Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Surprised by Community


During our July summer vacation, after my wife, daughter and I drove over 1,200 miles to visit my parents, they told us a wonderful story of hospitality and community.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, they were taking a few days away and staying together at what people in Michigan call a “cottage.”  People in Texas would call it a “vacation home.”  A small town nearby was advertising a community-wide pig roast on the 4th.  My parents thought it would be fun to attend. So they did, knowing no one there.

After they got their food and looked for a seat, they saw a table with some open seating. They sat down to eat and noticed a young 20-something couple sitting nearby. Judging by their dress, my parents could see they were Old Order Amish. They, too, seemed to know no one.  After a bit, my parents struck up a conversation with them and learned that the couple lived a couple hundred miles away. How, my parents wondered, does an Old Order Amish couple who use only horse and buggy for transportation get to a pig roast a three-hour drive from home?

The young couple explained that they had never had a vacation since they were married, not even a honeymoon. So this was their first vacation ever. With their three children staying with their parents, they paid a driver to drive them to this area for their “vacation.” After three days, the driver would pick them up and return them home.

The conversation flowed easily, with my parents asking some not-too- intrusive questions about their way of life.  My parents, strangers themselves, were practicing hospitality in a strange place, reaching out to another pair of strangers. Returning the hospitality, the Amish couple then invited my parents to their home for an Amish meal.

On the agreed-upon date, my parents made three-hour trip to the home of their newly-found acquaintances. They shared a wonderful meal together, while my parents continued to learn more about the Amish lifestyle—complete with a buggy ride. What my parents experienced on these occasions, in addition to delicious meals, was community. These Christians of very different flavors, both strangers in a strange place, reached out to each other and made room in their lives for each other. They each blessed each other and were blessed in the process. That is the kind of community we envision in our recent book Community; Making Room for Relationship. Practicing hospitality is just one of the habits that Jesus practiced during his time on earth – and one that he desires us to continue developing and practicing until he returns.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

What kind of busyness do you have?


At one of our recent “Leading People from Busy to Engaged” workshops one pastor interjected with the question: “Are you too busy?” I believe I responded something like: “I am often on the extended side of busy, and lately I have been a little too busy.”

 Now that I’ve had more time to think about that exchange, I would suggest that the right question is: “Are you too busy for spiritual growth and passionate service?” To that I can answer, “rarely.”

My passion is growing people of Christ-like character. I want to spread character development across the breadth of the church. More often than I would like, I’m so engrossed in the details involved in tending to this toddling nonprofit that I lose sight of the vision that drives my passion and I find myself  drained, physically and emotionally. Yet, my busyness is still about moving forward that for which God has me on this earth.

On most days I am still journaling, practicing a private lectio divina and examen of consciousness. Those disciplines have become the bedrock of my spiritual practices. Yet, here too I could thrive and do much better. I have had the same spiritual director for over 15 years. She has been getting quite old. I am saddened and embarrassed to say that it has been a long time since I have met with her. Recently I attempted to make an appointment only to find that she had fallen ill and died suddenly a year ago.  I will never forget her reminder to “find God in all things.” I am still making time for spiritual growth, not too busy for that--though I would like to reinvest effort into it.

Are you too busy? Remember, the question is not simply are you busy or not? The real question ist whether busyness is distracting you from your spiritual growth and passionate service. In the current culture, busyness is inevitable.. But busyness with a purpose is enriching and fulfilling. One person said it well in their evaluation of a “Leading People from Busy to Engaged” workshop. The right kind of busyness is about “transforming ordinary busyness to kingdom busyness.”

The experience I had a key role in creating,  Charting Your Course often helps people be busy about the best things for them. It moves them away from ordinary busyness, toward kingdom busyness.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Clothes that last 40 years!




Yet the LORD says, “During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness,

your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet."

Deuteronomy 29:5



Last month, I attended a niece’s wedding with our 28-year-old son. Sitting with one foot across his knee as we waited to be ushered out of the ceremony, he pointed out that he had just recently bought a new pair of black dress shoes—replacing the ones we’d bought him for his 8th grade graduation eleven years ago! Not only that, he says he is still wearing the same black trousers that he wore for that occasion. I can hardly believe it!

“Seriously,” I asked, “your shoe size hasn’t changed since 8th grade?

“No,” he laughed.

And while his waist is still as slight as a barely teenager, I can’t believe he hasn’t added at least an inch or two to his height in the last decade. He insists it’s true.

I’m more surprised that those shoes still fit him than that they lasted as long as they did, after all, he probably only wore them once a week, max, for most of those years. Honestly, all I remember him wearing to church during his high school years was a favorite pair of soccer shoes. He is a cabinet maker/furniture craftsman, so dress shoes are not his everyday footwear. Still—eleven years!

“They just sort of fell apart one day,” he explained. “I was walking and felt something squishy. The soles were completely disintegrating.”

I’m delighted with him and for him that those shoes lasted so long. He and his wife are just getting started in life. Avoiding or delaying unnecessary expenses is a big part of their life. They are happy to make do with what they have. I’m thrilled those shoes made do as long as they did.

I think about God’s reminder to the Israelites—in forty years of wondering in the wilderness, neither their clothes nor sandals wore out. Not for lack of wear or tear. Surely, 40 years of desert wandering would take its toll on footwear. But, God didn’t allow it – and in his mercy and faithfulness brought them through the wilderness intact – shoes and all.

Sometimes I speak pretty glibly of God’s faithfulness. His mercies are new every morning—and I tend to take them for granted. I expect to greet the new day with a modicum of health, food in the pantry and a plan for the day. It’s good to be reminded that God is interested – and does something—about even the seemingly most insignificant details of our life—like making shoes last.

By Judy Hagey, Director of Writing Projects with Ascending Leaders and freelance writer and editor

Friday, August 5, 2011

A tale of two companies


  The last week of July was a super week with Ascending Leaders, the organization I founded and lead.  It included:
  • A successful “Leading People from Busyness to Engagement” workshop in Des Moines--our first ever.
  • The public premiere of Ascending Leaders’ DVD story for 2011 in the same town that Sarah Palin premiered her movie—Pella, Iowa.
  • An Ascending Leaders staff retreat in Pella.
  • An Ascending Leaders board planning and meeting in Pella.
  • A visit with men who are using our Charting Your Course and other AL materials at Cross Church Pinnacle Hills.
During this super week, our locations also had us interacting with a number of employees of two very successful international companies. The founders of each of these companies were strong Christians who began with something very small and grew it to be an international corporation. Both of these men passed on their companies to the next generation of leadership and passed away in recent years.

The employees of one of the companies told me that it is not the same company they started working at. At one time, the company strongly valued the employees and the community of its home office, but today many employees are feeling used by the company for the sake of profit.

The mood at the other company is drastically different. Employees welcomed us warmly as we toured part of its manufacturing facility. I was told that this generation of leadership built on the leadership of the first generation to shape the culture of the company to care even more for its people. They talk about a 4P perspective of Principles, People, Product and Profit. Principles are critical to guide this company without its’ success relying on the personality of one or a few individuals. People are important, as is product and profit so that this company will have years of viability for everyone it blesses—customers, dealers, employees and its community. In the downturn which this company experienced in the 90s they learned how to become even more efficient in their work and to produce better products with fewer employees—they call it lean manufacturing. They showed us their next generation of engine that is so good ecologically that the air it puts out is cleaner than it is when it enters.  They also showed us a machine small enough to be pulled behind a pickup truck on a single axle trailer—a machine that builds blocks the size of concrete blocks. This machine can build the blocks on the construction site, so that blocks do not have to be shipped to the construction—thus decreasing costs. The machine also uses extremely durable parts so that it will not break down easily. They are excited to develop this for building earthquake and hurricane-wind resistant homes in developing countries.

The culture of this second company is the kind of culture I hope God grows through us with Ascending Leaders:
  • a culture that cares for the value and growth of people in our audience, as well as in our organization.
  • a culture that efficiently produces high quality product that blesses people.
  • a culture with a financial plan that allows us to be sustainable for years to come, to bless people for generations.
That is the kind of Christian non-profit I can take delight and pride in leading.  I thank God for the inspiration from this international corporation. May Ascending Leaders keep growing into that kind of organization!

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Your foot will not slip

I attended a memorial service last Saturday for the mother of a friend and Ascending Leaders staff person.

In the service, the pastor preached from Psalm 121, a Psalm that I have often read to people who are feeling anxious and have read to myself when I am feeling anxious.
1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

Verses 1 and 2 express a strong confidence on the part of the speaker. Some say that the speaker is saying that he looks up to the mountains and there in the mountains lies Jerusalem (you always travel up to Jerusalem) where God’s temple resided. Others say these verses are a contrast. In the mountains were the “high places” of the pagan gods. It is as if the author is saying that others may look to their gods in their “high places” for help, but he looks to the one who is maker of heaven and earth. Either way these two verses express a strong confidence in God’s provision of aid.

Notice in verse 3, the pronouns shift from first person (I) to third person (you). Someone is speaking to someone else. It could be that the author is there talking to other people declaring to them, like he declared in verse 1 and 2.

This pastor gave it another twist. Could it be that when it feels as if his foot is going to slip the author’s confidence in God wavers a bit? Could it be that verses 3 and following are the community of faith reassuring the author that God really will take care of him.

I know that I can go from a strong sense of confidence in God to a strong sense of vulnerability to danger and rejection in a matter of seconds. When you feel the earth is going to give away under your feet, do not fear the community of faith says to you, because God will not let your feet slip. When you feel as if you are left alone in danger while God is snoring in the front of the boat, don’t fret for He does not sleep. When the pressure gets so overwhelming that if feels as if you are getting a bad sunburn, God will be your sunscreen.

May those in the body of Christ reassure each other at those moments of doubt.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Too busy for spiritual growth or service

If you are a pastor or adult ministries staff, you are responsible for your church members’ spiritual growth or at least to some options before them to encourage their spiritual development. But spiritual growth takes time. If your church is like most every other, it’s full of busy, overcommitted people who have little, if any, time to invest in spiritual growth. So, how do you help busy people grow to be robust Christ-followers? How do you ignite their passion for growing more deeply in love with God? Good questions! This e-book was written to answer those very questions.

We realize that you may have heard some of these solutions before. But, knowing something and actually practicing it is not the same thing. Our aim is to position them anew and offer practical solutions you can use. We are also providing a webinar where we will discuss these further, and a half day seminar in which participants will actually experience some of the solutions we offer.

Anyone who is old enough to remember the 70s and 80s, undoubtedly remembers these common phrases and a line from a popular TV commercial lauding the new woman who can thrive doing it all:
»» Multitasking
»» Quality Time vs. Quantity Time
»» I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never-never-never-never let you forget you’re a man,
cause I’m a woman …
These are all about packing more and more into one’s life in order to be a success. Conferences and self-help books taught people how to cram more into their day.

The result was hurried and haggard people
»» with never ending to-do lists,
»» trying to perform at work and at home and, occasionally, dutifully at church,
»» staying busy, but bored,
»» putting off their own spiritual health until later.

As technology improves and expands, the pace of life continues to quicken. As if the 70s, 80s and 90swere not bad enough, now we can add overnight express shipping, handheld devices, texting and more to come. We are moving beyond the U.S. postal service, the land phone line, the VCR and the fax machine to even faster flow of information. But, the speed that it takes to stay competitive, to keep one’s job and stay on top of things, can have a huge detrimental effect as it crowds out spiritual health.

Church staff who are responsible for adult spiritual health and growth are stymied by this problem—how to engage busy people in activities and experiences that will facilitate their spiritual growth. “I don’t have time” is a familiar refrain. As a result, it’s hard to get people to show up. If they do show up, their participation may be irregular, making it difficult to build momentum. In addition, they may be too fatigued to focus on anything of much substance. Few can be expected to successfully complete small–group homework during the week, or even be willing to try. Meanwhile, a good number are vegging at home in front of the television 10, 20, 30 hours a week. Church staff, on more cynical days, may be of the opinion that church members want to be wowed and spoon-fed one hour a week and nothing more.

That is the problem, but what does one do about it?

That is the introduction to a 17 page e-book I have written on the subject of people being too busy for spiritual growth. Get the whole e-book free on our website beginning Thursday June 2.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

The gardening work of One

The weather in the part of Texas where we live has been very dry, windy and lower humidity and temps than we are used to in the spring. One result has been forest fires. Another has been weekend after weekend that is perfect for working in the yard. No rainy days as an excuse to spend a Saturday lazying around inside.

Both my next door neighbor and I used the opportunity to bring major improvements to our landscaping, though we went about it very differently.

Not to nock my neighbor—his method was low energy output on his part and hi cash output. In just one day, a landscaping crew of 8 guys pulled out all his front bushes and flowers, brought in fresh dirt to build up his beds and installed a beautiful array of plants. The next Saturday they came back digging up grass and putting in underground sprinkling. The next Saturday they replaced the old landscape lights with lights to bring dramatic lighting to the trees and front of his house. The next weekend they built new flower beds in his back yard and installed lighting. The next weekend they replaced all his fence pickets. And the next weekend three guys used a lever to lift his three big landscaping rocks up and put support under them so they stood higher and could be seen better from the street.

Over those same 5 Saturdays and more I worked in our yard. Ever since we moved into this house 18 months ago I had wanted to do something about the brick structures in the front beds that were falling apart. When I pulled them out, I found that no base had been put in under them, which made them lean and topple as the earth moved. I put in base and sand and rebuilt the brick structures. I gave fertilizer to the plants, thinned out plants, pulled out some plants that had been placed in bad spots and moved them to other spots. I trashed some plants that were just too thick. Earlier my son had installed a light to give dramatic lighting—to our address so in case of an emergency it will be able to be seen easily at night. My way of improving the hard was high labor, many hours for one person with some help from my wife periodically and much lower cost than my neighbors. I spent a few hundred dollars, whereas he probably spent many thousands. I also had this opportunity to enjoy getting my hands dirty—I find it to be a wonderful sabbatical from the work I normally do during the week. I complain, but it is a good feeling to have my muscles ache.

This reminds me of the spiritual life and growth. It is possible to go for quick growth that may look good on the outside but takes little effort on one’s part and does not go deep, possibly even meaning pulling some good plants out with the weeds. Then there is the slower work of the Holy Spirit. He does not waste a hurt. He fertilizes, moves around, gets to the foundation of the issue and puts in better base. This is the kind of improvement that is substantive and long lasting providing a certain robustness to one’s spiritual life. When I get inpatient with the slowness of my own growth, remembering the difference in how our two yards were improved is a good image for being patient with the work of the divine gardener.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

What I like about "millennials."

Last night I was with another twenty something couple. He was recommended to me for an opening it looks like Ascending Leaders will have this year. He and I met once before informally, thus was our first official interview.

Some things that impress me about the “millennials” I have interacted with more so over the last year:

1.The passion to grow. When I asked this individual what he was looking for in a position, the first thing he said was, “Someone who will mentor me in life, as a husband, father in the future and follower of Jesus.” That is a key desire of my young seminary friend as well.

2.Spiritual growth through service. My interviewee shared with me that the activity that he feels he gets the most from is serving. I was told by others that recently he took a couple men in their 40s and 50s to those living under the freeway to provide a variety of life essentials.

3.Many are finding themselves working in jobs they did not train for and are not fulfilling to them. Jobs that, beyond providing an income, feel pointless.

4.The desire to make a difference in people’s lives. Our interviewee seems to have a strong pull to our job because he can see that Ascending Leaders is making a difference in people’s lives for spiritual growth.

5.Some who are so excited and passionate that they overfill their calendar, though which generation did not do that when in their twenties?

6.I love them. I love hanging out with them. I am very much looking forward to the masters level class I will be teaching beginning next week “Leadership and Character Development.” Not all, but some of my students will be twenty-year-olds. There are two I especially love cause they are my wife and my biological children—ages 22 and 21. One of them is bringing into our family a daughter-in-law on June 18—we are excited!

This young boomer thanks God for the millennials He has brought into my life.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Santification and Spiritual Formation: What is the difference?

Here is another question from a young seminarian, whose questions I am answering on this blog.

YS: How do you differentiate between Spiritual Formation and Sanctification?

Mike: Sanctification is the process whereby we grow more Christ-like in our attitudes and actions. It is the process of becoming spiritually more mature. It is a work of the Holy Spirit that begins at conversion and continues on until the day when we get to go home where there is no pain or suffering or tears. “Become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:16

A couple studies in the last decade (Michael Zigarelli’s study in 2000 and the Reveal study in 2007) have shown that the spiritual disciplines are a key instigator of sanctification in people’s lives. Already in the 80’s authors like Dallas Willard in his book The Spirit of the Disciplines were claiming that the spiritual disciplines is what helped people to become the kind of Christians we wanted to be and needed. The spiritual disciplines help shape and form people. They contribute to spiritual formation.

Possibly we could say that spiritual formation is the act of becoming sanctified (set apart, like Jesus).

Another side of spiritual formation is that it is the process of growing more in love with God. It builds intimacy with Him. It encourages the remaining in Jesus.

There is a distinction there that people often miss.

Does one involve themselves in the practices of spiritual formation first of all for union with Christ or for change of behavior. Really the two are tightly woven together, but if we are not careful we can think of spiritual formation as only the growth of character which means relating to others differently.

I began digging deeper into spiritual formation at a time in my life when so much seemed to be not working. I was frustrated and bewildered. I listened to people like Dallas Willard and turned toward solitary retreats and spiritual direction to address these issues. In the midst of trying to find a solution I did grow more tightly connected to Christ and slowly the attitude and behavioral changes came as a result.

Today I often have to check myself. Am I doing spiritual formation activities in order first of all to grow closer to God or is it merely a tool I am trying to use to get a job done—to build my life more like Christ’s (sanctify it) and get it working better? I too easily slip by the former and fall into the latter. When I do, I am in trouble, because spiritual formation is not simply a gimmick.

Spiritual formation needs to be at its heart about the formation of one’s life with God. Sanctification comes as a bi-product of ongoing spiritual formation, but is not the core purpose of spiritual formation. Stronger union with Christ is what spiritual formation at its core is about.