Category Archives: Leadership

Mr. Irrelevant

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Chandler Harnish Final Pick ’12 Draft

The Draft is alive and well…not the draft for the military, but for the NFL, NBA, MLB, or MLS. This past week in the NFL there were 253 players ‘drafted’ by the 32 teams. My favorite team, the Indianapolis Colts, had both the first and the last picks of this draft.

As sort of an ‘honor’ the last player picked of the 253 picks is dubbed ‘Mr. Irrelevant’. How much impact is this player really supposed to have in the NFL? If they were really wildly successful in college, they would have been picked higher. This year the Indianapolis Colts picked Chandler Harnish, a quarterback from Northern Illinois, with their last pick…Chandler Harnish is Mr Irrelevant.

But he gets to go to Disneyland. He gets a parade in his honor. He still gets to play in the NFL. He gets to play a game for his job. He was good enough to be picked. The Colts saw something in him that made it worth their pick, even their last pick, on this guy. In reality, if the Colts’ first pick Andrew Luck gets hurt, we could have Mr. Irrelevant as our starting QB. He has the chance to make a difference as some level. And he’s elated to have been picked at all. (You can read for yourself in the above linked article)

This post has the potential to turn into a sports post…which isn’t my aim here.

As I was reading the above article from ESPN.com I was hit with this reality: In the Christian world, there are far more ‘Mr/Ms/Mrs Irrelevants’ than there are ‘#1 picks’. There are a lot of people writing books, speaking, blogging, or whatever that some would say are the all stars, or the super-Christians. But there are far more ‘normal’ Christians out there than those who gain notoriety for their thoughts about Christianity, Church, Mission, or whatever faddish topic is trending.

What I’m getting at is this: This world won’t get any better, won’t ever change, won’t ever become the creation or place God intended it to be, if ‘irrelevant’ Christians don’t get in the game somehow. Often times they/we are too content to just read about topics or listen to sermons instead of live them. Or we think our voice doesn’t matter because it’s not being published. But it’s just not true. While we may think that our voice is irrelevant, or that our actions don’t matter, or that our decisions don’t make an impact on our world, or that we would really make a difference if we wrote a book…we’re just wrong.

Truth is, we live in the neighborhoods we live in, have the friends we have, make the connections we make, all for a reason…for real relationship. Podcasts don’t have friends. Books don’t have ‘besties’ (I can’t believe I had that word even in my head). Often times even speakers on stages feel out of touch with people and live outside of real relationship. There is unspeakable power in the ‘irrelevant’ lives of Christians living out the love of God in tangible flesh and bone.

You or I may never record a podcast. Give a sermon. Write a book. But your voice and life matter. Your voice, my voice, may be the closest thing to the voice of God our neighbors ever hear. God may have something beyond what we could ever ask for, or imagine, planned for us. But if we only ‘leave it to the pro’s’ the ‘#1 picks’, then we’ll never know.

 

Thoughts on LeBron as a Leader

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I think we’re seeing the new archetype of leader in LeBron James.

I remember watching Michael Jordan, or even Kobe a while ago, interact with his team. They were scared of him. If they weren’t playing well, he’d snap. Pointing fingers in faces. Shaking his head in disgust. It was pretty shaming to do that to other professional basketball players. But it got results and people still loved Mike. And some still love Kobe too.

Now we have LeBron James. I was watching highlight of a Cavs game on espn.com and at the end of the game after LeBron hits a bit shot, all the guys on the bench are going nuts. Making faces. Putting each other in headlocks. Waving their hands all over the place. Making fools of themselves pretty much…they didn’t just hit the shot! They’re riding the coat tails of the greatest basketball player alive right now. LeBron could yell at his team, he’s good enough to. He could shame guys, nobody is going to step to him. He pretty much is the Cleveland Cavaliers team. But yet, he clowns around before games. His teammates seem to genuinely enjoy being around him. He laughs on the bench (more than the one time that MJ was caught smiling and used in almost every thing where they needed him to see like-able!). He let’s teammates be themselves and have fun. When they are winning…

But even when they are losing he doesn’t get in their faces and bring shame. He goes on the court and gets it done. He doesn’t seem to care to lord over the other players that he’s the best guy in the world, that he’s the man, that he’s the franchise. He does care to win and he’ll take anyone willing (or anyone the Cavs can afford) with him.

This is the new picture of leadership. The day of the CEO as lord is over. It’s about leading by example and from within, not from above. In the upcoming generations, people will (and already do) resent overbearing, heavy thumbed leaders. People will honor and follow those who bring life in others and lead the way with passion and excellence.

That is the kind of leader that I want to be. I want to be a clown. I want to make faces and not be the guy that has to punk people to get them to shape up. I want to laugh. I want people to join in where I’m going because it’s good for them too, not just because they have to…because we’re having fun doing what we love doing together. I want to be passionate about life and excellent in what we are doing. At the end of the day, I’d rather play with LeBron than Kobe…maybe even MJ too (only history will prove me a fool to say that).


Michael Phelps’ Diet

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Thanks to Jen for finding this article on the BBC…

As US swimming sensation Michael Phelps sets his sights on more gold medal wins at the Beijing Olympics this weekend, the BBC’s Michael Hirst examines the part an extraordinary diet has played in the sportsman’s remarkable success.

If it is true that you are what you eat, then here is the suggested intake if you want to become history’s most successful Olympian:

For breakfast: three fried egg sandwiches, with cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, fried onions and mayonnaise, followed by three chocolate-chip pancakes; a five-egg omelette; three sugar-coated slices of French toast and a bowl of grits (a maize-based porridge), washed down with two cups of coffee.

For lunch: half a kilogram (one pound) of enriched pasta; two large ham and cheese sandwiches on white bread smothered with mayonnaise, washed down by energy drinks.

For dinner: Another half-kilogram of pasta, perhaps with a carbonara sauce, followed by a large pizza and more energy drinks.

That combination may not sound very healthy, and at a staggering 10,000 calories, would feed five average men for a day.

But the menu is reportedly all in a training day’s eating for champion swimmer Michael Phelps, who won six gold medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics and is aiming for eight this time round.

“Eat, sleep and swim, that’s all I can do,” said the US swimmer, after winning his 11th Olympic gold.

In addition to being amazed that Phelps doesn’t sink after eating all of this, I was thinking about my own diet of spiritual food.

I got a picture of myself being a spiritual race…what kind of food and how much food would I want to eat in order to finish and even win the race? I think I’ve often convinced myself that it’s ok to live like I’m in the off-season…so I get lazy in my training, my diet shrinks, and then I have no energy to sustain me even trying to run (or swim) the race even if I wanted to.

Spiritually speaking, I need to packing in the grits, the eggs, the energy drinks, the pizza, the pasta…to sustain me in the race (battle is a more appropriate word most of the time!) that I’m in. I want to be training in a way that makes the race enjoyable…not like an out-of-shape, ex-athlete trying to set out to do a marathon without even being able to jog around the block! (not that, that was any commentary on me of course!)

Two things on the more positive side:

1. I did go jogging yesterday and had a great time! I woke up less sore than I did yesterdaay and feel great. I think I’ll be running more now.

2. I do down two cups of coffee at breakfast like Michael Phelps…Somebody’s got to beat him at something, so I’m going to go for three cups today.

Hmm…we gotta do some thinkin’ on this one

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I got this stat from another blog called ‘Next Reformation‘ who writes from Canada…Worth a listen and some time asking this question, “If we are really serious about blessing the world around us, are we really listening to what those further from God care about or do we just simply want to do what we care about better?” 

“Studies have shown that only 10% of the non-churched population are comfortable with and open to ‘contemporary worship’ style services. (ie. Hillsong style singing – preaching etc). Yet the same study shows that up to 90% of churches are moving towards this type of service. By my calculations that leaves around 90% of the unchurched population without a church presenting the message of Jesus in a culturally relevant method for them.”

This stat could be seen as a negative thing…but I see it like this: We have much possibility for innovation in the ways in which we express the Kingdom. And if our innovations move towards blessing others there are lot of people who will be on the receiving end of the good that Jesus will do through us.

Posts that should have been written throughout the week

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Don’t worry…nothing’s wrong and everything is great…I just haven’t had it in me to write on here with all the people around. My extravert tendencies were in full force being back around CAI folks this past week and if I weren’t around people I was sleeping…and I wasn’t sleeping much. Jen did a great job putting up pictures on her blog and others from CAI have been writing as well if you want to follow the links. You can even listen to the talks from some of the sessions here or go to iTunes and do a podcast search for “Christian Associates”. If you really really want to have your mind given something to chew on listen to Deb’s talk on obstacle to the Kingdom. 

So in as best order as I can remember, here are the highlights from since I’ve last written…this could get long and I’m sure I’ll still leave out some good stuff…

We were able to have dinner with our good friends Ken and Nancy Hendren in our overnight layover in Denver. They are always encouraging and ask great questions. It is sad that we only got about 1.5 hours with them, but we’ll take what we can get!

Our overnight flight from Denver to London was as good as a flight this long can be. We gave Maisie benedryl which only seemed to make her mad until she was too drugged to fight it. We slept a little bit, but not enough to prepare us to be sane for what was to come. 

When we got to London a number of things sent me to the edge…If it wasn’t for the ‘lovely’ british accents and phenomenal customer service of British Air, I would have been forced to pull what little hair I have left out! First, American Airlines didn’t put any of the strollers that were gate checked in Chicago on the plane. So there were a number of us who waited for 30-40 minutes for our strollers just to learn that they were still on the other side of the ocean. Second, American Airlines’ incompetency continued as we learned that they didn’t issue Maisie a ticket all the way to Vienna, just to London. What were they thinking? That we wanted to drop Maisie off by herself in London so we could continue on for a little vacation without her? So we had to pay 70 pounds ($143) for Maisie to join us on our flight to Vienna…I’m not looking forward to the call that I have to make to American Airlines. This will most likely be the last time we fly them…these two things pale in comparison to the ways in which AA have been frustrating to deal with. Other than the stoller not arriving on time, we did get all 5 of our 50 pound suitcases! It was pretty funny to have that much stuff at a conference that only lasts a week. I think most people knew we were moving, and if they didn’t then they should have just guessed…see Jen’s blog for a picture of it all when we arrived at the Grafs.  

So we made it to Connect! It was so great to see so many of our friends. This was our fifth conference, but it was different to have not come from or be returning to Paris. It was the same conference, but the circumstances of our past year of life were very different than normal…whatever normal is. I guess the biggest difference from this year to last year is us. We’re just very different people than we were a year ago. We had some great conversations with leaders in CAI and we’ve gotten better understanding of what the future will hold. We feel very encouraged and empowered to discern what the future will look like. I could talk on and on about the content of the week, but I’ll do that in a different post. 

Thursday was a really fun day for me…I got to lead worship for the morning session with some of my favorite CA’ers. Bob Gerken, Richard Wilson, and Hilary Rivera led along with me and we had a great time…and played really well considering we only practiced that morning. (different subject but still Thursday) We had run out of diapers…not a good thing. So I got to borrow a friend’s car and drive into town. I’ve decided that one of my favorite things to do is drive in foreign countries. I think I love the adventure of not knowing a city and hoping that you don’t get lost. Also, going grocery shopping is difficult when you can’t read the labels….just a heads up on that. 

A bit of a miracle took place yesterday. Remember that we were traveling with 5 suitcases? That normally isn’t a good idea when flying in Europe. We not only had the suitcases, but we had two carry-ons, a diaper bag, and a guitar. So we were at full capacity. When we got to the airport we learned that we were only allowed 50 kilograms total (110 lbs). Seeing as two of our 5 bags weighed about that much, things weren’t looking good. I told Laina back at the conference that we had a luggage issue and she said, “pray for a nice lady that is understanding of your situation”. So I did. And we got a really nice lady that we very understanding. She let us check FOUR of our bags that easily doubled our weigh restriction! Our friends, the Johnsons, checked our fifth bag for us so we were able to make it paying absolutely zero for all of our stuff! I was stoked to say the least…because it meant we could afford a taxi into Amsterdam because not even Tenzing Norgay could have carried our stuff on the train and to the Grafs. 

Ok…that’s enough for now and Jen is wanting to get on the computer. I have to get ready to leave the house. We’re going to head into the city center for a bit today. I’ll write more tonight….It will probably be my favorite ‘sound bites’ from the conference speakers. 

How To Kill a Movement Series…

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If you want to kill a movement, get spooked by supernatural phenomena outside your paradigm…

I grew up in a fairly normal evangelical environment. The most charismatic thing that I saw were people holding up their hands in worship…and this was even pushing it for some. So, it’s safe to say that when my best friend from college started going to a church that practiced spiritual gifts outside of the raising of the hands, I thought it he had gone off of the deep end. Seriously, I thought he was in a cult or something and I thought I had to get him out of there.

In my past, the Holy Spirit for me was pretty much a retired author and I found it easy to pick and choose from scripture what ways His working was still applicable to Church…those days are long gone.

Here’s my theory…’Being Spooked’ (not my words) basically means being surprised…or not being in the know…And most leaders don’t like not being in the know. In fact, we like the opposite. We like being in control. So the ways that the Holy Spirit works can be contradictory to the way we want to work.

In my experience, the reality that the Holy Spirit would trust me with being surprised is evidence that He is getting ready to do something new in me. But on a movement level I think that we have to ask the hard questions: Do we even want the Holy Spirit to speak into plans? Are our plans so set in stone that we couldn’t follow even if we wanted to? If God showed up in a new way in our movement would we act like healed lepers, or blind Pharisees?

The truth is that we need to be careful not to too greatly define our Holy Spirit paradigm. We run the risk of idolatry when we allow our view of the Spirit to be tamed and captured by our paradigm. After all…Jesus is the head of the Church and He clearly left us a Helper to guide us as we manage and steward what is His…Imagine if Peter and the rest of the disciples had not allowed the Spirit to speak outside of their paradigm. Would we even be having this conversation? It seems to be pretty effective when the Spirit leads as he did in Acts 2. If you had told the disciples a few days before Pentecost what was getting ready to go down, they may had not even shown up for prayer meeting that morning! Being surprised by the Spirit is great, because it makes us into the empty and willing people we need to be in order for big, movement type, things to happen! My prayer is that we would allow the Helper to define our paradigm and not our comfort, plans, or strategies. A willingness to obey in this type of way reflects the kind of leadership God would trust to initiate a movement. 

CAI Changes

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We just got an email update about some restructuring that is happening within CA…I have to be honest, I am so proud of our organization and how they are actually trying to do things that we talk about. They are allowing our values and scripture to form how our organization is structured and saying goodbye to old models of leadership that prove over and over to be outside of the bounds of God’s intentions…good models, but not great models…from good to great…that should be a book.

Anyway, I’m stoked to see how these things will better our organization and equip more and more people to lead in the ways God intended for them.