Two comments, one from Facebook, one from the blog, seemed worth quoting and commenting on.

Dan said:

“God uses broken vessels. I think it gives Him more glory. There were no perfect people in the Bible, but there were a lot of flawed ones, who had faith and hope.”

So, if what I was trying to say about inner healing in any way seemed contrary to this sentiment, let me emphasize that I didn’t mean it that way. I constantly return to the hope giving reality that God loves me with all my flaws and brokenness.

What I am trying to say about inner healing is that it is a helpful stop on the journey, but not the journey itself. And yet there is something about what people find in inner healing that they want to carry with them- a deep sense of dependence on and love from God.

But that dependence and love is not exclusively available in our woundedness. What I’m looking for is a path where my everyday life is shot through with that dependence and love. Because if we focus exclusively on woundedness, we miss the crucial point Brent made on Facebook:

“I think Mysticism done right is not inner exploration. It is about relating the inner to the outer. It’s about letting yourself interact in some way with things that are too big to fit into your mind and your heart.”

Yes. I am not seeking mysticism as an escape, quite the opposite. I want to live so boldly, so fearlessly in the world, but I need deep inner resources for that. My forays into inner healing and mysticism have been precisely driven by the increasing pressures and responsibilities that leadership and family life bring. How do I learn to thrive in the really-difficult real world?

The main answer I can find, is learn to pray. But learning to pray is something we do in community, with thousands of years of help from psalmists, monks, priests, pastors, and friends.

Well, I suppose I have morphed into a sporadic blogger. So, I may as well be an unapologetically sporadic blogger. Hello, my name is Jeff, and I’m a sporadic blogger (Hi Jeff…).

That said, here’s what I’m into lately. Mysticism. By which I basically mean, ways to talk about prayer and spiritual growth that go a little further than “read your Bible, pray, and go to small group”. Not that I’m against RYBPAGTSG, it’s just that it wasn’t enough for me.

Let me try it from a different angle. For years I had a tortured relationship with inner healing people. On one hand, they had something I wanted. There are hurts in me I want dealt with. At the same time, I had (have) a bone to pick with them. They never get better. And they seemed to wear that fact as a badge of pride. “We are all broken, and the deeper we get in, the more brokenness we find, and the more healing from God we can experience.”

Well, I mean, I suppose that’s true, but I’m not sure it’s accurate to call it inner healing if you never actually get better. Maybe we should just call it inner exploration. And there it is. Maybe we should. But maybe we all could use a little guided inner exploration.

Is this just narcissism? I mean, is this really what our over-therapized culture really needs? More reasons to sit around and focus on our feelings? Well, maybe, kind of. Maybe the reason we’re so over-therapized is that urbanization really has messed us up. And I love me some big cities, but seriously- people need place, connection, community, sacred place, history, tradition. And we tore it all down to build a mall.

And maybe what we need is some guidance, some wisdom, some direction. And not just free form Rorshach dots, but real, rooted, spiritual wisdom. Wisdom that says yes AND no, that says this AND not this. And yet that isn’t legalistic, isn’t rules, It’s just a shape for a life. Contours for being truly human.

In any case, that’s the mysticism I’m looking for. I’m reading a book on Centering Prayer by Cynthia Bourgeault. And what surprises me is how much space she spends on what Centering Prayer isn’t. But that’s so helpful. On one hand, I am helped by “just try praying”. But I am also very helped by “try praying this way”, which incorporates “when this comes up, do this, but don’t do this.”

So that’s what I got today. Sporadic Blogger out.

In my work, I spend a lot of time working in teams. We often need to discuss ideas and make decisions together. When I run into a situation where there is a difference in opinion, here’s what I try to keep in mind:

-Seek first to understand rather than be understood. I’ve found it SO helpful to ask open ended questions such as “why do you like that idea?” or “what are the benefits of that?” I’ve had situations where the person has come into the discussion with entirely different experiences (or data, as you said Jeff) than I have. Neither my experiences (and hence my opinion) nor the other person’s experiences (hence their opinion) were “wrong”, they were just two pieces of a larger more complicated picture.

-Demonstrate that I’ve listened and validate the other person’s point of view. When tempers start to flare, this is AMAZINGLY helpful to defuse the emotion. I’ll repeat what the person said, maybe in some of my own words. They might correct me and we might have to go back and forth to make sure I understand properly. There is something about being heard and understood that transcends agreement. I can walk away from a situation where I don’t agree with the decision, but if I feel like the other people understood me, that goes really far towards me be okay with it.

I’ve also been in situations where this hasn’t happened at all, and we just continued bringing up the same statements with increasingly more emotion. And I think that was because we didn’t feel heard by the other person and therefore just repeated the same statements and couldn’t get past them.

-Say what I agree with first, before saying what I disagree with. Sometimes I have to scrape to find something I agree with, but this goes back to validating. Finding common ground first just seems to set a good tone for the discussion.

-When I express my idea or opinion, I try to include why I like the idea and/or how I came to that opinion. I offer up my past experiences as the basis for my idea or opinion, especially if they are different from my colleagues. I find the ‘why’ is often as important as ‘what’ I’m expressing.

Regarding your suggestion #2 Jeff – never argue if someone is strongly dug into a decision – I do find it’s important to choose wisely. If the person is strongly dug in, and it’s a minor decision, there’s little value in me spending a lot of effort. However, on more major decisions, sometimes I don’t have the option (and still do my job) not to engage in discussion with someone who is strongly dug in to a decision that I don’t agree with. In other words, the weight of the topic (and/or my conscience) may compel me to engage, no matter how strongly dug in the other person may be. But, I always have the option not to argue with them – discuss yes – argue no.

And point #3 about being willing to believe that “I could be wrong” is very helpful in my experience. The intent is to make a good decision, or chose the best idea, for the situation. Sometimes that means putting aside my ego, because a better idea came from someplace else or there were other factors that I didn’t know about. It’s not about me, or about winning, or about feeling better about myself, but about making the best decision. I try value what is greater than me and best for the situation. And most of the time, that it is much easier said, than done.

Or maybe their great ideas. Here’s something that happens a lot. Somebody says “I’m going to do X”. And you thinking to yourself “X is a bad idea for you. I don’t think you should do it.” Should you tell them? Or should you just lie and pretend that you think it’s a good idea? Or something in between?

What if they do X and it goes badly? You might feel like you failed them. But what if you oppose X and they do it and it goes well? Then you’ll feel dumb. But what if you oppose X, and X is neutral, but they feel judged by you and your relationship goes south?

To dig a little deeper, what if you are working on a team, and someone suggests X, which seems to you like a terrible idea? As the team works, it seems like X is getting more and more play and might end up being the strategy. You can’t decide- should I go against the flow and fight against X? What if everyone ends up hating me?

And, in so many cases, it isn’t even this clear cut. We just think something might be a bad idea, or we like one part of an idea but not another. And, if we are honest, maybe we just have some self-interest in opposing X, but even still, we are trying to figure out if it’s still worth speaking out against.

Three thoughts:

1. Offer data not opinions.

If there is actual information, you can share it in the least slanted way possible. I recently sent someone an email that just said “Hey, I know you are doing X, and some of my friends have had a bad experience with X. How much have you looked into it?” And the reply was that she was aware of the potential downside, and had some reason to think she could avoid it. And she thanked me for the note. There you go- data not opinions.

2. Never argue if someone is strongly dug into a decision.

If someone is dug in on something, never argue. Even if the thing goes badly, at least you will still have relationship. If you have a big argument, you will have injected shame into the conversation, and if it goes badly, it is less likely you will be able to help on the other side.

3. You could be wrong.

You can say to someone as many times as you want “I could be wrong.” But if you don’t believe that you could be wrong, they’ll be able to tell. And you will probably offer more argument than data. Can you internally own your fallibility? This might be one of the most important skills to have in this situation.

Have you responded well to someone else’s potentially bad decision?

Almost all the good writers tell us that failure is inevitable and a key learning moment. One says that success has very little to teach us, and failure makes us mature. Another admonishes us to fail forward, others remind us how deeply we are loved even in the midst of failure.

Yadda yadda yadda.

Of course it’s all true and profound. And probably more important than anything I have to say. All I really want to note here is that failure sucks. It hurts inside, and sometimes it even hurts other people. It can make us question our own significance and worth, it leaves us disoriented and unsuree of the next move.

I will leave it to our wiser sages to teach us how to learn from failure. Here, I’d like to help you survive it. Because if failure overwhelms us, beats us, takes us out of the game altogether, we don’t have a chance to learn anything from it. I’ve said before that one of the central lessons for young leaders is simply, “don’t quit.”

So how do we survive failure? A few thoughts.

First, learn when to declare it. You can declare failure too early out of tiredness and discouragement. You can declare failure too late, and beat a dead horse for months.

Second, articulate clearly how you failed. This often helps us relativize what happened. Say you planned to teach a class for four weeks. You hoped 20 people would show up. But in reality, 6 showed up the first week, and that number decreased each week. How did you fail? Well, you taught a class. Some people came. But not as many as you hoped, and they didn’t stick. Simply articulating that helps you get perspective. You didn’t fail at everything. You simply didn’t get as many epeople as you wanted.

Third, don’t try to feel better, try to do better. The right question to ask about the previous example is “why didn’t many people come?” and ” why didn’t they stay. Could be failure of publicizing, could be lack of interest in the topic, could be that it was a bad time, could be that you’re just a boring teacher. Work on fixing that stuff. Way to much energy gets spent rationalizing and justifying our failure instead of simply trying to do better.

And then, you know learn from your failure, cuz, huh, you know, failure is the best teacher. And stuff.

So, if you aren’t from my fair state, you need a little background. The Minnesota State Fair is a behemoth- last year, about 1 in 3 state residents attended. It has everything you can imagine- rides, games, music. All the labor unions and politicians set up their booths, all the TV stations are there, the newspapers. It’s a blast. And it drips with sentimentality for a bygone age.

That’s what struck me this year. That basically, there was a time when this was really an important public function. Of course, on one hand, it is- it gives Minnesotans a sense of place, identity, and cohesion. But in a practical sense, it’s 90% just for fun and sentiment. It isn’t really a place where significant public discourse takes place, or where people find out the latest happenings from around the state. But it seems that at one point it actually was.

I just can’t get over the rate of change in our culture. I posted about it a few days ago, and it keeps rolling around in my head. Think about it- 100 years ago there was no TV, few phones, no internet, few cars. Churches that now seem either quaint or outdated were in their heyday- a heyday that would last for a while. The Pentecostal movement was barely germinating, and radio was just getting off the ground. Hot issues in the church might have included card playing, mixed bathing, public dancing, and theater attendance. There was no such thing as a debate over women in ministry, the megachurch movement, or gay marriage. 10 years ago Yahoo was the hottest thing on the internet and 5 years ago taking out sketchy mortgages seemed like a really good idea.

How should the rate of social change influence how we think about ministry and leadership? Gosh darn it if I know. I was at a conference recently and spoke to a long-time mentor of mine who is in her 60s now. Much of the conference had revolved around responding to rapid change. When I asked her what she thought of the conference, she just said two words, “I’m scared.” She didn’t mean it in a bad way, she was just being honest. Sometimes it seems we have to rewrite the game plan of leadership every six months.

I think of three helpful responses, but heck, maybe they’ll change in six months.

First, never hold on to the past. Hold on to truth, hold on to God, hold on to people, but not the past. It can’t help you. It’s already over.

Second, always learn from the past. It’s not there to be preserved, it’s there to be understood. I was a history major, and I still find studying history one of the most helpful practices for understanding the present and the future.

Third, figure out what your knee jerk response to change is. Are you stodgy? Are you an early adopter, or a late adopter? Do you throw yourself into change quickly- maybe too quickly? Understanding our instinctive response can help us make more critical assessment of how to move forward.

What do you think? How do you respond to change?

For the record, I love preaching, prayer and worship music. I have spent an enormous amount of my life dedicated to working these three things as potential wasy to help people connect to God. I have probably listened to thousands of sermons on tape or mp3 over the years, and preached about 500 myself.

All that said, I often find that if I can connect to God outside of preaching and worship music, it can be super-helpful. I think that because this is my life work, at times, I can feel like “I’ve gotten as far as preaching will take me at the moment, I need something fresh.”

I have found a lot of help in non-worship music. I know its cliched, but Bono has been my companion for many years. Lauryn Hill, Beethoven and Nickel Creek have been there too.

I also, strangely, have really enjoyed studying business models. Not just as ways to strategize about church. I actually find it fascinating how people reflect God’s creative image in the creativity and daring of powerful corporations. This summer I’ve been obsessed with baseball, and especially with Henry Aaron. His life is so tragic, and yet heroic. There is a lot to learn from him.

I know a lot of people are into movies- I’m not so much. But some TV shows have been helpful metaphors- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The West Wing, and a few others. I’m not much of a fiction reader, but I know that helps a lot of people. I also really enjoy wandering around neighborhoods looking at houses and talking to God about my life.

I’d love to know strange ways you connect to God?

I read a book by a Puritan called “The Reformed Pastor“. It had some wonderful insights, but there was one huge element of the book that made it utterly unrealistic for modern leaders. He was leading a country parish where he knew exactly how many families he was responsible for, where they lived, and where they were spiritually.

That kind of reality exists now only in monastic settings (which, not surprisingly, are making a bit of a comeback). But for churches (or other organizations) in the modern world, change is an everpresent reality. There are statistics like “30% of a congregation in a large city turns over every years”. This is certainly true for us at Mercy, moreso given our younger population.

Whatever system or strategies we put in place must take this into account. On one hand, I have friends that I hope stay in this church with me until one of us dies. But in reality, most of the people closest to me will move on. They might move, or their needs might change such that they end up in another congregation (get over it, pastors, people are going to leave you and it doesn’t make them bad or you a failure.)

If we make plans with the idea that the same people will stay around year after year, we will almost immediately start declining in both attendance and effectiveness. We must plan for the reality that our church will look completely different in 5 years, in ways we probably can’t even imagine.

Let alone the turnover in people, consider the effect of technology. I literally cannot conceive of how to do ministry without cell phones, web sites, email, and facebook. But what new technologies will be present in five years that I’ll have to catch up with? And for the record, I’m not a techno-geek. I’m a late adopter on almost all technology. I didn’t set this blog up- my friends did, then sent me a link and said “type in the box.” But I know if I fall too far behind, I’m dead.

What stays the same? Jesus. Love. Hope. But Jesus is an incarnate God, you hear me-incarnate. That means he enters into the world, into reality. Which means, in the 21st century west, Jesus embraces constant change.

This is mostly aimed at single readers, though married folks might get a kick out of it

I’m known for being blunt and offensive on this topic and I feel no real need to change that, so here are six realities of dating in Christian leadership circles.

First, there are way more girls than guys in Christian leadership circles. Church in general is female-biased, and the closer you get into leadership, the more we see this. Oddly, I have a regular experience of Christian girls being almost irrationally picky about guys. Speaking by the odds, I’m not sure that’s the best approach. Of course, it’s understandable, because guys tend to mature slower than women. So guys, if you are a guy Christian leadership type, if you can learn how to get a job and comb your hair, you’ve got a pretty good shot. And girls, most guys will eventually grow up. I once found in my wife’s diary from the summer we met the question ‘Am I willing to wait for him to grow up?’ I’m glad she was.

Second, don’t have sex before you get married.

Third, don’t make out with people you aren’t actually dating.

(I find myself utterly annoyed that I had to make the previous two points. Particularly when it comes to leaders. For average churchgoers, sure, I understand it’s rough. But I think step one of leadership is sort of like, have character and obey God. Seems pretty objective to me.)

Fourth, try to be impressive. There is a weird Christian myth that we are supposed to fall in love only with somebody’s spiritual life. As if, you can be a total slob but if you pray four hours a day, you are great dating material. Get a job, go to the gym, build an awesome ministry, make a huge difference in the world, read lots, be well-spoken. Now look- I know your accomplishments don’t define your worth. I know Jesus loves you- crazy loves you, if you are the most unimpressive person in the world. But he made the world for us to live in and told us to go into it and be fruitful. So- based on a firm foundation of the love and acceptance of Jesus, on the secondary foundation of the love and acceptance of your friends and brothers and sisters in Christ- try to be impressive.

(Caveat: you can definitely try too hard in this direction. Any good dating advice knows there is such a thing as overkill. Romantic comedies are fiction. Part of being impressive is learning to be subtle.)

Fifth, consider how potential dating prospects will influence your leadership. Don’t marry a needy diva if you want to work long hours some weeks. Arguably, dating is the single most important activity for young adults. Little else will effect the rest of your life as much as your approach to dating. This is precisely because dating is directly connected to marriage, and marriage is the single most life-changing human relationship you will ever have (if you do, indeed, get married).

Sixth, get outside input. I often say I wish we did pre-engagement counseling instead of premarital counseling. Choosing the right person in the right way makes all the difference in the world.

If you know me much, you know I’m not a very fear-based person. I mean, from time to time I do feel anxious. But I think, on the whole, less than a lot of people. I deal with lots of other negative emotions- guilt, regret, etc., but fear is low on the list.

This has a negative side, in a strange way. And actually, I think in a way that translates to a lot of other leaders. I have a tendency towards impulsive decision making. I can get excited about an idea, or get negative toward something, and without thinking it through, make a large, life-changing or institution-changing decision.

In church planting circles, we call it “don’t be an idiot.” We often tell people that they can make it in church planting as long as they don’t do one of two things- quit, and be an idiot.

“Being an idiot” can consist of just about anything. Sudden changes- firing a leader unnecessarily, making a huge change in Sunday services, putting a new person in charge of something they aren’t ready for. It often comes when a planter feels discouraged or tired and thinks they just found the silver bullet that will make church planting easy or risk-free.

So- next time you are tempted to make a snap decision but some inner voice wonders if you should think it through a bit more- consider listening to the inner voice. Now- I fully recognize there is an opposite danger. Depending on your personality, being frozen by fear might be more dangerous than impulsivity. But- I have even seen people be impulsive based on fear- because thinking through options brings up so much anxiety, they try to avoid the anxiety by just choosing suddenly and randomly.

One other note on this. Once you have made an impulsive decision and it’s having negative consequences- get advice fast from someone outside the situation. You started digging yourself into a hole of trouble and its likely you can’t see clearly enough how to get yourself out. Sometimes the impulsive response to an initially bad impulsive decision multiplies the damage even more.