Disclaimer: heavy sarcasm ahead. In case you missed the first post in this series, you’ll want to start there.
Antiaxiom #3: Ministry is a Job
As much as you may feel called by God, you have to remember that ministry is a job. It’s something that can be taken from you, if you make enough people unhappy. Because of that, you’ve got to know how to play cards. You can be passionate on occasion, but don’t bug people, or you may lose your job.
Disclaimer: heavy sarcasm ahead. In case you missed the first post in this series, you’ll want to start there.
Antiaxiom #2: Don’t Rock the Boat
Play it safe. Don’t stand out from the crowd. People who try to beat the system just end up getting hurt. Instead, look to see what everyone is doing, and fall in line. You may try to improve on it, but don’t overhaul it. Don’t get dangerous or risky, or someone might think you’ve lost your mind.
Over the past few years I’ve had the opportunity to lead in different capacities, as a father, a husband, a manager, and a pastor. What I’ve learned is that I’m weak and frail. At times, I can give in to what is easy or comfortable rather than what is best. To keep myself in check, I started compiling some of my thoughts on paper.
Back in August, I was inspired by Bill Hybel’s excellent talk on leadership axioms at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. Prompted by his brilliance, I began to classify some of my thoughts into “antiaxioms.” The result was a completely sarcastic recipe for leadership. I will be sharing these over the next few posts, and I hope that others will find them as helpful as I have, even though they’re painful to read.
Antiaxiom #1: Avoid Decisions at all Cost
Avoiding decisions is one of the most important aspects of misleadership because decisions can lead to actions, and actions lead to change. Always remember that few things are as painful as change. It throws off our equilibrium and gets us out of our ruts. It disturbs the normalcy of life.
Besides that, there is always the chance that the change will end up negative. What if we accidentally make a mistake and end up worse off than we were before?
I always say that it’s better not to try at all than to try and come away looking like a fool. In the words of Tolkien’s Treebeard, “Do not be hasty, that is my motto.”
I’ve only been in Tennessee for a few weeks, but I can already tell that one thing in particular will be my downfall - a nearly irresistible temptation and a wonderful libation: sweet tea.
It’s not that it couldn’t be found in Texas, it just couldn’t be found everywhere. On occasion, in Texas, I would think, “Oh, yeah. I’m at a place that serves sweet tea!” But now, I have that thought any time I go anywhere, whether it’s small group, a church function, or a restaurant. I’m surrounded by the sugary goodness, and it’s very hard for me to resist.
I have it in good authority that the over indulgence of this elixir can have a negative affect on one’s waistline, so I’m treading lightly. But still… I think it may be a struggle.
My oldest brother-in-law almost always has some crazy idea up his sleeve, and on occasion, he’ll do some pretty radical stuff. For a while, he spent his free time pushing his Nissan truck along the road. Last I heard, he had a combined distance of quite a few miles (Gorilla, help me out with the specifics here).
His most recent adventure has been to purchase a sailboat, and that’s where he lives now. In the boat. The only problem is that he’s also been going to school in Amarillo, TX, which is not exactly known for its lakes.
So the “Great Gorilla”, Nate, lives in a dry docked boat, parked next to his pickup truck. You really have to see it to believe it. (The missing front grill on his truck is due to a wreck in an ice storm a few years ago).
I’ve asked about what he does when he needs to take a shower or go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, but I’m still without answers. I’m also wondering if the colder weather has forced him to find other forms of shelter.
Don’t freeze, bro!
In a world full of bad news, I found this to be an encouragement today. This week, several Internet service providers came together to shut down a California-based internet company that was responsible for about 67% of the spam in the United States. Evidently this host had become a home for a lot of spammers because of their loose controls.
So, if you notice that you aren’t getting as many online pharmacy emails, you’ll know who to thank.
The bad news: it’s only a temporary solution, and the spammers are already finding new places to hide.
Finally, a video that justifies all that time you spend on Twitter and Facebook.
Every once in awhile I have a bad computer day. Hard drive crash, memory failure, or power supply burnout. These things happen, and that’s why we back up our data (you do, right?). But today I had a couple of unrelated computer problems that 1) I didn’t cause, and 2) were completely unrelated.
The first problem happened a few minutes after installing Adobe CS4, a wonderful suite of programs including the new versions of PhotoShop, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and a few others (I use these programs almost as much as I use email). I got a “your running out of hard drive space” warning. That’s strange, especially on a brand new computer - not yet cluttered with tons of applications and files. Hmmm. Even after I freed up some memory, I was still getting errors.
When I checked my hard drive, this is what I saw:
You don’t have to be too computer savy to figure out that this is a bad thing. No free memory means that you can do almost nothing on a computer.
The second issue: While, I was trying to figure out what to do with my dying computer, I remembered something that a person mentioned in a meeting today . They said that when they looked at the code of the Faith Promise website, there were a bunch of weird pharmaceutical links listed there. I quickly confirmed that this really was the case, and I sent an email to the ad agency who currently takes care of the website. Here’s an excerpt from the email I received in response.
So in one day, I ended up with a computer that was mistakenly trying to syncronize all the personal folders on the server and a website that had been hacked. Crazy.
The good news: both issues were resolved before I left the office today.
A few weeks ago I purchased an iPhone. It was a tough decision to make because I had to switch from Sprint and I knew that the required data plan was going to end up costing us more, even if I cut back on our minutes. I also had a negative influence, who was trying to convince me that a Blackberry was the way to go.
Well, fortunately, I threw caution to the wind and picked up an 8Mb iPhone, and I have to say that it’s pretty much amazing. The user interface really is revolutionary, and the applications are pretty slick. It’s just like when I bought my first Palm Pilot. I’m back to my technology-loving self.
For those of you out there who are iPhone or iPod Touch users, let me know your favorite add-on apps, and I’ll share a few of mine here too. My brother, Phil, introduced me to almost all of these, and most of them are free:
Pandora - kind of like having custom XM radio stations on your phone. Check out the free computer application if this sounds interesting at all. I promise, you’ll like it.
YouVersion - LifeChurch.tv’s team of awesome has put together this great free Bible application (also available for your computer desktop or Blackberry). I like it so much, that I’m using it for my quiet time a majority of the time now.
Facebook - pretty cool to have Facebook with you all the time. Not so useful, but pretty clever.
Hidden Expedition: Everest - Brynna and I play this one together, and she loves it. It’s kind of like “Where’s Waldo,” but not nearly as dorky (no offense, if you happen to like red and white stripes).
Shazam - In about 15 seconds, this program can accurately identify a song that you hear on the radio or at the store.
Disclaimer: I hesitated to write this post because I really hate to stir up materialism in the hearts of anyone. After all, it is just piece of plastic and metal with zero eternal impact… but I do think it is pretty cool (and so does my wife - she keeps trying to steal it from me).
I know this photo is pretty lame, but it’s hard to take an on-the-sly photo when you’re ushering and all you have is an iPhone to do the job. I’m standing about six rows from the back left corner and facing the screen on the right side of the stage. You can see a glimpse of the balcony on the right.
I love the atmosphere of worship and anticipation in this place. People are excited to be there, and yes, it feels a bit like a rock concert. I love it! (Why should that feeling be reserved for only concerts and football games?)