Gettin' busy...

There is a movie that I love, maybe you have seen it - The Shawshank Redemption. It is the story of Andy, a man who is falsely convicted of murder and sent to prison where he is punished due to no fault of his own. There he becomes friends with a man named Red, who has been in prison for many years and is seasoned in the ways of incarceration and knows how to work the system.

The interesting thing is at first, Red takes on the role of mentor to Andy, teaching him the ways of the prison, how to survive, who to avoid, how to surrender to the inevitable that this is now the only existence that Andy will ever know. Red not only teaches, but encourages Andy to become institutionalized, to let go of any illusions of hope and to accept the reality that they have no control over their lives anymore.

Yet as their friendship grows, it is Red who then becomes the student, as he begins to see in Andy a strength that will not be beaten down or forfeited, not to the warden, not to the other inmates, nor to the institution itself. But no matter how hard Andy tries to convince Red that hope does, in fact, remain - and that is the one thing the institution can never take away - Red does not seem to understand, which leads us to this scene:



(Spoiler Alert)
Red feared that Andy exercised the one and only thing he could control...and that was how to end his life. That was the only option Red could fathom. Red was not able to see beyond his delusions, beyond the false reality he had built in order to protect himself from being vulnerable in fear of being hurt yet again.

But as it turns out, Andy was able to escape from the prison, from all the things that held him captive, because he had a hope that could not be taken away. And by doing that, by Andy breaking through all of that bondage, he provided the catalyst for Red to experience an awakening. Maybe what Red thought what was true was, in fact, mere deception. Maybe there is something beyond these walls of imprisonment. Maybe, just maybe, there is a thing called hope. Red eventually gets released, and is faced with a choice...to get busy living, or get busy dying.



Now, I ask myself...which one of these men am I? Am I going to be like Red, allowing my circumstances to construct a wall around me so that any ounce of hope or feeling I may have is slowly extinguished with each piece of brick and each spade of mortar? Do I desire to merely survive? Or - am I going to be like Andy, who does not let his circumstances beat him, who continues to feel and live - even at the risk of being hurt again? Now Red does eventually choose to live, but how much did he sacrifice? Am I willing to sacrifice as much as he did, or am I willing to risk again? Am I going to get busy living, or get busy dying (in an emotional, spiritual way...not a physical, literal way)?

There are times that I probably would have chosen the latter, but today....right now....I am confident that there is hope, and that hope is indeed a very good thing. And I am confident that it will never die. I choose to live.

Willow Creek Leadership Summit

This year's Leadership Summit has definitely been great. Fantastic speakers. Well done Willow.
Here's some great notes if interested.

National Worship Leader's Conference

Our church is hosting the National Worship Leader's Conference in 2009 & 2010, so a group of us were able to come to this year's conference (which is in Austin, TX) to check out how they do things and get an idea of what they are expecting.

One of the great things about worship conferences is that when you get a room full of worship leaders & pastors together, the energy and passion is overwhelming. Check out this quick video of everyone singing:




It's humbling being around so many talented artists and musicians. Last night, Mike Collins & I sat in on the production meeting prior to the evening worship. We were surrounded by people like Paul Baloche, Lincoln Brewster, Kathryn Scott, Don Moen, Chris Tomlin as well as the musicians that play with these artists. And as we gathered in prayer, the primary purpose was for these artists & celebrities to come together as one to serve the 2,000+ worship leaders and pastors by leading them in a time of worship where they did not have to 'work' or be 'on', but be instead be freed to wholly and fully worship God. I wonder how often do we as leaders in the church take time to do this. Take time away from ministering to others and allow ourselves to be ministered to.

I sometimes think that I am an exception. I can do double duty - working while I worship. and although there may be some truth in that, I find myself constantly evaluating, constantly analyzing. Be it the worship gathering, a program, a process, or anything dealing with the church. When do I allow myself to stop critiquing and let myself just be.

"Be still and know I am God" wrote the psalmist. Why is that so difficult to do?

First Impressions

We've all heard that first impressions are important. Within the first 90 seconds of encountering someone (or something) new, we make tons of assumptions about that person/place/organization. Be it the way someone is dressed, the curb appeal of a house, the parking lot of a mall, we all make very specific conclusions about those things. We do judge books by their covers. It is human nature. Presentation is critical.

The question that I want to focus on is, 'What is the first point of contact for most churches?' Where do people get their first impression of a church...of your church?

Many would suggest as they walk in the door and are met by the greeters shaking their hand. Are they smiling? How many perople are here? Is the facility clean? Or how about as they pull into the parking lot? Is the property well maintained? Is it easy to find a parking space? Or what about the receptionists at the front desk? Are they friendly? Do they have a smile in their voice? Do they have the information you need?

I would agree that those are all very important aspects in the hospitality of your church, and although they may be the first encounter many people have with the church, I would argue this is not the primary place people develop their first impressions.

In today's world, the website is the first point of contact, and the place that people will decide whether or not to even visit our churches. People use the web to get first impressions and make critical decisions. Is the design aesthetically pleasing? Is it easy to navigate and is information easy to find? Can I see what a typical experience might be like? Is there even a website at all?

Fortunately, there is a design site that has waded through a ton of church websites and has compiled what they feel to be the 50 Best Church Websites. Take a look and see what they have in common. You may say to yourself that you can't afford to maintain a site like one of those. If that is the case, then do simple & inexpensive well....but don't fall prey to an amateur site reminiscent to a '90s html style. If your having trouble or don't know where to begin....contact one of the churches listed in the link and ask them for advice & help.

And remember, if this is the first impression for most people...how can we not afford for it to be a good one.

If only Moses had Twitter...

...all those plagues could have been avoided! I must admit that although somewhat annoying (is it really necessary for the "is twittering" that is posted on facebook status reports?), twitter can become useful if I find myself documenting Egyptian anti-government protests like this guy was.

Change, Innovate, or Die...

A common theme around our church is how all organizations must eventually change, innovate, or die. The United Methodist Church is currently gathering in their General Conference which convenes every 4 years and representatives from all over the world come.

This is where polity is discussed, legislation is voted upon, and the leaders of the UMC help shape the future of our denomination.

Interestingly, there are significant debates about exactly what aspects need to be changed, and how we go about bringing innovation into our churches.

One such topic is about the current hymnal. Adam has a great post about the discussions, the vote, and what a possible future hymnal might look like. Be sure to check it out and make your voice heard.

I will never forget...

...what happened at 9:02 am on Wednesday, April 19th, 1995.

I was a freshman at the University of Oklahoma, walking to my morning class when I heard what sounded like a sonic boom off in the distance...towards the city. At the time - I thought nothing of it and very few folks had cell phones then, so it wasn't until after class that I started hearing rumors that there had been an explosion in Oklahoma City.

I walked through the doors of the Wesley Foundation (campus ministry) to see a crowd of people standing around the TV. No one was talking. Everyone just stood there in disbelief as we watched the news coverage unveil the unfathomable. A bomb had just been detonated at the Federal building in downtown OKC. I was in shock.

Someone asked me what my blood type was. "O-positive" I replied. "You need to go give blood at the Chi Omega house." They said. "They're calling for anyone with type O blood." So we walked to the sorority house and found over 300 students waiting around for their number to be called so they could give blood. There was a low murmur, but everyone seemed to be in their own world as we each tried to process what was happening.

The news stations called for donations of bottled water, hard hats, work boots, knee pads, etc. The organization Feed The Children was organizing the collections and donations, so many of us from Wesley went to their warehouse that afternoon to help sort, organize, pack, and load boxes into semi-trailers headed to ground zero.

As the rescue efforts continued, more and more bodies were discovered and there quickly became a large need for pastors & chaplains to assist on site. The pastor of the Wesley foundation - Brad - was one of the pastors called to assist. He was put on the 8pm-8am shift. I'm not certain exactly how it happened, but myself & a couple of other students managed to get FBI clearance and were assigned to the ground zero command post (which was located in a parking garage) during the same shift as brad. We (the students) primarily assisted by being gophers for whoever needed anything. If an emergency worker needed something, they'd come to us. We'd then go to the Feed The Children tent which looked like a Wal-Mart by the amount of stuff that had been donated. Bandages, flashlights, duct tape, gloves, blankets, anything anyone needed, we would get it for them....well, anything except answers.

I will never forget the first night I went to ground zero. When I saw with my own eyes what had been all over the news. It was dark. There were armed military personnel everywhere. But the thing I remember the most was the smell. It was a smell that was foreign to me. I don't think I have the words to describe it, but I just knew that it was the smell of death.

There wasn't a lot of noise during the night hours. It seemed eerily quiet. This was when the gravity of what was happening would weigh heaviest. Emergency workers would come into the command center and sit down at a table. You could just see their shoulders slump as if in defeat, constantly being robbed of any type of hope when they thought they might have found a survivor, but then quickly realizing that instead of going to the triage tent, they would have to take the dreaded, more common route, which led to the morgue.

They all showed the signs. FBI, ATF, Police, Fire, EMT. They were all tired and possibly suffering from depression. I can't imagine the pain they felt. You see pictures like the one below and you begin to wonder how any human being could make themselves function amidst such an act of violence.

But something amazing started to happen. Even though we were all in shock and experiencing varied levels of pain and depression, something started to happen that would begin to pull our city, our state, and even our country together. The mail started to arrive. Hundreds and thousands of letters started to arrive, simply addressed: Oklahoma City Emergency Workers. Thats it. No address or zip code. They came by the truck load from people all around the country. The most came from children in elementary schools drawing encouraging notes for the workers. But many others came from random people writing long notes of encouragement to anyone who would read it. Some even contained checks and cash for the rescue effort. There was so much mail that it had to be divided among many different places to be able to sort through it. Some went to the television networks, some went to the hospitals, some went to the local churches, and a lot of it came to the command center.

So during the midnight hours of the days following, we would open mail, sort it, and then we would take the letters from the children and hand them out to the workers. We would walk from security checkpoint to checkpoint, handing out these hand-drawn pictures & letters to tired and weary women & men who at first had a very hardened look & demeanor. But as soon as we gave them some of those letters, we would see the despair start to fade away and would sometimes get a glimmer of the hope that would remain.

It did, you know...remain. There is a survivor that continues to stand up for the fact that even amidst this horrific act of terrorism, this city, this state, and this country came together as one community. We looked past our differences and instead of allowing this act to divide us, it actually ended up uniting us in a very real way. And this survivor stands for the hope that we all have in humanity, that there is good in the world that has not been silenced, that in each of us there is the ability to put others' needs before our own, and that the capacity for love can be found in all of us. The survivor I mention is a tree, an Elm tree, that showed the amazing resilience and strength to endure. This tree will not forget what happened. It will always bear the marks from its' wounds of that day 13 years ago. But still it stands...and so will we.

May we never forget, that on this day we saw our country come together....not necessarily as Americans, but more so as a people who refused to allow hatred to have the last word. Here I saw first-hand how love truly is stronger than death, and this, I will never ever forget.

making new friends

So, two weeks ago I was in a hotel in Orlando with my daughter. We had spent a full day at Disney World and were relaxing by the outdoor pool & hot tub. Now my daughter Aliyah is not a very shy person when it comes to making new friends that are her age. If she sees anyone even close to her age, she automatically refers to them as her friend. "Hey daddy - there's my friend, I need to go play with her!"

So, on this particular day, there were a few other kids her age in the pool and they were playing very well with each other. After they had an hour of playing and swimming, it was time to go up to our room, dry off and go to dinner. So I called to aliyah to say that she had 5 more minutes to finish playing. After the five minutes passed, I told her it was time to go. She offered up the normal excuses to try to delay the inevitable. While I was coaxing her out, I asked if she had fun making new friends. Her response completely floored me. She said, "yes...but I'm not finished making them yet".

After an hour of playing together, she still wasn't finished 'making' new friends. How often are we as adults only willing to go through the minimum of the socially accepted rules of engagement when you meet someone new in a public place, such as a hotel pool. We make a general acknowledgment of the others' presence, possibly make a comment about the weather or some other trivial subject. If we're lucky, we will enter into a dialog lasting little more than just a brief couple of minutes. But rarely anything more.

Rarely do we ever seem to take time to really look at and see the other person. To see that they are someone who is very similar to us, likely feeling overwhelmed by life, work, relationships, and all the other stuff life throws at us. Someone who has hopes and ambitions and even fears. Of course I completely understand that we can't have close personal relationships with everyone we encounter, and we don't want to go around exposing all our crap to every person we meet. I do feel, though, that even with the many acquaintances we have, there should still be a certain amount of authenticity exchanged. Maybe we could spend a little more time talking to and trying to truly see those around us, instead of merely pretending that we are only supposed to smile & nod and go on about our personal business.

So, at that particular moment, what was likely an effort for a little girl to stay in the pool a little longer became yet another way in which the innocence of children bring new perspective to the 'experience and wisdom' of us adults.

Pretending to be asleep

I remember back when I was little, maybe 4 or 5 years old....my family would regularly drive the 45 minutes from Norman to Oklahoma City to see my grandparents. We would have good times talking, eating dinner, listening to my granddad tell stories about when he was young. It was usually late when we left their house to come home and without fail, I would always fall asleep in the backseat of the car. But what I find interesting is that I would always wake up as we got closer to our house. I could tell exactly where we were by the timing between turns, and I knew that if I let my parents know that I was awake, they'd likely make me walk into the house on my own, BUT if I pretended to be asleep, my dad would very gently carry me inside (so not to wake me) and lay me down in my bed and pull the covers over me.

It was a great feeling having someone who loves you pick you up and carry you inside, protecting you from the cold wind..even if it was just a short walk to the door. I used to think I was being all sneaky by pretending to be asleep, but I am beginning to wonder if he knew all along I was awake, but neither he, nor I wanted to reveal the truth as it would take away this seemingly insignificant, yet very powerful ritual.

Now, many years later, I have a daughter that is four years old and there are times, after coming home late, that I find she has fallen asleep in the car. When I open her door to carry her inside, sometimes I can tell she is indeed awake, yet still pretending to be asleep. I continue this ritual of carrying her inside, removing her shoes & coat, and tucking her in bed as I kiss her forehead. And every time, I am reminded of my father who did the same for me.

There are many things we will never know about the ones we love...parents, children, siblings...even our spouses. But I think the more we have the opportunity to walk in their shoes, the more we can understand what they might have been thinking and feeling. I cherish this season with my daughter as I am not only building a strong relationship with my daughter, but it is giving me more insight and understanding about my own father, about some of the hopes and fears he may have felt when I was little.

And at the end of the day, I am thankful for a father who indulged a child who was pretending to be asleep.

Consumption

This past year I have really been thinking a lot about our current level of consumption as a society and as a species. I began by reading Affluenza, a somewhat humorous, yet accurate, observation of the impacts of our affluent lifestyles on culture and the environment. I highly recommend you check it out from your local library.

I look at our world, well - i should say specifically our country - and I see how much marketing and advertising we are exposed to. We are bombarded with people telling us what to do & what to value. And we believe them. At least I do. When the iPhone ads came out - I was hooked. And guess what, when the phone I was currently using broke last October, guess what I did. That's right...I bought an iPhone. Did I really need it - no. Did I allow slick marketing to influence how I determined what was valuable and important to me?

Yep.

The environment is another interesting topic that has a lot to do with consumptions levels. (Here's an interesting 20 min video about consumption. It is a bit biased, but still interesting.) Now really - no matter where you are politically, we must admit that our current levels of consumption are not healthy for the environment. I am not convinced that the human race is directly causing climate change, but when I look at the effects of what we are doing, I get sick to my stomach. But do I still continue to consume at an unprecedented rate? Do I let convenience and low prices influence how I spend my money?

Yep.

I watched some of the presidential debates last night that I had recorded. One of the topics was health care. One of the candidates responded that we do not have a health care crisis, we have a health crisis. Americans consume way more food than we should, and yet we do not exercise or adopt healthy lifestyles. This pattern has been a primary contributor to a tremendous increase in diabetes, heart disease, and a significant number of other ailments. So what do we do? Well - do I turn to the medical professionals for treatment instead of prevention? Am I shocked by how much the treatment costs? Do I look to our government to find a solution for more affordable health care instead of considering my health as my responsibility?

Yep.


Am I proud that this is who I am?
Do I continue to believe that this what it means to be a Christian in today's world?
Will I just sit back and consider it someone else's responsibility?

Not any more.

I have a voice, and so do you.
I am more than a demographic, and so are you.
I am going to be the change that I desire in the world, and hopefully you will too.