Monday Thoughts

• Started a new series yesterday: Hope For Your Work. The framework is from the brilliant insights of Tim Keller. Everyone gets their stuff from somewhere. I get some of my stuff from him. Simply brilliant pastor.
• I'm glad I love what I do, but have had plenty of work that I didn't.
• All good work that helps people flourish (some work frankly doesn't) is a form of gardening (see Genesis 1-2).
• If you don't understand how your work fits into your faith, you are left with a gaping hole in your practice of following Jesus.
• Been wrestling a lot with the Celebrity culture we live in--specifically the church celebrity culture (it exists). This quote from Tim Keller helped me see the task ahead of me. Our celebrity culture comes because we think their tremendous success comes from a certain skill set the person has (that we then covet or try to copy):

  The difference between a solid church and a terrible church is pretty much up to you. The difference between a solid church and incredible success has almost nothing to do with you...It’s like you are out there paddling on your surfboard, and suddenly the wave comes and you ride in, standing up like you’re a Greek god. That has everything to do with the wave.

• Joseph went through three stages of character development. 1-Wow, look at my talent and how great I am! 2 - Wow, look at the talent God gave me. Now let me show you how great I am. 3-My insights are meaningless. Only God can do what needs to be done. If I'm honest, I think I'm somewhere between stage 2 & 3.
• I loved having a date with my wife on Friday night. A great student gave us the gift of a night of baby-sitting/month so we could go out. We took an inventory...and it's been way too long since we've been on a date. Regular dates now go into my life plan. I don't want to use my wife or my family to lead a church.
• From Saturday's Marriage/Parenting Seminar: A great marriage is built on three things. 1-Knowing your partner's inner world intimately. 2-Building a culture of fondness and admiration (over against a culture of "constructive criticism" and contempt). 3-Being aware of your partner's "bids" for attention and affection and doing everything you can to turn toward them.
• Lots of administrative stuff needing attention right now. I am not an administrator and find myself frequently drained by the demands. I'm having to really monitor my time and energy levels. I really want to serve the people I lead well and this means getting us past this necessary strengthening of our processes and systems regardless of how it makes me feel.