Zaccheus

The story of Zaccheus is probably one of the more well known Bible stories. If you are like me, the image of a rich little man (Because the song calls him a "wee little man" I always picture him as a Scottish Leprechaun) immediately pops into your head when you read it. We also think of Jesus' mission of salvation as he enters the home of a hated man instead of some righteous folk. But as I was reading this story again I began to wonder about how much Zaccheus must have fallen in love with Jesus.

In the story we see an almost instant change in Zac. He announces in Luke 19:8 that he will give half of his possessions to the poor and repay anyone he has cheated 4 times the amount. (Yes, I believe that the first promise is something he wanted to do as a result of his encounter with Jesus and that he was not merely stating something he had already been doing.)I also believe that he had indeed cheated many people because otherwise he probably would not have brought it up.

I have always thought that this was a terrific gesture but that Zac was probably still pretty well off financially. But if we think about it, maybe Zac underwent a serious change in financial status. First, he gives away half of everything he has which immediately cuts his net worth in half. Maybe that didn't make much difference to his everyday life. We hear from time to time about rich people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet giving away most of their fortunes. I applaud their giving but I doubt it has much of an impact on their standard of living.

Nevertheless, giving away half his net worth does make a difference when you consider his next pledge of paying back anyone he has cheated four fold, the amount required by Roman law for cheating tax collectors. Tax collectors were despised by the general population because it was well known they were cheats. Zac brings up the issue himself so he had, no doubt, also amassed his fortune in this way. That's a lot of cheating which means a lot of repaying. And he had to repay it out of a fortune that has just been cut in half. He probably hadn't made a four-fold increase on what he had taken so that means he would be in a severe deficit.

What I am trying to say is that Zac very well could have put himself in the poor house with his pledge and yet he seems happy to do it. That's an incredible change. He met Jesus while wearing nice clothes and watched Jesus leave his house while wearing rags. He may have paid a heavy price. And yet we get the sense that it was totally worth it just to be in relationship with Jesus.

I think it is worth it too. But thinking about this story makes me wonder how much that fact has transformed my thinking.

Nook

Kim and I decided to buy a Nook Color for ourselves for Christmas. Yeah, just one to share. It was an agonizing decision deciding whether to buy a Kindle or pay $100 more for the Nook. But I was sceptical about the whole ebook thing anyway so I wanted something a bit more versatile.

So far I love this thing. I love reading on it. I like being able to set the text size and I really think I read faster with it. Maybe it has something to do with the page size. I turn the page sooner than I would in a dead tree book and that seems to keep me going. I was worried that reading a screen would give me a headache but I don't even notice.

I also like the web browser. I don't have a lot of experience with mobile web browsers but this has been fine. I also enjoy the extras like the crossword puzzles and the Soduku. I haven't messed with the music player yet but I'm not sure I will use it for that.

I do have some concerns. It definitely needs a memo app. It just seems obvious. You can write notes in books so I could put all my notes in one book as a work around. I am writing this post from my Nook so maybe I'll just set up a private blog dor notes. But then I have to be inwifi range for notes. A bunch of apps are promised soon so we will see.

I am also hoping the battery lasts. I am getting at least the 8 hours they promised but I use it a lot. Yeah, I know that since it is for Christmas I shouldn't be using it yet but I have to get in as many hours as possible under warranty you know. Kim is finishing up a paper book before she starts using it. I'm not sure how the sharing will work. She may need to get her own.

Pushing

Note to Christian organizations who are trying to start a movement to save the world.

I may be all for your effort until you call me offering to send me a box of materials to look over with the option to buy if I like it, or send it back at my expense if I don't. Something tells me that if you really did have the ultimate evangelism strategy, and if you really had a heart to make it happen, you wouldn't be using this method to get it done.

Confused

I don't think I'm dazed yet but the Mole is being chased by Jack Spratt and Mary Mary of the NCD because of his heretical view of Jesus and his desire to be a part of an organic house church movement in Ankh-Morpork.

(I used to read several books at the same time with no problem but maybe I'm getting to old for this.)

Core

Jesus summed up 613 laws with just two. Love God and love others. Most Christians know this very well. I try to proclaim this every Sunday morning in one form or another. I think this is the absolute core of everything we should be about. But do we get it.

I'm in love. I'm in love with my wife. I remember first falling in love with her and the giddy feeling I felt in those early days. Our love grew and matured and changed over the years but it is still great. Giddy gave way to a little less expressive but even deeper inner joy. After nearly 25 years of marriage her voice still brings a smile to my face and a sense of excitement to my whole being. I love being in love with her. I've invested a ton into our relationship and it is very dear to me.

I love Jesus. I fell in love with him when I was 6 years old. I can remember the giddy feeling at the beginning of our relationship. This relationship is different than the one with my wife though. Obviously there is not an eros component to it but even more drastically, I am the only one in this relationship whose love grows and matures and changes over time. But I have invested a lot in it and it is very dear to me.

A few years ago I began being more intentional about thinking about God's love for me. I can't really go into the process of it all but whenever I do it I get a similar feeling. I feel incredibly loved.

But I want to grow deeper in my love for God. I was looking at my book shelves and I've found very little help. A few offer practices that are intended to help of which only a few I think actually work. (More on those in a minute.) But most of the advice are just exercises that can be done by anyone and have very little to do with growing in our love for God. And that's a big problem.

In fact most of our church activity doesn't require a relationship with God at all. Sometimes people are surprised to learn that there are a lot of Bible scholars in the world that do not believe in God. The fact is that learning about God does not require that we be in love with God. We do a lot of kind deeds for people but again, those can be done by anyone. They don't require a relationship with God.

I recently read a suggested mission and vision statement that came out of a conference. All the point that were made in both documents were excellent. But then I asked if a relationship with God was really necessary to accomplish this mission and vision and the answer was no. Granted I don't know why anyone would do those things if they weren't in love with God but I don't think it would be a requirement. Maybe that would be a good screening question. Do we need to be in love with God to accomplish this mission and vision?

I actually think there are a lot of people like that. They believe in God, they are moral people, they do good works, and they even pray with the best of intentions. But I'm not sure they actually have a relationship with God and that is a fatal flaw in their faith.

So how do we develop our love for God? The only suggestions that I thought actually worked were those that helped establish communication with God. Journaling, writing letters, meditating, and conversational prayer seemed to push me toward a loving relationship. I also think that stories about other people's relationship with God are also helpful. This would include biblical characters like Abraham, Moses, David, Paul, and most of the Old Testament prophets. (Try reading the prophets to learn about their relationship with God rather than Israel's sin a time or two.) It would also include non-biblical characters like Augustine, Brother Lawrence, Francis of Assisi and a number of more contemporary people.

In the end I always come back to this: How do I answer the question, "What does Jesus mean to me?" If I can only answer that question with doctrinal statements I think I am in trouble. (Salvation, Cross, Risen, Lord, etc.) In fact if that's where my mind first goes I'm probably missing the boat. I think a description of a loving relationship needs to be at the core.

Churchweb

In the last 10 years we pastors have heard from a variety of voices that our churches needs to have great websites. Well, I think it started out that we just needed to have a website. That gave rise to a whole raft of awful looking websites that would have made Miss Pacman proud. So then the call came for good websites. Along the way it was pointed out that our websites were static and uncool. We were left with the impression that it needed to be interactive with up to date content. Now I'm getting calls telling me that, for a monthly sum, I can be provided with a product that will be like Facebook for just my church.

My current opinion (I reserve the right to change my mind) is that church websites should provide basic information about your church and leave it at that. I want my church website to be a place where people can get the information they need and nothing more. It shouldn't be ugly but I would even be pretty lenient with that.

I figure that if the online lives of the people in my church revolve around my church website we have a problem. If you want to use a Facebook like product for your church why not just use Facebook? I suppose some may use safety as the reason but my inclination is that it has more to do with power and control. It also supports the refuge theology so prevalent in churches today.

So I prefer the people in my church to get a life and be salt and light in a world that needs it. If they need info on some church activity then visit my church website. If visitors need information about us, have at it. Other than that I'm just not going to waste my time.

Church

As a pastor I get to listen to people and read about church all the time. I hear they are to be biotic, organic, purpose driven, lay led, lead pastor led, governed, administered, community, house, small, medium, large, mega – and that’s before turning around to look at my bookcase to add even more adjectives to the list. Nothing excites me more than getting into a rousing discussion about this. (Can you hear my sarcasm?)

On the other hand, Jesus mentions church 3 times in two different instances. I think Pascal gets credit for saying, “God made man in His image, and man returned the favor.” Maybe we have done the same thing with the church by creating an institution that was never intended.

I understand that the Bible has a lot to say about church in passages that aren’t quoting Jesus. I also do believe that church is a valuable and worthy thing. But I believe that the church of our creation has done, and is doing, incredible harm to both followers of Jesus and the commission to make even more followers of Jesus.

The problem is that we make the church the center of a spiritual life instead of Jesus. Jesus followers are told by their church to invite non-believers to church. Some of these people will enjoy church and will eventually join the club. They will start hanging out with a lot of good people which will cause them to improve their behavior too. They will do more good things and less bad things and before you know it they too will be inviting people to church.

This strategy works. Huge churches have developed using precisely this strategy. The lives of large numbers of people have been changed. And a few have even developed a relationship with Jesus.

What we are actually told to do is make followers of Jesus. Of course church plays a part in that but the focus is supposed to be on Jesus. I know it may seem like I’m nit-picking but this is a case where first-things-first really matters.

I’m a fan of the Detroit Lions football team. I like communing with other Lion’s fans. We suffer a lot and misery really does love company. We like talking, complaining, spreading rumors about, and analyzing the Lions.

In a small town not too far from here I see a bunch of motorcycles parked outside a little bar. They aren’t part of some hard core biker gang. They’re just ordinary people with a passion for motorcycles. If I had a bike I would probably join them. I don’t drink but there is something about being around people who are in love with the same thing you are. It’s encouraging, uplifting, educational, and gives us a sense of belonging.

Maybe that’s the way it is supposed to be with the church. Maybe it is supposed to be a bunch of people who gather together, NOT because someone invited them, NOT because the church sign had a pithy little saying that convicted them, and NOT because the worship team rocks and the pastor is a great communicator. Maybe church is supposed to be that place where people who have fallen in love with Jesus gather to hang out, tell stories, learn, encourage, and commune with each other.

When we put the church first it’s like inviting someone to join us because our club house is cool and not because of who Jesus is. I think it would be better to simply tell people about Jesus and know that as they fall in love with Him they too will seek out other Jesus lovers to hang out with.

World Cup Robbery

As my surname implies, I have Dutch heritage so I was rooting for the Dutch in the World Cup final versus Spain. Alas, the Dutch faltered and fell to a late Spain goal, in extra time, leaving the Dutch as runners-up once again. But I have no doubt that in the days ahead there will be much complaining in the Dutch press about the referee.

In my view a football referee is different than most other sports in that their overall goal is that there is an overall fairness in the game, and not that all the rules were followed to the letter. The rules were designed to achieve that overall goal but they don't always do that. But that is fodder for another post altogether. In this game I would give the referee a C- grade from a technical perspective and a B+ from a human perspective.

Unlike the Dutch teams that finished runners-up in the past, this team was dramatically outclassed by Spain in terms of talent. With that in mind the Dutch had an easily identifiable game plan. 1) Play aggressively and disrupt Spain's excellent possession game. 2) Hold Spain scoreless. 3) Secure the win via the counter attack, a set piece, or penalties if necessary. To their credit, they succeeded to a large degree at disrupting Spain's possession and nearly succeeded in the other two points.

The referee had an interesting match as he set a record for cards given in a World Cup Final. He did miss a few calls that the Dutch are justified in complaining about. I still don't know how he missed the deflection off the wall just prior to Spain's goal.

But despite those complaints the Dutch should feel fortunate that they did not receive even harsher penalties. De Young should have seen a straight Red card for a vicious foul on Alonso in the first half. They also could have had several other players sent off for a second yellow much earlier than Heitinga received in the extra time period. All things considered, if the Dutch had won it would have had to be considered highway robbery.

It is one thing to play aggressive soccer but the Dutch resorted to thuggery. Instead of playing for a fair win they played with the hope that they could cheat and get away with it. In football, where finals often produce low scoring, it is all too easy to get away with that strategy. It is up to the referee to make sure that it doesn't work. And while he did give out a high number of cards, he almost didn't do enough, thus the low technical grade. As much as I hate to say it, it is a good thing Spain won. Had the Dutch won with that strategy it would have been adopted by many more teams than normally would use it going forward.

I give the referee a higher score from a human perspective because it is hard to give that many cards in a game. It is very hard to give a red card in a World Cup final. He also had to deal with a lot of angry and emotional players on both sides. It is one thing to deal with those situations as they arise but it is twice as hard to keep those encounters with players from affecting your perspective in the rest of the match. He seemed to do well at keeping his focus.

One final thought on the coaching in the final. Spain's coach, del Bosque, waited to long to bring on Fabregas. I also think he should started Navas instead of Pedro. He was probably thinking that Navas would take up space that Ramos usually uses to get forward but Pedro just didn't play well. As for Van Marwijk, his strategy almost worked. He probably should have used someone else besides Van Persie up front because he did very little. I haven't heard the explanation yet but I think he made a crucial mistake substituting Van Bronckhorst. I understand the move because he is old, the game was in extra time, and Navas' speed was causing him problems. But Braafheid is not of the same class or experience and the goal did come from the left side of defense. On the goal I wonder if Braafheid was a little too high, allowing Fabregas a clear lane to pass to Iniesta.

So the best team, who played the best, won the game. That's the way it is supposed to be. But I don't have to like it.

The World Cup And Money

As a big soccer fan and former college player and coach I haven't been as productive the last few weeks since the World Cup is on. I'll start by saying that I don't care why you hate soccer and what is wrong with the sport. And I don't care if you ever watch a soccer game in your life. I have no desire to convert you into a fan. I will only say that for those of you trying to be soccer evangelist you should give it up. You won't argue anyone into being a fan. And for those of you who want to argue that soccer isn't a sport or that it is boring, get over it. It's a foolish argument. I understand that you don't get it and I can't help it that you don't understand why others do. Your argument is just as old and stale as you believe ours to be so just walk away and we'll agree to leave each other alone.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way let's get on to talking about money. After the USA was knocked out of the tournament there was a sparkling moment of analysis by Jurgen Klinsmann. It was jaw droppingly astute and I hope it gets picked up by the suits in US Soccer.

Klinsmann was an accomplished forward in the 1990's and won the World Cup with Germany in 1990 and the European Championship in '96. He took over as coach of the German national team and took a very young team to a third place finish in 2006. They were considered overachievers and they played a bright, positive style that was a change from the deliberate and methodical style of the traditional German teams. He has divided his time between the US and Germany for many years. Before current US coach Bob Bradley was hired Klinsmann was considered. The rumors were that he and the US Soccer Federation could not agree on how the National Team was structured so they went separate ways.

In a sort of aside at the end of the broadcast, Klinsmann was asked where he thought the US needed to go from here. He basically said that the US needed to change how soccer develops and hope to produce quality players by 2022 when the US has a good chance of hosting the tournament again. I can't quote him directly but here is what I understood him to mean.

At present in the USA we pay to play soccer. Almost every participant pays a fee to play. It is rare to see kids playing on there own in a vacant lot. And if you want your child to become a good soccer player you have to pay a lot of money to have them play for a club team. It's expensive and most of the club players come from well-to-do-families. These are the kids who are recruited to play college soccer and who eventually make their way into professional sports.

That's not the way it works in the rest of the world. You've heard of kids playing soccer on the beaches in Brazil and if you've ever been to the third world you've undoubtedly seen kids playing in the streets. In most of Europe they don't have near the emphasis we do on high school and university sports so guys like Klinsmann grew up playing with friends. They were middle class kids who weren't paying to play.

Why does it matter? It is certainly possible for a upper class kid to have the hunger and drive to get good enough to succeed but it seems that poorer kids have a better chance to excel. Klinsmann points to basketball and notes how the streets of the inner city seems to be the main breeding ground for elite NBA talent. Sure, a few rich kids make it but it isn't the norm.

To back it up one only has to look at the fact that in the 20 years since 1990 when we started to take our place once again on the world soccer stage we have yet to produce even one world class soccer player. For those of you who point to Landon Donovan, who many argue is our best player ever, sorry, but no. If he was truly world class the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, and Arsenal would come calling. And if he was really good he would be playing for Real Madrid or Barcelona.

Those clubs get who they want. This is how it works. They want the best players in the world so they can win because they are global enterprises and they make millions from being famous. Once they identify a target they begin to talk about how they would like that player playing at their club. No matter how much a player might like their current club they are easily convinced that moving would be a good idea. At that point you have a player who wants to move and it just comes down to money. Money talks and every club has there price. I have yet to see a wanted player not end up on a top club. And those clubs aren't targeting Donovan. In fact they have never targeted a US player like that.

Klinsann also pointed to 2022. Countries bid to host the World Cup and the next one up for bid is 2018. The USA is bidding for that one but the consensus is that it will go to Europe. (2014 will be in Brazil) That makes the USA's best chance 2022. Klinsmann believes we need to change our structure now so that we get these middle and lower class kids playing soccer so we have some talent by 2022. By that time we might start seeing some better talent coming along. They'd be young but then we would really have something to move forward with.

I thought Klinsmann had some excellent thoughts. He was looking into the future and he identified a key problem in the development in talent. I also appreciate that he wasn't afraid to address something that could be a politically incorrect topic. Race follows right behind economics and class and Klinsmann knows it. He knows that the the Hispanic and African/American community will end up being a much bigger part of US soccer than they are even now.

Money also sheds light on another interesting issue in the World Cup. Soccer is suffering right now because it doesn't know what to do about technology. There have been several high profile referring errors and the calls for the use of replay or other technology has gotten louder. But it isn't easy for Fifa. Sure they could use technology at the world cup but they don't want to create more of a class problem in soccer.

Just like with players, soccer has always had it roots in poorer nations. Sure Europe has several soccer powers but several poorer nations have excelled. Though Brazil is now considered a developed country it has been winning World Cup trophies for a long time now. Most of the European leagues are flooded with players from poorer countries. It is the accessibility of soccer by the poor that has enabled it to become THE global sport.

Technology is expensive and if Fifa started using replay where would it draw the line? Would the African Nations Cup tournament feel compelled to use it too? I know Sierra Leone couldn't afford that many cameras and the associated equipment so what would they do for home games? Would they be forced to play home games at a neutral site?

Personally, I'm all for instant replays in the World Cup but I understand the argument against it. I also understand the tension between the rich and poor in regards to it.

Fifa is one of those organizations that drive me crazy. On the one hand I think it is one of the most corrupt organizations around and wouldn't put anything past them. They have rules like no government interference in national soccer federations. Can someone explain to me how they know the North Korean federation is independent? But they do have a unique challenge in balancing the complexities of the modern world with a poor constituency. Looks like the US National Team has a lot to figure out too.

Strength

So I read the "Strengths Based Leadership" book. Actually there are about 100 pages of explanation followed by a breakdown of the the 34 themes and the four domains they fall into. The book also includes a code that lets you take a strengths assessment.

My top 5 strengths are Ideation, Learner, Strategic, Futuristic, and Intellection. I won't even try to explain them since even the spellchecker goes nuts on two of them. They all fall in the Strategic Thinking domain. I got nothing in the Executing, Influencing, or Relation Building domains which was a bit of a disappointment for me.

Hoping the assessment was screwed up I took the results home to my wife to look over. She says the descriptions fit. Oh well.

Looking back on it I guess it does make some sense. I desperately need to get a few executors around me. People that get things done. The assessment says I also need people who can woo people (influencers) and a lot of relationship builders. I have the last two around me but I need executors.

The last time our benevolence association met I presented an idea that would grow us into something that I think would go along way to addressing needs in our community and getting a lot of people using their gifts. I like the idea but I fear there won't be anyone who will step in and make it happen. Now I know why I think that way, because I'm not an executor.

A few years ago I served on an executive team. I ticked off one of the leaders because I suggested an alternative view on something he was pushing. I felt pretty frustrated at the time and dropped off when the next round of elections came up. Now it makes sense because the only thing I was bringing to the table was strategic thinking and that's not what they were looking for. I think they were looking for more influencers and relationship builders who could take what they were selling and promote it among the constituency.

So I guess it makes sense but I don't know where it leaves me. I'm not sure it fits very well with my situation. I think it would have been helpful if I had a few strengths in another domain or two. My first thought was to work on improving in some of the other areas but that goes completely against the premise of the book. Don't waste time on your weaknesses, develop and use your strengths.

Missio 3

Time for my third post on the Missional Leadership Initiative. Let me make a disclaimer that none of what I have quoted here can be taken as 100% accurate. I may have misheard, miss-wrote, taken out of context, misinterpreted, extrapolated, or done any number of misdeeds to what was actually said.

This won't be my notes from our last meeting but I do want to write down a few of the highlights, or at least things that were especially helpful for me.


Reggie talked a lot about moving from one thing to another. He's hooked on it and most of our time together was spent talking about these major shifts. But he threw in a couple of smaller ones that I liked.

"Move from church as a noun to church as a verb." Okay, so that is obvious but then he constructed the sentence, "I church at work," and that kind of rattled around the brain a bit differently. We church, we don't go to church.

"The church doesn't have a mission, the mission has a church." I haven't thought that one through too much yet. It was about not bending God's heart to us, but our heart to God.

Reggie also talked about the siloing we do in our lives. We tend to have a politics silo, academic silo, health silo, church silo, etc. He drew this as vertical columns to represent how we often think this way. Pastors can especially silo their church world. He then erased the church silo and redrew it horizontally, cutting across all the other silos. Again, not exactly a new concept but a refreshing way to look at it for me.

"You don't motivate, you create an environment where people can follow their call." You probably have to do some motivating but we probably spend way too much time on it and neglect creating the environment altogether.


Reggie also threw in some good nuggets on timely topics.

On assessing - "Maturation, not participation. Participation does not mean maturation."

Debriefing - Reggie was big on this. We need to create a culture where our people are debriefed. (And yes, we've heard all the underwear jokes.) It helps us process what we experience and grow through them. We even need to give people an opportunity to debrief after our sermons. "What is the take away?" Learn from Larry King, Oprah, military, first responders.

Programs - So Reggie talks a lot about being people driven versus program driven. The program driven church has even become an archetype. Yet even if we aren't program driven we still have programs. Reggie said, "Think of programs as intentional processes." That's helpful for me. Keeps it from being the goal.

Leadership Development - "We train for tasks instead of movement leadership." I see a lot of potential for thought here. After we train people for all these tasks we promote them to leader. But he says they require different competencies. (Apostolic, entrepreneurial, developers.)

Game Changer - Going missional is a game changer. Therefore it is not incremental. "It's like working on your golf swing to perfect your tennis stroke." This is frightening.


Then there were just a few quotes that I thought were good.

"When did Jesus last change your mind?" I don't have anything to say about this but I love the question. Not sure I like the answer.

"No drive-byes." Every church should have this posted in their board room.

"People don't grow in artificial environments." He was talking about the need to be life-centric.

"You cannot have a missional church without missional people." I understand but where does that leave us?

I don't remember exactly how he said it but he commented on seeker sensitive churches and pointed out that scripture says that God is the seeker. So I guess in that sense we should all be seeker sensitive in our worship.

All in all it was a great time together. I learned a lot but it will take awhile to process it all. Next one is in September but I'll be meeting with my cohort several times in between. And of course, it will take months to get Steve and Dan straightened out on all this stuff. :) Okay, so they're thinking the same.

In

Hat tip to Dan and this post. Love this article, "Caring for Your Introvert."

Next

Just thought I would share my brilliant idea for fixing health care now that our government has passed health care reform. Yes, it will need to be fixed. I am completely stunned that politicians had the nerve to promote this bill by saying that it would reduce the federal deficit and that people actually bought that. Sure it will reduce the deficit because it involves a lot of taxes. A bill that raises taxes more than the money being spent will always reduce the deficit, but that doesn't mean it is a good thing.

The problem with health care reform is how to pay for it. Taxing wealthy people is always a popular idea but here is the problem with that. Rich people would rather pay a lot of money to evil geniuses, called lawyers, to find ways to not pay taxes than to actually give their money to the government. They will find a way too because the lawyers that are evil but not geniuses end up in politics. See the problem? The smarter guys prevail.

At first glance, adding 30 million people to the health care system seems to give some hope that health care costs would be cheaper because of the increased volume. Drug companies and medical equipment companies would be able to manufacture higher volumes which usually means cheaper. But health care reform adds taxes to those companies who will pass it on to patients and the cost will eventually end up with the government. In other words, the more the government taxes medical companies the more the government will have to pay in medical costs.

So how do we end up paying for health care reform when they find out that their current plans won't work? Tom's brilliant solution is to tax food based on its nutritional value to calories ratio. Healthy food would get no tax. Unhealthy food would get taxed in proportion to how bad it is for you. In other words, make it much cheaper to eat healthy. Make it cheaper to eat fruits, vegetables, and high fiber foods that potato chips and hot pockets. We Americans love our junk food and this fat tax would have the government rolling in cash. Talk about reducing the deficit... it would probably be gone in a year or two. Brilliant, isn't it?

It also will have an impact on the use of illegal drugs. We won't be spending our time fighting meth labs anymore. Law enforcement will have divisions dedicated to busting black market potato chip labs. We will see an increase in house fires caused by industrial sized fryers running out of control in people's basements. They will probably have to track the sale of cooking oil. This creation of a new vice may seem like a bad thing but hey, at least they won't be manufacturing meth.

Now of course we might not see such a windfall if everyone changed their eating habits and started eating healthy. But then we wouldn't incur such high medical costs either. And that's really getting at the issue. I can't stand reports that point to life expectancy and mortality rates of other countries and point to more health care as the answer. The real answer is is avoiding the need for medical care altogether. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have good health care coverage for everyone. I'm just saying that prevention efforts have been known to make the biggest impacts for a long, long time now. Ask anyone who works in the health field in developing countries.

So there you go. Develop a system that rewards good behavior. Simple.

Statements

A lot of organizations spend a lot of time on purpose, mission, or vision statements. They even spend a lot of time arguing over the difference between them. This goes for churches just as much as businesses and other non-profits.

The interesting thing is how remarkably similar they all end up being. In fact, I would guess that most of these statements have origins in other entities and have been copied. The thing is, these statements tend to be completely out of the realm of possibility for these entities. So I thought I should give some suggestions for statements that may not sound very good but would really help out the organizations if they actually succeeded in fulfilling the statement.

"Trying to not be a bunch of jerks."

"Striving to care."

"Recognizing the world doesn't revolve around us."

"To your face, not behind your back."

"Still pompous, just not as much."

"Promising to never put another stupid saying on our sign."


This could take forever. Any others you want to get off your chest?

Transformational

"The objective of all of my work is that it is missional. A better word might be transformational, that both people and places are transformed by the work that I do."

That's a quote from Shannon Hopkins.

One of the challenges with so many discussions is defining the language. Over the years I've seen numerous conflicts arise simply because opposite sides were defining key words differently. I've also seen a lot of language change meaning over the years with some words become sharply defined while others seem to grow more and more meanings and thereby adding to the confusion and conflict.

Talk to a lot of people about being missional and you're likely to receive the good old glazed eyes look. Hey, my spellchecker can't figure it out either. I learned quickly to be careful who I used the word around. If I think they will struggle with the word I just don't use it.

I like the comparison in the quote above. I don't think that missional and transformational are interchangeable but I think that used properly, transformational can do a better job of expressing the missional thought.

So I need to ponder this a bit more. Are people and places transformed by the work I do? My first thought is yes, but transformed in what way? I can just as easily have a negative impact on people and places so I want to be careful to think about what kind of transformation my work should help bring about.

I have been on a "Jesus authored..." kick lately so let me try that on for size. Does my work bring about Jesus authored transformation to people and places? Yeah, I know, I just played tricks with the language and am thereby falling into the very thing I railed against at the beginning of this post. Oh well, I'll try it out for awhile and see how it fits.

Know

A phrase in a lot of church mission statements is "to know and be fully known." This phrase sounds really good but the more I think about it I wonder how many people who use it have actually taken the time to unpack the millions of theological trails it leads to. It came to my mind as I was thinking about relationships.

As a pastor I don't think I do a very good job at really knowing the people in my church. I mean they are good friends and all, and I know a lot of facts about them. I've been around them a long time now and I have watched them, lived life with them, and grown with them for over ten years. But somehow the question of how well I really know them is still rattling around in my head.

I think that a lot of people don't reach a significant level of intimacy with the people they live and worship with because people aren't willing to ask each other the risky questions. There are a lot of reasons for that. We live in a society that holds individualism in high regard. We are "trained" to hide our vulnerabilities. And, quite frankly, we think all the really gory details about us are nobody else's business. So we happily go through life trying desperately to ignore that one little place deep down in our soul that yearns to be truly known.

We also like to spiritualize it by saying that we are only truly known by God. Or we may be willing to come off of that stance just enough to include our spouses in the picture. The goal, though, is to justify keeping everyone else at arms length.

So what are the high risk questions we don't really ask? What are your hopes and dreams? How would you describe your relationship with God right now? What are you really struggling with? What brings you the most joy? Where do see your relationship with God going in the next year? How can I help?

When was the last time you were asked questions like that in an environment where you felt truly free to give an honest answer and were compelled to do it with accountability in mind? I suspect there is a good chance the answer is never and we probably like it that way. Oh sure, we might have got close with our spouses or a good friend at times but we always had room to wriggle out of it. We really don't want to be confronted with it.

But being known in this way is crucial to growing as a follower of Christ. We can do a pretty good job of faking it. And we can certainly go through the motions and even make ourselves feel good about our actions. But we need to get ourselves in an environment where we are eventually confronted with our spirituality in a seriously intimate way. If not we are just taking another step in our effort at avoidance.

Lenten Breakfast

It seems like over and over again in the last few weeks I've found myself trying to remember what I did last year for certain things. My friend Dan is very good at logging stuff and I envy his ability to access all that information. So here is a log of the Men's Lenten breakfast we hosted yesterday.

For the menu we had 4 breakfast casseroles, 3 bags of frozen biscuits, 5 bags of sausage gravy , and a fruit salad made from 1 part tropical fruit, 1 part mandarin oranges, and 1 part diced peaches. We had around 25 people and this was way too much food. Could have done with half the fruit, 2 bags of biscuits, and 4 bags of gravy.

I gave the devotional on perseverance from Psalm 129. I went too long but still got done before 9 AM.

Being

One of the great dangers in North American Christianity is that a lot of Christians have experiences that allow them to feel spiritual with out actually being spiritual. This creates a false sense of spiritual awareness that leads to a stunting, or even halting, of one's spiritual growth. In extreme, it derails faith altogether.

I obviously have missional ideas rolling around as is evidenced by the number of posts on the topic, but it serves as a good example of this because I think it is easy to act missional without actually being missional. Let's simplify missional down to "being a blessing." A church might create opportunities for the church community to be a blessing. They might see this as part of their equipping role. They figure some good lessons will be learned in the process and several of the participants might catch "the bug" of being a blessing. So let's say the church organizes a food drive and distribution for needy families in the community.

No doubt the activity would be a blessing to the recipients. You could probably even find participants who found serving others to also be a blessing. In fact all of those who did the serving would probably feel pretty good about what they have done. But my question is whether they have been transformed, or in the process of being transformed, into some one who is a blessing, or if they are simply people who have participated in a blessing activity.

I think there is a danger of filling people's calendars with blessing activities and creating the impression that they are "being" spiritual when actually there has been very little heart transformation. They could end up as very good people with no relationship with Jesus.

I think being a blessing as a community is a good thing and I think there are a lot of valid reasons to create those opportunities. But I think we need to be clear that the outward expression needs to go hand in hand with an inward transformation. We need to be people who are a blessing whether it is in an organized event or just out on a grocery run. It just becomes who we are based on a relationship with Jesus. God doesn't want obedient slaves, He wants sons and daughters.

Missio 2

No this isn't some world wide conference that you missed that is meeting for the second time. And it isn't a .{point} anything (as in 2.0) in an attempt to be cool and relevant. It is just the second post I am making about the Missional Leadership Initiative I've gotten myself into.

Last weekend was the first of 6 gatherings we will have over the next two years with Reggie McNeal. It is sponsored by another denomination so I was one of only two participants that weren't part of the family, so to speak. I am friends with two of the other pastors though so it wasn't too weird.

This session focused on self-awareness which was good but it will take some time to process. If you think you do a pretty good job with self-awareness does that automatically make you self-clueless? In the effort to make me even more self-aware I was also subjected to yet another personality/cognitive style test. This one was called the Success Style Profile, a title that practically made me throw-up, but was pretty good anyway.

I've also been assigned to a cohort with four other guys I've never met. We are supposed to meet once a month to cover various topics but I think a lot of people are suspicious of them. Reggie referred often to the group of pastors he has been a part of for a long time. He talks about how they mentor each other, counsel each other, and serve each other, even in little things. He said they have even vacationed together. I think he counts that experience as invaluable and wants us to have a taste of it, even if these groups don't develop into that. He sees that kind of peer mentoring in the Acts church and I think he thinks it is an ideal fit for today's context. Sounds good.

One thing I liked about this gathering was that no matter what situation you came from you obviously had a common interest in thinking missionally or you wouldn't have signed up. As far as I could tell there were people from all kinds of churches. At a lot of conferences there seems to be a tension between the various philosophies of ministry represented. In this case, the majority had to favor a missional philosophy or you wouldn't have come. (Yeah, there are always a few who may have ulterior motives.) I think that allows for deeper thought and dialogue. You think deeper about the philosophy rather than wasting time defending your belief or gritting your teeth at what else is being said.

I should also mention that we stayed at the Salt Ford Resort in the Salt Fork State Park in Ohio. Nice place. They have a ton of deer wandering around. I stepped out on my balcony one morning to watch 4 or 5 of them wandering around right below me. They just looked up as if they were waiting for me to feed them something. I think that must happen a lot. I am interested to see what this place will be like in the warmer months. It was too cold for me to go out for a walk in the woods at this time of year. Yeah, I'm a wimp.

Dumber

I watched the Presidents State of the Union last night. I think I've blogged before on how scrutiny has ruined political speeches in the USA. Politicians seem to be afraid to speak because if they don't say something exactly right or if they make a mistake it will be turned into a big deal. I really don't see how any one can get excited by most political speeches these days with their plodding, monotone delivery.

To make matters worse, it appears politicians now feel the need to dumb down their speeches to make a connection with "the people." Are we really that dumb? Maybe we are. It isn't really the Presidents fault either. But it really makes the speech hard to listen to.

At one point last night, the President said, "We need to increase our exports." This one line received a standing ovation. Really? At that point he had not said why or how this was going to be accomplished (he did talk about it a little bit, later in his speech) and yet he was getting a standing ovation because he said we needed to increase our exports. And I thought Mr. Obvious was a joke. I didn't know that so many ideas really aren't obvious.

There were some other items that got applause which really surprised me. The President said that a company called eTec received $99.8 million to create 15 jobs with another 27 jobs to be added next year. Let's see, $99.8 million divided by 42 people equals about $2.3 million per person. And this is an efficient way to create jobs??? At this rate won't it take 16 trillion to get the unemployment rate down to 5% or so? Okay, maybe I'm missing something, but if so it is because it requires closer scrutiny. But instead of making a note to look at it more carefully people stand up and cheer.

Unfortunately we won't ever hear great political speeches again in this country. People have grown used to this so now it is normal. I can't believe how many people say they think it was a good speech last night. All that means is that we can expect more of the same. I would like to see a speech that is honest, relevant, passionate, and inspiring. I don't blame Obama or other politicians as much as our apparent collective inability to understand anything above a 3rd grade level.

Professionals

"We are letting the professionals do what they do best." This was basically what I was told when I asked a friend about helping in Haiti. First, let me say that it was the right response from him. He is not in a position to do more. But I think it is clear that somebody needs to be able to do something because the "professionals" don't know what they are doing.

I felt a lot of embarrassment after Katrina with the way my government responded to the crisis. I had hoped that we had learned our lesson. But the Haiti earthquake has proven that the professionals are still clueless.

It really is simple. No matter what sort of threat you may think exists in the target area, Port-Au-Prince and New Orleans in this case, it dissolves immediately after a major catastrophe. It's like a boxer that has been stunned and left reeling. They have been knocked out.

So here is the basic strategy that should be used to respond to major disasters.

- During the first 3 or 4 days there is no security threat. You can walk through the worst neighborhood in the city with no problem. The most hardened thug will help you rescue people. That means you can take advantage of the situation and immediately start saving lives. It is also the perfect time to flood the region with food and water and basic medicines. Yes, there may some loss do to lack of control but it will be minimal in the grand scheme of things. The result is that a lot of lives will be saved.

- By day 4 or 5 (it depends on the severity of the devastation) security will begin to be an issue. Now is the time to start rolling out the security apparatus. I understand that to have it ready in time there needs to be lead time but it should be secondary in days 1 through 3. Now the people who are all ready on the ground can have a place to retreat to should they begin to feel threatened. Of course, the immediate relief also reduces the security threat anyway.

Simple. Do everything to help save lives immediately. Everything else can come later.

Intrigue

"Soap Box Ranting"

Maybe it is just me but it seems that way too many people are using the word "intrigue" far too often. I used to hear it every now and then and figured it was a good word. But now that everyone is intrigued or finds something intriguing the word has been ruined.

Intrigue used to be a word best reserved for spy novels. It slowly made its way into the crime genre and associated big screen flicks. That was all okay. I don't know what the official definition of intrigue is but it seems to fit well with espionage, counter intelligence, double agents, and blackmail. The word knew its place and played a powerful descriptive role.

Then people started to use the word in ordinary ways. The first time I heard someone say "I'm intrigued by that," I thought it sounded out of place. It gave the word a sort of pompous attitude that made the speakers of it sound quite a bit more intelligent than evidence suggested. Were they really intrigued by an idea? As if it could stab them in the back at any moment, or something?

Now I see the word used all the time. Today I saw a headline "Intriguing People of 2009." Really? Either the word has changed or all those spy novels I've read weren't as (ahem) intriguing as I thought they were.

So I am hereby asking everyone to stop using the word unless they are referring to something that is really, actually intriguing. If you find yourself about ready to say or write the word please stop and check yourself. Ask if the word is really appropriate for the situation. Perhaps a word like "fascinated" or "interested" or "curious" would be better suit the situation. Intrigue has a dark dimension to it and I would hate to see it lose that quality.

Of course, let me offer some grace to those of you who have allowed this word to slip into inappropriate places of your vocabulary. It is not your fault. Like most words they tend to sneak up on us with such subtlety that we don't even notice. I just ask that from this point forward you be more cautious.

Thank you.

Missio

Over the next couple of years I am going to be involved with a Missional Leadership Initiative with Reggie McNeal. It will involve three 3 day meetings each year with involvement in a cohort in the in between times. I got involved in it because I meet once a week with a couple of pastors in the area. They both belong to the denomination that is responsible for the whole thing. Dan, one of my friends I meet with, must be a big shot in his denom because he finagled an invitation for me even though I'm from a different tribe. Thanks again Dan.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to it. I have a lot of interest in the topic as a whole but right now I'm very interested in the spiritual formation component of it. I also think it is good timing for my church. The last 6 months have been the most difficult in the last 11 years and that has led to a lot of head scratching and soul searching. I'm hoping this will help me process some stuff.