Things I Have Learned Along The Way

Early on in ministry someone suggested I make a list of things I have learned or am learning.  I have done that several times recently and today came across the list I made while working at the church I began full time ministry in.  I thought I would share the list with you because there is some good stuff on it, but also to encourage you to do the same thing in your own life.  I hate making mistakes, and I really making the same mistakes twice; these lists serve as good reminders to us along the way not to make the same mistakes twice. 

• Keep you mouth shut, or choose your words carefully, you cannot take them back and people are precious to God
• Live it first, sell it second (become the vision)
• First, do no harm
• Be who God intends you to be
• Sometimes you will plant and you may not see the harvest
• I will do what God prompts me to do (even when its scary)
• Leadership empowers churches
• Surround yourself with people that pray
• Don’t share staff (leader’s) issues with others, it poisons the well
• Be thankful for the little things
• Celebrate successes
• Lead from your strengths
• Be urgent, be passionate – destiny hangs in the balance
• Set priorities, be diligent, run to win the race
• Surround yourself with mentors
• Pass on what you learn to others
• Share your blessings
• Trust God, He knows what He is doing
• Don’t be afraid to fail
• Learn from your mistakes
• Seek the grander vision
• Make time for people
• Focus on your family
• Stuff is only stuff, don’t let it cloud your vision
• Be creative
• Collect ideas, thoughts and information strategically
• Pray, pray, pray
• Continuously develop your leadership
• God has you here for a reason – be yourself and be confident
• Intentionally invest your leadership
• Equip and empower others

I would love to hear things on your list; don’t be shy and share with us.  Just think you could be keeping us from making the same mistakes you have; and we all make mistakes!

Your Life Story

Have you ever had reason to sit down with a few people and talk out your life story?

It is a really interesting experience and I highly recommend it.  Yesterday Trish and I had to take a Church Planters Assessment offered by the local branch of the Southern Baptist Association.  (Our church is a Southern Baptist Church, but before you freak out – it isn’t the typical Southern Baptist kind, but I get to go to all their seminars and training stuff and I love to learn, so it isn’t too bad.)  Essentially the assessment asks you leadership type questions and asks you to tell them a story of a time when you experienced this or that.  They ask for specific examples of stuff you did that can help them determine how good or bad you would be at planting churches.  It was kinda fun because you get to talk about yourself the whole time… like a first date, “so tell me about yourself,” and Trish and I had to walk through different experiences with them.  They said there are no wrong answers, so we are both pretty comfortable with the experience.

 

The cool thing about exercises like this is it allows you to see a trajectory of your life emerge.  Like a pathway that comes out of common experiences…  themes begin to come out of the experiences you naturally find yourself in on your journey.  It helps bring your future out in light of your past.  Things that you enjoy doing or find success at in the past become building blocks for your future.  It is a great process because it builds self-confidence – you have already had success at something!  It also shows that some of the difficulties were there for a reason.  Maybe the reason is to clarify your personality, maybe to teach you how to handle certain experiences, maybe so you can help someone else through a similar thing in their life.  Regardless we often only look at our lives a step at a time; looking back at all the steps that have gotten us this far, and seeing where they might lead if we keep to the same path is a great experience!  I highly recommend it!

 

Okay, so if you are not a church planter, how do you do this?  I have done it and seen it done a couple different ways… one is post it notes.  You put all the good experiences on yellow post it notes, and all the bad on blue post it notes… then you organize them in groups, like these things taught me this, try to have three groups, then title your groups in chapters like a book, the early years, the formative years, the Everest experience, whatever seems like a good title, it is yours you decide.  When all the notes are organized in titles you begin to see the trajectory emerge, have someone else look at it and they can help you see patterns too.  You can do the same kind of thing in a journal, but having someone look at it from a different perspective is necessary to make sure you are being objective.  It is always a good thing to do to see how far you have come; even if you are still young there have been many steps in your journey already!

Assessment

Today Trish and I have a Church Planters Assessment.  It is four hours of discussing our strengths and challenges… should be lots of fun.  We all have to get out of the house at the same time, so things are interesting around here right now, and I have to hurry…See you tomorrow. 

Your Bucket List

My wife and I went and saw the movie The Bucket List recently, and I highly recommend it.  It was quite moving and thought provoking, I even teared up at the end.  (Something I am not proud of admitting on this public of a platform).  Basically a bucket list is a list of things you want to do before you die.  Things that life or fear gets in the way of; travel, skydiving, seeing something, making up with someone, you get the idea.  The list takes on a whole new meaning in light of a terminal illness, and the two main characters find the courage to do all the items together on their list before they die.  the movie started a great conversation at lunch yesterday with some of our friends about what would be on our bucket list.  I am still thinking about mine, but here are a couple of my ideas… 

1. Travel to Africa to help those in such great need.  I would love to spend a month in a village helping in some way… (keep in mind I haven’t been outside the United States since I was two.) 

2. Take a cruise that drops me and my wife off someplace with white sand beaches, crystal clear water, lounge chairs in the surf, and drinks with those little umbrellas. 

3. Travel to the Holy Land with a tour guide that really knows their stuff… I am interested in Jerusalem and all the history there. 

4. Spend a week in Disney World with my family.   (I have never been there either!) 

5. I would also really like to take professional driving lessons.  When I was a kid I wanted to be a writer for Car and Driver magazine.  They got to drive all the really cool cars!   

So there is my short list, what is on your bucket list? 

Those Closest To You; The Law Of The Inner Circle

I am thinking about making Friday’s leadership days.  For years I have collected, read, studied leadership, and I would love to share some of the best things I have come across over the years on Fridays.  I would love for you to share anything you have learned, read, or experienced as well, so this can be a kind of leadership dialog.  Some of you young people out there might think these are silly, but trust me, as you encounter different and difficult situations they may come to be quite helpful.  I wish I had learned some of these principles at a much younger age too!

John Maxwell is not only a great pioneer in the leadership movement, but I love his stuff because it is simple, straightforward and insightful.  He has many laws and rules (quite honestly they begin to bog me down) but today I will share one of his most effective:  The law of the inner circle…

Simply stated the law says, ”Those that are closest to you determine the level of your success.”  He goes on to say, “Ever since (developing this law) developing my team has been my number one propriety.  Even today – more than 16 years later – I devote more energy, more time and more resources to growing my inner circle than to anything else.”

I find this incredibly true, and also incredibly difficult.  Finding and surrounding yourself with talented, optimistic and energetic people makes a huge difference in your personal abilities for sure.  Devoting time, energy and resources to those people can be tough when the rigors of life catch up with us.  We are busy people, and sometimes we get so busy doing tasks that developing people lacks way behind. 

Make it a point to develop strong relationships with people that can have a positive influence on you.  People that can say the hard things to you in a way that inspires you to be better.  Invest in people that want to accomplish great things with you, and that want you to accomplish great things.  Sometimes spending money to get a coach will be a huge but incredible investment.  Sometimes just finding a mentor will be all it takes, and most of the time people will mentor you for free!  Just surrounding yourself with high quality people will make all the difference in the world.  Think about those close to you; are they the kind of people you want to become?

The Poor You Will Always Have Among You

Sometimes we don’t think about others at all.  We get so involved in our stuff  that it makes no connection to us.  The majority of people in the world live on less than $3 a day, food, housing, everything… less than a Starbucks coffee!  I guess that’s why I was so surprised by my reaction when the email came in yesterday about the boy in Zimbabwe (see my post yesterday; I Cant Just Sit Here Anymore.)  I have contributed to the One campaign, I hope to someday find a partnership with an organization that does great things for people in need internationally that our church can help with; but when I saw his eyes, heard his story and realized how desperate the situation is, I broke down.  I am learning how to make a difference, even if it is small, even in my thinking, so I can position myself to help more.  I know I cant solve the whole problem, but I also know that if all those that have, help all those that don’t we could make a huge difference.

 

What can we do to help?  What are you doing to help?

Can’t Just Sit Here Anymore

I had to inturrupt what I was doing when I saw this email come in…  Subject: An 11-year-old AIDS orphan copes with severe drought 

Date: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 11:11 AM

From: World Vision <info@news.worldvision.org>

 

click (here) to read the article 

 

This kid has no parents, lives with his ailing granmother, has almost no food, and is losing hope.  I sit here working on my laptop, listening to itunes, drinking tea and was just thinking about what to make for lunch…

 

I don’t think I can sit around anymore without doing something…  but I have no idea where to start… and my heart is broken. 

Stuck In The Snow In Front Of My House!

It has snowed off and on here for the past few weeks, and we have been enjoying the beautiful covering that glistens in the sunlight every day.  There are some difficulties that come with the snow, but up until recently it hasn’t been a big deal.  We have had rear wheel drive cars forever, and in Colorado they can make it really difficult to get around.  There are a lot of hills here, and when they ice up it gets really interesting.  Again , this hasn’t caused any problems until recently, and it is incredibly frustrating. 

Our friends that left for Thailand let us have their minivan.  It was a great relief; front wheel drive, big for the whole family, we are loving it.  Except last Friday it wouldn’t start.  I had moved our big van across the street and parked it on the curb to make room for this minivan in the garage, and this is where things break down – the big van, parked across the street, close to the curb…  It snows, the sun comes out and melts the snow, the water runs off the yards, driveways and roofs into the gutters.  The sun goes down, the water freezes, and pretty soon all the streets and sidewalks are clear, but the gutters are frozen solid.  So, our van, parked with two of the four tires in the gutter is stuck.  Two wheels are on perfectly dry pavement, two are shading the ice packed gutters, and we cannot get traction to move the stupid thing.  Trish and I spent a good hour trying to move it; we put stuff under the tire that is spinning to try to get traction and actually moved it about three feet, but it is uphill, and we started to run the van out of gas.  It is stuck, right outside our house, and it has been 40 degrees out the past couple days!!!  So now, with the minivan not running, and the other van stuck, we are down to one car…  luckily I work from home.

 

It won’t be long before we solve these problems, fixing the minivan and unsticking the big van, but it is just one more time consuming, energy wasting dilemma that I would love to avoid on this busy week.  I am reminded, however, of all the times something seemingly stupid and benign seems to get me so stuck like our van.  I get caught up on something that isn’t very deep, but it consumes a ton of energy and time to get out of.  Life is funny that way, I guess the only way to get through these kinds of things’ if we cannot avoid them to begin with, is to keep a good attitude and laugh a lot.  Ha, Ha Ha. (sarcasm)

Come To My Rescue

My son went to a friend’s sleep over birthday party this weekend.  He had started to come down with a cough, but it wasn’t too bad, so we let him go.  Probably not the best thing for his cough; a bunch of 10 year old boys, a new Wii, and no sleep, but we let him go.  Apparently they were up way too late, or early in this case, but had fun.  He came home around 11:00, ate lunch and slept till 4.  When he awoke, his cough was much, much worse.  No surprise there. 

He went off to bed, but was coughing so badly that he couldn’t sleep.  So on his attempt to get a glass of water from the kitchen, I hijacked him and made him take some cough medicine.  (It was not  an easy feat…)  I know that the medicine will help, he was not so sure. 

Here is the point.  Often times I hear people think God is out to get them.  I have sometimes felt this way.  Like He is waiting around the corner to catch me messing up and just cant wait to punish me or discipline me.  It is an idea that couldn’t be further from the truth.  He does have high standards, but He is more concerned about our health than we think He is.  Over and over in the Bible God is referred to as “Father”.  Some of us cannot possibly relate to that because we don’t have dads, or the dads we had were mean or didn’t care about us.  But He does care, He is not mean.  He wants to catch you going for a glass of water in your brokenness, give you medicine, love on you and help you get some peaceful rest.  He wants to love you in amazing ways, and He wants the best for you, much better than you even want for yourself.  He sees straight into your heart, and loves you despite all the sickness in there… Thank God He does, I know I have some serious sick things inside of me.

He has made a way for us to have a relationship with Him; He has come to our rescue.  Not because we wanted Him to, but because He wanted to.  He knows how to spread generous grace, and it is available to us all, we get to decide if we want to take it or not.

 

Generosity, Grace, Humanity In A Modern Lifestyle – Follow Up

So now is the telltale time for me to come clean with you about how my weekend went in the whole “showing generous grace” category from Friday’s post.  The results weren’t bad, but  I still have a long way to go…

 

I knew when I posted Friday’s blog that I was going to our friends house that moved to Thailand to haul out all the trash.  So I figured if nothing else I could call that “generosity” if everything else failed.  I helped; it felt good to help, and I know that was a good thing.  My wife and I went shopping later in the day and I picked up some AAA batteries because my trimmer goes trough batteries like crazy and I had not trimmed my nose hairs in a long time, they were in need to say the least!  Okay not just nose hairs, but my goatee was getting quite bushy, a little too bushy for my tastes, so I needed the stupid 5 dollar batteries to accomplish the job.  When I got up Sunday morning to get ready and went to retrieve the batteries for my much needed grooming, my son had a screwdriver in his hand attempting to install MY BATTERIES in one of his toys!  I informed him in a loud tone that I was embarrassed about as soon as I heard it that, “these are MY BATTERIES!  I NEED THEM!!!  GET YOUR FILTHY PAWS OFF!”  You could say this was generosity at it’s best working out in my life… or my son’s, who was able to say, “jeeze dad, take it easy.”  (I think he knows a lot more about generosity and grace than I do.)

 

My favorite thing though was having a couple over to the house to watch the game and share a meal.  Sometimes being generous with family time, food and entertainment is just about the best thing in the world… we had a great relaxing afternoon, but I don’t think it was life changing, dramatic generosity, maybe just the slow drip kind, but that can eventually have great results too…

 

What really hit me through this was my seeing wife’s generosity.  Besides spending nearly every Sunday morning leading the kids at our church and missing the adult service part, Sunday night she and her sister were out running errands and they saw a loose dog.  It was a friend’s dog; well here is the story – their other sister that lives in Denver has a friend that’s daughter lives here in Colorado Springs, so the daughter is the owner of this dog…  The dog has been missing for a couple days, and on their way to wherever it is sisters go to run errands they saw it in a neighborhood.  It is about 20 degrees out and falling, and they are tracking this dog… it heads out into a field, they have cell phones and are calling for reinforcements, the dog stands no chance against these sisters.  So there they are, in pursuit of this dog, spending hours trying to catch it; in the snow, in the cold, and they don’t even know the owner that well.  The sun sets, the temperature drops, and they continue chasing this dog…  That is generosity.  Selflessly helping someone in need.  Man I need to get better at that!

 

What about you?  Any success stories of your generosity?  What about setbacks, any of those you would like to share?  I would love to hear your comments!