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Thursday, January 21, 2010

Haiti: Hands and Feet

Few people have not been touched, devastated, nor amazed at what has happened in Haiti. This devastation is something that, at least in my lifetime, is unfathomable. It is amazing what the forces of nature did to this tiny island country.

In a short time period, major news networks had set up ways to get money for aid, the State Department, singers and others have introduced the text for Haiti program, and celebrities are rallying for the cause and even companies are donating money.

Several days into it, I heard on the radio that World Vision was getting involved and started to hear more and more about Christian involvement, although I was disappointed by what one prominent religious leader had to say about it. I know that people are entitled to their opinion and I am not going to judge someone for what they said. I am just really troubled when we focus on the negative of a situation instead of how we can help. Jesus said “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16-17) We often forget that 17th verse and I think we would be served well to remember it.

I guess here is the point, who cares why it happened or if there is any big cosmic reason that it did occur, or if the sins of the father and mother are put up on that country. The fact of the matter is that it occurred and the next step should be how we can be the hands and feet of Jesus. One of Casting Crowns new songs is title “If We’ve Ever Needed You.” The point is that we need Jesus’ light shining in the world today and if the people of Haiti ever needed followers of Christ, it is now.

Most people say that they wish that they knew what to do. We all can’t go. We can’t be there in the physical presence. But we can be there spiritually through prayer. We can be there through our ability to donate aid to help them. We all cannot be like companies that donate millions of dollars or a celebrity that does the same, but if enough of us rallied to the cause a million $5 donations becomes $5 million in aid, $10 can become $10 million, and $50 can become $50 million and so on and so forth. Each of us can give up a Starbucks or value meal for one day to make a difference in the life and well being of this country that if they ever needed Christ and Christians, they need us now.

Will you be the hands and feet.




Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Book Review: The Monkey and the Fish

I recently read Dave Gibbons book The Monkey and the Fish: Liquid Leadership for a Third-Culture Church. Perhaps the best part of the book for me was the analogy he uses through an Eastern parable. It is the parable of the Monkey and the Fish. In essence we have a monkey, whom perhaps is well-intentioned, who sees a fish in the water. There has been a recent typhoon and the fish is struggling with all its might to get to up river. The monkey sees this and reaches down into the volatile waters at great personal risk to save the fish. The monkey grabs him and places him on dry land. To the monkey the fish showed great excitement but soon fell into a peaceful sleep. As Gibbons so eloquently puts it, it died. As so his revelation to the church in the 21st is that we are flapping away in excitement on the land, but soon if we are not careful we will to will be asleep with the fishes.

With that Dave walks us through the concept of Liquid Leadership for a Third-Culture Church. In other words, how do we in the church world lead in the global world of today? In order for us to do that we need to live like Christ did in a culturally contextual world that allows us to understand the people to whom we are trying to reach. It essence it shatters the old mission concept of going into a land and build churches that look like western churches with their big pillars and pews, instead it asks us to look at how we can meld faith into the cultural context of the group we seek to be missionaries to.

Dave goes on to explain that to be first culture is to embrace one culture, to be second culture is to embrace another culture. The synergy point is the third culture or that you do not embrace either/or, but to embrace both/and, working synergistically hand in hand with both cultures.

He talks about how to lead in a third culture church through his chapters Liquid, Wardrobe, Neighbor, Liquid Bruce Lee, Three Questions That Become the Answer, cWoWs: Everyone Plays and Ripples. Liquid focuses on the need to understand globalism and how this impacts the church. It also focuses on how we can understand and embrace other people’s culture better in the vein of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. In other words, we need to be willing to cross lines, whatever they are, in order to reach people, where they are, not where we think that they should be.

This is a warning cry for the church. The more we try to reach people the way we think, the more we push them away from us. Just think about the story that Gibbons uses with the Good Samaritan. The way of the church at that time was to think of the Samaritan as a lesser person, someone that did not deserve the time of day, yet Jesus uses this person as a powerful example of what it means to live in a “Third Culture “ world where you are friends to all. Being a good neighbor means being good to those who are different than us. It also means to be a good neighbor to people who believe different than us.

This book is a must read for anyone in church leadership, but it also has some powerful things to think about for those of us who are lay leader and just members. Gibbons not only points us in the direction of leadership in a “Third Culture” world, but gives us just some good life lessons to live by as a people who are called to follow Jesus and embrace His calling and fulfill the Great Commission.

Some people have said that they do not think that Dave’s exploitation of “Third Culture” is clear. However, he tells us that it emerges from Genesis 12. This is a great passage. This is the call to Abram to go out to a land that he is not familiar with and God’s promise that “all peoples on earth will be bless through you.” (Genesis 12:3) “Third Culture” is about being called to go out, to love, to server and to do it no matter what even if it is difficult. Why? Because all people will be blessed through all of us that go and serve as God has commanded us to.

We are often too worried about our own kingdoms that we forget about those who are on the outside, marginalized and cast aside. These are the people that Jesus went to do his ministry with. He meets them where they were. He ate with them. He walked with them. He cured them. He saved them. He died for them….and us.

The good news is that this it is not too late. We have been given a tremendous challenge by Dave’s book. We can either watch the fish swim upstream and pull it out to be with us, or we can just into the water with the fish and help it get to its destination. The choice is yours. God has prepared you. Now you need to take the next step.



Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Friday, January 8, 2010

Should women preach in the church?

I was reading an interesting article about Reverend Robert Schuller, the founding pastor of the Crystal Cathedral in Southern California on Ethics Daily. The article pointed out that he was going to be turning over the administrative duties of the ministry to his daughter Shelia Schuller Coleman. As I was reading this it reminded me of the old debate that has ripped apart many congregations as well as a few conventions as it relates to whether or not women should preach in church.

I remember attending the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship convention a couple of years ago and as I was walking around, I saw a lot of shirts that women were wearing that said; this is what a pastor looks like. It makes me wonder why this has been such an issue of debate to the point of becoming a civil war in the midst of the church. The Bible is filled with examples of women who have done great things on behalf of God and even talks about some who founded some churches too. Yet thousands of years later we are still dealing with this issue today.

The interesting part is that I have talked to a lot of people and most of them come down on one side of the fence, and it is about 50/50 in terms of people I talk to. I do not know why that surprises me but it does. I guess I had hoped that we had move on in the world of squashing women in ministry. But alas we have not.

The classic text that is always brought up is the text-segment in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. So how would you help someone understand this particular text-segment?

When addressing this passage, I think that it is important to understand the issues that surround the text. First, there is the thought that this is a later addition into the letter. There are manuscripts that indicate that 34-35 was actually after verse 40 in some cases and was written into the margin of some of these writings. Given this, it is possible that Paul did not even write this in his original letter. However, this could be a difficult discussion to broach with a member of the church who may not understand the implications of how the Bible came together and that there could be variances in the Holy Word.

However, taking a closer look at what is written can also provide some basis to discuss the concept further. We have to take the original meaning to heart when we look at this passage. It seems that Paul is addressing a specific issue and unless we examine that issue we cannot truly understand what Paul was addressing. We already know that there are conditions to think about with this passage. As a matter of fact in 1 Corinthians 11:5, Paul clearly indicates that it is okay for women to prophesize as long as their head is covered, which is another issue to talk about.

One of issues in our passage is that verse 35 presumes that all women have husbands to go to ask questions. Obviously, we know that not all women would, so it would seem that this is meant to address a specific issue as it relates to something going on in the community faith as it relates to women who do have husbands.

After considering this, we have to look at part of the issues facing the church at Corinth. Paul is arguing to the Corinthians about their abuse of the gift of tongues and their views about spirituality. In other words, the church has been abusing their gifts and using them more as an example of their religiousness versus for the reason God intended them to. Given this, it is possible that Paul could have been admonishing some of those women who were abusing their gifts rather than making an edict that no woman should speak.

So in this way, it seems that Paul may have been actually encouraging women in speaking and prophesying in church, but perhaps they are not to speak out for merely show. This would also fit in with the cultural context of the situation at hand.

It would not be very subversive for a woman to speak and prophesize, but it may have been very controversial for them to interpret or evaluation someone else’s prophesies. There may have been a faction of women, who were married, that were taking their gift and making a scene with them and Paul may have been advising them not to disrupt the service and seek guidance from their husbands in this case.

In any case, it is clear that it is difficult to really understand the passage, without really looking into it and making sure you understand the context surrounding it. Given this, it would be wise for us to consider what it means in the passage and reconsider the role in women in the church. After all, if it were not for the women of the world, we would not have half as many churches we do today. But that is this person’s humble opinion.

God bless.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Science and God

I read an article once about how Isaac Newton tried to calculate dates of the apocalypse or the end of the world based on his readings of the Bible. What really struck me about this article was how we often seem to think that people in the sciences do not believe in God or in a Creator. Or that somehow science and religion cannot co-exist together for some reason.

Newton is known for his groundbreaking work in physics, astronomy, math and optics. Four areas not necessarily know for their groundbreaking work in the religious world. However, it appears that Newton also studied the Old Testament books carefully especially taking time in the Book of Daniel looking for clues about the end of the world. This seems to be interesting research for one of our greatest scientist.

Based on Newton’s work, he felt that the end would be no earlier than 2060 (I guess that is good news for us ;-)). Not that we know when the end of the earth will come, since it is not for us to determine when, but it is still interesting that Newton took the time out of his studies of physics to read the Bible and to try and understand it more clearly in relation to the end of the world.

It is also interesting that Newton notes in his writings that he is doing this more to protect the works of prophecy. What he meant is that by trying to determine the real time the world would end, it would help to stop the large number of people who were already predicting the end of time, but failed. These people who failed discredit the good prophecy and so his role was to try and maintain the good prophecy.

Regardless what we believe about end times, I think that it is important to recognize those important figures in history and highlight the entire person, good or bad, believer or non-believer. I think that this lends credibility to the faith and shows that even brilliant thinkers understand the importance of God in their lives. But is should also tells us something about today. Most of us would consider this the work of a mad man who was not all with it, trying to read the Bible and predict end of times, but no one would argue that Newton was not one of the foremost intelligent person of his time.

But it also means that we need to take time to learn about people of history. Too often we just accept the tidbits that we are taught in school or that are regurgitated to us by the media or others. In essence, these people, like Newton, were deep and had more to their lives than what we know and sometimes we might find ourselves surprised to find out more about these people who influenced our lives. There just might be more to the story then we are accustomed too.

When we acknowledge this, we are acknowledging the deep tradition that has gone on for thousands of years. The understanding of the importance of God in our lives and His Word given to us as a guide to help us in our journey in this world and to prepare us for the ultimate destination, to be with the Lord and Jesus.

Even the best and brightest did this, so should we.

God bless!

Time Management Tips for 2010

As I rang in the New Year, I thought about ways to doing it again in 2010. In other words, what I can do to continue to balance time and maintain a healthy life between work, family, school and church. I am been practicing tie management skills for over 15 years and as I reviewed and prepared for this year, I went through my notes, books and some helpful websites to put together a list of things to think about to stay focused and to manage the time you have.

For me, planning is very important, I suggest that you schedule the big rocks first; I learned this from the Franklin Covey system. What this means is that you need to schedule you non-negotiable items in your calendar first, whatever has to be done and cannot be changed you need to do first. Once you have done this then you will have a better idea of what time you have to do other things.

With that in mind, if you are going to be a planner you need to take time to plan. You need to take time every week to schedule events and take time every day to plan for the day. There is nothing better than have the plan ready to go. I know that I feel much better when I do this even if there is no much on the calendar; it at least refreshes me and focuses my attention on what needs to be done today.

I used to get analysis paralysis. That means that I used to see big daunting task and thing that I could not do anything about it. Try taking big items that you are fearful of and break them down into little pieces that you can handle. This way you can celebrate successes for the small things and help build momentum for the larger task at hand.

Always use the 3 minute rule. If you can do something in 3 minutes or less, then do it. I got this from David Allen (see prior post on his book) and it is a masterful piece of work. Once I started to do this things were getting done much quicker. This is especially very helpful when dealing with e-mail.

Re-negotiate time lines if needed. If you realize that you are not going to finish something on time. Re-negotiate the time with the persons who are involved if possible. This will make you feel better and give them a heads up on what is going on. It will also release the stress that you have from not being able to meet the time line.

Group similar tasks together and get them done at the same time. Take the time to schedule and make all your phone calls that you need to make. If you have a variety of work that needs to be done with the use of a computer or internet, schedule them together and make sure you are at your desk. Taking time to group things makes it easier to get them done and helps to compartmentalize things in your brain so you are not worrying about calls when you are working on your computer.

Sometimes it is best to take a break and step away. Sometimes when I get so focused on doing something that I forget to step back and look at things and make sure that I am not missing the point of my work or running myself down until I just can’t do it. Stepping away allows for recharging you batteries.

We are all inundated with work every day. More than likely we are given so much that we cannot even finish it all, when you can, delegate and match the job to the right person. There is no reason to do work that you don’t have to do if someone else can do it and help you out. No one said you had to do it all on your own.

Keep things with you that can be done in down time. Often we do not use our downtime wisely. We have free time that just slips by us that we can use to get our stuff done. You can do this by listening to books on tape during commutes, reading articles, books or messages while waiting on the doctor or when you are waiting for a child. Have things with you that you can do when you find yourself with extra time in-between things.

Know when your peach times are and work during you peak times. I am a morning person and I start to trail off in the afternoon, but I get a burst of energy right before work is done. I schedule complicated things in the morning to work on. Remembering this will allow you to schedule work for the appropriate time in your energy cycle.

These are just a few tips to think about. Regardless, you need to take time to schedule and prioritize work in a way that helps you to be efficient. I know from my perspective it allows me to do things like clear my desk off and have zero e-mails in my inbox each day I leave work. I hope some of these tips will help you out.God bless.