Category: random thoughts

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down with the ceo model of senior pastors

interesting blog post quoted by kottke concerning non-hierarchical business management. one of the opening quotes is:

The word manager makes many people uncomfortable. It calls up the image of a bossman telling you what to do and forcing you to slave away at doing it. That is not effective management.

 

A better way to think of a manager is as a servant, like an editor or a personal assistant. Everyone wants to be effective; a manager’s job is to do everything they can to make that happen. The ideal manager is someone everyone would want to have.

 

Instead of the standard “org chart” with a CEO at the top and employees growing down like roots, turn the whole thing upside down. Employees are at the top — they’re the ones who actually get stuff done — and managers are underneath them, helping them to be more effective. (The CEO, who really does nothing, is of course at the bottom.)

sounds very similar to this from JESUS

JESUS called them together and said, “you know that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. not so with you. instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the SON OF MAN did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

the problem for me is that i have unfortunately seen churches where the pastor serves more as the ceo of all rather than the servant of anyone. in this view the pastor is the head and everyone else’s job is merely to make him (or her) more effective.

i know of one pastor that has a group of people whose job it is to surround him after the service is over so that he won’t be stopped by any of the church members when he is making his way out. it’s not that this pastor doesn’t love the church members, rather it is that there are too many other things that he needs to do and therefore he must move it in order to make it to them. probably says more about large churches than it does about the pastor.

anyhow, if JESUS told HIS apostles to “lead” in the manner of a servant shouldn’t the rest of us do the same thing?

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gotta an itch?

i may have just hit a new low.

i just finished using a dog shedding blade to scratch my back. i couldn’t find anything else that would reach and scratch the itch properly. and i tried. i rubbed against door frames, used a mop handle, tried to get the dogs to scratch it, etc. i am not ashamed to admit that the shedding blade was wonderful.

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how the bible should be for us

i once heard someone say that when we read the bible we should have a hard hat on because when we read it our lives should turn into construction zones. there is also a story that shane claiborne tells of being thrown into jail and a police officer telling him that he should be careful in reading his bible because it is a dangerous book. well at least it should be. i’m not sure it always is in my life.

the faith, stories and teachings found in scripture have lead people to take amazing leaps to faith. still it seems that so often we treat it as a nice little book that has comfortable sayings in it. don’t get me wrong. there is comfort to be found in the ONE of WHOM the bible speaks. yet there is a vast difference between receiving comfort and being comfortable. comfort you need when times are though and struggles are going on. comfort helps you to continue. being comfortable implies no need to move or change. comfortable can be a great thing in relationships (we should be able to be comfortable in GOD’s love – hebrews 4:16) but it can be a lousy thing in living out faith.

i love the lyrics of rich mullins. one of his last songs was “surely GOD is with us.” in that song he makes the following statement concerning how people may have reacted to JESUS when HE was walking on earth:

who’s that MAN who says HE’s a preacher?
well, HE must be, HE’s disturbing all our peace

wouldn’t life be exciting if all of us who claim to be followers of JESUS lived that lyric out in our faith and in the way we approached the bible? i think it would be cool if i was constantly have my peace disturbed by the words of my LORD. it might not make me very comfortable but i think it would probably lead to many others receiving comfort.

SIDE NOTE – this post was just supposed to be about the fact that i like the above sign. it’s on by florian.b on flickr. i was just going to say that i like the photo. as most of you probably know i can be a little long winded. ht neatorama.

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blood, sweat, and tears?

my blood

this is the amount of blood that i poured into that last post. i picked a very small scab while typing and it decided to prove its worth. before it stopped it had filled up both sides of this napkin with blood.

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our daily guests

our daily guests

this is probably not a big deal for most of you but it brings a smile to my boys and my faces each day.

one of the cool things concerning where we live is that while we are in a suburban area our backyard is connected to 20 to 30 acres of pine forest. there is a great deal of wildlife in those woods. we regularly see white tail deer a 100’ or so away from our house but they never seem to get any closer. that is until they found the corn that i put out for our squirrels (of which we have a large number of very fat, clumsy, and curious ones). now they have started coming into our backyard every afternoon around 4 p.m. it’s always easy to tell when they are there because montana, our oldest basset hound, goes crazy. in fact, noah has started calling her “deer alarm” instead of montana because you can pretty much instantly tell when the deer arrive based on the tone of montana’s barking.

i have always loved watching deer. i was never much of a hunter (fishing is so much better because you can release the fish) but i have at least been deer hunting a few times in my life. when i would be in a tree stand and see deer i would always have a very hard time pulling the trigger because they are just so beautiful. in fact, i was only ever able to pull the trigger once.

tomorrow is darwin day (the 200th birthday of charles darwin). for some people, on both sides of the fence, this is a huge thing. for some darwinism proves that there is no GOD, while for others evolution is a messed up theory that no true believer in CHRIST could ever accept. i believe both sides are wrong. for truth in advertising purposes i will let everyone know that i hold to an age/day view of creation. i don’t know the exact processes through which life came about on earth. yet when i see elegance and beauty in nature i’m not usually very concerned about about the exact procedure through which life came about. instead, when i see things in nature that make my “heart smile” (a saying stolen from a few of pam and i’s friends) i am more concerned about the “why” of life. why is life here? why are their moments of joy that seem to shout of something larger? why does beauty ring true? “how” questions are fine but i tend to think that the “why” questions are often the most important.

when i watch the deer that come and visit our backyard (a.k.a steal our squirrel corn) i am simply reminded that there is a great GOD of beauty and truth WHO loves HIS creation and wants to be in a loving relationship with all parts of it. however GOD created all that is HE did it for us to know, love, and enjoy HIM. I hope you do.

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my ice fishing hat

my ice fishing hat

i know most of you won’t care about this but i love my new ice fishing hat. i think i embarrass my kids by wearing it in public but i love it. what it lacks in style it makes up for in warmth. the hat has a balaclava built into it which makes it even better. it is the warmest thing ever.

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drive by darth

darth

i guess everyone is posting about the inauguration today but i’ll avoid that other than saying that i am too much of a cynic to think that the world has changed based on an election (other than the fact we americans have our first non-anglo president – which is HUGE) and i haven’t been brainwashed enough either to think that the world is going to end because of an election. truthfully i’m annoyed by the groups on both sides of the political spectrum who look for messiahs in elected officials. the fruits who thought GOD’s kingdom had come to earth because of the election of george w drive me just about as crazy as the ones who presently seem to think the same thing about barack. of course, none of this applies to my friends. 😉

see what you made me do…i ended up talking about the inauguration a little.  anyhow, i thought i would share this photo with you. how cool is that? here’s the original source.

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i'm leaving on a jet plane

i’m in the louis armstrong new orleans airport waiting for my plane to start the trip home. i have a few minutes to waste and therefore i am writing this and thereby wasting your time. see, this works for both of us. 🙂

  • thanks josh for letting me hang out at your house. staying at josh’s and hanging with he and meg is always a blast. i love wisconsin but i do miss the conversations we used to have in “the suite.”
  • i wish i would have gotten to see a few more former students from the parkview youth ministry. i’m not sure why i was getting messages two hours after the fact from them but it just didn’t work out. it was probably for the best. i was really tired and therefore probably wold have accidentally killed someone.
  • the seminar was great. dr. cole is a very intriguing person and thanks to him i have moved from thinking that the prophet jeremiah was a wuss to thinking that he was probably a wuss that i would have li9ked. i’ll have to do this again sometime.
  • the temperature swap i am about to go through is from 53 degrees to -16 degrees and this is happening without me having my winter coat (i left it in my car because it was too bulky). i am wearing a thin sweater and i have a sports jacket with me. it’s going to be a VERY cold walk from the madison terminal to my car. i truly hope my car starts.
  • i don’t miss the louisiana weather but i do miss the food. hmmmmmm.
  • louisiana is a great place but i have to say that one of the things that i can’t stand about the region is a desire to show status that seems to be pervasive within the region. while in the security line today i heard a guy answer a question from a security guard concerning him probably being a biker because he was dressed in harley leather and had also just told the security guard that he had three harleys (sorry for the confusing structure of that sentence) by saying loud enough for me to hear 1/2 way down the line, “oh no i’m not a biker. i make $480,000 a year.” huh? i think the guy probably tries to fit his supposed income into as many conversations as possible. it’s just a weird culture.
  • i had a pastor tell me this week that he really respected what tapestry and i are doing because we are in a place of such darkness. WHAT! point isn’t a place of darkness. in fact, i would say that light shines brighter still in point because it isn’t hinder by as much fake faith (though there is always some anywhere you go). anyhow, i turned it back on him and said that he had it wrong. the bible belt is the place of darkness because there is so much more fake CHRISTianity in the belt than else where in the country. that fake stuff really messes stuff up for real CHRIST following. of course, it does make all the cooler the churches in the bible belt that really act like the bride of CHRIST.

well we’re board in a few minutes so i’ll go ahead and post this. PAMELA & BOYS I’M COMING HOME!!!!

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looking back

i saw this on marko’s blog but it came from josh treece’s blog. anyway, it seemed like a good way to look back over the year.

1) What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?

 

2) Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

  • most but not all of them

3) Did anyone close to you give birth?

  • some former youth

 

4) Did anyone close to you die?

  • yes

 

5) What countries did you visit?

  • nicaragua
  • minnesota 🙂

 

6) What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

7) What date(s) from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

  • may 18 – finished first marathon
  • august 6 – tapestry provided a village of 300 with clean running water
  • september 14 – TAPESTRY’S FIRST PUBLIC WORSHIP GATHERING

 

8) What was your biggest achievement of the year?

  • these are both group achievements but planting tapestry & finishing the marathon

 

9) Did you suffer illness or injury?

 

10) What was the best thing you bought?

  • a bright yellow canoe – thanks mom and dad

 

11) Whose behavior merited celebration?

  • pam – becoming the most amazing professor ever
  • adam & noah – acting out the four things and adjusting so well to the late 2007 mvoe
  • the tapestry launch and worship teams – all of them are servants

 

12) Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

  • a couple of pastors whom i am fairly sure bore false testimony against someone whose views they don’t like.

 

13) Where did most of your money go?

  • bills, diet coke, coffee, tithe (hopefully not in that order)

 

14) What did you get really, really, really excited about?

  • tapestry’s launch – i still gets goose bumps
  • family trips to chicago and milwaukee
  • smallmouth bass fishing with friends and family
  • wisconsin summers – there is nothing prettier
  • cheese and crackers with pam at night

 

15) What song will always remind you of 2008?

  • "the way i am" by ingrid micealson – it’s a pam thing

 

16) Compared to this time last year, are you:

  • Wiser? yeah, i think so
  • Healthier? probably a little but i was already into the running thing last year
  • Richer? far from it

 

17) What do you wish you’d done more of?

  • played basketball
  • cleaned the garage
  • bushwhacked the backyard

18) What do you wish you’d done less of?

  • watched tv when there was no reason too.

19) How did you spend Christmas?

  • sick

 

20) Did you fall in love in 2008?

  • nope, just continued to learn what real love is all about – i’ve been in love since 1987.

 

21) What was your favorite blog post that you wrote?

  • not sure if i understand this one? is it asking about my own blog or a post i read somewhere else? i’ll have to think about this one.

 

22) What were your favorite TV programs?

  • the office
  • lost
  • heroes

 

23) Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

  • i don’t think so

 

24) What was the best book you read?

 

25) What was your greatest musical discovery?

 

26) What did you want and get?

  • a church i could be proud to be part of and oh yes i got it

 

27) What did you want and not get?

  • cross country ski boots – couldn’t find the ones i wanted (i.e cheap ones) anywhere.

 

28) What was your favorite film of this year?

  • if it is just in theater then probably “the dark knight”
  • if first watching’s of dvd’s count then “into the wild”

29) What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

  • i’m 41 and i curled and then hung out with my family

 

30) Which celebrity/public figure did you like the most?

  • wow – this one is hard. truthfully i distrust most celebrities/public figures.

 

31) How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

  • whatever pam buys me – is that a style?

 

32) What kept you sane?

  • the family, the dogs, the running, and the fishing

 

33) Who did you miss?

  • the suite and honorary members of the suite

 

34) Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.

  • once you think you are finally dreaming big, stop, grab a diet coke, and realize it’s not as crazy of an idea as it should be so dream bigger still

 

35) What did you gain this year?

  • a reason to love sunday evenings
  • a lot of new friends
  • new missions
  • some great times with pam

 

36) What did you lose this year?

 

37) Who was the best new person you met?

  • i met a ton of amazing people in 2007 that i won’t mention here because this is about 2008. thankfully i met a ton of cool people in 2008 also. i’ll just mention a few
  • all the people involved in leading tapestry worship – heather, hilary, sarah, eric, jackson, and joel
  • perry polnaszek & jerrmiah mitchell
  • josh ross
  • josh jones

 

38) Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

  • have to do some research on this
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ted talks

i meant to include this in yesterday’s “thorn birds” inspired random thoughts post but i forgot to do so. so here goes.

if you are not presently regularly listening to the ted talks, then you should stop what you are doing right now and go subscribe to them via your rss reader or podcast aggregator. they are consistently good. obviously i don’t always agree with them but only an idiot sees truth and wisdom in just the things he/she agrees with. the ted talks are one of the regular podcasts that i listen to and i am usually very thankful for that.