Leslie and I recently announced to our church body that God is calling us to a new work. It is a big announcement that will likely be moving us to a new state and will definitely be changing the way we do ministry. The shortest description is "Church Consulting". My desire is to help churches find and fulfill the purpose that God has planned for them within their community. I believe every church was designed to answer a specific question within their community, and in doing so we become relevant. Everyone wants to be relevant these days, and it is really not that hard, you just have to answer a question that people are asking.
I have seen that come to pass here at North Point these last 12 months, and now I believe God wants to use me to help other churches experience the same thing. If you would like to hear more about this, I am sure I will be blogging on it over the next few months. We will still be at NP until May 31, 2009. After that the location is still in God's hands, so please be praying for us.
If you would like to listen to the first part of the message series I preached on this, check it out at www.northpointonline.org.
PS - Please also pray as we put our house on the market that everything connected to that will go well. And, we are also trying to find a home for our incredibly cute dog!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
What bothers me
Looking at my blog and seeing that it has been over a week since I had anything to say... and not feeling like I have anything worthwhile to say again, that bothers me :). To be honest it is more that I have so many things going through my head and none of them are really coalesced yet to the point where I feel like I can express them in a way that will be helpful. A few people have had the chance to listen to my brain-talk, you know the way that you talk to yourself before you actually make sense to other people. If you understood that last sentence then perhaps you can understand some of my brain-talk.
Right now my brain is talking about future, vision, risk, obedience, and a number of other cool topics, so many that some evenings I find it hard to rest.
I recently had the opportunity to go through a "coaching session". This is a rather new concept to me, as coaching is not about giving people answers so much as helping them discover answers on their own. So, this person just kept asking me questions and waiting for me to answer them. I have to say that even in the 10-minute sample session that I had it was incredibly helpful. It was so helpful, in fact, that I am going to do it again on a regular basis. I would recommend it for all of the others out there who have a lot of ideas bouncing around in your brain that need a little nudge to coalesce and come out as plans and projects.
Right now my brain is talking about future, vision, risk, obedience, and a number of other cool topics, so many that some evenings I find it hard to rest.
I recently had the opportunity to go through a "coaching session". This is a rather new concept to me, as coaching is not about giving people answers so much as helping them discover answers on their own. So, this person just kept asking me questions and waiting for me to answer them. I have to say that even in the 10-minute sample session that I had it was incredibly helpful. It was so helpful, in fact, that I am going to do it again on a regular basis. I would recommend it for all of the others out there who have a lot of ideas bouncing around in your brain that need a little nudge to coalesce and come out as plans and projects.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The 5 Part Principle
I am a Big Picture guy who is scared of Big Pictures. If you are like me then you will understand, if you are not then let me explain. I love to dream about the future and the things that could and should be. I have a rather large view of God and what kinds of things fall in the realm of "possible" with Him. So, it is not unusual for me to have dreams that cover things like "What it would take to end world hunger" or "What it would look like to completely restructure the American church." These are what I call "Big Pictures".
The thing is, it is not uncommon for me to spend time thinking about these things and then start getting scared, anxious, and overwhelmed. It is as if I am a painter who gets scared looking at his own paintings. That is a good thing, because it helps me to rely upon God. It is also a bad thing because when I freeze when I allow fear into my life. You have all heard the line that, "A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step." That sounds nice, and helps little. A more meaningful phrase would be, "This 1,000 mile journey begins with that particular step." It is not the last 999 miles that stop most people; it is the first step. They see the goal and have no idea where to get started, how to get started, or who to talk to about getting started.
That is where the 5 Part Principle comes from in my life. It helps me take a Big Picture and break it down, like a Mosaic if you will. It is a simple process that you can do for almost anything in life; so simple that to many of you it will likely seem common sense.
You start by identifying with as much clarity as you can your Big Picture. Let us set an example of "I want to graduate from the University of Texas business school with honors." That gives me a good sense of what, where, and how. My first step is to break that down into 5 parts. These parts don't have to be equal in size or scope, it just has to be FIVE parts. So, for our example it might be:
1. Apply to UT
2. Get accepted
3. Get into the business program
4. Make good grades
5. Graduate
Four out of my 5 parts will happen in about 3 months total time. The other part (make good grades) will actually take 4 years. That is OK, the point is to start breaking the Big Picture up and giving us some practical steps to look at. After your initial 5 is done you start taking each step and breaking it into five. For example, taking "Apply to UT":
1. Research application deadlines and requirements.
2. Get an application.
3. Fill it out (remember the fee!)
4. Write the essay.
5. Mail or deliver it to the school.
You can keep doing this process of breaking a Step into 5 parts as many times as you want. My rule of thumb is; if it takes you longer to break down the step than it would take you to DO the step... you should stop breaking down steps.
At some point you will find that a Step can only be broken down 2 or 3 times; that is OK. When you get to the end of the process you will have anywhere from 5 to 50 to 500 steps. And, all of a sudden your Big Picture is not so big. And, if you make your steps chronological (I started with apply, ended with graduate), then you have actually created for yourself a nice little map.
I find that dreams and visions are not so scary once I put them on paper. And, when I take a little time to define what the "first step" actually looks like I am much more likely to actually do it.
So, what is your Big Picture dream? Has God laid something on your heart for your life, your family, or His Kingdom? Why not take some time this week to start your own 5 Part Principle and see where it leads?
The thing is, it is not uncommon for me to spend time thinking about these things and then start getting scared, anxious, and overwhelmed. It is as if I am a painter who gets scared looking at his own paintings. That is a good thing, because it helps me to rely upon God. It is also a bad thing because when I freeze when I allow fear into my life. You have all heard the line that, "A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step." That sounds nice, and helps little. A more meaningful phrase would be, "This 1,000 mile journey begins with that particular step." It is not the last 999 miles that stop most people; it is the first step. They see the goal and have no idea where to get started, how to get started, or who to talk to about getting started.
That is where the 5 Part Principle comes from in my life. It helps me take a Big Picture and break it down, like a Mosaic if you will. It is a simple process that you can do for almost anything in life; so simple that to many of you it will likely seem common sense.
You start by identifying with as much clarity as you can your Big Picture. Let us set an example of "I want to graduate from the University of Texas business school with honors." That gives me a good sense of what, where, and how. My first step is to break that down into 5 parts. These parts don't have to be equal in size or scope, it just has to be FIVE parts. So, for our example it might be:
1. Apply to UT
2. Get accepted
3. Get into the business program
4. Make good grades
5. Graduate
Four out of my 5 parts will happen in about 3 months total time. The other part (make good grades) will actually take 4 years. That is OK, the point is to start breaking the Big Picture up and giving us some practical steps to look at. After your initial 5 is done you start taking each step and breaking it into five. For example, taking "Apply to UT":
1. Research application deadlines and requirements.
2. Get an application.
3. Fill it out (remember the fee!)
4. Write the essay.
5. Mail or deliver it to the school.
You can keep doing this process of breaking a Step into 5 parts as many times as you want. My rule of thumb is; if it takes you longer to break down the step than it would take you to DO the step... you should stop breaking down steps.
At some point you will find that a Step can only be broken down 2 or 3 times; that is OK. When you get to the end of the process you will have anywhere from 5 to 50 to 500 steps. And, all of a sudden your Big Picture is not so big. And, if you make your steps chronological (I started with apply, ended with graduate), then you have actually created for yourself a nice little map.
I find that dreams and visions are not so scary once I put them on paper. And, when I take a little time to define what the "first step" actually looks like I am much more likely to actually do it.
So, what is your Big Picture dream? Has God laid something on your heart for your life, your family, or His Kingdom? Why not take some time this week to start your own 5 Part Principle and see where it leads?
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Flashy People Don't Connect
This post was inspired by a recent MasterCard commercial in which Peyton Manning only hears the best even as people are trying to say hurtful things. For example, when a room service man tells him, "Don't choke on that" he responds, "Thanks, I think I will just cut it up, maybe make a fruit salad!" Or the woman who tells him, "Hey Manning, take a hike!" to which he responds, "You know, that's a good idea, I think I will go for a hike today... this weather is great!" It was classic Manning; self-deprecating and humorous.
As I sat there I realized that he probably got paid many, many dollars to make those commercials. MasterCard had many, many choices of celebrities they could have chosen, and they chose Peyton Manning. They did not choose him because he is flashy, because flashy people don't connect. Flashy people may catch your eye, they may even help you move some product, but if your goal is to connect on a personal level with people... flashy people just don't do that very well. We may love to look at them, but for many reasons we never feel truly connected to them.
There is this flawed belief that it will be the flashy Christians that change the world. That is just not true. The flashy Christians will play their part, and it is an important part because they help communicate a message to many. It will be the ordinary Christians, however, that win the day. Because, at the end of the day Christianity is about relationships, and relationships require connection. As important as his ministry is, Billy Graham did not change many lives. He touched millions of them... and then God took that touch and connected those people to ordinary, every day Christians. That is where the process of life change really happened in those lives. And, for every one Billy Graham there must be millions of us ordinary people to carry out our special calling.
Look at any successful ministry that has maintained a large impact and you will find thousands of ordinary people at the heart of that success. Of course, I may have it all backwards, and what I call flashy God may call ordinary. It could just be that the truly extraordinary among us are those who make the 1 on 1 connections that help change lives.
As I sat there I realized that he probably got paid many, many dollars to make those commercials. MasterCard had many, many choices of celebrities they could have chosen, and they chose Peyton Manning. They did not choose him because he is flashy, because flashy people don't connect. Flashy people may catch your eye, they may even help you move some product, but if your goal is to connect on a personal level with people... flashy people just don't do that very well. We may love to look at them, but for many reasons we never feel truly connected to them.
There is this flawed belief that it will be the flashy Christians that change the world. That is just not true. The flashy Christians will play their part, and it is an important part because they help communicate a message to many. It will be the ordinary Christians, however, that win the day. Because, at the end of the day Christianity is about relationships, and relationships require connection. As important as his ministry is, Billy Graham did not change many lives. He touched millions of them... and then God took that touch and connected those people to ordinary, every day Christians. That is where the process of life change really happened in those lives. And, for every one Billy Graham there must be millions of us ordinary people to carry out our special calling.
Look at any successful ministry that has maintained a large impact and you will find thousands of ordinary people at the heart of that success. Of course, I may have it all backwards, and what I call flashy God may call ordinary. It could just be that the truly extraordinary among us are those who make the 1 on 1 connections that help change lives.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Something Broke
And I am trying to fix it. Not sure what happened but nothing will display on my front page. Testing ensues...
Annnnd apparently this fixed it. Still not sure what happened, but you have to love simple work-a-rounds!
Annnnd apparently this fixed it. Still not sure what happened, but you have to love simple work-a-rounds!
An Ode to Clive
As is almost always the case... C.S. Lewis is able to say what I think more succinctly and more accurately than I can. I was emailed this little excerpt after last week's Blog and thought I would post it here so that more of my readers could enjoy it, and perhaps be opened up to a new world if perchance you have not been in the habit of finding a reading anything written by C.S. Lewis.
'THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS’ - CHAPTER 8
My dear Wormwood,
So you ‘have great hopes that the patient’s religious phase is dying away’, have you? I always thought the Training College had gone to pieces since they put old Slubgob at the head of it, and now I’m sure. Has no one ever told you about the law of Undulation?
Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal. (The Enemy’s determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.) As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life—his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.
To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what use the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite. Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more that on peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself—creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is filled and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.
And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, to assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, then at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up in its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot ‘tempt’ to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there, He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon the universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
But of course the troughs afford opportunities to our side also. Next week I will give you some hints on how to exploit them.
Your affectionate uncle,
SCREWTAPE
'THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS’ - CHAPTER 8
My dear Wormwood,
So you ‘have great hopes that the patient’s religious phase is dying away’, have you? I always thought the Training College had gone to pieces since they put old Slubgob at the head of it, and now I’m sure. Has no one ever told you about the law of Undulation?
Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal. (The Enemy’s determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.) As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life—his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.
To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what use the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite. Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more that on peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself—creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is filled and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.
And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, to assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, then at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up in its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot ‘tempt’ to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there, He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon the universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
But of course the troughs afford opportunities to our side also. Next week I will give you some hints on how to exploit them.
Your affectionate uncle,
SCREWTAPE
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Sincere
Call it lack of sleep, lack of focus, perhaps lack of perspective. For whatever reason I have had a "lack" this last week. I have had some good times in God's Word, some decent conversations with people about a whole slew of topics. I probably have 5 Blog Titles sitting on one of my little white pads (I love those things!). But, every time I sit down to write I find myself writing words that I believe, but I don't feel.
I began wondering if it was just better to wait to write until I could really feel the things that I was saying were true. That was silly of me, because I have taught numerous times that Action precedes Emotion. Truth is not truth because of my feelings. My sincerity does not make something true, and my wavering does not make it false. The only thing at stake is my security and perhaps my comfort. [Quick note, I am listening to Tenth Avenue North's album while writing this... good stuff.]
So, I am trying to step back, make some space, and find my bearings. God speaks every day, and He does not work hard to hide His words. During times like this where life takes a strange turn (lots of unexpected bills all hitting at once, sick kids, weird sleep patterns, etc.) I often have to work a little harder, or more truly stop trying to work so hard in some cases, to just listen.
That is me today. Trying to listen to the voice that speaks to me about things beyond today's to-do list and tonight's crying kid and yesterdays broken water pump. I don't feel very excited about that voice, and thankfully my feelings are not all that important when it comes to what is true and good in my life. Perhaps I can be sincere by doing what I know to be true even if I don't feel like it at the time. Maybe that is even a deeper form of sincerity than merely doing what is right when I also feel like doing what is right.
I began wondering if it was just better to wait to write until I could really feel the things that I was saying were true. That was silly of me, because I have taught numerous times that Action precedes Emotion. Truth is not truth because of my feelings. My sincerity does not make something true, and my wavering does not make it false. The only thing at stake is my security and perhaps my comfort. [Quick note, I am listening to Tenth Avenue North's album while writing this... good stuff.]
So, I am trying to step back, make some space, and find my bearings. God speaks every day, and He does not work hard to hide His words. During times like this where life takes a strange turn (lots of unexpected bills all hitting at once, sick kids, weird sleep patterns, etc.) I often have to work a little harder, or more truly stop trying to work so hard in some cases, to just listen.
That is me today. Trying to listen to the voice that speaks to me about things beyond today's to-do list and tonight's crying kid and yesterdays broken water pump. I don't feel very excited about that voice, and thankfully my feelings are not all that important when it comes to what is true and good in my life. Perhaps I can be sincere by doing what I know to be true even if I don't feel like it at the time. Maybe that is even a deeper form of sincerity than merely doing what is right when I also feel like doing what is right.
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