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).

Here it is:

Open Letter to Pastors : Inner Revolution

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.

“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.

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. 

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. 

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.

How to Kill a Movement »

By Jay Lorenzen on Jan 19, 2008

Sam Metcalf at UnderTheIceberg posted the following list on How To Kill a Movement:

1. Require education for the leadership

2. Demand conformity of methodology

3. Refuse to provide administrative help and let it suffocate under it’s own weight

4. Get spooked by supernatural phenomena outside your paradigm

5. Make no room for younger, less experienced leadership

6. Be obsessed by theological purity

7. Put the safety of the people involved as a higher priority than sacrifice

8. Centralize the funding

9. Punish out-of-the box thinking

10. Manage it by goals and strategic plans

11. Reward faithfulness rather than entrepreneurial ability

12. Get tied to property and buildings

13. Let your critics define you

14. Be threatened by giftedness that’s not like you

15. Create an endowment

16. Treat creativity as heresy

17. Refuse to exercise discipline for the right things

18. Make sure you are related to existing institutions for credibility

19. Promote on the basis of seniority and longevity

20. Insist that decisions be based on policy instead of values

21. Make nurture and conservation of gains a focus

22. Don’t be intentional about leadership selection

23. Be risk adverse under the guise of stewarding your people

24. Justify your reluctance to raise money

25. Have a big need for approval and affirmation

Above all else, control it if, God forbid, he actually shows up!

I was thinking about my life and my journey as a follower of Christ…specifically about how my thinking about the mission of the Church has changed and evolved. Over the past few years I have been thinking more and more as a ‘missionary.’ Asking questions like, “What does the Church look like to people who aren’t a part of it? How can we communicate the message of freedom in Christ to people who don’t care?” In essence, I am trying to see the world, the Church, and the message of the Church about Jesus through the eyes of people who have had no experience, or negative experiences with the Church.

One thing that I have realized is that once I began this journey, there is no ‘unseeing’ what I have seen…Or unlearning what I have learned. I have discovered that this journey is an A-Z journey, and I am only at the beginning.

While I was sanding I was thinking about how little kids’ first associations with the alphabet are the three letters A, B, and C. But as they get older they learn more about A, B, and C’s friends DEFGHIJK…you get the idea. But once kids learn the whole alphabet it is impossible to only think of it as ABC. I feel in many ways that my recent experience has revealed the many ways that my mind, heart, and soul have been challenged to expand and think. I see the world different now. I see the Church different now. And I see the message of the Church different now.

My prayer is that as I continue to add letters to my knowledge of the alphabet that my passion for people, cultures, the Church, and Jesus will grow and grow. I am so thankful for how we (Jen is a part of this process too!) have been gifted with life and I hope that we will be given more and more opportunity to live into the experiences that God has given us…unless there is hard manual labor involved of course.

The truth is I really want to understand how leadership fits into my life…or should I say influence? (wink wink to Dr. Maxwell..I was paying attention even to the 203rd law of leadership). The idea of leadership has been tainted so much with misuse of power and selfishness (by me) that it seems a bit scary. With all the talk of organic church and simple church I’ve wondered how leadership as we’ve known it will morph…hopefully evolve…into something less. There was the CEO type of leader. Then the servant-leadership craze. The team leadership. And thanks to the Starfish and the Spider, there is power in ‘leaderlessness’ (secret, so whisper: that was only a hook to get you to buy the book…they never say that there are no leaders, they just hide and give away what they can). But I really don’t think that leaders or leadership (have you ever noticed how the word ‘ship’ is tucked into the word leadership?) will ever disappear.

But anyway…I can admit that I want to be a good leader. I want to be a positive influence for others as so many have been for me. I hope that after all the screw ups I’ve made that I’m at least learning something. I don’t have a weird and self-focused idea of the concept (anymore). I just hope that if leadership ever lands on me again that I can do my best to be a good steward of it. So…I read books to prepare for when people may be fooled again…I mean…ask me to lead in some group in some way. Here are the titles of the two books that I’ve picked up:

The Making of a Leader by Dr. J. Robert Clinton (Linus recommended this to me a while ago and I’m finally going to read it)

Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, & Chaos by Tim Keel (This book just sounded good and mentioned chaos in the subtitle…that is a theme that I resonate with)

And of course you could check out my bookstore above to go see these on Amazon!

PS…I write on here too late at night.