Everything and Nothing all at once

We are surrounded by important things. They all need us. They all call out to us, saying, "Pay attention to me, meet my need." And, if we are not careful we will actually try to answer them all. When everything is important, nothing truly is. We can easily find ourselves chasing everything and actually accomplishing nothing, all at the same time.

There is a good leadership principle that says, only one person should answer to "They". In our church this means that there is one leader who answers to They (a board of elders in our case). Every other person in the organization has a single direct report. We do this because we have seen how difficult it is for one person to simultaneously please multiple bosses.

God has the same organizational structure for our lives. Certainly there are many things demanding our attention... things like food to eat, clothes to wear, dreams to accomplish, fears to be avoided, emotional and relational needs to be met. All of these things can become tyrants in our life, demanding we work more hours to make more money, build a bigger network, get more awards, etc.

The problem is that none of us can answer to all of these demands. Inevitably one will get dropped, a few will be disappointed.

God's solution... Only one person should answer to the many. In Matthew 6 he tells us that He is that person for us. He offers to answer to the many on our behalf; to deal with the many bosses who seek to drive our life. He offers us a choice to simply seek Him, and His right way of living and thinking... and then He will take responsibility for all of our physical, financial, emotional, relational, and spiritual needs.

It is an amazing deal really, and at the same time it is one that I rarely take Him up on.

How about you, do you ever struggle trying to please multiple people/things at once? In what ways have you learned to "seek first" God and His righteousness?

Freedom and Responsibility

I recently did a quick read-through of the "Barefoot Church Primer". Granted the book is not meant to be consumed in this way, and yet it is still having a marked impact on my mind, on the way to impacting my heart.

I appreciate the rhythm of the book, allowing a time of rest each week, to remember what it is that drives us to seek mercy and justice (restoration) in this world. It reminds me of the internal tension I often deal with between freedom and responsibility.

These two realities exist in my life. I am free and belong to no man (power, influence, expectation). I am a slave to everyone, living not for my own needs, but for the needs of others.

The interesting thing is that if I fully embrace my freedom (where it comes from, what it truly means for me), then I gladly walk into my responsibility to serve the world.

If, however I begin with my responsibility, attempting to see and meet all of the needs around me; I do not always end up experiencing freedom. Instead I find myself in a place full of guilt, apathy, bitterness, or cynicism.

In John 13 we read these words about Christ, "Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up..." and served, and died. See the progression. It begins in freedom; in resting in the truth of who he was, who it was that held him, and where he truly belonged... in that place he then got up and served those closest to him and then died for us all.

Paul echos this thought in 1 Corinthians 9 when he tells that community of believers that the freedom he finds in Christ creates in him a desire to follow the example of Christ, and serve all men.

What do you think it would do for your heart towards others if you truly understood just how free you are?

Free from worry over how others receive you.

Free from expectation over how effective and efficient your acts of service are.

Free from responsibility to figure out the how, either in the short term or the long term.

Free from the financial burden of meeting physical needs.

Free from the need to be perfect in discerning emotional needs.

What if you serve a God who is truly able to meet all of those needs and the thousands that you cannot even imagine today? What if, because you belong to Him, He is longing to actively work in and through you to meet physical, emotional, and spiritual needs in your community?

What about you... do you want to join Him? As you rest in the grace He has lavished upon you, is there a stirring in your heart to join Him in that work for others?

The important distinction between Who and How

When dealing with God I often find myself consumed with the How. How is He going to provide? How will he come through? How will He change that heart, open that door, or reveal those resources?

There have been times that God has walked me through the How of His work. Though I enjoy that journey, I also see a danger in it. I can easily become confident in the How, and forget about the Who. Even though I know that people change, I often expect God to respond exactly the same way in every situation. Then, once I have figured out "how He works", I can use Him much like any other machine and plug Him in at the right time, in the right way, to get the expected result. And, if that result does not happen... I have someone else to blame, because I did it "right".

The danger in the How is that it quickly moves me from a dependence upon God to a dependence upon my own understanding. This goes directly against His words in Proverbs 3, where He tells me not to lean on my own understanding, but upon Him instead.

I am much better off spending my time trying to better understand the Who, the source of all things, rather than the How. For, in my darkest hours it is the How that deserts me. No matter how hard I look or pray, I never see any way out. My mind is at a loss to even conceive a solution.

In those hours I am left with the Who. The person of God and what I know of His character is all that remains. And so, I still enjoy the occasional pursuit of the How (let's face it, God does things in some extremely creative and interesting ways). But, even more then the How, I dedicate myself to a pursuit of Who. If I only have a certain amount of time and energy, I will give the lion's share to better understanding God's character.

How about you... do you find yourself more concerned with the How of God's work, or the God Who works on your behalf?

[To the grammar-lovers a different question... should I have used Whom instead of Who?]

Take a Step

There are many facets of designing a life in which your dreams come true. When I talk to people I ask them to Look, Learn, and Act. We must be able to see our current reality and understand what it means in light of our destination. But, at the end of the day nothing moves forward without action.

As you look at 2012 what is it you want to write? say? acquire? give away? bake? sell? create? experience?

Ask yourself this question: What is one thing I can do today to take a step in that direction? Perhaps it is as simple as getting the title to your report or speech written. It may be simply spending some time on Google finding places to experience your dream, or finding a recipe to that dish you have been waiting to create. Don't judge the "size" of the step so long as there is a step.

Your next question should be: What should I do right now? If you can accomplish your step in the next 3 minutes, then Do. It. Now. If not, then take the next 3 minutes to schedule your step on your calendar. Give it a time slot. Mark it "urgent". Set an email reminder. Don't let anything sway you from taking your step at the scheduled time.

The step is your goal. It is the path to your dream.

What step can you take or schedule today?

Exponential Day 2 - Learning to Listen to your community

I grew up learning about acts of service as a way to show God's love. These were good things, rarely received poorly by the people served. And yet, they also rarely led to any lasting change either in a community or even in my church's relationship with the community.

A breakthrough occurred when I learned a seemingly simple truth: Service is most effective when it meets a felt need. Felt needs are discovered through listening and within a relationship.

The first step to listening to ones community is to form relationships with people in the community. That is often done by volunteering. Schools, non-profits, chamber of commerce, and other civic organizations are a great place to start.

Go. Volunteer. Look. Listen. What needs do you see repeated from person to person or place to place? What needs to you hear expressed in the conversations that happen around you? What assets (strengths) exist in the community that might be unknown or underutilized?

PS - This thought has been repeated time and again in many different sessions and will shape much of what "Community Impact" looks like. The basic, simple truth is that the community knows what it needs, and if I will do the work of listening... I can actually design projects that meet those needs, rather than merely bringing my "good" ideas to the table.

Other ideas from today that will become later posts:

1. Vision requires clarity and consistency. Someone must create it and measures for it.
2. Another value that we often state and rarely measure... healthy leaders.
3. Missional Problem (yea it was very cool having Alan Hirsch come and ask if the seat next to me was empty... um, Yes, yes it is!) - "How do we communicate the good news to people who have heard our message and rejected it?"
4. Everyone needs an apprentice. This is something you will get sick of hearing, and I will rejoice on that day because hopefully you will then be close to understanding and believing it.
5. Church leader in India on "casual" Christ followers - "Why would you lose everything for something that you only casually believe?" Quick answer? We don't really lose all that much for our beliefs in America.

Exponential Day 1 - Core Values vs Core Practices

I have noticed an alarming trend among leadership teams in recent years. There is an increase in conversation about core values, but the conversation stops before discussing core practices. They behave as if values have benefit without action. However, principles are not helpful until they are practiced. Using the example of honoring volunteers I will walk through three key elements of core practices. Core practices are:

1) Clearly defined. If my core value is to honor my volunteers, what does that mean exactly? What does an honored volunteer look like? How do they feel about the job they do? How do they describe it to others? How do they participate in our training and recruitment?

2) Systematic. When are we going to evaluate how well we honor our volunteers? (at our weekly staff meeting?) How will we measure it? How often should we ask these questions? (every week? month?) What happens if we fall short of our expectations (we discover a large number of our volunteers do not feel honored)?

3) Relentless. People will ask, "How long to we need to maintain this focus?" However long you want to maintain your core values. You must relentlessly pursue clarity and consistency, repeating your evaluation system over and over again. The reality is that you will never stop doing this, it will only feel like you have. At some point what once seemed extremely aggressive will be normal, and what may seem over-the-top to outsiders will be status quo for your organization.

What core values have yet to become core practices in your organization? What stage in the process do you need to address? (clearly defined, systematic, relentless)

Create Conflict in your Calendar

Conflict is a fact of life. Recently I have had several conversations with leaders who are dealing with conflict due to a "lack of time" to get everything done or touch all of the people who need to be touched. In other words they are experiencing conflict that is coming from their calendar.

I encourage them to create conflict within their calendar and avoid conflict with other people or projects. The conflict cannot be avoided, but it can be moved.

Many people live their lives as virtual slaves to their calendar; and that calendar is largely set by outside forces. Someone calls and wants to schedule an appointment, a project deadline is approaching, a new initiative is beginning and needs time for meetings. All of these things may be good, but what if they begin asking for the same block of time? And, what about family time and personal health?

What do you do when your calendar is filled with important things and you have more things to do than time to do it?

You create conflict in your calendar.

I have had the following coaching conversation several times in the last few weeks with several different clients (players). It goes something like this:

Coach: We have been talking about your goals, values, and high priorities; how did you address them this last week?

Player: I did not get a chance to focus on them this last week, it was slammed!

Coach: It seems that over the last several weeks you have had difficulty finding time to work toward your goals. Would you like to change your goals perhaps? Do you still think these measures are the most important things for you to accomplish?

Player: No, I don't want to change them, I know that I need to be doing these things, I just have so much going on. I will try better next week!

What do you do when you know what is most important and yet you still find yourself doing other things?

You create conflict in your calendar.

Set aside an hour (or a day if you need to) and get out a blank calendar. I find that a week-long calendar works best. Our goal is to create a "perfect week". The perfect week is one in which you get to spend your time exactly how you would like to. Everything from personal time to family time to business and church gets done exactly how you want it. Begin by making a list of all of these things and how much time you think they would take. Be sure to include travel time for things that require it (so an hour at the gym that is 30 minutes away would actually be a 2 hour time block).

Once your list is complete start filling in blocks on your calendar. It will not take you very long to find that some items on your list begin to compete for the same time block. Great! You are well on your way to allowing conflict to happen in your calendar. Now the real work begins; you get to decide which of these very important things is more important. You will be amazed at the clarity and creativity that arises as you wrestle with your calendar, attempting to create your perfect week.

If you complete this process and actually implement it you will also be amazed at the amount of conflict you remove from your work and personal relationships. Your perfect week calendar will begin to be a filter that all new projects and meetings must work through. No longer will external forces drive your time; instead they will fit into pre-determined slots. Sound crazy? It really isn't. Notice the simple difference in these two conversations:

Conversation One:

Other person: Hey Jeff, I really need to meet with you this week, can you do Wednesday at 9; this is really urgent!

Me: (I have a regularly scheduled meeting I have deemed "important" at 9, but he just said it was urgent, I suppose I will need to adjust my calendar!) Um, sure I think I can do that, just let me rearrange a few things.

I just set myself up for conflict in at least one relationship as I will now have to go to a regularly scheduled meeting and attempt to change it to fit this new meeting (one that I don't have a timeline on).

Conversation Two:

Other person: Hey Jeff, I really need to meet with you this week, can you do Wednesday at 9; this is really urgent!

Me: Wednesday at 9 is booked for me, but I can do 10:30 or 1:00. About how long do you think this meeting will take?

Other person: It should be about an hour... and 1:00 should work, see you then!

This may seem like an over-simplified example, but I have seen it work hundreds of times. I have found that many people never even offer alternative times when people or projects ask them to compromise a pre-scheduled activity. Often that is because they don't know when they have an open time slot.

[A side note for those of you who are tempted to say, "I don't have an hour, much less a day, to do this!" If your child was rushed to the hospital could you find time to go see him? What if you had a heart attack, would you be able to take a few hours off? Time is a measure of priority, and if gaining control of your time is a priority you will make time for it.]

When you take time to bring structure and order to your calendar based on your priorities, values, and goals you will actually increase your ability to be flexible and adapt to new time demands.