Crying Like a Man

Tim Keel had a great post recently on tears that show up unannounced. It's a beautifully written piece with a lasting quote from Frederick Beuchner, whose way with words is unparalleled.

You never know what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it,
or a piece of music, or a face you've never seen before. A pair of somebody's old shoes can do it...You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next.

Top Reads of 2008

Leaders read.
Innovators read.
John Wesley said you can't grow if you don't read (and when John Wesley speaks, boy do I listen).
Plus, I recieved an education that cost taxpayers a lot of money and for which I personally paid dearly. If I don't read, I waste this investment and may as well be illiterate.

Because I want to be these things (and because I love it), I read.

Here are my top reads for 2008 (in no particular order)::
The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective by Richard Rohr
Good to Great by Jim Collins
A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in an Age of Anxiety by Edwin Friedman
The Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs
Simply Christian by NT Wright
Surprised by Hope by NT Wright
Just Courage by Gary Haugen
Axiom by Bill Hybels
The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A Kempis
Beginning to Pray by Anthony Bloom

Here are some books I'm looking forward to in 2009:
Believing in the Future by David Bosch
The Multiplying Church: The New Math for Starting Churches by Bob Roberts
The Dangerous Act of Worship by Mark Labberton
Lord Jesus Christ by Larry Hurtado

I Feel Like This Sometimes

I came across this video and a similar note by someone who apparently miscarried a baby too. I hadn't felt anything about our miscarriage in a while and it touched a deep place in me (viscera on full display here).

Dear Justice -

I thought about you today. You would have loved your mommy and your two brothers. I'll see someday soon...I'm homesick for you today.

Love,

Daddy

We Theology

I've been thinking about spiritual growth and how we measure it.

As Americans/Westerners everything is about the individual. Almost all of our efforts in churches are geared toward the individual. The very few matrices/assessments I've seen for spiritual growth are generally geared toward the individual--asking how "you" can grow and measuring how "you" have grown.

Perhaps that is the influence of Descartes (of "I think, therefore I am" fame), but I don't think it is in rhythm with the New Testament and OT, lest I engage in some sort of super-sessionism.

The controlling metaphor, it could be argued, in the NT for Christians is "the body of Christ." Now as I understand it, when my lungs go someplace, my liver usually goes along for the trip. For instance, I am currently in Tulsa, OK wrapping up a wedding. None of my body parts decided to pre-emptively stay home in Richmond. All of me went along.

If that is the case, and it is what Paul was meaning when he used that metaphor, then shouldn't spiritual growth be measured by how WE are growing rather then simply how I am growing?

If I read my Bible, love more, serve more, etc. but we don't all take steps forward, then is spiritual growth in NT terms actually happening? Or I am just on a personal growth plan that essentially says "to hell with everyone else" but has been unwittingly endorsed by the current system of Christianity? Maybe Moses understood this when he told God if his people were going to be cut off, then cut him off too. (See the tail-end of the story in Exodus 32:30-33.) This just doesn't make sense in our individualistic "make-sure-you-yourself-know-where-you-will-spend-eternity" ethos.

Good Leadership (It might not be what you think)

Good thinking on any given issue, for some reason, is always counter-intuitive. This is some good thinking on leadership by Dee Hock, leadership guru.

PhD in Leadership, Short Course:
Make a careful list of all things done to you that you abhorred. Don't do them to others, ever. Make another list of things done for you that you loved. Do them for others, always.

Associates:
Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities.

Employing Yourself:
Never hire or promote in your own image. It is foolish to replicate your strength. It is idiotic to replicate your weakness. It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective,
ability, and judgment are radically different from yours. It is also rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom.

Compensation:
Money motivates neither the best people, nor the best in people. It can move the body and influence the mind, but it cannot touch the heart or move the spirit; that is reserved for belief,
principle, and morality. As Napoleon observed, "No amount of money will induce someone to lay down their life, but they will gladly do so for a bit of yellow ribbon."

Form and Substance:
Substance is enduring, form is ephemeral. Failure to distinguish clearly between the two is ruinous. Success follows those adept at preserving the substance of the past by clothing it in the forms of the future. Preserve substance; modify form; know the difference. The closest thing to a law of nature in business is that form has an affinity for expense, while substance has an affinity for income.

Creativity:
The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a room packed with archaic furniture. You must get the old furniture of what you know, think, and believe out before anything new can get in. Make an empty space
in any corner of your mind, and creativity will instantly fill it.

Leadership:
Here is the very heart and soul of the matter. If you look to lead, invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself -- your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your
peers. Use the remainder to induce those you "work for" to understand and practice the theory. I use the terms "work for" advisedly, for if you don't understand that you should be working for your mislabeled "subordinates," you haven't understood anything. Lead yourself, lead your superiors, lead your peers, and free your people to do the same. All else is trivia.