I just started reading "Getting Things Done" by David Allen.  Apparently it has become pretty popular amoung productivity geeks in recent years.  I'm a big "task" manager so I thought it might be helpful.

As usual, one idea makes the price of a book worth it.  On page 20, I got my money's worth.

Most "advisors" tell us to fix our lives by focusing on the big picture.  Things like vision and mission and strategy.  David Allen says to start with the little things first; like tasks and emails and calendars.  He says that until we get a handle on these little things, our mind cannot clearly think about big picture stuff in a sustained way.

He might be on to something.  How often have we gathered a group of leaders and taught them all about vision only to have them go home to a mess of little stuff that consumes their lives. 

I think it's in the Bible somewhere... "Where two or three are gathered, someone has to administrate!"

¶ 6:31 PM 0 comments

I've already talked some about confidence and arrogance. 

I go through an interesting confidence/arrogance cycle.  I do the right "stuff" (personal and spiritual disciplines) and gain confidence.  Then somewhere along the way, I think I have arrived and no longer need to do that "stuff."  Now confidence has turned into arrogance and I am in trouble again.

Perhaps confidence is the main theme of Psalm 119. "Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees! Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands."  True confidence is unrelated to what we usually define as success.  It is totally related to our obedience of God.

Oh, that I may find rock-solid confidence in the face of success or failure.  The only footing for that confidence is God and his Word.

¶ 6:19 PM 0 comments

I'm tired of everyone messing with my joy. 

Work is going well... I'm happy.  Not so well... I'm sad. 

Money is plentiful... hurray!  Behind on bills... bummer!

There has got to be a better way.  Because there are always good days at work and bad days.  There are always bills to pay.  I need a joy-foundation that is deeper.

That's what God wants for us also.  Asaph (Psalm 73: "my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold") almost lost his joy when he became focused on all the un-fairness he saw around him.  Finally, he went to a sanctuary and regained his focus on God.

"Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever."

This is what it is all about.  Little by little, year by year, I am learning to base my Joy on Jesus and not an anything else.  It is not an easy journey but it is worth it.

¶ 6:39 AM 0 comments

It's all about passion these days.  It doesn't really matter if the idea is good or even workable as long as you are passionate about it.

Passion is the #1 quality of an "interesting" sermon.  In the past, if you presented a logical, Biblical message that was enough.  Now it has to also be passionate.  Cry a few crocodile tears and they will follow you anywhere.

Passion is good, but it is easily faked.  Why is it so attractive?

We drove a good hour or more in a mini van to visit a small historic town in Ohio.  I was in the back seat enjoying the view; my grandchildren. 

One of the first places were visited was a music shop.  It was crowded with custom, very expensive guitars.  It was not much fun to move around tight spaces with walls covered with $10,000 custom guitars and an active 2 year old and a 6 month old in tow. 

But it was fun.  Mostly because my son loves guitars.  We all watched in awe as he carefully played these guitars and talked about them with the other musicians.  I have no idea what they were talking about but the passion was deep and infectious.

Perhaps passion is a natural draw.  There is something about a passionate person that gets our attention.  Perhaps if we were more passionate about Jesus we would draw more people to Him.

¶ 9:22 AM 0 comments

"When we've been here ten thousand years...
bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise...
then when we've first begun."

It was a pretty awesome conference for me.  I purposely sat down front so that God had my complete attention.  Then came that old song. "Amazing Grace"

For some reason I cried this time.  I must have sung this song 1,000 times but it meant something special today. 

Perhaps it's because I am now 50+ years old.  Perhaps it's the major heart surgery I had a few months ago.  But I now feel what I always have known.  This life is temporary. 

But I don't want it to end.  I like my life.  My family.  My wife.  My Job.  I like the town I live in.  I feel more and more able to contribute to the happiness of other.  More and more significant. 

But it's almost over.  Not today or tomorrow but 30 or so years from now.  I can remember 30 years back and it doesn't seem that long ago.  I have much less time now than when I first began.

10,000 years of heaven... no less days than when I first began.  Wow!

¶ 2:15 PM 0 comments

Ok, here comes a Grandpa story. Sorry!

The other day, my Granddaughter, Tobi announced that God listens to her!  She asked Him for rain on Grandma's plants and it rained. 

I didn't have the heart to tell her the truth.  That God' sees a much bigger picture.  That perhaps it is best if it not rained that day.  Thay there may be another little girl praying that it did not rain that day.  It's just so immature to pray for simple things like rain.

Or is it?

When I was her age, I prayed that I would find my favorite stuffed animal.  Later I begged God to bring my Mom home from the hospital.  I even remember praying for a parking spot.  

I'm not sure my theology was straight back then but God was a whole lot simpler.  He was just the guy who loved me, could help me, would help me and listened to me.  Perhaps young Tobi is closer to the truth about prayer that old Tom is. 

¶ 8:50 AM 0 comments

If God is all-talking, then what does God's voice sound like? The big, obvious answer is it sounds like words, formed in my head as I read the written word guided by His Spirit.

But that is an old voice. A recorded track laid down millennia ago.

Or is it? It's hard to talk about God in any aspect as past tense. All creation and all time is present before him at once. For God it is always now. He is always "I am."

The written word is not an old voice. It is fresh and new and for me.

¶ 7:01 AM 0 comments

God spoke everything into existence. Man was mud until God's breath gave life. Jesus, the next non-natural creation is called the word. The Bible is God-breathed.

It appears that God's voice and breath are important. It's almost as if everything physical is held together by His voice and spiritual life comes by His breath.

God is a communicating God.

Has he stopped? Some would say so. I doubt it. Perhaps this is an attribute-of-God we should add to our list of "omni's"... All talking!

¶ 5:08 AM 0 comments

When Israel was final in the promised land, ready to take it as their own, God gave Joshua very strange instructions.  He told Joshua to MAKE flint knives.  I've never seen a flint knife but it does not sound like a surgical instrument.  Especially not a field-made version.  And worse, God told Joshua to circumcise all the men of Israel.  No doubt they spent the next few days in a very vulnerable position!

Circumcision was a sign of God's covenant.  It signified promise and ownership and holiness.  All three of these ideas are closely related. 

God has always sought a people that would follow him with all their hearts.  This was a new group (with a few exceptions) and I believe he was giving some "101" lessons in people-of-God-hood.  People of God are God's!  They have his mark of ownership. 

The next thing he asked them to do was conquer Jericho by another strange military tactic: marching quietly behind the ark of the covenant.  Once again God's promise was to lead the way.  His glory was to go first.  They were to be God's people following God's way.

Do we show the mark of God's ownership in our lives?  As a people? As a church?  Do we let God's glory and promise lead us?  Do our methods leave no doubt as to who won the battle?

¶ 9:15 PM 0 comments

After heart surgery, they had me do therapy: Twelve weeks, three days each week, an hour each day.

At first, I thought it was only about getting stronger physically.  However, as the weeks rolled by I realized that the biggest benefit had more to do with my head than with my heart. 

When you have surprise, serious surgery, a deep fear settles in.  Every odd feeling brings back concerns of a return to the hospital.  You are not sure of how much you can exert yourself.  It's tempting to play it safe and become a couch potato. 

Therapy builds confidence.  The routine they gave me was simply metered exercised with supervision.  They wired me up so that any irregularities of the heart are known.  As days passed by and my capacity for activity increased, fear melted away and confidence increased.

Confidence is a big thing for all of us.  It should be one of the main things we impart to those we are training.  It is a major component of maturity. 

However some people become over-confident.  It becomes arrogance.  They don't need any one else.  They are not fun to be around.  They can become dangerous.

What is the fine line between confidence and arrogance?  Perhaps at it's core, true confidence is all about God and arrogance is all about us.  At one point, Israel "chickened out" of trusting God enough to enter into the promised land.  After God told them that his blessing was not on them to enter the land they repented, exhibited a new-found confidence and tried to enter the land on their own.  They failed miserably.  God saw their self-confidence and called them "arrogant."  They were trying to be brave on their own.

We have great reason to be confident.  God's love and pursuit of us is irrefutable.  The church is guaranteed to succeed.  The Holy Spirit lives in us and he never fails.  Even if we don't see results, faithfulness all by itself is success. 

Jesus loves to take our small acts of obedience and multiply the results beyond anything we can imagine.  Our message is "good" news.  Our power is like what God used to raise Jesus from the dead.  Our prospects are nothing but positive. 

Be confident.  Not arrogant.

¶ 11:49 AM 0 comments

I've learned allot about leadership from Canoeing.  Once we lived along a beautiful river in Florida.  One of those great canoeing rivers in jungle-like settings. 

Often we would put a husband and wife into the canoe up stream and meet them at a pick up point.  They would go into the river best-of-friends and come out barely talking to each other.  Their testimony would be that they spent most of the trip bouncing from one bush/snake/bug covered bank to the other.

I've been canoeing for many years and I learned a valuable leadership lesson.  Look ahead to the next bend in the river!  If you spend your whole trip reacting to the current shifts right in front of you and fail to look ahead to the next bend in the river you are doomed to bounce from shore to shore.  You cannot over-react to your current dilemma or else you will just go from crisis to crisis.

I call this "finesse" in ministry. Many young leaders miss this ingredient, every problem becomes a big deal, and the bounce from problem to problem.  I don't know how to train for finesse.  But I do know how to pray for it.  Help me Jesus!

¶ 3:37 AM 0 comments

Notice:  This is NOT another discussion about the DaVinci code!

I thought we had an implied safe zone of discussion.  My board of directors is a fine group of men and when we meet the discussion is free flowing and often very passionate.  One meeting, a few years ago was especially meaningful to me as men talked about their vision and hopes and at times came to their knees in prayer.  It was incredible.

However, one who is now off that board has chosen to write about and publish characterizations of that board.  I guess it was not a safe zone like I thought.  I'll never open up again!

Or maybe I'm over-reacting.  As a matter of fact, I remember talking with a friend who had been "burned" in such a manner and confessing that I had learned from my past to guard my words with everyone.  I rarely opened up. 

I need to think about this some more.  Perhaps there is no way to be truly accountable to a person or to a group without risking injury.  And when injury comes, I should not be react with walls of protection.  Perhaps, the walls are worse than the injury.

¶ 3:30 AM 0 comments

Usually when we talk about training leaders, we include Know, Be Do.  There are things they need to know, character qualities, and skills they will need for leadership.  All good stuff.

However, is there some spiritual "training" that needs to take place.  How do we teach courage or faith or boldness?  How can we prepare a next generation of leaders to be men and women of faith?

We know that faith is a major theme in the Bible.  That we cannot please God without faith.  That is it listed as a gift of the Holy Spirit.  But is it transferable?

I used to think that good preacher were simple people with more talent for communication than most of us.  But perhaps a good preacher is a total package.  When a young man stands in front of a group of people and teaches the Bible as God's word THAT HE HAS LIVED OUT BY FAITH it is almost always a dynamic life changing message.  Bold, brave, courageous people are almost always interesting to listen to.

So as you train, consider how that young man or woman will learn what it means to have a bold faith in God.

¶ 7:37 PM 0 comments

Walking through the rubble was a "devotional" moment.

A few days ago, Sandi and I were enjoying a vacation in North Carolina with our 3rd son and family. Now I was walking through the charred remains of my 2nd son's home.

While my daughter-in-law, Summer and the 2 grandchildren were at our house watering plants, a stove malfunctioned and within minutes the house was in flames. They lost everything. But no one was hurt.

As I walked through the rubble, my personal "devotional" was all about what this mess looked like before the fire and about how terrible it could have been. This was a house being made ready to sell. Dean and Summer had painted, fixed trim, put on a new roof, and installed lights in order to sell the house. The roof was completed just a few days ago. It was a simple thing to close my eyes and remember what the place looked like just a few days ago. The memory was so fresh. The contrast was stark. On the other side of the wall behind that stove was my Granddaughters bed. In 20 minutes or so, they would have been at home sleeping. We came very close to unspeakable disaster.

I wonder what God thinks of when he walks through our lives. What could have been? What moral beauty did he create us for? We have gotten used to the rubble of sin but his memory is clear about what he made us for. It must be hard for Him not to cry.

But He also knows how close we come to utter ruin every day. Sin is always like a fire, feeding on itself until everything is destroyed. When we sin, unless something steps in and stops the fire we are always sleeping right next to total destruction. I wonder how often God gasps as we come closed to being burned.

My "devotional" that day taught me a little more about God's great love for us and his passion for our holiness.

¶ 5:56 AM 0 comments

Most of the seats in front of me were empty. They said the room’s capacity is around 150. However, I guess around 50 chairs were set and less than 20 had people in them. Earlier there had been 7 or 8 children but they were now in the back room. What was left was approximately 20 very friendly, mostly older, incredibly faithful, shrinking congregation located in a town that is seeing incredible growth.

The songs we sang were all traditional. However, they did project the songs on the screen, there was no hymn book, and the instrumentation was from a recording. There was a special music number (enough said).

We visited the “hot” church in town the previous evening (Saturday). It looked like it was a former grocery store. They had multiple services on Saturday night and Sunday morning, the style was extremely contemporary (Rock), the message was hard-hitting, very practical and topical (about lust). I'm pretty sure the outline was "borrowed" from a church in Northern Indiana (at least the sermon series idea and graphic was).

The audience was young, very engaged, and I did see many grey-hairs sprinkled around the room. Someone told me that over 3000 people attended this church each weekend.

Other than the last few minutes when the pastor became very personal, the worship "program" in this “hot” church did not help me worship, but I can't speak for others in the room. This church was pretty much a copy of hundreds of churches that we all hear about (and sometimes criticize) all over the country. It felt pretty formulaic. I was accompanied to both of these worship experiences by a young pastor-to-be.

Today, he and I were team teaching about what the vision and passion of a church should be. I had the beginning and the end of the message. As we moved to the close, I prayed about what I should say. What should be my last words to this congregation? There were some in the room that though they should imitate this “hot” church... at least some of the features. Employ contemporary music. Put together an incredible children’s program. “Program it… and they will come!”

But as I stood in front of this small congregation I found myself yearning for something very different. What I saw on Saturday night was not church. It was a show, or a program, or a medium for a message (the message was good). I’m sure there is a church behind the event I attended but that event was not a church. What I saw gave me absolutely no insight into what that church was like. Is there vital relationships? Are people on mission? Is there a faith-journey engaged by a community of people (not just a few) resulting in expansion of the kingdom and deep worship of God? I don't have a clue.

I am not critical of the new "wave" of churches in our society.

Big is not good. Small is not pure.

I'd like to think that what I saw on Saturday evening has a story behind it of a group of people who committed themselves to one another. Who became passionate about reaching people for Jesus. Who decided to know and obey God’s word including the commandment to go and make disciples of Jesus Christ. Who fell to their knees praying for their friends and neighbors that do not know Jesus. Who rose to their feet in praise of God as they saw him do incredible things. Who then had to figure out what to do with all these people that God gave them and what I saw was a result.

I know a couple of churches that have seen great growth and they have these kinds of stories to tell. Stories of late night prayer meetings for the lost. Of an incredible corporate faith-adventure that left them speechless and full of song. Now they have many new believers, more people that they know what to do with and a tiger-by-the-tail.

The problem is when we see the result and believe that we can become like them by imitating their present form. This is what I call a formulaic solution. Perhaps we can build a big meeting by importing a great worship service or hiring in a children's program.

But that is not was I yearn for. As I stand in front of this small group, I am absolutely convinced that there are people in their town that only they can reach. I yearn for them to begin a faith-adventure together that will surprise everyone except God.

But do we train our young leaders how to have faith? How to pray? How to dream when everyone else doubts? Or do we train them to visit and analyze the results of another congregations faith-adventure and mimic the resultant formula.

¶ 5:34 AM 0 comments