Jumpin' Bass

My two sons and I went out late tonight lookin' for some late night bass action and to try out some cheap new lights we bought for the boat. At the end of the night we were driving into the boat landing and fish were once again jumping all around us. We decided to pull into the shallows and try to land one of those bad boys. I was using a surface spinner; casting in deep and reeling fast to keep the lure at the surface. Five or six times a bass jumped out of the water going after the lure but missed or grabbed the lure but didn't get hooked. Talk about frustrating... we finally had the fish interested in what we had to offer, but they were apparently fish with poor mouth-eye coordination.

I feel like God is putting out his truth like a lure for me to grab on to and I keep jumping for the truth but it sometimes eludes me. I feel like I have a decent grasp of God and His truth, but there are elements I keep flopping around after but can't seem to clamp down on. For example: How do I reconcile the fact that "God is love" with the fact that most of the people who have ever lived in history will spend eternity separated from Him based on the traditional Christian view of salvation? Don't get me wrong, in my head I understand that God loved us so much that He paved the way for us to spend eternity with Him.... however, at the end of the day, most people will spend eternity in hell (whatever that is). How is that a loving God?

I'm not bringing this up to challenge theology, but to talk about how I flounder sometimes. I wonder if God ever gets frustrated with my inability to latch on to the truth in the same way I get frustrated with uncoordinated bass.

Lunches...

Today is August 29th.... my next free date for lunch at Thrivent is September 26th. I need to caveat this with the fact that I only work 3 days/week and I'll be out of town a couple of days next week for that conference. Even so, I find it interesting that my lunches are so full these days... these lunches cover the spectrum of walking across the room to build relationships, others seeking lunch with me as a mentor, re-connecting with former co-workers, and just lunch with friends.

One of my greatest ongoing leadership lessons is the power of relationship. It's not always convenient to "do lunch" with people, but I have learned to love making time for this. Interestingly, this lesson is being learned primarily in my church role, but the greatest changes in lunchtime behavior are occuring in my corporate job. I'm hoping I start leveraging the power of lunches in building relationships during my days on the clock at church -- if you are reading this and want to do lunch on a Monday or Tuesday, let me know... I love doing it, but might need a push. If you don't have time for lunch... how 'bout a soda?

Fish Skunk

Last night I went fishing in the rain with one of my sons. For the first time the entire year we were totally skunked... we had some bites and lost some worms, but literally caught 0 fish. After a while we went and tracked down where the eagle was landing in the tree and we ended up anchoring the boat about 30 yards from where he sat up in the branch -- he would fly in and out of that tree... it was very cool.

The frustrating part is that fish were jumping all around us and we couldn't catch any of them. At one point a very large fish (likely a bass) jumped about 5 feet from the boat. We tried everything we had... casting, trolling, worms on the bottom, bobber fishing, lindy rigs, etc.

It made me think of leadership and some of the stuff I'm going through right now. I feel like I'm in the perfect fishing spot and using everything I can think of from my tackle box, but results still aren't what I'm hoping for. There are times I feel like I'm doing all I know to do (fishing styles) but my communication or leadership is ineffective (fish just swim by uninterested in what I have to say). There must be something about my leadership (fishing tactics) in certain situations that needs to be adjusted. I'm thankful for other leaders, people, conferences, etc, which challenge how I do leadership to help me be more effective; there also is no substitute for experience... sometimes just learning on the fly.

Speaking of "fly" - maybe I should learn fly fishing if all of these fish are jumping on the surface (presumably to grab bugs).

Poker & Review

Last Friday night I played some low-stakes Texas Hold 'em with about 15 other folks, mostly from Thrivent. For about the first hour or two, I was doing great... I was likely the chip leader at my table of 6 or 7 people. But then the luck turned and I was playing overly aggressive to try to knock some people out and ended up having my stacks disappear and ultimately being one of the first to be eliminated. I remember thinking, "What just happened?"

Yesterday I had my annual review at church. One of the things I need to keep watch on is the pace with which I try to create systems, enhance programs, and start new things. Although we want continuous improvement and desire transformation through our ministry, we also want to make sure things happen on God's timing and not ours. We certainly want to keep up with the wave God is moving on , but we don't want to be out front of what He's doing. I can be like a buckin' bronco trying to leave the gate, but I need to make sure I don't let the gate open too early or I don't jump over the closed gate.

Yeah, there is a theme here. I get it... "Type A"... "Driver"... Perhaps there needs to be some new terms to describe this personality type: "BB (Buckin' Bronco)" or "All-in". Being like this sure helps a lot of stuff get done, but does require some additional attention and accountability (which I have in my pastor/boss, my awesome mentor, and my wife). I never thought I'd be comparing my annual review to a Texas Hold 'em game....

Dead battery

I was able to get out on the lake a bit on Friday afternoon. Although I went to the same lake (Goose), I travelled a bit further down the lake. In doing so, I was trolling with a sucker minnow and was able to nail a small northern (20") which was cool. What wasn't cool was that as I trolled my way down the lake, my trolling motor (the only motor I have on the boat) started loosing its oomph. Realizing I hadn't re-charged the battery recently and it was going dead, I quickly turned around and started going back into the wind toward the landing. The trolling motor on a dying battery was no match for the wind and waves; the best the motor could do was hold its ground, but then started losing ground to the wind.

So, I started rowing the 16' Lund against the wind; I made continual progress but it was a long haul and I stopped a couple times, threw down the anchor and fished while recouping my strength. This story is eerily similar to an earlier blog entry; twice is enough to row across a lake in a given fishing season.

Ironically, although this is a story about the ramifications of a dead battery, the time I spent on the lake (and this entire story) was the process of recharging my personal batteries. If you've been reading my blog, you realize that fishing is the one thing I've found that recharges my battery. When I'm not able to recharge I end up with no power to drive into the wind and end up using my own strength to power through situations.

What charges your batteries? Trust me, the time and effort taken to charge our batteries is a small price to pay compared to the struggle and pain that come when the battery goes dead.

Haircut

As many of you know, I can be as frugal as they come on some things and yesterday was one of those examples where my frugality was my downfall. I was working in Minneapolis and ran out over lunch to get my haircut (because skyway prices give me sticker shock). I thought I would try a neighborhood where I don't normally go to see what I could find and meet some new people (Walking Across the Room).

As I was driving I saw a sign for $6.00 haircuts.... GENIUS!!!! So I found a spot to park on the street and went in; it was then I realized that this was a haircutting school (red flag #1). As I was paying (in advance) I was given a sheet of paper for chair #17 with Jeremy. I found chair #17 and shortly Jeremy came up and started asking me what I was looking for. About a minute into what would be my 50 minute haircut, his manager (I assume) reminded him to put his smock on (red flag #2). I also saw in one chair how an instructor (I assume) was pointing to a guys hair and trying to explain how to make sideburns straight (red flag #3).

Anyway, Jeremy was a nice enough guy and the 50 minutes was spent as a study in human behavior and interaction. I watched as one younger guy stood in front of a mirror the entire 50 minutes with a trimmer working on fine-tuning his gotee. The guy cutting the hair of an elderly gentleman across from me kept calling people over to look at something on the back of the guys head -- they were fighting being audible with their laughter. I could tell who was just there at the school to pass time or whatever; and I could tell who was being serious about trying to learn to cut hair. It was very, very interesting.

As for my hair cut, let me sum it up in two questions/statements from my loving wife:
1) "Did you get your hair cut?" (this is funny when you consider that I usually allow my hair to get way to bushy and then cut it way too short -- never typically a question but obvious)
2) From this morning, "You are going to go get your hair cut today, right?"

I guess I'll chalk the $6 up as a Walk Across the Room toll in trying to meet new people...

Rob Bell - Rich

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZFFxDcSfeA

Ever not feeling rich, check out the above video from Rob Bell (a bit over one minute); for those of you without the ability to run the video:
- 92% of people do not have cars
- 1,000,000,000 people do not have access to clean water
- 800,000,000 people live on less than $1 per day (300,000,000 of them are kids)

Rob has a way of making us realize that these numbers each represent an individual life. I don't know what this does to you and I don't believe it is everyone's holy discontent, but numbers like this are unacceptable to me. I continue to be convinced that we don't have a global problem with lack of food/wealth, but instead we have a distribution problem.

I don't want us to all walk around feeling guilty; but I do want us to walk around without our heads in the ground. Let's drink clean water & eat well, but realize how blessed we are.

Live Life Large

I believe that God calls us to live life large; to not shrink back; to do what we were designed to do with reckless abandon. However, the achiever & driver in me often contort that to simply mean go, do, be, achieve, push, prod, lead, etc. I believe those are things I'm designed to do, but I also think each of us were designed for times of pure refreshing which was modelled for me yesterday by my daughter.

My wife & I were looking for her; yelling her name both inside and outside with no response. Finally, my wife went to the back yard and saw her swinging on the swing with her iPod on and her eyes closed. My wife was able to get her attention before I ever saw her, but I can envision the picture. Eyes closed; legs pumping; head back; hair blowing in the wind; mouth singing away or smiling. Yeah... that's living life large.

There are times I do it, but I need to find more time to pump my legs on the swing, put on the iPod, and let me hair blow in the breeze. We probably all do.

Strength mourning

I had an hour long meeting with my mentor this morning and it was one of those conversations that I wish I could just bottle and bring out whenever I needed. Like great mentors do, his focus was asking questions and then using his wisdom & insight to help me reach my own conclusions regarding various aspects of my life. This morning we were discussing my juggling of my two different jobs as well as my MBA program and personal life. As we discussed the corporate role and how I've been trying to understand why I'm struggling with achieving the same level of passion I used to have, we had a tremendous breakthrough. I've been assuming the passion issue was a result of having such strong passion for my church role as well as my desire to get in the battle of world poverty and HIV/AIDS. However, what this wise council helped me get to was the realization that of my 5 strengths (based on the Strengthsfinder), the ones that I'm most wired to do are the Strategic & Achiever. He helped me understand that for the past several years at Thrivent I've been in roles that have leveraged these two key strengths and my move to my current position (which allowed me to do more church work) utilizes my other strengths, but my use of Strategic & Achiever have dropped. Basically, my Thrivent issues are not necessarily around my passion for ministry; but around the Thrivent role itself. I need to look for opportunity to re-ignite the position requirement for strategy and the sense of achievement rather than management.

This is tough to explain in journal-language, but this is the kind of breakthrough that can change paradigms and lead to much better career & life decisions. I would have paid hundreds of dollars for this insight (but please don't tell him that!).

Blog split

Hey gang... I've decided based on feedback to create a second blog and split my purposes. This blog will continue to serve as my personal journey (goofy insights, struggles, etc). For those more interested in my perspectives and updates specifically related to my role as Executive Pastor of New Hope Community Church, I would welcome you to check out stevefredlundxp.blogspot.com.

The personal blog (this one) will continue to have posts each weekday (at least intended) and the xp blog will likely have updates twice/week. Thanks to those of you for your valuable feedback; I think this is a good solution.

As far as my personal journey goes, I just finished a stint of speaking two weeks in a row and a total of 3 of the last 5 weeks. I guess it might be a titch easier if it was part of my job, but its quite difficult when it is a total above & beyond kind of thing. Yesterday I felt great about the material but just never really at ease; typically when I have more of my message pre-planned (scripted), I feel less at ease... that was the case yesterday. Interestingly, my wife commented that I said "OK" about a million times and I never even realized that. I think there is a direct link between my "at ease-ness" and my using filler words (OK, Aaah, etc).

Why is it that I feel less at ease talking about something the more I have prepared? I think my strength area in communication is talking from the heart and the more I prepare (even though the preparations are from the heart) the more uncomfortable communicating I feel. Is this a case of less is more?

Weekend hiatus

Hey all... I have decided that for now I will only blog on weekdays. This is not for lack of strange insights & happenings, but instead based on the activity of readers (I know some of ya read the blog on the weekends, but there is a pretty dramatic dropoff in activity) and off-line feedback from some of you that you like to read the entries but get behind pretty quickly (hopefully the 5 entries / week will allow you to catch up). I'll catch y'all on Monday - thanks for your encouraging words and fun responses (both on & off-line).

Dalbo Sausage

Ok, so just a few minutes ago I went down to grab a quick breakfast in our cafeteria and grabbed a couple of sausage patties. When I went to pay, I was setting my stuff down and I accidentally flipped open the lid of my stirofoam container and one of the sausage patties dropped to the floor. Without even thinking, I reached down, grabbed it, and threw it back into the container. The cashier was like, "You can grab a new one" and I said, "Oh, no, that's fine." She said, "Are you sure?" (her tone was a little concerning as it seemed to imply the floors never get washed). I said, "Heck ya... makes me stronger."

The rest of the trip back to my cubicle I was thinking, "I am soooo Dalbo." Dalbo, for those of you who don't know, is a town of about 3 houses where I lived from about age 1 to 7 or so. This is not a slam on Dalbo, but when I see pictures of my grubbiness from when we lived there and bring up memories of eating dirt, etc, the term seemed to fit.

I've struggled in the past of feeling unworthy for leadership positions I've been asked to take primarily because I still have this feeling that I'm just a dork from Dalbo. Several people have helped me realize that my Dalbo-ness is not my identity nor would it ever restrict what God can do through me. I believe this is true; but this morning I was reminded that you can take the guy out of Dalbo, but you can't take Dalbo out of the guy.

Wacky Cat

I think our cat is clinically insane. Is that possible? Or perhaps our cat has witnessed our goofy family and has conformed itself to our wackiness. Is that possible?

Our cat's name official name is "Diet Dr. Thunder Mifflin this is Pam Pam", which seems unrelated until you realize that our poor cat has been subjected to the bizarreness of our family since 6 weeks old including being given such an unfortunate name. The good news is that we typically go with "Thunder." Anyway, I believe Thunder has been observing us and now thinks he is human. He will sit in my lazyboy on his butt with his legs flat in front of him and his arms to his sides - that seems odd to me. He will also jump around as if someone (or something) is after him... which it is not. He will lay on top of the TV trying to catch the baseball or other things as they go off the edge of the screen. He will lay on his back with his head tilted way back in the off chance that someone will come by to rub his neck & belly; at which point he'll attack them. He's quite odd.

It makes me think a couple of things: 1) We are poor role models as I think he has taken on the personality of the family and 2) I wish I were more like him in that I didn't care what people thought so much. My thought here, of course, is assuming that Thunder doesn't care what we think - which I think is a safe assumption.

Our cat is wacky, but there is something enjoyable about his freedom to be himself; but also something disturbing about how his wackiness is representative of our family.

$30 Battle Fee

As my wife & I have continued to be convicted about getting in the battle against global poverty and HIV/AIDS, we made a decision to step up our involvement a little bit. We’ve been sponsoring a child through World Vision for a few years, but just decided that we were going to modify a family tradition to allow us to engage in the battle a bit more.

This past year we have had Thursday nights be our “Office & Pizza” night where we order pizza and watch “The Office.” We are modifying that night slightly so that we no longer order pizza, but instead have something simple. The bill typically ends up being $25 for the pizza, wings, breadsticks, and tip. We’ve justified this over the year as a small investment in our family, but with this new conviction we felt we could still keep the “tradition” without the expense. A World Vision sponsorship is $30/month so what we decided is that we would only order pizza on the 5th Thursday of a month (if there was one) and use the other 4 nights to instead sponsor a World Vision child – allowing us to sponsor a total of 5; symbolically representing one for each of us.

We had a great family meeting about this and although it was tough for them at first, our kids understood and accepted how this can have more significant impact. About 30 minutes later my 7-year old daughter walks up to me with a first full of 1 and 5 dollar bills… totaling $30. She said she wanted to pay for the first month for one child. This is money she had been saving for an American Doll (I think that’s the name of them). I started crying… man that was a powerful moment on so many levels.

These are small steps… but we finally feel we are engaging in the battle rather than just talking about engaging.

Head vs Heart

Today is my last day in a stretch of 10 of 11 days not being at my job as an investment actuary; I normally work there 3 days/week but last week I took 2 of those 3 as vacation days to attend the Leadership Summit. Throw in 2 weekends and my Monday/Tuesday in the church office and there ya go.

I'm struggling a bit with keeping passion about the actuarial job; actually it's not that I have no passion for what I do there, its just that my passion for community transformation and global justice burns so white hot. I've started thinking about what I can do with my work environment that will help me stay motivated and focused in that position. There are so many advantages in that role and I think I need a picture, statue, or something that will continually remind me of those. That position has paved the way for my church position (flexibility and salary), allows me to use that deep problem-solving part of my mind that I enjoy, provides funds to be able to help several family members as well as engaging in the global poverty battle, creates financial security for my family, and allows me many opportunities to interact with people a lot different from me.

I know these things in my head. How do I push them into my heart to help me get through those 3 days/week with complete motivation and passion for the tasks at hand..... knowing that back home there are people in need of transformation and globally there are people dying from starvation every 3 seconds. I can separate these things on paper; but sometimes paper is trumped by the holy discontents of the heart.

The Day After

I had the extreme honor of speaking yesterday which can be a dangerous thing the day after coming off of a leadership event like Summit. I was pretty fired up about the redemptive potential of the local church, living my life with purpose, and inspiring people to be motivated for impact. I toned it down the best I could, but I know I was still fairly challenging to people.

Every time I speak I get the usual, "Good job", "nice message", etc, but you can usually tell how effective you were by those who seek you out specifically to give you feedback rather than those that just happened to see you. It will be interesting to see the perceptions of those people that I know will be ruthlessly honest with me either way (TF, SN, BB).

I'm especially interested to see the backlash from a few of my comments including "Christians need to learn how to party more" or "The filter we have set up to determine who is worthy to be our friends means we only end up with like-minded people; our group of friends consists of caucasian Christian straight Republican Viking fans with 3 kids." That is a fairly loaded statement and I'll be interested to see how much heat I take for it.

I'm glad I had an outlet for some of this passion but there is still plenty more. I'll end now -- feedback on these has been that they are "too long".... perhaps I need an executive summary at the beginning of them...

Summit Day 3

Today wrapped up the summit with an interview with Jimmy Carter and a final session by Bill Hybels. Again, too much to comment on, but here are the highlights:

Jimmy Carter:
- Need to have an inner circle of staff with integrity, compatability with core principals, extends knowledge & capability in their given area of expertise, and willing to have & share conflicting ideas.
- There is a growing chasm between the rich & the poor along with an attitude that "we" don't want to be burdened by "their" problem.

Bill Hybels (Whatever you do, inspire me!)
- There was a ton in here, but basically it is each leader's responsibility to inspire themselves. It is critical that we do whatever we need to do to be inspired and motivated. A leader's motivation is a "force multiplier" (to use a phrase utilized by Collin Powell yesterday). When a leader is motivated and inspired it multiplies the leaders effectiveness in motivating and inspiring others thereby multiplying production.
- The leader must find out what motivates and inspires each person on their staff; people are not all motivated in the same way.
- The leader must surround themselves with EIPs (Exceptionally Inspiring People)

The question I am now wrestling with after being challenged to up my leadership and to get into deeper into the battle is, "Why did God give me the spiritual gift of leadership?" What am I supposed to do with that?

I've got a ton rattling around inside my pea-brain right now and I'm sure it will come out over the following days & weeks. Sorry the past few days were like a seminar rather than a blog.... we'll see what the next few days hold. I preach tomorrow so better get workin' on that. Later...

Summit Day 2

Well, today was even better than yesterday. Here were some of my key takeaways:

1) Willow Creek's Executive Pastor Greg Hawkins completed a study around the value Willow adds to people who are in various stages of their spiritual journey. What they found was that the value was tremendous for seekers and those early in the journey but decreasing in value with increasing maturity. The conclusion they reached is that they cannot keep adding programs that will "feed" this more mature followers to the point that they need; instead they need to change their paradigm to create "self-feeders". They are looking to put their energy toward training people to feed themselves rather than relying on the church; they are creating resources to help people develop customized personal spiritual growth plans. The idea is to transfer the responsibility for spiritual growth from the church to the individual.

2) Michael Porter, Harvard Professor and viewed by many as one of the top strategic planning mind in the world: There was a ton here, but the key for me was like any other resource allocation, there must be appropriate consideration of the value per dollar of investment (time or money). It challenged us to think about using our personal resources & skills to create the greatest societal contribution. Perhaps instead of starting a ministry, we should instead just write a check to an organization that can do it more effectively. Does it make sense for nurses to spend their weekends building houses? Should they instead be utilizing their skills in medical volunteerism? I have a ton of respect for Mr. Porter, but I need to process a few elements that he left out: What if a nurse is passionate about housing? What if they are sick of nursing all week long & want to do something else? What about creating ownership from our followers by doing a ministry ourselves rather than just funnelling money?

3) Collin Powell (former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff): Again, way too much here to share but two of the things I took away from this were 1) As a leader, prepare to be lonely (I could relate), and 2) Need both passion and dispassion (I'm paraphrasing, but his message around this was very consistent with Carly Fiorina's talk). This videotapes interview was unbelievably great and both challenged me to be all the leader I can be and at the same time affirmed many of the difficult leadership decisions I've needed to make recently.

4) John Ortberg, former teaching pastor at Willow, currently lead pastor of Menlow Park Presbyterian in Silicon Valley area. Mr. Ortberg walked through the story of Esther spending the majority of time talking about how each of us has a self-centered "shadow mission" which on the surface can appear to be our main mission, but really isn't. Most of us walk through life thinking our mission is one thing, but blind to the fact that God has a greater mission for us that we need to see and embrace.

5) Richard Curtis, british filmmaker ("Four Weddings & a Funeral", "Love, Actually", "Bridget Jones' Diary", etc) is tremendously passionate about ending world poverty. He has led and initiated many successful activities that have raised billions of dollars. He challenged the church to move from arguing theory to getting it done; "where is the church."

Bill Hybels wrapped up the day reiterating the challenge from Richard Curtis... "where is the church." His passionate desire for the church to take their place in this battle reignited a stir inside of me from last year to jump in and take a front row position on the global war on poverty. I don't know what this means, but there is a holy discontent stirring around activating the churches in global justice issues such as poverty and HIV/AIDS. Stay tuned...

Summit Day 1

Hey gang.... wanted to let you know that I don't have a regular blog entry today; yesterday, today, and tomorrow I'm attending the Leadership Summit through Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago-area; simulcast to Eaglebrook Church in Lino Lakes, MN (where we are participating). Anyway, here are a few quick takeaways from yesterday:

1) Bill Hybels: The lead pastor of Willow Creek challenged us to ask the question of whether or not we have a vision to die for. We need to make sure our vision is compelling enough that people will be able to overcome their fears; that the risk (whatever that might be) is worth taking. Jesus, his disciples, and many followers to this day have found the vision of spreading the gospel so compelling and worthwhile that they gave their very lives for it. Each of us may not be asked to spare our lives, but are we willing to take on some risk for the vision of our organizations?

2) Carly Fiorina: This former CEO of Hewlett Packard and subsequently HP-Compaq gave insight into leadership requiring Passion & Dis-Passion; a leader must be absolutely passionate about the vision & purpose of the organization, but dispassionate enough to see things as they really are (to remove themselves from their passion enough to see the current reality and make the tough decisions that need to be made).

3) Floyd Flake: This pastor of a 23,000 member A.M.E. church in New York helped us realize that if we want transformation in our communities, we must first deeply understand the greatest needs of the community and focus on making change in those areas.

4) Marcus Buckingham: This business leadership guru and leader of the "strengths-based revoluation" focused on how we need to deal with our weaknesses (not ignore them), but do what we can to align our lives, careers, etc, with our strengths. I have a number of his books, CDs, and DVDs so this was not new, but it did solidify some of the things I've learned through him before. My wife and I chatted a bit about how we utilize a strengths-based approach in the raising of our kids.

Well, that's it for now; today we will get some Collin Powell, John Ortberg, and others. Later...

Smelly Tee Tee

My daughter has this thing... she loves to sleep with my t-shirt that I wore throughout the day. Even when the days are hot and I've been sweating, she won't go to bed without what she calls, "tee tee." Before going to bed, she always comes downstairs to where I am and she'll either say, "tee tee?" or she simply puts each hand in the position of a T in sign language (thumb between pointer & middle finder). In this case she just stands in front of me with her two hands held up like disjointed fists. This is my cue to either take off my shirt and give it to her or let her know where I put my dirty clothes. At her last sleepover with her cousins, she even brought one of my "lived-in" t-shirts with her to sleep with.

I'm guessing this is fairly unique, but as funny as I think it is, I feel so honored and adored by her desire to sleep with my t-shirt. She loves the smell and it helps her feel close to me while she is sleeping... honestly, could there be a sweeter act than that? She presses the shirt up close to her nose and breathes in deep and says she loves the smell; apparently the mix of sweat, speed stick, and cotton makes for a fine potion!

Her actions with my t-shirt make me want to have the same honor and adoration for my heavenly father. When is the last time I allowed myself to be completely absorbed by God to the point where I went to bed holding on to Him the way my daughter holds my shirts? I want to press God's presence up to my nose and breathe in deep and allow that smell to give me great comfort and rest throughout the night. There are times when I'm tough on Annie and she gets upset and disappointed, but she always comes back for "Tee-tee"; I want to have that same attitude with God - no matter how much I get upset or disappointed, I want that unconditional love for God that continues to draw me to Him.

Tomorrow my wife and I are going to the Leadership Summit at Eaglebrook Church (simulcast from Willow Creek in Chicago). It is going to be absolutely awesome and I'm sure I won't be able to shut up after 2.5 days absorbed in the best leadership training one can get (including Collin Powell, Jimmy Carter, John Ortberg, Marcus Buckingham, and others). I'm sure I'll be bloggin' about the main things that stand out. G'night.

Paper Towels

As I mentioned on Monday's post (August 6th), you would likely hear about my gym adventures at a future date... that date is now. Have you ever either started a new gym or switched to a different gym without first getting a tour, etc? That was my experience on Monday morning. I showed up very early and started looking around, figuring out what I was going to work on, etc, and just kinda felt out of sorts the entire time. The machines were located differently than I was used to, some of the seat & arm adjustments worked differently, etc. The whole time just felt uncomfortable.

Well, I got through working out and went to take my shower and get ready for work when I realized they did not have a supply of towels nor did they have soap or shampoo. The other location I'd worked out at had soap & shampoo dispensers as well as towels for you in case you didn't bring your own; no such luck! I had to decide if I was going to just go back home at get ready or figure out an alternative solution. Being one who hates to waste time, I opted for the latter. I decided I would get through the day without the soap & shampoo (perhaps use some extra deodorant) and then dry off with paper towels... that's a smart and savvy solution, right?

Well, I think the day went fine without the soap & shampoo, but the paper towel solution was a little dicy. Let's just say I'm very glad the paper towel dispenser was fully stashed. The out-of-alignment feeling I had continued when I realized I had forgotten to pack up my toothbrush & toothpaste -- that is something I can't get by without; so I then realized I'd need to stop by a convenience store and grab some on the way to work.

So now all of this "out-of-sorts" feeling is overwhelming me when I finish getting dressed and ready to leave and run into who? My pastor!!! So now I'm standing there chatting with him with teeth that hadn't been brushed for about 24 hours with a good "bead-on" (credit to CJ) because I never fully dried off. I'm his executive pastor so we are talking about final things before he headed out on vacation and what I needed to take care of and all I could think about was my wetness and my bad breath. At one point he took some paper towels out of the dispenser and handed them to me.... fairly embarassing.

My point in all this (besides relaying a humbling, yet funny story) is that we all find ourselves in uncomfortable positions from time to time; situations where we just feel out of whack. Pastor Bill just started a series on getting out of our comfort zones and into the zone of the unknown in order to build relationships with other people. I will be speaking the next couple weeks on building those relationships, collecting stories, and sharing our own story with others.... this can be incredibly uncomfortable at first. But, like the gym, once you get used to where things are and how to navigate through it (and what to remember to bring so you are prepared - 1 Peter 3:15), then there gets to be a rhythm to it and you no longer feel like you are drying yourself with paper towels.

Heard

Last night I had a great meeting with some of the church's volunteer leaders. I have been researching a potential change in how we do our offering collections: potentially moving from the standard collection process to something more along the lines of giving stations. Several new churches have done this and others have made the transition. I feel this change would be a great one for our culture, creativity, etc and based on my conversations with several church attendees as well as church leaders who have made the change, I felt it would be best to move forward with it.

So last night I pulled the ushers and counters together to chat about the implementation of this process, but I also wanted to get their thoughts around making this potential change. I encouraged them to give their honest and candid feedback so that we could reach the right decision for New Hope. We had a great conversation mainly around their consensus that this would not be a good move for us at this time. We ended up not discussing the implementation, but instead the pros & cons of such a move as well as ways we could streamline their current process.

There is a lot more background I could give here as it truly was a fantastic 60 minutes, but my key takeaway was a statement one person made, "Well, the decision is not going to be made in this room and how we feel isn't going to matter; we should probably focus on how we are going to implement this new process." I'm paraphrasing here, but that was the tenor. I assured them all that this input was valid and will be considered (since I'm the decision-maker on this one). This comment triggered several thoughts and insights on leadership in the church (here are three):

1) Ownership is critical; for changes like this we need to make sure that the time is spent in clearly communicating and casting vision for change to all of the groups throughout the church. Honestly, although this group did not feel this would be the right move, I felt like if we did (or do) implement the change, I would have a core group of champions who would at least understand why the change was made. I think a change like this is possible, but only if we take the time to champion the change in advance. This is similar to our unveiling of the new strategic plan where we tried to get to all of the small groups and share the plan, answer questions, and create champions for it. Communication is key, but more than just one-way, "here's what's going to happen"; instead we need to allow the input side both for ownership as well as getting to the best decision.

2) Building ownership and creating avenues for 2-way communications can be perilous. As I shared with the group last night; if I set up several meetings for input & feedback and half the groups are strongly opposed to an idea and the others are strongly in favor, I end up in quite the pickle. No matter what I decide, 50% of the people will feel they were heard and 50% will feel they were not heard. How do we help people feel their input was valid and considered even when the decisions don't go they way they felt they should. Perhaps the answer is in follow-up sessions; perhaps we should not only have input sessions, but we need to make sure we get the people in a room who had the opposite viewpoints and spend the time explaining the decision to them. We may "convert" them to the new way of thinking, but even if we don't we have honored them by sharing with them why the decision was made the way it was.

3) Both of the above explain why non-profit leadership, where the primary human resource is volunteers, is a much more challenging leadership responsibility than with all hired staff. Jim Collins in his watershed book "Good to Great" followed it up with a supplemental chapter on applying it to the non-profit sector. In there he talks about how he feels the key leaders in industry will come out of the non-profit sector (reversing the trend of marketplace leaders moving into the non-profit world). The primary reasons are the vision-casting and collaborative leadership skills needed by the non-profit leader. The new post-modern workforce is not going to be motivated by the whip or the carrot, but instead through feeling they have a voice and through collaborative thinking - these are skills currently developed in effective churches and other non-profits.

Wow, this was a long one. Sorry about that; I never know what to expect when I start hammering the keys. Thanks for sticking through this one with me...

Aaah... love

I showed up this morning to my church office after working out (today's experience at the gym will likely show up as a blog some day soon), opened the door to my office, and found that my loving wife and children had taken it upon themselves to both bless and ridicule me in one fell swoop.

On my office chair was my acoustic guitar with a sign hung on it that read, " 'Hold on to that six-string as long as you can' and have a rockin' good time at New Hope." For those of you who don't get it, see my earlier blog entry called "Six string blind spot" from 7/17.

In addition, there is a poster of a bald eagle now above my desk with the caption, "The Bald Eagle is Back!". I have the crazy fascination with the bald eagle and my family often gets my freedom speech when we see one (if you have been reading my posts, you know we have seen a lot of them lately while fishing).

Finally, covering my desk was an assortment of goodies including 10 cans of Diet Dr. Pepper stacked up, a bag of Spicy Nacho doritos, a box of chocolate covered cherries, and a 60-pack of Dentyne Ice gum. These, for the most part, represent my gluttony in all its glory.

Now, based on what I received, I could look at this as my family making fun of my lyrical blind spots, my over-fascination with an animal, and my joy of gluttony. OR.... I could look at this is just flat out love; the kind of love where we are free to playfully tease each other and not take life or ourselves too seriously. I could also look at this as a tremendous blessing that they would take the time to do this funny thing for me; that I mean enough to them that they would spend money and take time to give me a great start to a new week.

Yeah, I got issues like all of us, but it sure makes life more enjoyable when they can be talked about in the freedom that only a relationship founded on love can offer. So I'll walk through the next couple days enjoying gluttony and aware of my goofiness, but all-the-while with a wry smile on my face as I feel remembered and loved and free to be me. Love ya fam....

Noodle brain

It's about 10:30pm and I'm sitting here on a hotel bed in Brainerd, MN after enduring a marathon day of MBA residency. The residency kicks off a course on Informational Technology (IT) and how it should be used strategically inside organizations. The readings and now discussion have actually been much more interesting than I expected (sorry to any Bethel faculty or administration who are reading this). I love thinking about how "computer stuff" can be thought of in conjunction with our core "business" strategies rather than as a necessary evil. I can see a ton of application right now for the church I'm on staff with; we recently completed our strategic plan and there are a lot of ways we can utilize technology to move forward strategically toward our purpose and vision. I continue to realize, as I mentioned earlier, that there are a lot of people out there with a lot bigger brains than I have -- one guy (PI) even got a standing ovation from me and a couple others after he brainstormed on the IT architecture of the Amazon.com technology model.

Anyway, as some of you know I am scheduled to speak each of the next two Sundays... but I've not yet started preparing. I do have some notes I received that will be used to help prepare the message, but they are just sitting next to my feet right now... as I look to the right of the laptop (ironically sitting on my lap) I can see them there... staring at me... seemingly asking for me to take a look. But I'm tired. I start wondering when I'll take the time to start preparing. I have my MBA from 11-4 tomorrow, drive back and then go to an outdoor baptism service (one of my highlights each year). Monday and Tuesday are packed with meetings & commitments during the day and at least one of the nights; Wednesday is my only day at work in the cities; all day Thursday and Friday plus Saturday morning I'll be attending the Leadership Summit.... then Sunday is here and time to share.

It will be tough to find time to prepare, but yet here I sit... blogging. Blogging doesn't seem that important of a thing to do, yet I love it. I'm right now wondering why I love it. I guess I enjoy sharing my thoughts (although often odd) and I enjoy the feedback I get from you (mostly by email and phone because you are too bok-bok to comment on line). One person (DH) told me when I first started the blog what a create creative outlet in could be as well as how therapeutic it could be. He was exactly right... I feel invigorated sharing my thoughts and it also feels therapeutic; not like those water foot massagers, but more of a heart massaging. It seems to do me good to creatively articulate what is in my heart. It might seem like I get it, but I really don't... I'm just enjoying it.

Anyway, I believe this is my most loosely structured entry since I started... I better go and start staring again at the papers I could be using to prepare my message. Or I could sleep... perhaps even a more spiritual thing to do. I miss my wife and kids. G'night.

One

I've been part of a lot of conversations and on the receiving end of a lot of news and communication regarding the bridge collapse and the loss of one of our co-workers. Whenever and wherever tragedies of this magnitude occur, there are a few comments consistently made that, after a while, start to bug me. These are not comments about the tragedy, but instead during the analysis phase as experts start understanding what actually happened. Consider, in this particular incident, a statement such as "Things like this just shouldn't happen in Minnesota."

I totally understand this statement and I agree that bridges shouldn't collapse in Minnesota. I also know I'm goofy in this thinking, but when I hear a statement like this repeated several times, I start getting the feeling that Minnesota is being held up above other communities. I start wondering, if things like this just shouldn't happen in Minnesota, then where should they happen? Wisconsin? New York? Philippines? Ukraine? Namibia? I know this was not the intent of the comments, but I start getting the impression that Minnesotans should be smarter and have it more together making an incident like this inexcusable for us.

I realize this might be confusing (it makes sense in my warped mind), but let me further explain. Like I said, I agree with the comments like this and their intent. The part that gives me pause is when it appears to elevate one particular community above others. My desire is to see us (the human race) realize we are one large community instead of a series of independent individuals, families, towns, counties, states, countries, or even continents. I would like us to see our reaction be more like "Things like this just shouldn't happen" (rather than adding the, "in Minnesota").

I know I'm now entering tanget mode, but I believe the key to solving many of our worldwide societal problems (hunger, poverty, AIDS, slavery, child prostitution, racism, global warming, pandemics, illiteracy, abuse, etc) starts with realizing we are all going through life together as a community much larger than we typically think of. Like Bono, I believe we are "One". I have heard it said that the world hunger problem is not one of lack, but of distribution; we have plenty of food, but need to figure out how to distribute it better. This can only happen when we expand our vision beyond ourselves, our families, our friends, our state, and our country; this can only happen when we realize that our brothers and sisters in Africa are just as valuable, smart, deserving, and loved as we are. Yeah, I'm allowing my rambling spirit to expand my initial point, but I believe it is related. We can and should love the towns and areas we live in, but not at the cost of feeling they are somehow better or more deserving than other towns & areas. Let's live & love, be strong & courageous, and press forward both as Minnesotans, but also as members of the greater human community.

Drawn to the scene

A couple of years after the 9/11 terrorism, I was in New York on business and had very little time to tour the city. It was so bitterly cold I had to buy a hat & gloves from a dude on the street. So what did I decide to do in the frigid cold, with very little time, and having never been in the city before? Instead of hanging out in the warm hotel watching ESPN, I felt compelled to figure out how to get near the World Trade Center rubble, which I did. Fast forward to today. I had no intention or desire to see the collapsed bridge that I've driven across hundreds (perhaps thousands) of times and which now claimed the life of a co-worker and others. However, after a quick prayer service, I found myself walking the 8 blocks or so to get a view of it... and I was far from alone.

Why am I attracted to the scene of a major disaster? For me it is not about looking at the structural damange from an enginerring or architectural standpoint. For me its not about wanting to experience the grief/agony/hopelessness of family, friends, and rescue workers. I've never been someone compelled to be somewhere just so I could say I've been somewhere. I don't know what it is.... perhaps it is to better understand the magnitude of the situation. Perhaps it is because when I am there, alone in my silence, I freeze time and imagine how life was different when the bridge or building was still standing. Perhaps it allows me to solidify history in my mind by seeing it in three dimensions instead of just on the flat screen. Perhaps it is the sense of community I feel when I stand near what amounts to a graveyard with hundreds of other people, all standing in silence - many with hats removed, most with cell phones off - all knowing what each other are thinking without saying a word.

Could it be in these brief moments of agonizing unity that we are as close to community as we ever get? It doesn't matter if who is next to me is black or white, male or female, Greek or Jew, slave or free, young or old, married or single, tattooed or not, pierced or not, crooked-hat or not, fan of rap or jazz or country or gospel, and for that matter if they are a Christ-follower or not. Wait.... it is more than just "it doesn't matter", it is actually "I don't even notice." Strangely enough, in those moments of being captivated by imagination where time stands still in the hollows of a tragic event, I feel more at one with humankind than I do at any other point in my regular life. I wonder (and wondering publicly is dangerous) if, in some strange way, this is what it is like to "let the things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace." Now, this obviously isn't God's glory and grace, but I wonder if the feeling is the same in regard to how life gets diminished as something else gets magnified. OK, I'm in full out rambling mode now... I am now recalling other times that I had this same life-diminishing feelings, but these are more joyous times: I am thinking now of sporting events and large worship settings.... it was the same unity; the same one-ness; the same feeling that no one has to say anything and I feel like I know what they are thinking and feeling. And in each case it is raw emotion.

Do you think all of this comes back to our desire for true community? I guess I didn't answer my question about what draws me to the physical location of the disaster, but perhaps I have a better understanding of what the feeling I experience is once I'm there. Something about getting absolutely lost in the moment with a community of others and each one of our "everythings" faded away. Hmmm, interested myself in my pondering.

Bridge collapse

What a horrendous tragedy today in Minneapolis. The 35W bridge over the Mississippi is a bridge I typically drive on twice a day when I commute; in fact I was on that bridge about 90 minutes before it collapsed. It's so hard to know what to say, do, and sometimes even feel at a time like this. It is almost surreal to get an automated call from my company trying to "account" for all employees: "Press 1 if you are an employee or if you know that the employee at this number is accounted for." I can't even fathom the emotion of the family that isn't able to "Press 1."

This Sunday, churches throughout Minnesota and the nation will be tackling the question of why bad things happen to good people. It will be another opportunity to see the differences in how churches and spiritual leadership understand God and interpret His Word. Times like this and reactions from various spiritual leaders always lead me to wonder how different people, both motivated by a deep desire to understand God, come to very different conclusions about things like these tragedies.

In my opinion, those spiritual debates and theological discussions need to wait. Right now the focus has to be on reaching out to those who have gone through tremendous tragedy. I always encounter multiple people who ask me (since they think I'm "religious") why God lets things like this happen; they are usually surprised to hear my reaction that indicates that I don't know with certainty. Like everyone, I have thoughts on this, but I don't know with certainty. I do believe absolute truth exists (God) and I do believe there is inspiried understanding of God (Bible); however I also believe that my human ability to comprehend falls short. Isaiah wrote that God's ways are higher than our ways and I certainly believe that. I have an interpretation based on my understanding & perspective, but I won't pretend to know all of the mysterious ways of God. In fact, I'm very glad that I am not as smart as God - I take comfort in knowing that God has a bigger picture in mind than I can possibly fathom (both for all of humanity and for my life specifically).

Thank you to those who took the time to call and email to check on my status; it has warmed my heart to know you had me in your thoughts and took the step to reach out. As I told one friend, I feel so blessed to have such a caring extended family.

Neuro what?... Change

I just finished reading an article called "The Neuroscience of Leadership". It was quite an interesting article but made me realize how many people are out there that are roughly 6 million times smarter than me. From what I grasped, the article was trying to link the brain (the physical organ) with the mind (the human psyche of thought). That is, are there explanations in the organ of the brain that explain human thought - especially as it pertains to leadership and how to promote change in behavior of an individual or an organization. Quite compelling really.

I did take a couple of things away from it that could be useful in promoting change, but one thing that came through loud and clear is that there is no easy answer; there is no magic pill or magic bullet. Change management and leadership requires specific discernment to the individual's or organization's situations, culture, beliefs, environment, perceptions, history, etc. With this and from other reading and personal experience, it reiterates to me that not everyone is cut out for every situation (or, better put, each person is not suited for every situation) regardless of how much we understand the brain vs. mind or have developed leadership skills.

In my world, the power or organizational leadership and change comes from vision - pure, focused, and clear vision of some future state. From there, change management can occur with boldness and focus; effort is spent to help people see the changes and why they are necessary to move toward the vision, but ultimately each person will have their "fear center" triggered in different ways and will make the decision to sign-on or cut ties.

I think about the change management at Thrivent and when we decided to start our hedging program; I think about New Hope when it was decided to start this budgeoning ministry as its own church; I think about the decision for New Hope (then barely 1 year old) to use resources to help start another church; I think about the current decision to "re-launch" New Hope to 3 services when the two we have aren't fully packed. These are all leadership decisions based on a ton of fact and input, but forged in and aligned with the vision. For effective change to occur, we need to keep pounding the vision of transforming the community (not a few, but the entire).

Thanks for listening..... hope this made some sense. At some point they need to study "The Neuroscience" of my mind....