Do or Die Moment

There are moments in our lives when we must place a stake in the ground, draw a line in the sand, and declare "This far and no further." This is it, the tipping point, the moment in time when you either look the monster in the eyes and come out victorious or lose everything that you've ever gained. You know what you must do - the longer that you fail to accomplish it, the further that everything you've ever dreamed of will drift from your grasp. Either the pain of doing it becomes secondary to the immense need, or the fear of the pain crushes even the knowledge of the need. In these moments, we must declare, "I am not afraid." The pain is worth it. I am not afraid.

I normally try to avoid copying other people's work, but sometimes something so immeasurably great gets done that it's almost a crime not to pass it around as much as possible. In the most crushing moments when I wonder if I can go on, this poem by Eliot Fitzgerald, a musician that I've only ever heard on MySpace, speaks volumes to me.

The wind is fun to watch from the confines of my room
A window forced into a wall like a hole inside a tomb
Watch the leaves go up and up and watch them slowly fall back down
Hear the clouds rush idly by, hear them crash into the ground
No noise could ever save me from the voice inside my head
From the nightmares in my closet and the monsters in my bed
Your name is the sound I sigh when I am forced to see my breath
During winter chills of loneliness and the knowledge that there’s death

You see since every man must live, I guess that every man must die
Young and old and in between every man must laugh and cry
But there is joy, and there is sadness inside of every human heart
And there’s a slave and there’s a free man and a chance to never start
It seems I’m living in an age where the good guys just as bad
Every bastard born in darkness with a thorn upon his head
I’m haunted by the memory of my mother’s maiden name
And the perfection that I promised at a time that never came
I know my parents love me, and I know I love them back
But I know my love ain’t perfect and I see that there’s a lack
Of consequences for my actions, compensation for my days
Been doubting everything around me, God vindicate my ways

One by one, I see them come, the monsters to be named
They stand and fall, they walk and crawl
Here I am ashamed

A cemetery looks the best when formed outside a church
Dirt filled with all the lonely people who had given up the search
Some gave up because they found it, some quit some, some never tried
Everybody pondered looking, some alone, some side by side.
Oh God I wish a could have been there the day that Moses hit the stone
A man blessed by holy heaven, a man courageous and alone
I’d love to watch him drink the water, while the people stood and cheered
Did he know the well his sin would bring to bear all that he feared

Forty years he cried for nothing but my unrequited love
For the land I’ve only heard of from all these thunderclouds above
And oh God, oh yes I love you but right now I’m mad as hell
I am your friend God please remember I’m your voice inside this shell
Of human frailty and misgivings about the promises of truth
I only know God, what you’ve shown me, apart from that, there is no proof

I see the stars in all their glory, I see the waves crash on the shore
I see the order and the chaos, and I wish I could see more
Of your abundance in the desert and of your man on the sand
Instead of seeds you never pardon in this dry and lonely land
I’m gonna trust you Lord, I love you, you’re my savior and my friend
Give me strength to bear this moment of despair that you did send

One by one, I see them come, these monsters to be named
The stand and fall they walk and crawl, here I am afraid

The night crawls through my window as I crawl into my bed
And dream of candles I left burning next to books I never read
Hear the birds no longer singing, I see a black behind the rain
I see the emptiness that’s filled with songs of birds and crushing pain
My name is no more than a sound my presence somehow seems to draw
Symbols scribbled on a paper to fulfill this nation’s law
Here’s my name, if I could give it, myself and etched into my chest
I am a man, I am a poet, I am redeemed and I’m a mess
I have joyful lips and tragic eyes on the same face that hides a soul
That lives to love a God whom death alone allows me to behold

One by one I see them come, these angels to be praised,
They stand and fly they never die
Here I stand amazed
In you I stand amazed
I stand amazed
I stand amazed
Are you amazed?

Christian Community Development

Go to the people, live among them, learn from them, love them, start with what they know, build on what they have, but of the best leaders, when their task is done, the people will remark, "We have done it ourselves!"

- heard a few years ago from Dan Reeve, EFCA

The People You Never Met

Over a few beers at my favorite bar in Dallas, a good friend posed an interesting question that I have never received before. He asked all of us at the table what one book we would write. I thought about it for a while before coming up with my answer.

Whether out of sheer coincidence or through some special deep relationships, I have had the good fortune to get to know various people at a deeper level than most knew them. Some are fabulous friends that I just know that well, and others are just people that I happened to be in the right place at the right time to see an unusual side of them. But regardless, I truly believe that most people are far deeper than what you would find out about them in a few meetings or even in a few years.

I don't want to divulge anyone's identity or anything, but I could tell you stories of hearing the raw realities that come out of people's mouths when you're talking one on one after the other person has had a half dozen beers. The ever-so-slight change in a person's demeanor that happens when a certain song comes on that makes you ask a relatively innocuous question that leads to a heartfelt discussion. The strikingly different personality that you observe when you see a person in a radically different environment. It's a beautiful thing. The people you might think were strong and tough may in reality be surprisingly close to tears when a certain topic of conversation comes up. The people you thought were drunken womanizers might have a remarkable quality of love and deep respect for one single female. The people you thought were simple, surface deep normal people might have a heartwrenching tale of emotional turmoil in their family.

And then you might have me.

Uncertainty

I feel like another period of transition is starting in my life. Not that I've ever really not been in transition, but it seems like new things are starting to happen and different questions are opening up that I haven't felt in a while. Some are simple - moving in just a couple of weeks and not knowing where I'm moving to. Others are slightly bigger - whether or not to apply to Dallas Theological Seminary in the spring. Others are essentially impossible - what direction to take my career. And there are more.

The Lord gave me an illustration some years ago that I've always chosen to apply to my life. I imagine that my life will forever be on this track, but I'm okay with that. My life is like a road up the side of a mountain. If you've driven up a mountain road before, you know the tedious switchbacks that you must take to slowly go higher and higher. You also know that you can never see around the turn of the mountain, but that never stops you from moving forward, because you know that you can already see the point from which you will be able to see around it. And if you want to know the final destination, you need only look upward.

Perhaps one of the most comforting things possible in life is the knowledge that God is in control. And I am continually reminded of this, despite the absurd level of uncertainty that I've grown somewhat used to. Even when I've gone dangerously close to the points beyond which I have no plans (and sometimes even beyond the point), the right path has always opened up, and in hindsight each situation has been the right one. Even though I've never yet balanced a budget in over a year and a half since graduation and have lost thousands of dollars in 2009, I still have money to pay the rent and incredibly fortunate investments have kept me alive.

I can say one thing with absolute certainty: God is in control, and my life is still on the right track.

What if.....

I am often captivated by the thought of how our society would be different under slightly different cultural norms or conditions. For example, in Lord of the Rings there is the Ent society of walking, talking trees - except that Treebeard explains to the hobbits that in Entish the words are very long and take a great deal of time to pronounce, and so therefore the Ents never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say. How would our society be different if it took only, say, twice as long to say everything that we currently say? Would we conserve our words more?

I met a young lady tonight who had spent a summer in the mountains of Peru among a people group largely untouched by Western civilization, and they had retained a long-standing cultural practice of children being raised by their grandparents, really mostly just their grandmothers. Basically, people married fairly young and had children, then almost immediately sent the children off to their grandparents and went about their lives until their own kids were old enough to be married and have kids. Consider the implications. Could people be more productive in the prime of their lives if their children are not in the way? Could children grow up with greater wisdom if they are raised by older and wiser members of society than their young parents? Who knows!

This is not entirely senseless philosophical theorizing. I believe that cultivating a "what if" mindset is part of not only an innovative society, but also a careful and deliberate society. We could, with more "what if" statements, come up with more creative solutions to problems. We could also recognize the longer-term implications of present decisions. For example, consider the case among the Samburu people of Kenya that a friend of mine was telling me about a few weeks ago - at one time the women of the village walked hours each day retrieving the family's water supply. Some missionaries came in and drilled a well, removing the need to walk so far. Wonderful! Except for one thing - without the hours being consumed in walking, the women of the village stayed home and made more babies with their husbands, creating a dangerous population spike.

Maybe we should all take more time out of our busy schedules for thinking....not just reflection, but also theorizing and dreaming.

Ideas from the Ideation

Sadly I have lost my notes from the conference. I have no clue what happened to them. But I do remember everything that we talked about, so here's some of the ideas that I liked the best:

• CityServe - I had the opportunity to work one-on-one with Reggie McNeal, one of the major players in the "missional church" movement. His newest idea, that he and I fleshed out at the conference, was that of city-wide development. What if a city could identify 1-2 issues that would make a substantial improvement in the city if solved? All of the altruism and actors in solving the problems are already in place, but they operate independently. What if there were an independent third-party to call everyone to the table to strategise together? I love this idea because it's great development - all of the assets are already in place, they just need to be empowered. Cooperation is one of my biggest values so I am desperate to see this idea implemented.
• IdeaFest - Don Wilcox, who works for Leadership Network in Colorado, had the idea that churches could host an annual event that would really level the playing field so that ideas for the direction of the church don't just flow top-down. Lots of churches have this as a value, but few really successfully implement it. Anything to reduce heirarchy and top-down control in the church seems like a good idea to me.
• 1% More - Jenni Catron, from CrossPoint Church in Nashville, has the plan that we could make a massive impact in the world if every Christian and every church gave just 1% more to international missions each year. Although throwing money at development and missions is not exactly a good idea, if NGOs and mission organizations can have good strategies and visions that will be successful, this would be a great way for them to find the funding that they all so desperately need.
• Outsourcing - Nicola James, from the European Church Planting Network in England, was proposing the idea of churches outsourcing their back offices - anything from accounting to graphic design. I've heard this idea before and it seems like a good one. Some churches do this to a certain degree, but there are many challenges and it would be great to see this idea fleshed out so that the inefficiencies in outsourcing these functions could be reduced.
• Commentary - Steve Lutz, campus minister from Penn State, has the idea of a wiki-style commentary website where people are adding Biblical analysis to a huge resource. As long as there is a clear system for differentiating different interpretations of the same passage and so that people aren't battling each other, this is a great idea. He also wants to incorporate an online store for Christian resources that functions like Toms Shoes - you buy a Christian resource, an underresourced pastor somewhere in the world receives a resource. BOGO - it's a great plan if it can be comparable in cost to other sources or have great marketing.
• 2x2 Church Planting - Troy McMahon, from Restore Community Church in Kansas City, MO, has a plan for church planting. Churches are created with a missional and reproducing DNA through a direct one-on-one discipleship relationship with funding that is terminated after 2 years. Church plant teams are 40 adults and take place when the church is up to 300-400 people in attendance. Nothing new about this idea, but if somebody could successfully implement it, huge numbers of people would come to Christ.
• Troy McMahon, Jim Sheppard (Generis Partners in Atlanta), and I put our heads together and came up with an idea for staff exchange toward the goal of greater church partnership. Not only are preachers switching occassionally, but pastors sometimes go to different church staff meetings - either exchange, lead, or attend. Goes along with the idea I was initially pitching of church leaders coming together geographially but across cultural and denominational lines for regular prayer meetings.

I hope that some of these great ideas get implemented, and I also hope that church leaders continue to think innovatively!

Ideation

Had a chance to receive some great training at the Leadership Network last week. Leadnet equips leaders, both in the church work and in the business world, to succeed. They hosted a conference here in Dallas called the Ideation Experience where church leaders from all over the world came to process ideas together for the future of the church in America. I was blessed to be able to go and work with some great people.

Our speaker, John Handy (former Design VP for Mattel) gave us tons of information about how to be more innovative. Here's the process:

1. Call to Adventure - some big, scary, wild challenge with a bold deadline
2. Inspiration - to be creative, you must continually have inspirational input. Empty your preconceived notions and take deep looks around you...explore bigger meanings, go inside the creator's mind, recognize the culture, and relate to yourself
3. Success Factors - clearly define what success would look like
4. Ideation - the actual brainstorming work: here you capture ALL ideas, build on other ideas, combine ideas, look for unexpected connections between ideas, ask "Why not" and say "Yes and" instead of "Yes but," and think BIG enough that people will get angry when you say your thoughts
5. Evaluation - do not slip into this before Ideation is done. Now you compare your ideas back to the success factors - don't start working on "How to" yet.
6. Presentation - take the idea away and sleep on it for a while, with everyone planning to reconvene later. By the time you come back together, the ideas should be fully fleshed out with a presentation that answers all the "how" questions
7. Implementation - do not fail this step. As soon as the group decides on an idea, take a couple of big steps immediately in order to commit yourself

Essential in the process of innovation is the Elevator Pitch. The problem with big ideas is that they take lots of people buying into the idea in order to make it work. Therefore you need to be able to sell your idea to other people in the space of time it takes you to ride up an elevator with someone. 60 seconds is the absolute maximum. In this elevator pitch, include:

• A hook to capture attention
• A clearly stated problem or opportunity
• An elegant and refreshingly bold solution - stay at a high level, don't overdo the details, stay simple and clearly understood
• Ask for a specific action, whether contact info exchange or follow-up meeting

Other teachings from the Ideation Experience:

• Live in the world of possibilities
• Can't just means that it hasn't been done yet
• No usually doesn't mean no - it means look for another way
• Know the difference between revolution and evolution - don't get trapped in evolution when a revolution is needed
• Imagine your new idea in the newspaper or on TV