am i qualified to be reliable?

i’ve noticed a recent development that seems to me both potentially profitable and possibly problematic (wow!  i find myself writing like rod parsley talks!).

there are a number of my blog heroes (randy elrod, tony morgan, tim stevens and the staff at granger to name a few) who are making themselves available for personal coaching.  as i believe that mentoring is one of the most effective, biblical, and neglected ways to expand the kingdom, i applaud the efforts of these great leaders.

that is the exciting part of this equation.

this trend is problematic, though, in the sense that there is a chance that the most gifted and most needy young leaders among us may miss out on these incredible opportunities.  and how does one go about “qualifying” to be mentored?  is personal coaching simply available to those able to pay their registration fee (and i have no problem with these leaders/organizations charging for their expertise) and/or travel to a particular location?  is this a case of “the rich get richer”?

paul wrote to timothy: “the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.” (2 timothy 2:2)

how long does it take to know whether or not someone is “reliable”?  and if we should seek out “qualified” people to mentor, what type of vetting process is required?

ben arment, an impassioned visionary i’ve long admired from afar, describes his offering:

Dream Year is a 12-month process that’s designed to help you bring your God-given dream to life.

You bring the dream.

I’ll be your dream coach.

As a community of just 20 participants…

We’ll make it happen.

to his credit, ben addresses the “is this person reliable and qualified” question with an extensive application.  and he addresses “the rich get richer” dilemma by offering scholarships.  and geography is not an obstacle because “dream year” takes place in an online environment.  but does it meet the requirements of 2 timothy 2:2?  can real mentoring happen online?  and does it take longer than a year?

the movement with which i am affiliated is credentialing people at an unprecedented rate (will drive-in ordination be next?) and is furiously seeking more candidates.  does kingdom expansion automatically happen by virtue of having more ministers?  and beyond formal training, who is teaching these new “preachers” compassion?  and servanthood?  and abandonment?

 

networking: virtual vs. actual (part three)

the wave in social networking and the popularity of twitter is moving personal communication toward sound-bites.  to conform, messages must becoming smaller, more frequent, and more public.  that trend is alarming to me, as it hampers our ability to connect on anything more than a superficial level.

allow me to elaborate (and you knew i was going to).

the long-term relationships i enjoy with my accountability partners are among the most meaningful in my life.  and even though i’ve been meeting with them on a regular basis for many years, and even though i know i can share my deepest issues with them without fear of judgment, and even though i am extremely comfortable in their presence, the conversation has to “warm up” for a while before i am ready to share. i’m sorry, i can’t just sit down and instantly confess my deepest, darkest sins.  what if our dialogue was limited to 140 characters?  and what if it wasn’t face-to-face?  and what if anyone could access it?

i think we severely underestimate and underutilize the power of personal accountability.  and i strongly believe that every christian minister should meeting regularly with a spiritual support group–or, at least, pursuing those types of relationships.

ed bacon is the rector at all saints church in pasadena, california, a “large, inclusive, urban, liberal-spirited church deeply committed to issues of social peace and justice and to the spirit of creativity in all aspects of life” (from their website).  while i confess i don’t place a lot of confidence in the opinions of  a theologian who appears (amid great controversy, by the way) on “oprah,” he recently wrote an article that amplifies my point…

From time to time, we speak about what an exasperation-free oasis our friendship is. Each of us has had some important relationships that soured because someone got exasperated with us. Not that we didn’t deserve it. But there is something about my best friends, who just don’t get exasperated with me, no matter how much I deserve it. As a result, I am not guarded with them, and when we fall back into old patterns of thinking, “If I tell him this, the friendship is over,” that’s where we have over the years taken the risk to tell it all. That’s where the friendship is made even stronger.

My best friends are the people with whom I feel safe to talk about mad, sad and hurt feelings. Most other relationships stay at the feeling levels where everything is “fine,” although we all know that’s not true. But my best friends never shy away from those times when we feel the neediest—when our feelings have been hurt, when we are so angry we could spit fire, when we are grieving and depressed, when we feel unacceptable. Over and over, those are the times that have made us feel more bonded.

The secret to all of this is that best friends are invested in being their true selves. Sure, they tolerate any posturing that comes from the false self. But the safety of the friendship is such that in their presence I can feel the superficiality of any of my ego-based claims or judgments. With that realization, I remember that I don’t want to live on the surface of life, and then I simply move into the deeper waters where my true self waits to cool, refresh and renew.

For me, investing in time with my best friends is profoundly spiritual. Standing naked before another, knowing that acceptance will trump exasperation and working through tough feelings as well as surface living to move to the true self is the essence of life with God. We can’t be fully alive without it.

do you have friends with whom you can “stand naked before another, knowing that acceptance will trump exasperation”?  if not you need to get some.  or one.

and then have conversations that contain more than 140 characters.

networking: virtual vs. actual (part two)

continuing the conversation about the pros and cons of social networking…

i understand that things have changed, and i stipulate to the fact that teens would rather text than talk on their cell phones.  even among members of my generation, the rise of technology has become the bane of civility.  last night, as i hurried through the grocery, i swear that i was the only one not talking on the phone.  we have to be on the phone while grocery shopping?  and i have to wait behind you in line while you blather on mindlessly (and rudely, i might add)?

i contend that the erosion of face-to-face verbal communication is a detriment to our society and a cancer to our kingdom mandate.

in an interesting article in leadership about the use of church space, paul louis metzger writes:

Churches have used technology in various ways, from video recordings of church services to virtual campuses where parishioners can “attend” church from remote locations by watching a live video feed on a computer screen.

But virtual space, like physical space, must be used intentionally—with thought given to how it is forming our people. What difference does a virtual service (through live feed or videotaping) make on the cultivation of community?

While a virtual service has the advantage of increasing the opportunity for reaching a greater number of people with the message, can a virtual space ever replace a physical location and human touch?

in the latest issue of time magazine, nancy gibbs (an amazing writer, by the way) speaks eloquently to this issue in a piece entitled, “the happiness paradox“:

I’m struck by how many people tell pollsters that the voluntary downshifting and downsizing of the past year have come as a kind of relief. Maybe we’ve lowered our standards. But we already knew that money can buy only comfort, not contentment; happiness correlates much more closely with our causes and connections than with our net worth. Americans may have less money — charitable giving in current dollars dropped for the first time in 20 years in 2008 — but about a million more people volunteered their time to a cause. Which makes me wonder: Is it a coincidence that eight of the 10 happiest states in the country also rank in the top 10 for volunteering?

Whatever you make of the psychology of happiness, we know something of its physics. It rises as it ricochets off other people, returning to us stronger by virtue of being released. It gets bigger when we don’t care if it gets smaller; we stopped buying all the stuff we didn’t need that was supposed to make us happier, and we seem to be happier for it. And who would have expected that? (emphasis mine)

i’m not saying that society is going to implode because we’re texting, or that the kingdom is hindered because of facebook.  i am saying, though, that we need to intentionally carve out space in our lives for conversation.  we need to ruthlessly establish, maintain, and protect face time with the people who make our lives richer. 

if we don’t, something within us will atrophy and die. 

networking: virtual vs. actual

i am continuing to tug on the thread from last week’s rant.  the debate was about twitter, but social networking is the basis from which the conversation arises.

my birthday was  a little over a week ago (53, for the morbidly curious) and i received several cards in the mail.  i enjoyed the sentiments therein, and filed them in my “special drawer” for future reference (you may not believe this, but i occasionally get calls/emails/notes from detractors who were offended by something i did/said/ate with unwashed hands.  in those instances, my “special drawer” serves as a reminder that somebody, somewhere loves me–paper prozac, if you will).

conversely, i received many more “virtual” birthday greetings than i did postal ones.  is there a lesson there that i should be learning?

look, i am a social networking neanderthal, and that’s okay with me.  i own my computer curmudgeon-hood.  i have a facebook page, but i log on once a week or so.  i’ve never posted a “status update.”  i don’t remember ever “inviting” someone to be my “friend,” but i’ve got 273 (and i realize that in the facebook world, 273 friends isn’t many but i am genuinely grateful for each and every one).   i have never used facebook to wish someone a “happy birthday,” but i received birthday greetings from 41 “friends.”  some were from actual friends, some were from colleagues, some were people i haven’t seen in years and years.  some salutations consisted of two words, and some were festooned with all kinds of cards and cakes and photos.   like i said, i am grateful for each one, but what should i infer from my facebook birthday party with its virtual cake?

hence, the topic of conversation for this week, dear readers.  i have several things to say about social networking (and every other kind of networking, as it happens), but i want to hear what you think.  is it more meaningful to possess the forethought to buy a greeting card at hallmark, lick a stamp, and mail it than to type “happy birthday” on the internet on the day of?  obviously, many of the “friends” who wished me a happy birthday on facebook don’t know me well enough to be expected to send a card (and, again, please don’t think me ungrateful for their efforts), so are they really “friends” or should we invent a new category?  and does it even matter?  or will the long-term effect of social networking undermine other established emotional gestures (and, ultimately, connections)?

weigh in, my friends…or whatever it is that you are.

to tweet or not to tweet – part three

and now to my principal qualm concerning twitter…

a couple of years ago after a prolonged, tedious argument, my friend, david, convinced me that blogging had intrinsic ministry value, and even set up my page.  “just click on this link” he said, “and start writing.”  i have tried my best to embrace this medium.  i sit down at my computer three or four times a week, depending on my schedule, and share something from my heart that i trust will encourage someone.  somewhere.  hopefully.

thankfully (and somewhat surprisingly), i am almost two years into this experiment and i’ve not had to abuse my conscience.  i’ve pretty much always had something i wanted to say.  while i like to refer to things i’ve read elsewhere, i’ve not resorted to wholesale plagiarism.  and while “opinion-of-the-month” seems to be prevalent on the blogosphere, i feel like i have relied mainly on original thought.

thence cometh twitter.

in my mind, there seems to be a significant distinction between a blog post and a tweet.  by definition, tweets are short bursts of profound thought.  and my observation is that while the most prolific bloggers post something every day, twitter-hounds post several times a day.  how is that even possible?  could martin luther have done that? perhaps (thinking of bible characters) david could have twittered (he was given to short outbursts of praise and self-encouragement).  but john the baptist?  no way!  and jeremiah?  don’t get me started.

it’s apparently a common practice to post twitter updates on one’s facebook page.  perhaps my facebook “friends” are substandard, but the tweets i see on facebook are inane.  and not very original.  they smell a lot like something john maxwell or c.s. lewis or t.d. jakes might say.  and they often are.   is that what twitter comes down to–regurgitating famous quotes and bible verses?

in a comment on yesterday’s post, david wrote:

“Twitter enables you to send 140 character tidbits of profoundness to your followers. Followers are jokers like me who for some reason give a crap what you say.

Let me be clear though, this doesn’t give you the right to over twitter. I don’t care what you are doing most of the time, but I would like to know if you “cussed at a lady in the drive through.” If you “fell down at work.” If you have “a prophesy for the immediate future.” That kind of stuff. NO BILLBOARD TALK. Nothing about knee-mail or Eternity- Smoking or NON.

Most people on twitter have nothing to say. Some people though give you just the right amount of what is going on in their life to make it funny and interesting.”

that makes sense to me.  i gotta’ tell you though, i cannot see myself struggling to come up with something pithy and meaningful several times a day.  i want to use every avenue available to me to expand the kingdom.  but how could it be something called “twitter”?

and did i mention that i don’t text?

to tweet or not to tweet – part two

and so it begins.

yesterday i announced my intention to maintain my current position in the technology curve.  mind you, i’m not planning to drop out altogether, i’ve simply decided that i’m spending too much time learning how to use time-saving devices.  i’m going to use my cell phone to speak to people, not to text.  i have decided not to twitter.

david writes, “Thank God you didn’t ‘opt out’ at some previous other tech breakthroughs. i.e. The bathroom Ventilation fan. Altoids.”  but one doesn’t need to expend a great deal of intellectual energy to chew a breath mint, does one.   i just don’t want to learn any more new technologies.

but that is not really my issue.

scot mcknight wrote an insightful piece on this topic for out of ur and i recommend you read the entire article.  i was especially interested in these passages:

Pastors tweet quotes from their reading, and inform us of what they are reading. Sunday tweets tend to be gratitude tweets. We also regularly discover who is meeting with whom (and the “whom” is always a notch above the “who”), or where someone is traveling. We hear about accomplishments but almost never any failures or disappointments, making the Twitter world largely a happy face community.

So, let me ask pastors who tweet and who update their status a few simple questions: What do your updates tell us about what you are doing? About what is uppermost on your mind? About what is most important to you? It is time to take stock. Perhaps you are like me—using social media to draw the attention and time of others to something else. But where are we leading these folks? What do our links reveal about what is most important to us? About what is uppermost on our minds?

there is something inside me–and i think it’s quite real–that is ready and willing to do anything (and i use that word advisedly) to advance the kingdom.  but there’s no denying that there is also something inside me that will do anything (that word again) to get noticed.  to get affirmation.  to get accolades.  i honestly wonder whether my foray into the blogosphere has been more about my mission or my ego.

so if i were to commence twittering (tweeting?) who would “follow” me?  and how many?  and would the people who happened to follow me be the ones god has called me to reach?  and does it matter?  and (perhaps more importantly), given my capacity for destructive co-dependency and self-aggrandizement on a massive scale, would i be twittering for jesus or for me?  and how does one measure success if one is truly “twittering for jesus”?  in other words, would i be considered a twitter failure if no one followed me?  or could i consider my endeavor worthwhile if 100 followed me?  or 1000?  or as many as pete wilson (35,567 as of today)?

i want to be what jesus wants me to be.  period.  and if someone can show me how twitter might elevate that mission without distracting me from what is truly important, then i’m all ears.

and will twitter help me have fresh breath?

to tweet, or not to tweet

i feel a rant coming on.  and it’s no small rant, either.  i feel a week-long, angst-emptying, gripe-filled rant welling up within me.  and it is very simple for me to trace this rant back to its origin…

david suggested i twitter.

both of my faithful readers will know my young friend, david, as the one who duped me into engaging into this questionable and noxious habit of blogging.  he assured me that digital communication was the future of ministry and, in my pitiful efforts to cling to viability, i succumbed to his siren song.  and, a year-and-a-half later, here i am.

my readers will also know that i am tech averse.  and i’m not against technology, per se.  it’s not that i see some sinister force hiding behind every firewall (and how did “cookie” ever become a bad thing?), it’s just that i have chosen to stop.  i am as vested in the digital world as i’m ever going to be.  i’ve drawn a line.  and that line is texting.

i still have people who approach me on a regular basis and, in an irritated tone, they say, “I sent you a text…why didn’t you respond?”  and what i hear is, “what, you’re too busy to communicate with me?  am i not important enough to merit your attention? you’re not rick warren, you know.”  when i answer, “my phone does not receive text messages”  i get this “are you kidding me?” look.  ”and you’re supposed to be a leader?  join the rest of us in the twenty-first century, fred flintstone.”

like i said, i’m not suggesting that technology is a bad thing–i’ve just opted out.  i’m not possessed of the required intellectually agility.  i have a room-temperature i.q.  my friends (friends?) tell me that i should, at all costs, avoid any battle of wits as i would enter the battle unarmed.  and i contend that there are scores of people like me (near-seniors; members of the silver-hair society; aarp cardholders; targets of the viagra makers; wilford brimley fans; etc) who would prefer a cell phone that doesn’t take video.  can we please check our email without being forced to learn another language?  can we surf the internet with feeling the pressure to join some social network?

i have been considering david’s suggestion.  a lot.  god knows i want to be as effective as i can be for the kingdom.  but the process has revealed all sorts of unseemly issues. i’ll write about those tomorrow.

check back.

grateful for my equippers

dr. kevin tyler is a prolific missionary (director of eurasia teen challenge) and a good friend of  mine (at least he allows me to say so in public).  when he is in the country, he visits our accountability group and he always brings something meaty.

this week in our meeting, the topic turned (again!) to local church polity and methodology.  we talked about churches we both know of that are wildly successful, and we talked about churches we know that are dying a slow and painful death.  kevin travels all over the world, is exceptionally well-read, and is an “out-of-the box” thinker so he brings a broad perspective to our meetings that i cherish.

when the conversation turned to the fellowship i lead, kevin asked about our mission statement.  then he asked about my personal mission–”not what’s written on paper,” he said, “but what is in your heart that you want to see god do.”  i told him i wanted to raise up young men and women who would come after me and make a difference in the next generation, generally, and in my community, specifically.

he asked, “what is your role in that mission.”  i told him that my biblical function is to model servanthood for them, and to resource and equip them.”

then kevin tyler asked me a thought-provoking question: “who equips you?”

i immediately told kevin that he did, and my other accountability partners.  then i began to think of all the godly influencers in my life and i felt an overwhleming sense of gratitude.  several times every week, busy, important men take time to pour into me and listen to me and admonish me.  these are guys that juggle many personal demands, and yet they pause to invest in me.  i know they are a gift to me from god, and i thank him for his gracious kindness toward me.  my friends are absolutely invaluable to me.

going into the weekend, i would turn dr. tyler’s question around to you, dear reader, and ask you to carefully and deeply consider the relationships in your life.

who equips you?

lessons from a retired mechanic

i’ve had several conversations lately about the “your best life later” concept and i feel compelled to further illustrate what i’m trying to say.  in no way am i condoning destitution, nor am i suggesting that comfort is sinful and hardship equals holiness.  and i’m not saying that jesus preached a “poverty gospel,” or that he compels us to live lives of physical deprivation. 

my contention is that if our focus/passion/goal is to have a better life here on earth, then we have missed the point of the gospel.  i pursue him/his will (not me/my will) and he will see that i have ”life, and have it to the full.”

maybe it’s because i’m getting older, but this truth is becoming so much clearer to me.  i don’t know how i missed it for so long.

there is a gentleman in my fellowship who recently retired.  he went to work at the local caterpillar dealership as a very young man, and spent more than forty years working on massive tractors.  i used to pop in to his workplace from time-to-time and find him up to  his elbows in transmission fluid.  a quiet, jolly man, he never complained about his job, but it soon became obvious to me that he looked forward to the weekend (short-term) and retirement (long-term).  well, he recently “pulled the plug” and seems to be enjoying life without responsibility (he lost his wife a few years  back).

this past sunday, he got to church early (as he always does…he covets the back row) and i stopped by to shake hands and visit for a moment.  when i asked how he was, he replied, “couldn’t be better…this is the second best place i could possibly be.”  thinking of his recent retirement, i said “i guess your number one would be a fishin’ hole.”  as he is a man not given to hyperbole, i was taken back when he answered, “no, the only place i’d rather be than here is in heaven.”

i remembered how i used to inwardly judge this man for what i perceived as a lack of ambition.  “instead of enduring this job until retirement,” i would wonder, ”why doesn’t he do something else?  make something of himself?”  last sunday morning, for the first time, i saw how right he is and how wrong i am.  if it’s a better job we’re living for, or greater success or even retirement, then we are, as paul said, “to be pitied more than all men.”

this humble mechanic has become my teacher.  he understands “kingdom” as jesus defined it.  he gets it.  he may live another thirty years.  or forty.  but he embraces the idea that no matter how great it gets (or miserable, for that matter), he will never enjoy his best life while he is drawing breath on this earth.

your best life is later.

 

 

 

we’re a pretty sorry lot

perhaps i’m overreacting.  i mean, it’s not like i’m suffering personally.  perhaps it shouldn’t matter to me at all.  but i am concerned.

one of the reasons i started writing in this space every day several times a week when it is convenient for me, was my knee-jerk response to prevalence of the “your best life now” message (hence, the title).  and its not that i’m advocating a life of misery and deprivation for all of christendom.  i’m simply raising questions about our (the church) obsession with success and comfort and happiness.

today was my day off and i spent a little time surfing the web.  i happened across (read: “facebook”) a couple of young pastors who grew up in my youth group.  each of them is leading a thriving fellowship with more than a thousand in attendance each weekend.  when i scrolled through their recent sermon series, however, there seemed (to me, at least) to be a preponderance of “your best life now” messages (i.e.: how to have a great family, how to overcome anxiety, how to raise great kids, etc.).  i am not saying that those things are not important, or that those subject should not be dealt with in the church.  they are and they should.  i am saying, however, that i’m not seeing a lot of sermon series on “participating in the sufferings of christ” and “denying self” and “joyful in persecution.”

like i said, i’m probably overreacting.

at the fellowship i lead, we are currently walking through the book of 1 corinthians and yesterday we started chapter 15.  in this passage, paul makes a provocative statement:

If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we’re a pretty sorry lot. (1 Corinthians 15:19 – The Message)

paul seems to be saying that it’s pretty ludicrous to make this life our hope.  yet, it seems to me that many christians are preoccupied with (and many preachers are preaching about) having a great life on this earth.  but didn’t we become part of the kingdom to escape the emptiness and futility of this life?

“but jesus loves us,” you might say. “doesn’t he want us to have a great life here on earth?”  he sacrificed his life to give us the kingdom.  isn’t the kingdom enough for us? why do we yearn for things pagans run after?  and what exactly did jesus mean when he said:

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. (Luke 9:24)

am i suggesting that we are victims of a massive satanic conspiracy?  i’m not that smart.  but i’m pretty sure our eternal spiritual enemy is pleased when we focus on success in this life rather than success in the life to come.

according to scripture, your best life (and mine) is later.