, to be sure. We felt God clearly leading us to do it, so we did. One of the benefits was that we were presented with different realities and imagined life in different ways. In one it was the rainforest, where muddy paths, daily rains, unreliable electricity, and no running water were the norm. In another it was the desert, where you did a lot of walking, riding buses, and drying clothes on the roof and where the food was amazingly simple yet satisfying. You avoided throwing anything in the trash because you had seen the city dump where it would end up. We struggled in South America, but I think that subconsciously once returning we realized that we had felt a surprising sense of living when we were there. The community was very refreshing. It was amazing how clean our bodies felt eating simple foods. Living with our few possessions was easy.

Sometimes culture tends to tell us a certain thing, and it's surprisingly hard to imagine things a different way. I'm convinced, however, that there are beautiful worlds out there waiting for us to discover them if we can just stop to re-imagine, from the ground up, a different way of approaching life. Don't just accept as true what people tell you, be grateful that it works for them and consider for yourself whether it's the only way.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2013-12-23T15:20:00.002-06:00

It's Christmastime again, and it's a magical season. The air is a bit brisker to welcome the lights that now adorn homes, trees, and businesses. It's as if just before the land sleeps under winter's cold spell, everything erupts in one last bright, merry celebration. No matter the frustrating things of the season and all the reasons that we have to be bitter. For a short time, no matter how much we try to be dour, Christmas trees with a thousand lights and memories draw us back to an easy chair in front of a fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate. We all know what a merry Christmas looks like, and none of us has completely buried it out of reach.

It's not the most joyous time of year for everyone. This is the time of year that those who lost family in the last twelve months grieve the most. Countless people will toil at work straight through the holiday, whether they work for a scrooge or provide an indispensable service to the world. Shopping will certainly frustrate us, and family just has that wonderful way of making the best of us into a grinch. But what's so magical about Christmas is that it's possible, even if for only a fleeting moment, to reach through the mess and discover that the world in fact has a bit of good in it, no matter how miserable it seems.

For this is the time of year that God saw the mess of His own creation and compassion finally moved Him to action. Unable to wait any longer, he sent His own Son as a little baby into that world. If the world hadn't a speck of good in it, He would be that good. And just as a fearful child enters a dark room knowing what dangers could lurk behind every shadowy obstacle, Jesus knew that all the world was only waiting to be lit could he just make it to the other side to tear open the curtains and let the light pour in. For God knew that the good had not been entirely driven out of His creation, and that no man was beyond hope. At Christmastime, we remember that we are not without hope, and that even the darkest hour comes only right before dawn.

At Christmas, I'm convinced that if there is anything bad in this world, it is because those most able to make it good have withheld themselves from fixing it. If there is meanness, it is because we have lost the spirit of Christmas. If there is sadness, it is because we have forgotten the gift of this season. At Christmas, it's just a bit easier to believe - to believe in good. If this time of year we are kinder and merrier than any other, we can make this magical season last beyond the New Year. In the next year we can show kindness and compassion, we can choose to believe in the good, and we can choose to dive into the dirt and mud with both feet and cultivate it.

Adeste fidelis, and a very merry Christmas to you.

Phrases We Should Stop Using, Pt. VII: Good and Great?

2013-12-17T12:32:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since I've added to my series on "Phrases We Should Stop Using." Check out the previous posts below. This time, I'm thinking about how we sometimes say that "Good is the enemy of great." Like many of the posts in this series, the phrase definitely has some truth to it. There's no doubt that settling for something good can rob you of the opportunity to enjoy something great. However, I'm wondering today first whether it's worth it, and second whether it's a bad thing.

Saying "Good is the enemy of great" is usually an encouragement to leaders struggling in decision making. The recipient of the advice may be facing a few "good" options and wondering whether there's an even better one out there. Is it worth it, however, to delay until a best option is found? Maybe something better is out there, but what if the situation is one in which doing nothing at all is the worst option? In that case, by waiting on good options until the best is found, the advice-giver is actually encouraging the person to de facto take the worst option. I'm concerned that, in many situations, the delay in decision-making may not be worth the potential upside from an improved slate of options. Thus, before we take this advice, a wise leader will realize the full array of pros and cons facing him or her, weighing the degree to which the unknown "best" option could be better versus the pain from avoiding a decision. The leader will decide how long they are willing to wait before the pain outweighs the gain.

Another angle I'm wondering about is whether or not it's even a good thing to avoid "good" options in search of a "great" option. Is there always a great option even out there? Are we proven fools if we avoid a "good" option, only to eventually have to come back to it after spending a great deal of time looking for a better plan? The wise leader needs to also weigh the probability that there even is a "best" option out there before taking this advice. Leaders must be highly comfortable with making decisions without all the available facts if they want to remain nimble and quickly effective. Otherwise they will move slowly and miss many opportunities. I'm further convinced that it's a testament to wisdom when someone makes a decision without looking back and frequently questioning themselves. The outcome will generally be best by applying fully to one option, rather than continuing to waffle after stepping out.

Isn't life filled with opportunities to make the best out of the options we have? Isn't character developed by committing to one thing and sticking with it? If we aren't careful with the advice of "good is the enemy of great," we'll apply it to the wrong situations. Marriage isn't about finding the perfect option, it's about choosing to love an imperfect person just like yourself and turning a blind eye to other potential "options" once you've made the choice. Looking for the perfect job either leaves you with an empty resume or one where you've clearly hopped from job to job on a whim. We need to be more comfortable with recognizing, "You know, all these options are good ones and I am capable of realizing good things in any of them." Instead of a perfectionist preoccupation with the perfect, wisdom is the ability to make the best out of what we have, flexibly and quickly making decisions and moving forward.

Previous posts in the series:

Reading the Bible Again

2013-12-04T11:15:00.001-06:00

I've read the whole Bible twice before, and I've studied various parts of it to varying degrees of depth. I've heard countless sermons and read a hundred Christian books. There's nothing, however, quite like returning to the Word and reading it again for the big picture. There's a lot of truth to the idea that you can never see both the forest and the trees. As I write this I'm wrapping up an intro New Testament course where, in 3 months, we took an overview of Romans through Revelation. We've read the whole thing, along with a basic intro supplement, a book on Paul's theology, and a book on interpreting Revelation. It's been awesome to see the forest in a short period of time, and three big ideas have jumped out at me more strongly than I'd ever seen before.

The teachings of Jesus and the apostles were amazingly counter-cultural.

We know this, instinctively, but the degree to which it's true amazes me. When the apostles realized the extent of the "mystery" of the faith that God has welcomed the Gentiles into his covenant, their teaching went against a couple thousand years of understanding by the Jews. The degree of controversy might be on the same level as if we suddenly realized the sun wasn't actually the center of our galaxy. When Jesus and the apostles redefined the family roles for Christians and flattened the social order, they were going against the entire cultural arrangement of the Roman empire. Today's equivalent would be if some group started arguing that capitalism wasn't the ideal economic system. That Christianity was multicultural was about as confusing to Romans as could be. The teaching of Christianity was turning the entire known world upside down because it was so counter to what culture taught.

The Bible is far more focused on good works than we often speak of.

Martin Luther endowed us Protestants with a strong conviction of "sola fide," or faith alone. Indeed, the Bible teaches clearly that we are saved by faith alone. However, this was never to the downplaying of good works - usually talking about the marginalized. Paul, who said in Ephesians 2 that we are saved by grace through faith, not by works, immediately in the very next sentence says that we are created by God to do good works. All of the New Testament agrees: faith that doesn't produce good works is not saving faith. Jesus and Paul, not just James, taught the importance of good works. We don't emphasize this nearly enough. We talk a lot about having a relationship with God, and His forgiveness, but we don't talk much about what kind of life we need to live if we are to claim to follow Him.

Christianity in the New Testament was uncompromising and radical.

While Paul famously talked about being all things to all people, and Jesus' prayer in the Garden is the basis for people saying "in the world but not of it," the wholesale message of the New Testament is one of extreme refusal to compromise with the world. The New Testament authors envisage or assume Christians who look radically different than the world. I'm not sure what they would make of Christians who look just like atheists and agnostics all week long. As I study Revelation, in fact, I'm coming to realize how radical it is - John only allows for two options - either you are one who "overcomes" (really his language is that of sacrificial death - martyrdom) or you are cast out. Jesus does the same type of separation. This book that we follow and believe is unbelievably radical in its propositions, and we soften their blows at our own peril.

Our Reputations

2013-11-25T15:38:00.001-06:00

It's depressing to me when I think of the way that some groups, who include me, have lost their good reputations. One of the most apparent to me is the way that Texans are viewed. It seems that it wasn't even that long ago that Texas was "Everything's bigger in Texas" and "Don't mess with Texas." It was the independent, fun-loving, extra-friendly capital of country music, good manners, and great food. Now it seems like Texas' independence given way to rebelliousness, fun-loving has given way to a sense of being better than everyone else, and whatever happened to extra-friendly? Texas is no longer highly respected, it's derided and made fun of.

It's happened to other groups that represent me too. America was once highly respected in the world and considered a model for good governance and economic strength. The reasons for why America is now intensely disliked and even ignored as a sideshow are well-known and too many to try to get into. It's happened to my University of Texas, where an article I was reading the other day talked about their fickle sports fans who show up late and leave early because of the sorry state of their athletics programs. The university's leadership and donor base is fractured by infighting and the school is suffering as a result. It's happened to Lutherans too - we trace our roots back to the father of the Reformation and have a great history of good doctrines and standing up for the truth. Today, however, I'm generally ashamed to call myself a Lutheran among other Christians.

Perhaps no loss of reputation hurts as badly as the damage that has been done to the reputation of Christians, however. It was reported in the early days of the new faith that Christians were turning the world upside down with their compassion, mercy, and love. They of course had their unjust charges leveled against them, but Jesus was pleased to say that the world would know we are his disciples by our love for one another. Today, however, Christians have been pushed to the margins as mean-spirited, divisive, argumentative or, at best, irrelevant. Christians are not known for their acts of charity, but for a thousand years of fighting Muslims, for being anti-everything, for their money scandals, and for being self-absorbed. I'm thankful for cultural artifacts like Duck Dynasty that do seem to help bring up the reputation of Christians, but they are few and far between.

Christ calls us His ambassadors. We quite literally carry His name in ours. The Bible is full of statements where God is acting for the sake of His name, but we're not doing a very good job of serving His reputation through our own. Life is not all about paying attention to what others think of you. But sometimes we would be wise to watch what we do to our own reputations.

Supervisor Conflict

2013-11-20T10:31:00.000-06:00

I've noticed something lately in my interactions with friends. I've noticed that I have very few friends my age who have a good relationship with their supervisors at work. Most are unhappy with their jobs, their hours, their responsibilities, their boss' character, the organizational system, and so forth. Even my ministry friends live this, both in churches and in nonprofits. It's like there's a general culture of discontent and conflict at work among my generation. Why is this? I'd like to hear your comments, but I have a few ideas to start the conversation.

I have sometimes noticed a failure of both supervisors and the supervised to recognize their own limitations. Perhaps both think they know better, or perhaps one holds age and experience over the other. Without each person recognizing how they are contributing to the problem, and recognizing that the other person may have some valid reasons for their behavior, conflicts will never be solved.

Other times I've seen unhealthy expectations of perfection. Millennials, in valuing authenticity and transparency, can often make the quick jump to hyper-critical when they sense that transparency is lacking. In this type of attitude, every mistake is a deal-breaker and once we judge somebody or lose respect for them, it's very hard to regain it. I'd ask, however, why we have to expect such things out of our bosses. Why is that necessary for us to do our jobs, and to do them well?

Further, people may expect their own jobs to be perfect. Nobody loves 100% of what they do. Every job has sizable elements of things that we put up with doing as well as things that we downright dislike. If we sense ourselves being asked to do things we don't want to do, we need to avoid the impulse to get angry or rebellious. By persevering and putting our noses to the grindstone even when we don't love what we do, we develop character, integrity, and we may just learn something in the process.

Are you unhappy at work? Why do you think it is, and what do you think is the way out? Or, are you a boss who knows the young people who report to you are unhappy? What do you think is the solution to the conflict?