Vertebrae

I don’t need to set this up at all… you know — sometimes when you’re doing some sort of sales, and you want to make a point, or propose some sort of solution to people’s felt needs, you first must articulate the problem we’re all facing… So if you’re a door-to-door vacuum salesman, you have to talk about how dirty floors ruin your day. Or how heavy other vacuums are. You have to remind people of the problem so that your solution FEELS more revelatory. If you paint a compelling picture of how bad a problem is, and then pitch your product, you’ll likely make some sales.    Same thing with public speaking. If you have a point to make, you need to set it up with all the failed solutions we’ve tried thus far… You need to shine a spotlight on how ugly things are, so that you can propose a beautiful alternative and people will lean into it. It’s why old-school preachers used to talk about Hell so much. It’s psychology. Scare people into a vulnerable place, and then propose some sort of safety… and all you have to do is pray a prayer and put a $50 in the offering.    Well — this is a long walk to get to this simple point: I don’t feel like I need to articulate ANY of the shit we’ve been going through this year thus far. You guys know. And in fact, if I go back through it all, like so many podcasts and political pundits do, it’ll likely only trigger MORE ANXIETY than I’ll be able to alleviate.    Because we’re all already AT that vulnerable, out-of-control spot you want an audience in, let’s just start talking.    This year, thus far, has hopefully taught you a few lessons about control. About how little control you have over certain parts in your life. About which areas of your life you truly, actually, continually can control — and that’s something interesting we might talk about here. About the tendencies you recognize in yourself that wants so deeply to be able to control how other people behave, or vote, or what they believe, or what they tweet, or what your boss thinks is reasonable, or expectations for kids during this school year.    This desire to control is understandable. Don’t beat yourself up for it. We’ve been trying to exercise control over our surroundings since the dawn of time. Think of our ancient ancestors. Clearing brush to set up a campsite. Fighting back the cold nights with a big fire. Turning fields of weeds into neatly planted rows of vegetables.    And every generation in the history of civilization… they’ve been marked by the human desire to control some new aspect of our lives that was previously uncontrollable.    We learned how to control food supply.  We learned how to control water distribution and aqueducts and sewage.  We learned how to control elements and forge them into metal structures and weapons and tools.  We learned how organize people groups into different political experiments and democracies.  We’ve learned to control certain diseases and outbreaks.  We’ve developed vaccines and controlled variables to make living life safer and more predictable—extending life expectancies, and improving quality of life tenfold every generation.    Indoor plumbing, air conditioning, birth control… All good things.    Our desire to control is something we’ve inherited from our ancestors. And it isn’t something we should hate about ourselves. But it is something we need to be aware of its limitations, or else we might be tricked into believing we can control EVERYTHING, which leads to the inevitable shock that “No, we cannot control everything” which leads to anxiety that says, “But i SHOULD be able to control everything,” which might be where some of us are today.    This year has taught me that I can’t control my children. We had a honeymoon phase around age 3 to 5, but now that two of them are north of that, they’re just showing us that “No, you cannot control us, no matter how hard you try.”    This year has taught me that I can’t control my income. I can’t predict any better than my 5 year old which new client will walk through our doors…some with enormous budgets, some with no money at all.    This year has taught me that I can’t control what people think of me. I can try to “signal” who I am and what I care about and what people can expect from me, but how someone internalizes and crafts my reputation in their eyes is entirely up to them.   This year, I’ve learned that I can’t control my own body’s physiology and what chemicals release from my brain at which times… There are days of unexpected gloom, and then days when I give myself over to it and experience joy and freedom like no other. I don’t understand that — and I certainly can’t control it.    I’ve learned that I can’t make other people’s decisions for them. As deeply as I want to help people and want to influence them to make — now let me be clear, what IIIIIII think is the right life decision — they’re entirely free to choose whatever career path, or subscribe to whatever ideology, or raise their kids in whatever way…    But in all of these lessons that 2020 has taught us thus far, which we’ll likely be unpacking for the next decade in therapy, there is a helpful way to turn the gem on the thinking here, and that’s what I want to share.    I spend far too much time in my own life trying to CONTROL things that I’m only ever actually responsible for RESPONDING to. I want to CONTROL, but God just expects me to respond.    How many things do I try to control, by hustling in front of, during and after, to get the outcome I want… Texting people on the side, getting consensus, try to do some insider trading to limit any variables from surprising us… versus simply letting what will happen, happen, and then responding accordingly.    One of the things Elyse and I have learned by taking care of our daughters Type-1 Diabetes is exactly this… when they introduce you to the disease, the doctor’s all use the word “manage.” “Managing Type 1…” Meaning, we’ll never get ahead of it, more than a few hours at a time. It’s an hour by hour thing that we need to respond to… we’re managing something that is wildly unpredictable, and if we spend our lives trying to CONTROL it, we’ll die of exhaustion and despair. Instead, if we use the tools given to us, and we pay attention to what’s happening, then we can respond accordingly… and as a result, the next few hours can be good.    It’s something that sailors understand that motorboats don’t. Baked into the very essence of sailing is the baseline understanding that you can’t control the wind. It’s silly to even suggest otherwise. And as a result, sailors are experts at RESPONDING to unpredictable shifts in weather. Because that’s all sailing is anyways — responding to the wind.    The wind will blow wherever and however the wind will blow. And you have these little tools in these ropes and sails and rudders to respond — and catch that wind, lean into it, and maybe go somewhere with it.    Motorboats are just like, “I turn this wheel and push this button and I go there.” Which, let’s be honest, was invented because we wanted to be able to CONTROL the sea. And thank God for motorboats.    But there are situations that simply can’t be tamed… And we’re in the middle of one. And this might just be the middle. Who the hell knows?    We can contribute to this presidential election, but we can’t control what’s going to happen. We can’t control what our neighbors are doing and how safe they’re staying during this pandemic, but we can respond by wearing a mask around them. We can’t control our income or job security, but we can respond by making conservative decisions with our money. We can’t control everything about our health, but we can respond by eating well and moving our bodies to ensure our immune system is as healthy as possible.    I wonder how much of our daily anxieties would loosen up if we stopped putting expectations on ourselves to CONTROL things, and gave ourselves some grace to simply RESPOND to all these external variables and stimuli.    If you want to come out of the closet, you can’t control how your family will react — but you can step into that with open hands and then simply respond to them accordingly.    And I think RESPONSE is something we can get good at. That’s a skill we can hone in on and refine. We can improve the speed at which we can wisely respond. We can become better decision-makers, learning to research and weigh pros and cons and respond accordingly.    So this is the challenge… Thinks about your day today. What’s one area of your life that you’ve been trying to CONTROL that might benefit from you instead letting it unfold a bit and then responding accordingly… This isn’t passivity — it’s humility and keen observation and prayerful decision-making.   What’s something that’s been consuming your thoughts and has aggregated into actual anxiety lately? Something your heart knows you cannot control, but you brain can’t stop trying to control…    Maybe it’s the safety of your kids at school. Maybe it’s the stock market. Maybe it’s how someone has been treating you. Maybe it’s a spouse or partner or child that you’ve been desperately trying to guide and micromanage, for fear of something going off the rails…    And for what it’s worth: some of these things are actually self-fulfilling prophecies… We so desperately want to CONTROL something, so we inadvertently smother it and ruin any chance it had of being healthy.    The most common cause of new seeds withering after they’ve germinated is OVER-watering. We’re so eager to help them start their new lives that we literally drown them… Sound familiar?   So here’s the challenge for us today, myself included… Step back, just far enough, to catch yourself in the act with one of these things… Acknowledge that trying to control that person or thing is likely the source of some of this anxiety… no matter how much you want it to go your way, no matter how important this thing is to you… To shift your thinking enough to create space for that thing to unfold however it’s going to unfold, and then be very intentional about responding to it.    Once it happens, then you’re ENTIRELY in control of your response. Get all your need to control and ball it up into your response. Because THAT you can control. And if you REALLY want to kick your anxiety in the nuts, spend some time you would be anxiety trying to control the situation instead planning the various ways you might respond whenever your response is needed.   Because in a lot of ways, our anxiety is a result of living in an already/not-yet kind of tension where our brains are somewhere in the future catastrophizing the worst possible scenario… and if instead we spend time thinking through our various options for how we might respond afterwards, we might find that it actually alleviates our anxieties.    Stop trying to control everything and instead control your response to the world around you. I think this is a step in the right direction for me… I think this helps me live more wisely, and more at peace with the chaos around me. And maybe it’ll help you too.    I love you guys. Share this episode with a friend. Make it a good day.

Guys, I’m trying not to be hyperbolic with how I describe this conversation, and the man I had it with… Stan Mitchell has been someone I’ve looked up to as a pastor for the last few years, someone that I’ve texted back and forth with countless times—trying to navigate frustrating situations at church and new ideas we’re dreaming about, and this episode today is the first actual conversation we've had over the phone. We talked for nearly 2 hours, and it’s here, unedited, unfiltered, for you to listen in on.    It’s unfortunately rare to come across progressive Christian leaders that have scripture memorized, and a deep love of the tradition—which he claims has always been progressive, from the moment the story began.    We talk about hell, universalism, the future of megachurches, social media’s beauty and downfalls, and he hits me with a half-dozen moments of personal conviction that I’ll likely listen back to a hundred times.   If you’re on Facebook, please find Stan Mitchell and follow his posts. I’m thrilled to have made a new friend in him, and I know we’ve got a lot of work to do together in the coming years.    This week’s episode is brought to you by our sponsor—calling your old friends. This is something I’ve started doing again over the last 2-3 months. I’ll go for a walk in the evening, scroll through my contacts on my phone, see a name I haven’t seen in a long time, and then just calling them. 75% of the time they don’t answer, I leave a voicemail—typically thanking them for something I love about them, and then immediately call the next name that pops into my head. When there’s no agenda other than just saying “hi,” there’s nothing to prepare or overthink… It’s free and reminds you of all the people that have played significant roles in your life over the years.    So that’s this week’s sponsor: Calling your old friends. Try it. I dare you.   And without further adieu, here’s today’s conversation:

Andrew Morgan is an internationally recognized filmmaker focused on telling stories for a better tomorrow. His experience includes a broad range of work spanning narrative and documentary storytelling for multiple film and new media projects that have been filmed and released all over the world. His work is currently on HBO, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. The New York Times described his unique style as “gentle, humane investigations,” and Vogue Magazine wrote that it is “evidence that each of us can act as a catalyst for change within our own lives and work together towards a greater good.” He lives in LA with his wife Emily, and their four children.

Larry Volk is an artist, educator, lecturer and author. He and holds an MFA in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design has taught photography and visual art in nationally and regionally, for over 25 years. Currently, he is a Professor of Photography in the School of Visual and Performing Arts at Endicott College. He has lectured nationally on, digital imaging, portfolio production and art practice and has served as portfolio reviewer nationally as well as a juror for regional art and photographic competitions. As a visual artist, Larry works with a range of photographic media in a variety of contexts. His work has been exhibited nationally and is held in both private and museum collections. He is a member-artist of the Bromfield Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts. His most recent exhibitions include: a solo exhibition at the Bromfield Gallery (2019), a solo exhibition at the Atelier Gallery of the Griffin Museum (2017) , two-person exhibitions at Endicott College (2013) and New England Bio-Labs (2012).

B.T. Harman is a former executive turned creative strategist, writer, and speaker. He was previously Vice President of Client Experience for Booster, an innovative school fundraising company based out of Atlanta. Between 2005 - 2016, B.T. was a key player in helping Booster raise more than $150 million for American schools. Within Booster, B.T. led a team of creatives that developed high-end character and leadership content for more than 1.3 million students annually. B.T. is also the creator of the blog & podcast, Blue Babies Pink, "A Southern Coming Out Story in 44 Episodes." More than 1.3 mil episodes of the BBP podcast have been downloaded since it released in 2017. It was a top 40 podcast worldwide in March of that year. Today, B.T. is a freelance content-creator for millennials and the brands that serve them. His consulting work focuses on brand strategy, design, marketing, social media, leadership, and more. B.T. recently released his second narrative-style podcast. Catlick is a historical true crime podcast that follows a remarkable series of events that occurred in Atlanta in the early 1900s. B.T.’s other passions include storytelling, leadership, good design, antiques, Seth Godin, SEC football, European travel, Roman history, archaeology, and Chick-fil-A. He also serves on the boards of directors for Beloved Atlanta and the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity. B.T. lives in Atlanta’s historic Cabbagetown neighborhood with his husband Brett and their grey tabby cat, Walnut. To learn more about B.T., visit btharman.com.

Vertebrae.  The essential elements in our lives that give us a backbone.  They’re what help us stand tall—to be strong in the face of adversity.  They define our posture, and how we approach the world.  They’re tested under pressure.  They relay information to and from our bodies. They’re center and central to everything. If you mess with them, things get off center, or worse things are severed and healthy function ceases.  The essential elements in our lives that give us a backbone.    And so it’s got me thinking lately… What are yours?    What are your vertebrae?    We’ve got 24 vertebrae from the base of our brains down to our tailbone… If you were to write down the immoveable essentials in your life, what would they be?    Some folks like distilling their lives down to one purpose, or 3 values, but I feel like that’s too intimidating, and it limits creativity, honestly. We get stuck on needing to have just ONE thing, and it freaks us out.    If you ask someone what their favorite movie (or food) is… you’ll probably be met with a deer in headlights. But if you ask, what are some of your favorite movies? What are some of your favorite foods? The “some of” relieves the pressure and allows people to verbally process.   So what are some of your vertebrae? You’ve got 24—that’s quite a bit. Don’t worry about running out.    What are some elements of your life that you couldn’t possibly life without? They can be people, or passions, or places, or priorities… Whatever gives you a backbone—whatever makes you who you are.    Self-improvement. Being kind to myself, but recognizing that I have a long way to go in every aspect of my life. Spirituality. Openness to the Mystery. Diving deep into ancient traditions and finding universal truths. Being brought up in the Christian tradition, and doing the difficult, necessary work of not being stuck in that, but also not bucking against it and missing all the beauty there. Physical health. Feeling healthy. Being active and able to move and sleep well and surprise myself with what I’m able to do physically.  Financial stability. Making good money doing what I love, and creating something as stable as I’m able to. This corona thing is shaking the foundation, and definitely affecting us financially, but it’s also reassuring that we’ve been building is sustainable. Generosity. This flows out of financial stability, and stability in general I suppose. Knowing where our next meal is coming from helps us relinquish our grip on resources and support incredible organizations that are serving vulnerable people, climates and causes. I really value “sharing.” Life is better when it’s shared. I share everything I can with everyone that’s interested. I’m a natural born Evangelist, with or without the Jesus. If I have good news to share, I’m going to share it.  Family; Elyse and the kids. My extended family. This could feel like a given, but it’s not. It needs to be explicit. It needs to be something constantly in front of me. And again, with this coronavirus, it is. We’re spending more time together as a family than ever, and it’s been incredible.  Efficiency. Productivity. I have a very short attention span for projects that drag on unnecessarily. I’ve always been able to see the shortest path between where we are and where we want to go. That’s been a blessing and a curse over the years, but mostly good. It’s how I’m wired, and it helps me be helpful. The sheer volume of people I interact with over the course of a day is ridiculous, but so, so, so rewarding. Not productivity for the sake of trophies or accolades, but to maximize how helpful I’m able to be. Friendship. Being physically and emotionally and spiritually available to people that have shown up in my life. I want to be a thoughtful, generous friend. Someone that reaches out unexpectedly and supports you in surprising ways.  Curiosity. This is something that I believe keeps people open to the world around them. It keeps them humble. It’s something that my grandmother, Marcia, instilled in me… an unquenchable curiosity for the world around her. And I think it’s really important. It pulls me into all sorts of worlds I wouldn’t otherwise find myself.  Being playful. A few times a day I’ll switch gears into a silly, goofy, playful guy. I’ll get creative with little pranks or tickle fights or being flirty with the world. That’s something I value. I don’t ever want to take life too seriously that I can’t be silly or make someone laugh.  Nature / Animals. I love creation. The wild. The animal kingdom. The diversity of life on earth. I will get sucked deep into EVERY type of “Planet Earth” documentaries, because the world is marvelous, and deserved to be marveled at.    I could go on, and I likely will, in my journal. That probably felt like a long list, but that was only 11 things. 11 essential things that make me who I am, and give me a backbone. If any one of these things is threatened, I’ll step up in its defense. They’re things that bring me life. They’re footnotes in every description of who I am.    And I’d encourage you to think about yours… What’re the rocks in your river? As life flows through you and around you and trying to sweep you up in its current—What’re the rocks in your river that are immovable?    Sometimes it's helpful to define these things. It brings clarity. It helps you prioritize things. It helps you recognize how you currently spend your time, and how you should be spending your time.    Something I want to be really intentional about in the coming weeks is bolstering this podcast into something really valuable. I’ve been working with a lot of inspiring people lately, and I’ve been so deeply impacted by their lives, and I want to create that for people in my sphere of influence.    I’m going to start having guests on this podcast. I’m going to invite some of the most influential people in my life to join me for a conversation here—to talk about their vertebrae, and the things that give them a backbone. More on that soon, but I wanted to share it so I’m held accountable to actually do it. I’ve put together a list of hopefuls, and I’m going to start reaching out to them.    But for now… That’s my thought for the day. What are your vertebrae? If you were to write down the immoveable essentials in your life, what would they be? And don’t be intimidated by it. Just jot a few notes down on a piece of paper and then throw it away. Or open a Notes app on your phone that no one will read and let you mind wander.    Sometimes articulating your vertebrae can help solidify them. To know what we stand for. At least at this point in our lives. And to be proud of the things that make us who we are.    That’s all. Hope it’s helpful.   Make it a good day. 

As humans, we’ve evolved over thousands of years to primarily do one thing: survive. To pass on our genetics. To continue the human race, whatever that is. To hopefully find a respectable mate and reproduce another generation and another and another. And we’ve done a pretty good job so far… I mean, we’re here. We’ve somehow made it this far. For thousands of years, (many believe nearly 200,000 years), humans have been able to perceive threats, adapt to those threats, and train our children to do likewise. Sometimes those lessons taking root in our psyche, sometimes those lessons resulting in evolutions of our bodies and brains. Somewhere in the last 10,000 years, we got this “survival” thing down enough to begin focusing on not only surviving, but thriving. We began farming and trying to produce predictable food sources, developing medicine and care to keep our bodies in good health, extending the lifespan, and checking off the lower levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, developing religions and ways of expanding our minds beyond simply surviving. Physiological needs: air, water, food, shelter, clothing… Safety needs: security, employment, physical health… And began focusing on the higher levels of love and belonging, esteem, freedom, and eventually self-actualization… to try to be the best versions of ourselves possible. Now I’m not ignorant to the fact that there are billions of people on earth still struggling with those base physiological needs—we haven’t evolved past having the poor amongst us… But the people that I’m surrounded by, and perhaps the friends and family you’re surrounded by tend to have food in pantry, clothes in the closet... but I recognize it’s even dangerous to assume that. My point here is that every once in a while, we’re confronted with a curveball, of coronavirus proportions. We get so “used to” stability and relative predictability that when something like this happens, we’re confronted with the naked truth that, “Yes, in fact we are these little, opinionated monkey people, on a rock covered in soil and ocean, spinning 1000 mph on our axis, while traveling 67,000 mph through empty space…” For those that feel high and mighty and important, we need that truth to knock us down a peg. For those of us that already have some anxiety baked into our DNA, we don’t need to be reminded of those facts AT ALL. But it’s true. And I can’t shake the feeling that we’re here to do something. Something beyond survive. Surviving can’t be the end goal of what’s going on here. There’s way too much soul and spirit and love and unexplainable connections between people for this whole thing to just be… this. So what do we do when new threats show up? First, we deny it. Then we post memes about it. Then SNL does skits about it. Then someone we know tests positive for it. Then we panic. Then we flood Costco and buy all the toilet paper even though the virus doesn’t make us poop. Then we don’t sleep. Then we get out of bed and see that some random guy from Boston posted a video on Facebook and for some reason we’re still watching it. This virus is a serious thing. Maybe you’re not in the highest risk demographic, or you’re in an area that hasn’t been hit by it yet, but this is just as much a test for our collective humanity as it is an imminent threat. This likely won’t wipe us out, thank God. But how we respond to moments like this expose so much of our interior lives. It illuminates our priorities, and our motives, doesn’t it? I’ve spoken to friends that are devastated by events being cancelled—not because they’re in the event industry, but because they love their March Madness… and yes, that’s a thing. SXSW, NHL, college graduations… These are real things with people’s careers and education and feelings of fulfillment all tangled together. But it’s not more important than our collective good. If I have to cancel a vacation, or forego a favorite restaurant, or stay home for a few weeks to slow this thing down and minimize the risk for those most vulnerable, you better believe this will expose my true motives. Coronavirus hits the elderly the hardest. Those that are 80 years and older have a 15% mortality rate. 50 years and under, it’s less than 0.5% Maybe this thing isn’t posing you a great threat, but it’s dangerous for millions and millions of people, and they come before our preferences. Don’t they? Shouldn’t they? This is what I mean by these things exposing what’s going on inside of us. If something of this proportion can’t slow us down in our tracks and allow us to put other’s well-being before ourselves, we have a much worse virus infecting us. We’ve been inundated by the news and media, telling our subconsciouses that WE ARE NOT SAFE and inducing panic in our communities. And we’re seeing yet another failure from our country’s leadership, to act quickly and strategically… but this collective anxiety isn’t going to serve us much beyond convincing us to stay home. If a little bit of anxiety convinces you to take this thing seriously, good. But beyond that, it’s not going to serve us well. It doesn’t help. It’s not going to help us recover from this thing, that’s for sure. Humanity has endured hundreds of collective curveballs over the years, and we’re still here. We’re smarter, more resilient, and more connected across the globe than ever before. These things have the ability—the potential—to produce good in our communities, if we allow it to. When my 7 year old daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes 3 years ago—an auto-immune disease that she could never have avoided—we couldn’t see any silver lining. It was all heartache and fear, needles and medical devices and alarms going off in the middle of the night. But if I could introduce you to this girl… and you could see how resilient and joyful and brave she is? To see how healthy her decision-making around food is? To see her meeting younger kids that are just diagnosed and reassuring their panicking families that everything is going to be ok? You might even say—it’s worth it. I wouldn’t wish the disease on anyone, but with Lily so far? It’s worth it. And when it hasn’t felt worth it, we’ve made it feel worth it. My word for you today, in the midst of unpredictability and a collective anxiety we’re sharing, is this: Make it worth it. Take this massive disruption to our lives, acknowledge the weight of it, and then find a lightness within it. “Yes, this thing sucks. No one wants it. But we’re still here. And we have all this time on our hands. What could we do with these weeks ahead of us of uninterrupted time?” Friends, we get to spend these days so that we’re a better humanity on the other side. You could take these weeks of quarantine and isolation to begin chasing a dream you’ve complained you never have time for. You could take this time to begin brainstorming that business you’ve always wanted to start. You could take this time to start eating healthy and tracking everything you eat and finding workouts on YouTube that you can do in your living room. You can take this time to setup FaceTime dates with people you love and spend hours and hours in conversation with people you’ve drifted apart from. We complain about the pace of life, and so maybe the universe slows down the pace of life for a minute… just to see how we respond. If you’ve ever been running on a treadmill and you turn it off quickly, it’s disorienting. You’re used to the pace you were running and you almost run into the front of it. That’s what’s happening here. We’ve been running 1000 mph, and for some reason, we’re being forced to slow down. This doesn’t have to be viewed as an altogether bad thing. Maybe it’s time to finish that book you’re been reading (or writing). Maybe it’s time to rekindle your relationship with your kids. Maybe it’s time to get sober. The goal of life isn’t to run as fast as we can and then just burst into dust at the end. Maybe this thing can open our eyes to the wonder around us. Yes, the fragility of life, but also the resilience of life. We’re still here. You have a choice on how to view this thing, and it is a choice. You can spend your time assembling all the negative things and setting up a shrine to worship those losses and frustrations over the next few weeks, or you can take a moment to breathe, and reflect on how you’ve been spending your time. Is how you’ve been living the last 6 months how you want to be living? Are you in a season of life that you love and you want to preserve that and stay right there, or is some of your anxiety around this virus rooted in the fact that you don’t feel like you’ve lived enough life for this to be the end? Friends, I want to end this little video with a blessing to speak over you… May this pandemic wake us up. May our eyes be opened to the fragility of life, to the brevity of life—but also to the opportunity that life gives us. May you live your life in an eccentric way—in an “others-centered” way. May you put the well-being of others before the conveniences and preferences of yourself. May you be inspired to use this time to actually slow down, and take inventory of your life. Is how you’ve been living how you want to be living? Or is there some beautiful, disruptive change that might come out of this scare? May our spirits grow stronger, and closer together, even in this time of relative isolation. And may our hope for what our collective future might look like take root in a way that no virus can threaten. Friends, I love you. I care for you. Let’s care for one another. Make it a good day.

Everyone wants better, brighter, simpler, more joyful, more satisfying, to feel more complete, more whole… Living closer to their truest selves; so that their interior lives and exterior lives are synced-up. To be known and affirmed for who we actually are, not just the face we put on to the world. Most people that I bump into don’t feel as if they’ve “arrived” just yet. That point of nirvana isn’t quite within reach, but they’re still aspiring to see “here on earth as it is in heaven.”    But we’re not there. Not always. And maybe not today. This might feel completely out of touch, like you’ve never felt further from having “arrived” at where you want to be, or maybe today’s a good day and you’re in that neighborhood.    Regardless of where you find yourself, we have to acknowledge that we would like to see some things change. Some big things, on a large scale, and some small things, maybe interior-life things… Like having more peace of mind, or forgiving yourself for that night, or releasing that person from the prison of your mind… but here’s the problem with change.    Change requires change.    And as humans, we’re resistant to change. Because change means uncharted waters. And we’ve inherited this DNA from our ancestors that has evolved over thousands and thousands of years to avoid risk, and change is risky, and so here we are. We want to experience the benefits of change—the fruit, the reward, the achievement or accomplishment or “arrival”—without actually changing anything.    Change requires change.    We see this in our clients at the Emery Agency all the time. A medium sized organization is experiencing problems. They’ve been in business for decades and the landscape is changing so fast and their customers are changing and their employees don’t really feel passionate about the vision anymore… they might be excited about a new product or something, but a product isn’t the business. If the product fails, the entire hopes and dreams of the business can’t ride on it.    So they’re having a bit of an identity crisis. Who are we, how should we behave, what should we care about, what should we invest time and energy into, how do we talk about what we do and why it matters…    So someone recommends they talk to us, they schedule a call and all of a sudden we’re sitting in the same room. They’re talking about all these symptoms that our team has seen time and time again, and we help diagnose what the source of the symptoms are, which is typically identity. Who are we, what are we doing, why does it matter.   We dive into the work and it’s good. We find all sorts of small changes, a handful of big changes, and all the solutions are in alignment with one another… then comes the moment when we actually need to unveil the changes. To begin to implement. And leaders throw on the brakes.    “Wait, wait, wait… What will Steve think of this?” Ok, let’s bring Steve in and talk with him.   “Wait, what about this segment of our customers?” It’s ok, this will work for them, and even if it doesn’t, it’s ok to have a small segment of customers fall off if it means gaining over here.   “Wait, wait, wait…” And around we go—like my 7 year old daughter dilly-dallying at bedtime. Hesitating, halting, stalling… because—guess what—change requires change.    And leaders can talk a big talk about vision and the next 5 years of innovation and how they’re going to beat out the competition, but when the rubber hits the road, their courage is nowhere to be found.    They didn’t actually want change. They wanted a makeover with no interior work done. Like a Queer Eye episode if someone was like, “No, I don’t want to talk about my self-esteem, I just want new pants.” Or an Extreme Home Makeover that was like, “You can change the shingles and shutters, but please leave the inside the same.”    Jesus had words for this in Matthew 23. He was talking to teachers of religious law, and seeing the incongruence between their interior lives and their external presentation, and He says, “Woe to you, scholars… hypocrites. For you are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead men’s bones…”    That’s some first-century smack talk. We all want the benefits of change without actually changing anything.    We want the six-pack without sacrificing the nightly ice cream.  We want the vacation house without changing the budget.  We want the safety net without saving money.  We want the success without risking our time and money. We want innovation without failure. We want leadership and authority without embarrassment.  We want the healthy marriage without counseling.  We want kids without the sleepless nights.    If you want the fruit, you have to see the thing through. Change requires change. If there’s something in your life that you want to see change, it’s likely going to require changes in other areas of your life to make that change happen.    And having been in the change-business for over a decade now, I want to share a few prerequisites for tangible, measurable change, that I’ve seen in people’s lives and businesses alike.   The first is the humility to recognize that something needs to change. Our ego can derail healthy change before it even gets a chance to start moving. Our pride can disrupt the productive thoughts that might be leading you towards something meaningful… As soon as you start thinking, “But someone like me shouldn’t have to do that…” you’re already in trouble. You’re already tangled up and there’s no chance for change.    In our branding work, we’re committed to never having to CONVINCE someone they need to rebrand, or change something about their business. That’s way too far a journey for us… It’s way too expensive, way too time consuming… Convincing someone that they need help is exhausting. If someone has already recognized they can’t do it on their own, and they’re demonstrating the humility of asking for help, then it’s worth having a conversation.    So the first piece is humility. Recognizing the need for change.   The next piece is honesty about what the actual problems are. This is sort of a piggy-back on the humility piece, but we have a tendency of waffling on the facts, blurring the symptoms a little bit so that we might evade being “found out” … And this is still rooted in ego. If a CEO gets roped into a meeting with us, she might agree that something needs to change, but she’s likely going to go to the most superficial things, like “Yeah, our website needs to be updated, and maybe we could do a better job telling our employees we appreciate them…”    And so we dig deeper. We’re not as interested in the symptoms as we are discovering the source. And so we play the game with cards face up. Everything on the table. Let’s be brutally honest about what the actual problem is so that we can actually address it.   Like when your doctor asks if you smoke, or your dentist asks if you’re flossing… Lying only harms one person, and it’s you.    Honesty is essential if you’re considering some big life change. And listen, you might actually have a hard time seeing what the actual problem is, and that’s why you need trusted friends around you. You have blindspots. I have blindspots. There are areas of our lives that we just can’t see clearly, and it might be that our biggest area of change is hiding in there.    Humility and honesty go hand in hand. One begets the other.    So once we have an accurate picture of what needs to change, we have to get creative. There may be a thousand ways to tackle this problem, there may only be one or two. But at the end of the day, problem solving requires creativity. Intentionally straying from the worn paths of thought in our minds so as to maybe discover a new way of thinking. People wrongly anchor “creativity” in the world of art and design. I can’t tell you how many leaders have told me, “I’m not creative.” while they’re sitting on top of a $50m company with incredible products and people on staff… Not creative? You’re crazy.    Again, creativity requires humility. It requires vulnerability to propose ideas that may not work. Writer’s rooms at late night shows have this baked into their DNA. Everyone knows that half the jokes won’t work, but it doesn’t mean to not say them. It means to say them, get them out of the way, and help riff on the ones that gain traction.    In doing anything meaningful, there’s a high percentage of failures along the way. Anything worth doing is worth doing well, and if you’re doing it well, you’re going to fail along the way.    Try, fail, learn. Try, fail, learn. That’s the wheel of innovation that keeps this whole thing rolling. Again, humility is essential. Bob Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Company says, “Innovate or die.” And it’s never been truer than today.    Humility, honesty, creativity… and lastly—courage. The courage to actually implement the change. This is sort of baked into the whole thing, and it’s where this little conversation started, was being brave enough to actually change. Change requires change. We need the courage to actually change. Yes, there’s risk. There’s risk in change. But there’s risk in staying the same. Isn’t there?    You know what will happen if you don’t change your health habits. It’s not rocket science. You’ve seen your family members get sucked into the same problems. You know what will happen if you don’t change your spending habits. It’s not rocket science. The Average American has $100,000 in debt. You’re not an anomaly. Get honest with yourself. You know what will happen if you don’t makes those changes at work. If your teams feel unappreciated, if people feel uninspired… It’s not rocket science.   What are you so afraid of? You might not want to be seen as someone that tried to change and failed, so instead you’ll be known as someone that was always stuck? Stuck in their ways, stubborn, cared more about self-preservation than innovation. That’s not a legacy I want.    I want to always be tinkering with my work. Not only the work I’m doing, but HOW I do the work I’m doing. If something starts to feel rote or uninspiring, I’m going to change it. I’m going to tweak it; iterate it; test it; take notes; get feedback… and hopefully move forward.    You might be in charge of something big like a business or organization or a small team at work, or maybe a family at home, or maybe you’re considered a leader in your group of friends… or maybe the only thing you’re in charge of is yourself. And sometimes you’re the most stubborn with yourself.    If you’re experiencing some sort of frustration… Change is worth it. It’s disruptive for a season, but it’s worth it.    It’s worth it, friends. Change requires change and the change is worth it.    Hope this was helpful. If it was, do something with it.    Make it a good day. 

Hey everyone, hope you’re doing well. This is episode 40 of the vertebrae podcast; a podcast that was born out of an intention that I might live my life more in alignment, across every area of my life… that my work didn’t feel disconnected from my spirituality; that my friendships didn’t feel disconnected from my family; that our finances weren’t out of alignment with our dreams… We all have these vertebrae in our lives that are central to who we are. Parts of our personality, parts of our story, our ego – where we work, what we know, how we look, how well we perform, etc. And if we’re not careful, over time, we run the risk of these vertebrae slipping, like a bulging disc or something that starts small, maybe even indiscernible, but over time begins to affect your posture, and then how you sleep, and then how you carry yourself… and the rest of your body compensates and tries to work with it, but over time this tiny little piece that isn’t aligned begins to negatively affect all these different areas of your life.    So this podcast over the last year has just been a series of check-ins… like a visit to the chiropractor, where little adjustments can be made. New ideas introduced. Stubborn parts of our lives cracked and popped and maybe feeling a bit of relief for a short while.    The last few months have been surprising to me. I’ve been surprised by how much has changed. I’ve been surprised by how much anxiety I’ve felt; for the first time in my life. I’ve been surprised by how much I love my kids, and how much I like being around them. I’ve been surprised by new relationships forming and new dreams beginning to take shape… And so I haven’t shared much here, because I’ve been face-to-face with life, with very little time to sit back and reflect. But somehow, miraculously, this week is very open. Very few appointments, very few strategy meetings or presentations and so today I began to write and reflect and I think I have something to share.    I want to talk today about anxiety. And not with any clinical expertise or medical advice, but simply from my first-hand experience over the last 6 weeks.    Up to this point in my life, 32 years in, I’ve never really experienced anxiety. I’ve had seasons of worry. I’ve had days when I couldn’t stop obsessing over some future thing. I’ve had irrational fears over things I can’t control… But this anxiety that reared its head just after Christmas was different.    It had a physical element to it — where I had no appetite, where I could feel my heart racing, where I could feel this “fight or flight” feeling engaged at all times of the day and all times of the night. Nothing I did would take it down. Prayer wouldn’t work, alcohol wouldn’t work, meditation wouldn’t work, CBD oil wouldn’t work, working less wouldn’t work… It was just there. This uninvited guest. A little ball of fire in my chest, constricting me, consuming my thoughts. It was wild to experience.    And my wife was incredibly compassionate towards me because she’s lived with anxiety her entire life. She resisted saying “See?! this is what it’s like!” and sometimes she didn’t resist it and she just said that… which was always great. But in all honesty—it has been helpful for me to develop compassion for her and others like her… Anxiety never made sense to me, and I never had much grace for it until now. I would try to talk her out of it and race on to the next thing, but when there’s a physiological affect happening, it’s impossible to ignore and it’s not a quick ball of yarn to unravel.    The first piece of this that I want to quickly address is how much a physical thing this was, and how much our physical selves can increase or decrease something like anxiety. Anxiety’s this little Sonic the hedgehog thing where it can just keep spinning itself up into more and more furor… And the things we do physically can make it worse and worse. We sleep poorly, so we drink more caffeine, so we have a headache, so we take acetaminophen, and we have no appetite, and we just put our bodies through the ringer, not allowing the thing to unwind and unravel and slow down and coax ourselves into moments of physical rest… breathing exercises, deepening and slowing… Our bodies subconsciously telling our brains that we’re safe; that everything is ok… That there’s not a tiger in the bushes, and it can begin to take the edge off.   One of the hilarious things I realized on day 4 or 5 of my anxiety rollercoaster was that I had been taking Sudafed the whole time. Even a quick Google says point-blank "Pseudoephedrine may also cause side effects including: Fear. Anxiety. Tenseness.” Who knew? Probably you, and shut up. But I had a cold, and I’m so focused on efficiency and performance that I’m happy to use drugs that promise to help. I was just thinking about breathing better with Sudafed, not realizing that it was adding to my feelings of physical tension. The first day I realized that it began to help me come down a bit.    The point being that sometimes we unknowingly are doing things to perpetuate our negative situation. Sometimes what we're eating or drinking or consuming (consuming including Netflix or Instagram or whatever) can affect us in pretty significant ways. As soon as I cut out the stimulants, it was the beginning of things resolving.     The next piece of this was me taking stock of everything that had been going on in my life. Maybe for some of you this comes naturally… where you always have an inventory of your heart and how you’re feeling about things, but not me. I can go weeks without articulating a “feeling” that I’m feeling. I can feel all the feelings… I can laugh and cry and worry and celebrate… but the narrative in my mind is never, “I feel sad right now.” or “That idea makes me nervous” or “I’m so in love with that person.”    So as a result, I can have a lot of things happen to me, and I can respond to them however I do (good, bad or indifferent) but I don’t tend to then break down and process all those experiences… It’s very similar to last episode’s “Of course…” Being able to name all the crazy that’s going on in your life and give yourself the grace to acknowledge that yes, perhaps all these changes might make me feel anxious.    Over the last 6 months, one of my best friend’s was fired from our church, my role there changed significantly—which we still haven’t announced publicly, we had our third child, we hired more team-members to our branding agency, we’ve had high-publicity clients with lots of stress, my sister-in-law is in the hospital in pre-term labor, Lily’s diabetes has been challenging…    It’s like, “yeah. That could create some anxiety in your life. That could formulate into some concern for what’s next.”    When I don’t keep account of all that’s going on, and actually name things like I just did, I can feel disoriented when I’m feeling stressed or anxious and can’t figure out why. Again, that might seem crazy to you, but maybe you understand where I’m coming from.    And then I signed up for counseling. I had been hearing about “better help.com” on different podcasts I’d listen to and thought I’d check it out, and it’s been really helpful. Simply the questions she asks me and the space she creates for me to verbally process. Again, that’s no surprise to anyone that talking with a counselor is helpful… One of the most important things she does is validate what needs to be validated and poke holes in the things that need to be deconstructed. It can be lonely to be inside your own head all the time…    And I guess we’re all tormented by different things over the course of our lives. What affects me, others could breeze through, and vice versa. Some people are hard-wired for home-life and dealing with kids all the time, and that’s not a natural wiring I have. That’s something I’ve been learning over the last 7-8 years. And it’s a practice that I have to practice.    With my wiring I could easily be on Wallstreet, making millions of dollars, addicted to coke, obsessed with material possessions… all the worst side of America wrapped up in precious little Enneagram 3 me.    So slowing down, asking for help, pressing into my family, taking account of everything going on in my life… that’s kryptonite for my ego but much needed medicine for my soul.    So… I don’t know where you’re at, and I don’t need to. I hope something I’ve shared here has been helpful, or triggered a thought of something else helpful you’ve learned over the years. My commitment to you remains the same: I’m going to share here whenever I’m inspired, and never when I’m not.    Today I’m inspired. Today I’m excited about tomorrow. Today I’m dreaming about the future of the church; the future of our business; the future of raising our family and traveling around the world. I’m excited to put past seasons to rest. To celebrate them, to grieve the passage of time, and to move forward, like humans have done for thousands of years.    I love you guys, if it was helpful pass it along to a friend. Make it a good day.   

This past week, we welcomed our 3rd child into the world. It was beautiful. It was a peaceful labor for the most part… from my perspective.   The second day, I don’t know if it was a result of being in the hospital for 24 hours, being surrounded by people in wheelchairs and stretchers every time I went to the cafeteria… whatever. But I was feeling restless. I was feeling anxious, as we were trying to manage my daughter’s Type 1 diabetes from afar… It was the kind of feeling where your mind is sort of racing, your body feels restless, like you could just stand up and run at a full sprint for no reason at all… and my stomach was bothering me. Felt like I needed to chew a handful of TUMS and PeptoBismol… I asked Elyse if she had any, she said yes, in the car, so I went out, venturing out into fresh air for the first time in 24 hours, but I had gotten turned around and ended up walking out the back of the hospital. I was in a t-shirt and jeans and it was probably 35 degrees, but I loved it. It felt so good to be in fresh air and to feel my body feeling alive. I asked someone how to get to the parking garage and he suggested I just walk around the block, out on the main street and around. And as I walked, briskly, not a sprint, but not slow either, this phrase came back and hit me square in the heart… It was a phrase I had heard a few years ago, and a more recently had seen it pop up in various different places.    This is the phrase: Of course.    Of course. A brief, obvious, clear, concise statement. Of course.    But within it, a world of grace. A world of giving yourself permission to feel your feelings. Permission to breathe. To extend grace to yourself. To be cognizant of where you currently are in life… and not adding to the anxiety or fear or worry or stress but adding SHAME on top of it, but releasing the pressure valve a bit…   Of course.    Of course you feel that way. You just had your third child. This is the perfect time to have an anxiety attack. Of course, this is exactly when people have mental breakdowns worrying about how they’ll provide for their kids and manage their life-threatening diseases and run a quickly growing business out of a shed in their backyard. Of course.   This is exactly how you should feel, John. This is how anyone would feel.    Oh, you just got laid off and you feel blindsided and doubting your competencies and worried about the future? Of course. Who wouldn’t be? A crazy person wouldn’t be.    Oh, you were raised in a fundamentalist Christian home and now have a hard time trusting rich, white men in suits that tell you what God thinks about any pop-culture topic or lifestyle? Of course. You should be skeptical. Any person with a fully functioning brain would be. Of course.    I was just talking to my wife about maybe a surprise work trip to LA in the next few weeks and she started to feel anxious, and I stepped back and said… “Of course. Of course you’d be anxious about this. Who wouldn’t be? Who wouldn’t be a little stressed out that their husband is leaving on a work trip a few weeks after having your 3rd child?” I’m not going now, by the way… Cancelled. We’ll do that one via video-chat.    You’re in your 30s and single and worried about ever finding a spouse? Yeah. Of course. That’s perfectly normal to feel that way. People have been feeling that way for hundreds of thousands of years. Finding a mate is a thing. A big thing. And it can be a stressful thing. That’s ok. Allow yourself to feel that.    I think there’s something deeply toxic about being raised to believe certain innate, primal human emotions are somehow wrong. I see it in my single friends, almost all of them women, almost all of them in the Christian context, and there’s this quiet, assumed shame about being single. And everyone responds differently to it… like they somehow SHOULDN’T desire to have find a husband, or that they should hide it, or that they’re somehow less spiritual if they take things into their own hands and pursue a man they’re interested in. Dating apps or taking initiative with someone.. These are normal things.    There’s a long list of completely natural things we experience that our culture shames, either quietly or explicitly. Desire being one of them. Women have historically been shamed for expressing desire. Like “wanting” something for themselves is somehow embarrassing or shameful. No. Of course you want that thing.    Pride is another. Pride is a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction that comes from your achievements, or the achievements of someone close to you. That sounds incredible. Pride is an emotional state deriving positive affect from the perceived value of a person or thing with which the subject has an intimate connection. Wouldn’t we all benefit from a bit of pride? Wouldn’t there be less striving? Less shameless self-promotion if we experienced some genuine pride? Satisfaction? That your perceived value was satisfied? And yet in Christian culture that’s all shamed.    We only associate those words with the sin… We only have context for them when they’re taken to the extreme, exploited, over-done and folding back in on themselves. Yes, pride can be overdone and turn into narcissism. Yes, desire can get out of control and turn into lust and obesity and greed.    I guess the word of alignment today is to give your life an honest look, and see where that permission slip of “Of course” can release something inside of you.    Of course you feel that way. Who wouldn’t?    You’re worried about the future of politics in America? Yeah… who isn’t? Of course you are.    Most of your relationships are on social media and you feel a bit lonely? You feel a bit isolated? Feel like people don’t really know you? yeah… of course. Because we’re designed for real relationship. Social media is not that. And never will be. We were designed for flesh and blood, face to face, hand in hand friendships. Of course you feel that way. Everyone does.    We need to give ourselves permission to feel our feelings. To understand our current reality. To see things clearly.    I don’t know if this is helpful for you, but for me and my wiring, I need mantras like this. Of course. It talks me down off the ledge for thinking I'm crazy… or that I can’t keep up. Or that I can’t understand something. Or that I’m tired. Of course I’m tired, we have a 4 day old baby.    Be kind to yourself. Back to episode 5 of this podcast: Be kind to yourself. Be a good friend to yourself. Talk some sense into yourself. If your inner dialogue is all over the place… “Of course.” Of course you need to talk to someone. Call a therapist. Get that stuff out in the open. Vent. You feel angry because of what was done to you? Of course you do, you should be angry! Of course.   You’re not alone. You’re not alone in how you feel about that. In fact, most everyone in your situation would feel exactly like you do. of course they would.    I love you, thank you for being a part of this Vertebrae community. Make it a good day. 

The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.   This quote from Richard Rohr has been with me for the last 3-4 years, and it pops into my head at the most random of times. Anytime I bump into a critical thought in my head, or hear a friend frustrated with something.   The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.   Now, of course, the easiest thing to do is to distance yourself from something and shoot flaming arrows at it. It’s never been easier to be critiquing things from the bleachers. And the frustrating thing about social media is that these armchair experts get a lot of traction.    There’s no question that people are frustrated with what’s going on… And more specifically the young folks in this country with what we’re inheriting… I don’t know about you, but I was promised that if I just go to college, assume 6-figures of debt before I can even legally drink a beer, and then follow my dreams! Everything will be fine!    Deeply nested in my upper-middle-class, white American privilege, I went to a 4 year private college and I didn’t come out with many loans at all, because my parents paid. I know that might make some of you hate me, but that’s the sort of head start I was given—I’m not going to be dishonest about it. I didn’t know how privileged I was until I watched my peers slink behind, crushed under the weight of debt. And we weren’t completely free of debt—I married into a bit of college debt as well.   But regardless, and I’m even hesitant to list all of the frustrations and panic-inducing parts of our American culture… Tuition prices increasing, the most unqualified politicians in office in the history of our country… Our environment begging for help. Coral reefs dying off, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch twice the size of Texas, a promise that our affect on the climate is irreversible as early as 12 years from now. Sexual scandals across every industry, in every area of leadership, including the church…    There’s a lot to be concerned about. And I was actually just listening to a podcast from Kent Dobson where he just did what I did, listing all this crap and I was like, “WHY?! Why are you reminding me of all this crap?” So I’m not going to be heavy-handed with it. You know. If you’re paying attention to impeachment hearings, environmental concerns, the fragility of our country’s global relationships… Whatever. It needs to serve as a foundation for this conversation today. Because it’s really easy to see what’s wrong, it’s really easy to throw in critiques from the sidelines… That’s easy. If you feel high and mighty because you SEE WHATS WRONG with something… you’re not very impressive. Some of these things are so broken, my 4 year old son pokes holes in their logic.    But what I see in many of my peers is not leaning forward into solutions, but instead slumping back into cynicism. And anger.    Yes, a lot of what we’ve been handed by the previous generation is not working. Yes, there’s a lot of racism, and greed, and gender inequality in the workplace. These are things that need reform. Yes, but recognizing the problem is only a part of it. A small, small part of it. 10% of it. The other 90% is figuring out what to do about it.    The best criticism of the bad is the practiceof the better.   Instead of tweeting from the sidelines, it’s time to get involved. And maybe not getting involved simply to argue, but rather to begin developing better, more sustainable, beneficial practices. Yes, your perspective matters. In fact, there is no one on earth with your exact unique perspective on things. Your opinion matters, just not as much as you think it does.    Don’t get me wrong, there are times appropriate for confrontation and speaking truth to power… I’ve talked about that on this podcast, back in an episode called “Hard Conversations” and “Make America Good Again.”    But opinions don’t get us anywhere. In fact, they sort of suck us into a spiral vortex, like water draining out of a tub… It just turns into navel gazing, and up-voting or down-voting other people’s opinions.    The person with the best opinion DOESN’T win. That’s not how this life-game works. The people with the greatest contribution to change; the people that are willing to get their hands dirty; the people willing to try and fail; the people willing to put their egos aside—their pursuit of money aside—their pursuit of status aside—and maybe, just maybe, make a meaningful impact on things.    It makes me think of Brene Brown’s work, and more importantly, the words from 1910, Teddy Roosevelt speech that inspired her work Daring Greatly:    “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”   A worthy cause… My fear for my generation is that we’ll be overwhelmed with causes, and as a result not make any meaningful contributions. The blessing and the curse of globalization and the access/information from the internet is that we now KNOW nearly everything wrong that’s going on in the world. And if you don’t know, you’re one BREAKING NEWS ALERT away from it.    It’s good to know things. It’s good to have evil people and practices exposed. It’s good to have the accountability of the public eye… But it can result in compassion fatigue. There’s a level of overwhelm we can reach when we need to retreat back into our shells, because it’s all just too much… There are too many things that need reform. There are too many worthy causes and not enough time, enough money, enough mental bandwidth to devote toward solutions…    So what do we do? My proposal is to take this teaching from Richard Rohr, pass it through a teaching from the book Essentialism, and land with a modern parable from Rob Bell.    Father Rohr’s teaching: The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. Yes, this is true. Actions over opinions.    But we can’t focus on all the bad, and practice all the better. It’s impossible. Too many worthy causes, too little time. Which brings us to Essentialism, a book by Greg McKeown, with a subtitle: The disciplined pursuit of less.    The big idea from this book, beyond the sheer genius of the title, and how helpful it is in my vocabulary, is to determine, through a disciplined, systematic approach, where our highest point of contribution is (another great phrase, the highest point of contribution for the day).   In the book, and I encourage you to buy it, read it or listen to it. It’s excellent. In it, he gives you permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, so that you have space to become an Essentialist. Then deliberately distinguishing the vital few from the trivial many… Eliminating the non-essentials. Removing obstacles. Removing distractions.    Another great quote here: “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.” And recognizing the shadow side of our privilege, statistically being amongst the healthiest, wealthiest people on earth, living in America, roof over our heads, if you make $40,000/year, you’re richer than 97% of the earth. You have options. You perhaps have SO MANY options that you’re overwhelmed and therefore don’t do much of anything, besides crushing Netflix series and devoting hours upon hours to social media.    Do me a favor, right now, whatever you’re doing, as long as you’re not driving, if you have an iPhone, unlock your screen, go to Settings (the gear box icon), click on Screen time (little purple hourglass), then you see your day and how many hours you’ve spent on your phone so far today. There’s a little gray arrow in the top right, click on that. That brings up your Last 7 Days. Click on that. What’s your average, per day, spent on your phone? Mine is 2 hours, 35 minutes. It’s up 17% from last week. Below the bar graph you’ll see little gray numbers for Weekly Total. My weekly total from last week is 18 hours, 5 minutes. 18 hours. 4 hours and 38 minutes on Instagram, 2 hours 27 minutes texting, 1 hour 4 minutes on Twitter… If you scroll down it shows you more information. I get around 188 notifications per day, which is why my phone lives on Do Not Disturb.    It was even higher for me a few weeks ago, which is why I deleted Facebook from my phone. I’m not saying phones are evil, there’s a lot of meaningful connection in the hundreds of texts I send and receive every day. There’s a lot of leisure and entertainment in that 4 hours of Instagram use last week. BUT… the complaint that we don’t have enough time to do something meaningful with our lives is a myth. It just is. I used my phone 18 hours 5 minutes last week. That’s a part-time job. If I worked diligently to bring that down to 10 hours, freeing up 8 hours per week, what could I spent that time doing? That’s an extra hour and change every day. That’s 32 hours a month I could put behind writing a book, launching a new idea, learning a new language, volunteering at a local non-profit, reading books, taking courses to try to discern what my “worthy cause” is.    This certainly isn’t the first time someone has highlighted how poorly we use our time… This isn’t news. But maybe this is the time that you actually CARE? Maybe this is the time that you actually check your phone usage, setup “downtime” on your phone? A few weeks ago, I took Facebook off my phone, and turned on “Downtime” from 9pm to 6am, that blocks out apps that suck my time up late at night like Instagram or Twitter, and apps that I shouldn’t start my day with either, like News or Email. If I want to break the rule, I can, it’s just a few clicks, I can ignore it for the next 15 minutes, but the fact that I’m intentionally breaking a boundary my former self felt was really important is often enough of a conviction to honor it.    These are incredible tools that we can craft to best serve us and our dreams for our lives… not become victims to them. Not getting sucked into exactly what these social media vacuums are designed to do to us. If you want to learn more about how Facebook designed their app like a slot machine, even learning from gambling industry consultants when designing notifications and Likes, I recommend an episode from Yes Theory on YouTube. Go to YouTube, search for “Yes Theory Social Media” and there’s a video from 7 months ago called “Deleting social media for 30 days changed my life.” That’s what convinced me to delete Facebook from my phone.    K, back to Essentialism. The paradox of success: the more options we have, the more we feel distracted from what would otherwise be our highest level of contribution. I know completely depend on our branding agency for my income. There’s no outside coaching with 10,000 Fathers, there’s no salary coming from church… In the last year, my family went from 3-4 income streams down to essentially 1, with our business. This is a good thing. It means our business can support our family. But, what it also creates is an abundance of bandwidth, open time, no boss telling me how to work, when to work, what to work on… I have options. And sometimes the more options you have, the more you feel distracted from this highest-point-of-contribution you could be making.    Once an Australian nurse named Bronnie Ware, who cared for people in the last twelve weeks of their lives, recorded their most often discussed regrets. At the top of the list: ‘I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.’”                   Before saying yes to anything, ask yourself, “Will this activity or effort make the highest possible contribution towards my goal?”                   The three realities without which Essentialist thinking would be neither relevant nor possible.                   Individual choice: We can choose how to spend our energy and time. The prevalence of noise: Almost everything is noise, and a very few things are exceptionally valuable. The reality of trade-offs: We can’t have it all or do it all. “Once we accept the reality of trade-offs we stop asking, ‘How can I make it all work?’ and start asking the more honest question ‘Which problem do I want to solve?’”                   Essentialists ask, “What do I feel deeply inspired by?” and “What am I particularly talented at?” and “What meets a significant need in the world?”   “Essentialists invest the time they have saved into creating a system for removing obstacles and making execution as easy as possible.”   “Essentialism is not a way to do one more thing; it is a different way of doing everything. It is a way of thinking.”   K, so Father Rohr inspires us to stop critiquing and start practicing; Greg McKeown gives us a tool to clear the clutter and find the few things that truly matter.    And Rob Bell, in a recent podcast of his called “A Hymn of the Curve” … Like a hymn, a spiritual song, for the curve. It’s a collection of proverbial sayings and parables that he’s found helpful for anyone on the front edge of something… Anyone that is doing something a bit pioneering; a bit risky; a bit uncharted… And one of the parables struck me. It’s not original to him, but he shared it, I found a written version of it in a book by Ronald Rolheiser called “Living God’s Justice.”    Once upon a time there was a town that was built just beyond the bend of a large river. One day some of the children from the town were playing beside the river when they noticed three bodies floating in the water. They ran for help and the people quickly pulled the bodies out of the river.   One body was dead so they buried it. One was a live, but quite ill, so they put that person into the hospital. The third turned out to be a healthy child, who they then placed with a family who cared for it and who took it to school.   From that day on, every day a number of bodies came floating down the river, and every day, the good people of the town would pull them out and tend to them—taking the sick to hospitals, placing the children with families, and burying those who were dead.   This went on for years; each day brought its quota of bodies, and the townsfolk not only came to expect a number of bodies each day but also worked at developing more elaborate systems for picking them out of the river and tending to them. Building docks out into the river, developing shepherd’s crooks to catch the bodies as they went by… Some of the townsfolk became quite generous in tending to these bodies and a few extraordinary ones even gave up their jobs so that they could tend to this concern full-time. And the town itself felt a certain health pride in its generosity.   But then one day, a group of people decided, instead of walking towards the river to help with that day’s bodies… they walked away. The people that were going out on the dock and collecting the bodies watched them walk away. They were frustrated. They were critical. They were angry.    But the people walking away weren’t abandoning the work, they were walking upstream.    Nobody had thought to go up river, beyond the bend…    And my encouragement for you today is this: Go upstream. While you’re considering what greater thing to give your life to… What area to stop critiquing and begin practicing some sort of solution in… Don’t follow what’s always been done. Don’t react to symptoms. Go upstream. Find the source of the symptoms. Instead of constantly cleaning out cobwebs, day after day, cleaning cobwebs, maintenance—Instead of cleaning the cobwebs, kill the spider.    We have too many people treating symptoms. And if you walk upstream, it might look to those around you like you’re abandoning them. Or giving up on the important work. But you aren’t. You’re going upstream. You’re not satisfied putting a band-aid on a bullet-wound… You want to stop the manufacturing of all these guns in the first place.    What are you critical of? Are you critical of it because you can see a better way of doing it? Or are you just an asshole?    I’m serious. The things that you’re frustrated with are likely things you care deeply about that aren’t currently being done very well. Of course there’s a better way. There’s always a better way. There’s always a way to improve what’s currently accepted as the “only way to do something.”    I wanted to end with a quote from Steve Jobs, and I thought about reading it, but then I figured why not hear it from him directly…    QUOTE   This episode was a bit all over the place, but welcome to my mind. To summarize it, get off the couch, stop wasting your time with sharing your opinions on social media, no one cares… clear out the distractions and the things that other people want to put on your plate as your priorities and how you should live your life, and find the thing that inspires you… Go upstream. And see if you might make a meaningful impact—The highest point of contribution for your life.    My “why” for the last 5 years has simply been this: To help grow fruit on other people’s trees. If at the end of my life, there’s some semblance of an orchard that I’ve been tending to—inspiring others, empowering others, activating things in people’s lives—then my life was worthwhile. The HOW can look like a thousand different things. And it has. Sometimes it’s a sermon, sometimes it’s a strategy session, sometimes it’s having a friend over and drinking beer and building them a website in an evening to enable them to follow their dreams, sometimes it’s talking friends off the cliff…    I want you to find your why, and begin working towards clarity in that thing. It’ll never be completely clear. But hopefully you always have a few next steps that are pretty clear, and that’s enough to keep me moving forward.    I love you guys, thanks for taking the time to spend with me. Make it a good day.   

This is a lesson I learned a decade ago, and it made sense then, but as my life has become increasingly complex, nuanced, added responsibilities, stresses, variables, etc. it’s become all the more relevant. I was in the my early 20s and I was at a church leadership conference with my pastor and some other staff members, and the conference theme that year was “The Tension is Good.”    The Tension is Good.    It was helpful, although I didn’t have much tension in my life to apply the lessons to, but that’s just the way God works sometimes. Sometimes teaching is for today, and sometimes it’s equipping you for the inevitable tomorrow. Tomorrows always come, and they’re very rarely predictable.    So here’s what I’ve come to understand about tension. There’s a dualistic way to think about tension—that all tension is bad and that you should work with everything inside of you to resolve any and all tension. Tension—bad, Release—good. And this seems to be what’s sort of baked in with our culture. It’s at least what I was taught, whether directly or indirectly, that any tension I’m feeling is something that I need to focus on resolving. Life is supposed to be easy and clean and smooth and frictionless, so any snags along the way are to be treated as snags, and to get out your file and sand down the edges until everything is rounded and smooth and easy to be around.    Yeah, it’s a bit idyllic, but I think that’s what the human psyche sort of desires. At least in my corner of the world. But there’s a 3rd way of understanding tension. A way to look at it that doesn’t label it right or wrong, good or bad, but that elevates the conversation into more of a “wisdom” space—a space of necessary discernment. Because some tension is good.    Let’s say you work full-time, and you have a family at home. There’s a tension there between how you spend your time. Work requires time, family requires time. You might prefer one over the other, but you can’t argue that both are necessary, even though they’re in direct tension with one another. Too much time at work and the family feels it at home. Too much time at home with family and your work immediately notices. This is an example of a tension, not to resolve, but a healthy tension to maintain. If you had the mindset that this tension needs to be resolved, like all tensions in our lives need to be resolved, right? Then we’d constantly be stressed out by this tension. Why can’t we resolve this? Why can’t we just figure this out and release the tension between these two points? Because… the tension is good. If you resolve this tension, and all of a sudden give all of your time to your family, you’ll soon be unemployed. And, as a result, your family will suffer. Or if you resolve the tension by giving all of your time to work, after a while, you might not have a family around to come home to. The tension is good.    There are tensions to resolve, and tensions to maintain. And sometimes understanding the difference makes all the difference.    Understanding that certain tensions are tensions to resolve; they’re tensions that aren’t productive or healthy or necessary, and YES, those should be worked to resolve. But there also tensions that help create necessary balance in our lives.    Like the tension between extravagant generosity and wise financial practices. There’s a tension there that should be maintained. Sure, there’s a time to follow your heart and write a big check towards a cause that you believe in, but there’s always a time to tighten your belt and cut down on spending, and yes, even sometimes supporting causes you care deeply about. This is not a space of black and white dualism, this is a space of wisdom that changes day to day. This type of living requires paying attention.    Now, let’s talk for a quick second about tensions to resolve. There are a few different ways to resolve tension between two points. Imagine a bungee cord stretched between two points.   The most immediate, and drastic way to resolve tension would be to take out kitchen shears and cut it in half. Tension resolved. But then that connection is forever severed. That bridge is burned. That relationship is over. And sometimes that’s necessary. Rarely, but yes, sometimes that’s necessary.    Then there are times when you can resolve the tension by moving the two points closer together. If these positions are moveable, is it possible to move a bit closer to one another and release some of the tension in the cord… making life a bit more enjoyable; making that relationship a bit more long-lasting and fun to be around and flexible, allowing for greater movement.    Or, if those two points are immoveable, and should be immoveable, maybe it’s a tension to maintain. Healthy friendships require a bit of healthy tension in them… Tension between offering advice and being supportive, and on the other end creating space for people to make their own decisions. Tension between spending time together and also allowing people to have alone time. All of my healthiest, most fruitful relationships have an element of tension to them. A tension to maintain.    If you’re feeling tension in an area of your life, try to look at that thing objectively, and decide whether it’s a tension to resolve or a tension to maintain. Because sometimes the tension is good.    There’s a necessary tension between taking care of your body with paying attention to what you eat and exercising, and then enjoying all of the incredible foods the world has to offer and the luxury of sleeping in and skipping the gym.     There’s a tension in my marriage in how we parent. A necessary tension; in which we honestly switch roles in day to day. Sometimes she’s the good cop and I’m the bad guy; and sometimes it switches. When I’m feeling weak and wanting to cave into whatever’s easiest in that particular parenting moment, Elyse has a backbone and stands firm… and there are times when she’s making a decision out of sleep deprivation and I can step in with a fragment of clarity and help the situation. There are all sorts of tensions to maintain in parenting. Being around but creating space for kids to discover things on their own. When to helicopter, when to let them fly on their own.    There are tensions in ministry to maintain. The tension of moving forward and rustling the folks that have become to comfortable, while simultaneously not moving so quickly that people become disoriented and want out. It’s been said that good pastors comfort the disturbed and simultaneously disturb the comfortable. That’s a tension to maintain. A tension between grace and truth, invitation and challenge.    The tension is good. Tension is what’s holding it all together. And living a life of wisdom in the year 2020 requires a hell of a lot of tension.    I was leaving the gym this morning and read a quote on one of their white boards that says, “Whatever you’re not changing, you’re choosing.” If you have something in your life that is bothering you and you’re not changing it, you’re choosing to not change it. It’s a choice. It might not be an intentional choice, but it’s a choice nonetheless. And we typically don’t change something until the pain of staying the same begins to outweigh the pain of change.    All change has some element of pain to it. But when staying the same begins to create a pain for itself, and that pain grows to a place of equalling or outweighing the pain of change, that’s when people change.    Maybe today you’re not feeling much tension. Maybe you’re feeling pretty balanced with clarity about how to spend your time, how to spend your money, how to handle your most important relationships… That’s great. Maybe this lesson is one to tuck away and bring back out tomorrow; whenever that tomorrow is for you.    Or maybe you’ve already got something in mind. Maybe beginning to see that some tensions are good actually helps you give yourself some grace, and breathe a little in that space. The reason you feel tension in that area of your life is because there IS tension there, but the tension is good. It’s necessary. It’s holding the whole thing together. Without it, that space in your life would lose all its vibrance. The tension is what brings it life.    I love my family, I love spending time with my kids, but there’s necessary space, stepping away from the kids for an hour or two, so that when we come back together we’ve had space. There are a few times in the week when both kids are at school and Elyse has a few hours to breathe and be a human independent of these little leeches hanging off of her, and that time apart makes pick-up from school all the more beautiful.    There are tensions to resolve, and tensions to maintain. And sometimes understanding the difference makes all the difference.    What areas of your life do you need to unapologetically resolve? Cut the cable. Break the connection. It’s not a good tension and you know it. Burn the bridge. End the relationship. Find clarity there, and muster the confidence to do it. Your future self is already thanking you.    And then what areas of your life have a constant tension that you simply need to acknowledge, and more deeply understand. The tension is what makes it sing. A guitar with no tension isn’t much of a guitar at all. The tension is where the beauty lies.    And in those areas of tension to maintain, it doesn’t mean you never mess with it. It doesn’t mean there’s no room for rhythm. Flexing that tension, letting it swing over into a sweet season of family vacation and stepping away from work is wonderful. It doesn’t mean every day has to be perfectly balanced between the two points. Maintaining the tension doesn’t even mean balance; maybe it just means healthy rhythm.    Changing the point of tension on a guitar is exactly how a guitar works. 6 strings with different thickness stretched to different tensions, but all in harmony with one another, and more than willing to be manipulated, played with, changing the tensions, creating big, loud, sounds, and then sometimes resting all together.   The tension is good. And understanding the difference makes all the difference.    And so today, my friend, may you recognize the opportunity in front of you. May you see your life and all of its connections with clarity. May you not take today for granted, recognizing that even in this very moment, there’s a tension between life and death, lungs expanding and contracting, muscles being held in place with the tension of our tendons… And may we never waste it.   Thanks for taking a minute to spend with me. Make it a good day. 

We all have days when we wake up and feel disoriented. Maybe everything is the same, except for one or two small things and everything feels disorienting. The thing you were leaning on; the thing that had been supporting your weight for a while, all of a sudden shifted… buckled under your weight. And now you’re questioning everything.    Every once in a while, something disrupts the rhythm. Like the little old lady clapping off-beat in church… or any white person with a tambourine. It comes out of nowhere, and disrupts the flow of things. It immediately absorbs all of your attention, no matter how big or small it is. It’s new, it’s foreign, it’s disruptive, it’s disorienting.    I was talking with a friend at the gym about it. I was talking with a coworker about it. There are times when you can see a change coming from a long way off, so you can sort of brace yourself for it. You can see the storm on the horizon and you batten down the hatches, collect all your supplies and ready yourself for it. But there are also other times when a situation blind sides you. It’s the buddy-pass… You see these guys in hockey passing the puck up the ice, skating forward but looking backwards to catch the puck, only to turn around and immediately get knocked off their feet by a bone-crushing check. I just saw it in the Patriots game on Sunday… a guy was watching the ball, high in the air, watched it all the way down into his hands, and before he could turn he just got leveled.    And it’s disorienting. To say the least.    So what do you do when you’re disoriented? When change comes, as it always does, whether you see it coming or not, how do you handle it? How do you process it?    It makes me think of scuba diving training… My father was scuba certified, as well as my college roommate that’s now a Navy SEAL. I’ve heard from both of them, training in swimming pools, and learning what to do in case of an emergency. If you’re 50 feet underwater and your mask gets ripped off, or your oxygen gets cut off, how do you respond? Panic isn’t an option. Swimming straight up as fast as you can isn’t an option. And that’s why they train for this.    My father told me that they set all the scuba gear down at the bottom of a 12 foot deep pool, and that you had to swim down, get your oxygen going, take a few breaths, then find your mask, put it on, clear it out by blowing hard through your nose and tilting your head back, then getting the tank on your back and getting on your way.    The SEALs are a little bit more intense, of course. They’re actually all geared up together on the bottom of the pool, and other divers (their instructors) basically beat you up a little bit at the bottom of the pool. They rip your mask off, rip the respirator out of your mouth, flip you around, take the tubes off your oxygen tank, all the while you’re holding your breath, everything blurry, not knowing which way is up, and you have to re-orient yourself… get all your stuff back in order without panicking or passing out under water.    This, I believe, is a really helpful metaphor for understanding what we should do when we find ourselves disoriented. When in doubt, learn from a Navy SEAL.   First things first — you need oxygen. You need to find your tank, reconnect the tubes and get the respirator in your mouth. It’s blurry, it’s dark, you can’t really see but you’re feeling around for things, and this is your highest priority. If you have oxygen, everything else immediately becomes less of a panic. This is the same thing they say on airplanes… Secure your oxygen mask first, then help the people next to you. If you’ve got kids, that might be counter-intuitive, but you’re no help if you faint from lack of oxygen. You need to reconnect to your life-source. Take a deep breath… take a few. The only thing that matters is that you’re getting deep breaths of fresh air. The next things can wait.    For you… what’s your source of oxygen? Where do you find life? Where do you find a connection to God or something larger than yourself? When you’re disoriented, what can you tap into that you know will breathe life into your lungs? Maybe it’s family… maybe it’s time with trusted friends and mentors and people that want the best for you. Maybe it’s time in nature… stepping away from the daily grind, turning your phone off, sitting down at the water’s edge and opening a journal… What sort of self-care can you administer immediately to get your oxygen levels back up? When we’re disoriented, we’re in danger of expiring… exhaling and not having any more inhaling… so you need to find inspiration. Literal, in-spiring, those words meaning being breathed into. That’s what God did with Adam, in-spired and gave him life. What brings you life? Even if things are foggy and panic is brimming under the surface, find that source and do whatever it takes to get it. That first and highest priority.    The second thing is to figure out which way is up. One of the biggest dangers in scuba diving really deep where there’s not a lot of light is that you can lose your understanding of which way is up. Cave divers, diving in the pitch black, can think they’re swimming up and really be swimming down, and that obviously is a recipe for disaster. If your Navy Seal instructors have roughed you up and you don’t know which way is up, you need to take a second and see which way the bubbles are going. Your vision will still be blurry, and that’s fine for now, getting upright is important.   How we’d apply this step I think looks like re-orienting ourselves to who we are, where we are, what exactly is going on… This is like when someone faints and then wakes back up, they’re asking them who the president is, what year is it, what their name is… Simple orienting questions that remind us that our brain is properly functioning. Who are you, where are you, do you know exactly what’s going on?    This, again, is something that close friends can help us with. People can sit with us to talk things through, to process exactly what blind-sided us, exactly what we’re dealing with, and maybe even WHY it’s happening. That “why” might not come for a long, long time, and may not ever come, if we’re being honest… But simple orientation questions are helping. Taking stock of the present situation. Honesty about RIGHT NOW. Which way is up? How did we get here? What just happened?    A lot of times, these moments of disorientation have gems hidden in them… you might call a silver lining… I know that some of the most disorienting seasons of my life have produced the most transformative life lessons, but only if I’m actually doing the hard work of paying attention. Again, a temptation we all have is, once we’ve got our oxygen, to immediately begin swimming as fast as we can to the surface, with blurry vision and not knowing which way is up; that’s a recipe for disaster.   Orienting yourself upright is a discipline in a moment of confusion. But it’s worth it, because this is where we learn the lessons that this disorientation has to offer us. I see my friends race past this phase, and want to race onto the next thing, because disorientation is uncomfortable, they want to minimize this time to be as short as possible, but missing all the life lessons here. Alternatively, as a side note, I have some friends that stay here TOO LONG… that’s a threat as well. You can’t really quantify how long is too long to sit in a situation and try to learn from it, but there is such thing as too long. This is where people get stuck… they lose all momentum entirely. They’re just sitting at the bottom of the ocean with a respirator in their mouth, being a victim of the circumstance, beating themselves up, or playing woe is me.    After you’ve got your oxygen source, and you’ve figured out which way is up, it’s time to get clear vision. It’s time to find your mask, get it on your head, clear the water out, and blink your eyes into seeing clearly for the first time in a while. This is when you can finally begin to integrate everything that happened over the last season—And not only that, begin to move forward, in the proper direction… It’s time to do something again. It’s time to figure out what’s next. Do you stay down there? Do you swim to the surface? Do you finish what you were doing when you were blind-sided? Or do you immediately begin doing something different?    These near-death moments put things into perspective. Maybe what you were busy doing when you got the wind knocked out of you isn’t worth continuing to do… Maybe it’s a sign that it’s time to hang that up. Or maybe it’s a reminder that this is exactly the thing you’re supposed to be doing, and this is just the cost of you being you. All I know is that these crucible moments refine us… They strengthen us. They give us experience that we can’t learn in a classroom. You can study scuba diving all you want, watch all the YouTube videos you can find, but it’s no substitute for actually getting in the water and living through an extreme moment.    The last thing that I think comes naturally after all of this, is a sense of gratitude. And it might be YEARS afterward, that you find yourself back on the beach, taking the scuba gear off and feeling this deep sense of gratitude overtake you. You survived. The worst possible thing that could’ve happened, HAPPENED, and guess what? You’re still here. You made it.    You didn’t choose it, you didn’t want it, but you traveled full circle from orientation, to disorientation and then re-orientation. And not everyone makes it through. But you have. And that’s when you can reflect, and actually feel grateful for your trials, and what you’ve had to endure.    As I said, that might be years afterwards… but I can look back on disorienting seasons in my past and actually feel grateful for them. 2016, man… that was a bad year for me. My boss and mentor had left our church in a bad place, we had just had Avi, newborn baby, we had family members passing away, we were selling our condo and buying a house, I was hiring new people into the Emery Agency and feeling more financial stress than ever before… and I was drinking a lot. I was turning to that nearly every night to slow my brain down and I developed an unhealthy dependency on it. All of that bubbled to a head in June 2016, spent the summer re-orienting myself to my present reality, getting a new oxygen supply, figuring out which way was up, and getting clarity on what my next steps should be. It was then that I really began stepping out of full-time ministry, changing our business model, and clearing unnecessary responsibilities off my plate. That season kinda sucked, but now 3 years later I”m grateful that I walked through it.    My marriage is stronger than ever before, my understanding of what the hell i’m doing in the world is clearer than ever before… And all because I got blindsided (or more accurately pig-piled on by a dozen different things, crushing me underneath their weight.)    I don’t know what it is for you, or if this episode resonates with you, but the only constant is change… and so if you’re cruising along with clarity and feel very oriented in your life, it’s only a matter of time before a curveball comes your way. And hopefully this is a helpful tool when that happens.    Our lives are a constant cycle of orientation, disorientation and then re-orientation. That’s just how it goes. But if you’re willing to do the work, it’s worth it.    I love you guys, thanks for listening… make it a good day. 

Just had breakfast with a friend of mine… Fellow entrepreneur with a lot of pressure on his shoulders. Millions of dollars at stake, dozens of people’s careers, and needless to say—lots of opportunity, lots of risk. We were talking about the true cost of certain projects, not just financial, but time, stress, pre-occupying our minds… And how some just aren’t worth it.    There have been times when we’ve called off projects with certain clients that have become too difficult to work with… clients that wanted us to be something we weren’t, clients that thought they could boss us around… and the amount of damage control I had to do with my team, talking them off the ledge day after day, just quickly becomes “not worth it.” It’s not worth the revenue, it’s not worth the portfolio piece, it’s not worth the profit.   The lesson here, very simply is: Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.    When you’re starting out, whether it’s a new industry, new business, new relationship… It’s time to be flexible. You need the experience. You need to take any opportunity that comes your way. Be a sponge. Absorb as much as possible. Expose yourself to different personalities, different types of projects… Investigate. Kick the tires. See which kind of engagements feel right and which ones don’t. And begin the long, necessary path of refining. Winnowing away the types of projects that are always headaches; seeing nightmare clients from further and further in advance, and learn to steer clear from historically problematic things.    That’s how humans are designed. To learn from our experiences, and adapt. Our lives should be marked by continually pruning things out that don’t fit right anymore. Bob Goff quits something every Thursday.    I think far too many of us get sucked into simply adding, adding, adding, and never subtracting. If what you’re looking for in life is a bit more breathing room, a bit more bandwidth, a bit more space to stretch and get creative, then the game isn’t about addition… It’s about subtraction. And strategic subtraction can feel sooooo good.    Maybe a client that makes up 5% of your annual revenue takes up 10% of your time. And beyond that, the interactions are strained. It might time to say goodbye to that 5% of revenue, simultaneously freeing up 10% of your time. Now you have margin for a new client, or two or three, that aren’t such high-need.    It boils down to a conversation around what you define as success. If success is simply the dollars in the bank and you don’t care at all about the mental or emotional health of yourself or your team, then go for it. Accumulate as much as you can and steamroll everyone around you. See how long that lasts.    Success for me looks like working when I want, where I want, with the people I want to surround myself with, and preserving a high-earning potential. If any situation begins to threaten that, I work to dismantle that situation. If a client is demanding that we travel too much, or have too much meetings, or is just miserable to be around, we’re going to cut ties with them.    And this is where grace comes in, because we didn’t know it would be a bad situation from the kickoff of things. They didn’t know that either. So there’s typically a lot of open-handed discussions around the best way to end things. Sometimes it means refunding a portion of the project, sometimes it means finishing a few big deliverables and then wrapping things, sometimes it means having a big, uncomfortable conversation about ground-rules and how we need communication to be corrected. Again, if I’m refunding a client X amount of thousands of dollars, it’s worth MORE than that money to get that off our minds and out of our way.    When value dips below cost, it’s time to get rid of it. And yes, those two variables can be defined however you’d like. Maybe the value of having a big client with a national presence is worth the relational cost and taxing the team a bit. Maybe the value of knowing we’re serving an important non-profit will smooth over some frustrations that accumulate over the project. But these things need to be paid attention to. That’s all I’m saying…    Sometimes we get into situations that we feel stuck in, when we’re not actually stuck. The only thing keeping us stuck is a fear of confrontation or uncomfortable conversations. The famous quote from Socrates comes to mind: The unexamined life isn’t worth living.    If we’re not paying attention to our lives; the things that bring us life and the things that sap life from us, we’ll just float numbly through life, feeling as if we’re victims to our circumstances because of a bad decision or something out of our control. One of the most empowering things you can do for yourself is to speak-up about a situation that is slowly sucking the life out of you. It’s for freedom you’ve been set free, now make sure you STAY free. It’s so easy to get tangled up and feel stuck.    Strategic Subtraction. What in your life might need to go? Maybe it’s a project, a client, a relationship that’s long past healthy… You don’t need more, you might need less.    And don’t let a scarcity mentality creep in either… as if saying no to one thing means no new things will come along. The world is a big place, and lots of people would be thrilled to work with you, or be friends with you, or partner with you for the season ahead.    What if we all did fewer things with greater excellence? What if it wasn’t a game to see much we could accumulate and see how much money we can make, but rather to see how healthy and fulfilling and meaningful we could craft our lives to become?    Strategic Subtraction is definitely a part of that process. And I’d encourage you to look at some of the most frustrating areas of your career, work environment, etc. and really weight the cost of those things. Is the true cost (financial, emotional, physical toll) outweighing the value? Maybe it’s time for a hard conversation. There’s a whole episode about that, back in episode 6.    You’re not a victim, you’re not stuck, you don’t need to stay in a bad spot just because you agreed to a few weeks, months, years ago. Some things need to change trajectory mid-project for the health of everyone involved.    I love you guys. Make it a good day. 

It’s been 4 months since I’ve shared on here. 4 months of family, of rest, of equal parts confusion and clarity; 4 months of traveling the country to spend time with different churches—helping them understand their reputations in their cities and doing the important work of coaching their leadership into a place of health for the season ahead.    I’ve spent time with Acts 29 churches in Texas, megachurches in the midwest, church plants in Long Beach California, and most recently a 150 year old congregation that had 1,000 people in their hay-day, now dwindled down to 47 faithful elderly folks with $2m in the bank, wanting to relaunch a progressive church to serve millennials in a downtown in Michigan.    As you can imagine, I’ve been exposed to all sorts of different flavors of God; different ministry philosophies; different “callings” these pastors feel like they’ve had; different hills people are willing to die on, different theologies they’re holding with an open hand… Some are working to “save their cities” from sexual immorality, that “the gays” have a stronghold there and that it’s their job to storm the gates and take it all back for Jesus; others opening their auditoriums to house homeless LGBT youth and support single mothers…    It’s been a wild ride. This year alone, I’ve been in every corner of the country, and sat with 20 year old aspiring mega-church pastors starting in their parent’s living room, as well as accomplished, tenured pastors that have seen the rise and fall of a dozen fads of the American church… I’m grateful for the perspective, and the wisdom that comes from that breadth of relationship.   There are 3 things I’ve discerned from these churches… 3 things necessary for the success of their church… Whether starting from scratch, turning a mega-church with thousands on board, or reviving a dying congregation.    Those 3 things are: Honesty, Hope and Courage.    Honesty is essential in diagnosis. Everyone wants to be honest. They want to share openly. They want authenticity and accuracy and transparency, but very few are humble enough to get there. They either have their ego obscuring big blind spots, or their ambition doesn’t allow them to see their present reality plainly. Whatever it is, a brutal honesty is essential. And the more brutal the better. Diagnosis isn’t a time for spin or reframing or coddling. You don’t need flowery language there. You don’t want your doctor to walk back into the room and read you a poem; or worse use long, hard to pronounce theological words that obscure clarity. You want plain english, the whole truth; a clear picture of what you’re up against.    But it doesn’t stop there, because we’re not defeatist. There’s a reason we’ve chosen to pay attention. We believe that the future is worth fighting for, don’t we? Or else we wouldn’t even be engaged in the thing in the first place. We either have hope itself brimming somewhere under the surface, and hope is an incredible fuel of motivation, or we WANT to have hope… both are valid. Both are respectable. If you’re honest about hope waning and KNOWING that you need it, but feeling like you’re running on empty, you’re able to find it again. You just need the right people to cast vision for the future, and put a few puzzle pieces together and you’re there. There’s some reason you haven’t thrown in the towel entirely, and it’s either because you’ve got this little reserve of hope you’ve been protecting and ready to use in a moment like this, or you’ve been honest about your lack of hope and you’re ready to receive a few gallons from whoever might be sharing.    Brutal honesty about the diagnosis, a genuine belief that the future is worth fighting for, and lastly, the courage to do something about it.    This is where most everyone falls off the path to meaningful change. The honesty might be there, the vision of a new future filling you with hope… but the courage needed is almost this surprise at the end. It’s almost like people think they just need the first two and that’ll get them there. And then all of a sudden, a bit of opposition pops up, and they back down, or wither, or fade…    Hope is a great initiator, but courage is the sustainer.    Hope is the carb, courage is the protein.   Hope is the kindling to get the fire started, but courage is the stack of wood you’ve got ready to burn over the next 6 months, through thick and thin, sunny days and noreasters alike.    Being in the business of branding, we’re dealing with people’s reputations, and doing the work to change an organizations (or a person’s) reputation isn’t for the faint of heart. It requires some seriously uncomfortable conversations about how people present themselves; character flaws, personality traits that don’t do what someone might think they’ll do…    But the only clients we see successful are those with courage. The courage to implement the change. The courage to stand up in front of their congregations or board of directors or shareholders or employees or family members—own their mistakes, apologize, cast vision for the change ahead, and then march forward with as many other people that have the courage to join them.    It always results in at least 10% of people jumping ship… People that don’t get it. Or people that get it but don’t want it. People that are tired or scared or stuck.  People that like things the way they are and don’t think changing anything is necessary. And that’s ok. In every healthy business, every year, 10% of your clientele falls off and a new 10% show up. There’s always turn-over amongst employees and clients and customers… The church is no different. If we’re honest, our circle of friends is no different either. I’ve had some of the closest friends of the last 10 years of my life simply disappear over the last year. People I did ministry with, laughed with, cried with, just completely distance themselves from me because of this whole “coming out of the theological closet” thing. And that’s ok—it breaks my heart, but if that’s what they feel like they need to do to protect themselves, I understand.   The courage is always the kicker. And the courage season can be lonely. And that’s ok… because the work is worth it. The change taking place in the world is worth it. Changing constructs that have been handed down from generation to generation isn’t easy. No one said it would be.    Changing how people think about church, or your product, or your personality isn’t easy. In fact, it requires consistency over the long haul. Reputations are brutal to break in people’s minds. In fact, some of the traumas that people have suffered by the Church may never be fully healed and rectified on this side of heaven. But we can begin painting a new picture.    Anything worth doing is worth doing well… and it’s about time we all find something to be unapologetically passionate about… something that will outlive us when we’re gone. Or else, we’re just another consumer, taking more than we give, wasting more than we create…    A few questions for you to sit with…    Maybe you’ve identified some areas of your work or life or personal relationships that clearly aren’t healthy… What would it look like to get really, brutally honest about it? What would it look like to invite someone else into it and help see it from every angle; and give it a proper diagnosis? Not one that will coddle your feelings and keep you stuck, but one that will accurately show the cancer and all of its ugliness?    Or maybe you know what you’re against, and you’ve known for a long time, but the hope hasn’t been there. What would it look like to actually ALLOW yourself to feel hope in that area of your life? Because that’s all that needs to happen… you need to ALLOW yourself to feel hopeful. You need to tell your lizard brain that it’s safe and that it’s ok to get your hopes up and actually believe for a minute that things could change for the better, and you might actually land that dream job, or change this unhealthy church, or get your body back into sustainable health… What would that look like? Do you think you could do that?    And lastly, knowing that all the honesty in the world, and all the hope someone could muster isn’t enough to make any meaningful change in the world… It requires courage. Bravery in the face of fear, in the face of rejection, in the face of unpopularity, in the face of discouragement. Bravery isn’t being unafraid, it’s being well acquainted with fear and doing it anyways… because it’s worth it. Anything worth doing is worth doing well, but if it was easy, somebody else would’ve done it already. There’s a reason you’re in the position you’re in, with the thoughts you’re having, with the passion you have for this thing… Maybe you’re the only person God is stirring this thing in, and you’re exactly where He wants you.   Maybe you’re the person to do the hard thing that everyone knows needs to be done. Maybe that’s your job. Maybe that’s the reason this sits so heavily on you and why you’re so passionate about it. Maybe that’s what we’ve over-spiritualized with this word “calling.” Maybe you’re the one called to it. And maybe you have all the honesty, hope and courage someone needs to make it happen.    I believe in you. Make it a good day. 

Hey hey, hope you guys are doing well. It’s the week after Memorial Day and I’ve got something stirring that I want to explore with you today. This has been the product of a handful of really profound conversations, a few recent books, an “Awakening Session” with Michael Gungor, and a few what I guess you could call "mystical moments" during times of travel.    I’ve been a part of leadership in the Christian world for 17 years now… Starting back leading music for YoungLife when I was in high-school, then being involved in college ministries, then leading worship for two churches simultaneously, then joining full-time staff at Harbor 10 years ago (almost to the day). I saw on Facebook memories that May 27, 2009 I was posting about setting up my desk and stuff.    Again, I know I’ve said this on this podcast before, but not having been raised with a strict theology or doctrine or formal religion has actually been a blessing. I don’t carry as much baggage as some of my friends do, and it has allowed me to hold a few of these “beliefs” we ascribe to a bit more loosely. I’ve always been curious. Curious about how things work, where words or phrases came from, why certain things behave certain ways… My late-grandmother would call it “Intellectual curiosity” when describing herself. I’ve always loved that. Never not learning about something.    So… the latest for me has been this theme popping up everywhere. What I would call “The Big Lie.” It’s something that we’re all conditioned to believe, either from personal experience or being taught it from a very young age. It’s something that seems to be central to most of the problems we encounter in life; most all of the suffering; all of the hate and division; and it’s very simply this: The big lie is that we are somehow separate from the whole. The big lie is that somehow we are “other”… That we aren’t all in this together; whatever “this” is. That there is an “us” and there is a “them.” That we are either above certain people; or that we are below other certain people. That foreigners are truly foreign. That strangers are truly estranged.    The Big Lie is that all of humanity is (and should be) properly divided into little tribes and nations and religions and political affiliations… that THAT is somehow the answer to all of our problems. The lie that God, however you’d define God, wants an “us” and “them”… or if He doesn’t, He wants us to go out into the world and homogenize everyone to think, believe and behave exactly as we do. As if we have the full and final answer, and the only problem is that we haven’t properly evangelized the whole world.    The word “religion” quite literally means “re-ligio” like ligament, and means “re-binding.” Taking our divided realities and binding them back together into wholeness. Human and divine, male and female, heaven and earth, sin and salvation… The goal of all of these world religions seems to be to draw back a separated humanity into Oneness. Each one having slightly (or very) different approaches and philosophies and ideas about the HOW that should happen, but almost all end at a place of Oneness. Heaven, Nirvana, Shalom, Enlightenment, Goodness.    The big lie is that somehow these religions are fundamentally different and opposed and should be treated as an “us” and “them.” Or that our job is to convince everyone else how wrong they are. Rather than recognizing that so much of this truth has come from the same Truth tree. Yes, are some of us WAY off base and need serious course-correcting so that our “Religion” isn’t in the business of hurting people, or the danger of developing extremists that quickly become terrorists. An acknowledgment of our inter-connectedness doesn’t negate the need for course-correction. But it does remove the lie of separation and otherness that makes it so much easier to wage war. Anyone that’s been in military combat knows how much easier it is to shoot at someone from 50 yards away than 5 feet away. The closer you get, the more you see yourself in that person… the more humanized the enemy is.    Proximity matters. And that’s part of the problem with the internet. We have this faux-proximity… This pseudo-community that is ALMOST real, but definitely not. Close enough to share pictures of our kids with one another, but distant enough to leave hateful comments on posts. Close enough to celebrate anniversaries but removed enough to fight back and forth in the comments further polarizing and relegating an important conversation to locker-room talk.   You can’t win conversations. That’s like trying to make the BEST artwork, or building the strongest sandwich. That’s not how we measure things. You can’t win in a Facebook comment battle.    All of this is a product of the Ego. This little part of us that is so persuasive, so convincing, so manipulative… I believe our Egos are definitely a product of evolution, definitely a product of the Fall… they’re how we learned to survive and pass on our genetics and beat out the competition, but there comes a time in life when your Ego has to be called out for what it is. It’s a tool. A deeply flawed tool, but sometimes it can be helpful.    Your ego is everything about you that you can define… Your name, your birthplace, your height, your race, your education… You ego is essentially what someone would write up about you on your Wikipedia page. It’s ABOUT you, but definitely doesn’t capture YOU. It’s not your essence. It’s just a photograph of you at a specific point in time. A snapshot. Like when someone introduces you at a party or a speaking event or describes something about what you’ve done, what you know, etc. It feels like it’s ABOUT you, but if that’s all someone knew of you, it would fall so deeply short of your fullness.    Egos want to compare. They want to know where they stand. Are we skinnier or fatter than them? Do we have more or less money than that person? Are we smarter than that person on Facebook? Are we more right about who God is than that devout person from another religion? Are we more successful? Are we more organized? Are we more peaceful? Are we more progressive or more conservative? Egos thrive in the soil of comparison… but what happens when we give our Egos too much leeway is that they leave us feeling overly simplified. Reduced. Small.    Picture a triangle. Perfectly balanced. A sharp point at the top going down to two equal sides, sharp corners and a perfect, level line across the bottom. It’s almost as if, at birth, we’re all at the top of this triangle. We’re all the same. Roughly 6 pounds of flesh and bone. All crying the same way. All breathing the same way. All needing our mother’s milk. We don’t know all of these ideas of comparison and separation and us vs. them and Egos driving the conversation… We’re just babies. Slightly different size, slightly different shades of skin, but very much the same in almost every way.    Then our parents begin telling us stories. Stories about what’s right and what’s wrong. Stories about what’s better or worse. Stories about us and stories about them. And we slowly start to slide down the triangle… away from one another. Things get more complex and as they do, we become more and more settled and defined in our ways, landing comfortably in opposite corners of the triangle, believing we’re on the RIGHT side, and they’re on the WRONG side, meanwhile missing the fact that we’ve grown apart quite significantly. In fact, we’re so far from one another that now we can’t really even see each other’s faces. We begin dressing differently and speaking different languages and, whether we recognize it or not, we’re living inside the Big Lie.    The Ego loves it. Our soul’s hate it. Our souls know we were made for one another; for interconnectedness; for Oneness with everyone and everything… But we have this manufactured, inherited man-made separation that we ascribe to.    The goal for every one of us is that as we grow older, we let our Egos drive less and less often. They can stay in the car, but they have to sit in the back seat and they can’t pick the music. Egos are helpful for the first half of life—they literally help us survive, but once they accomplish that—they need to be called out for the frauds they are. That’s the task of the second-half of life, is to gracefully exit SURVIVAL MODE and ensure the next generations don’t inherit all of the unhelpful lies that we were handed by our parents.    If you don’t believe we’re all connected, start watching One Strange Rock on Netflix. Will Smith narrates it, and a dozen astronauts with hundreds of days logged in space all discuss the interconnectedness of everything on earth. No matter how important you think you are, you’re still on a tiny ball hurtling through empty space at thousands of miles an hour. No matter how tough you are. How big your muscles are. How powerful you are… Joseph Stalin, responsible for nearly 20 million deaths, had a massive stroke and was found on the floor, soaked in urine. Francisco Franco, dictator in Spain that created political concentration camps developed Parkinsons for the last 12 years of his life. Mao Zedong died of a heart attack. I mention these guys because their perhaps the definition of when the Ego is out of control… and yet, they’re just as vulnerable as the rest of us.    In America, we think we’re invincible, but we’re only 240 years into this experiment with democracy. The Roman Empire latest twice that long and still crumbled. The President might feel like the most powerful man in the world, but only for 4 years at least, 8 years at most. People have yorkie-poos that live longer than that.    I say all of this because we need to ZOOM OUT. We need to zoom out from our little tribes and encampments and Facebook groups and political affiliations to see the Oneness of all of Creation. We’re in this together. Just ask all of the ecosystems being affected by Climate Change.    The Big Lie: that we’re all individuals, is leading to some terrible outcomes. Especially within America. The self-made man is a myth. There were hundreds of people that got you to where you are. And probably hundreds more working to keep you there.    The damage we do when we’re believing this lie has pretty significant consequences. We say things that can’t be unsaid. We damage ecological rhythms that take centuries to heal themselves. We fracture relationships that take years to be restored back to trust and flourishing.   It’s actually funny when you REALLY step back and look at all of the distinctions we make to try to feel better about ourselves. We rank, we organize, we divide, we split hairs, we interpret certain words in the Constitution or Bible in slightly different ways and then feel superior than the others. It’s amazing how shallow we are. When I see a new person walk in the door at the gym, my ego immediately begins processing them. “I’m younger, taller, probably smarter…” and I’m sitting there, observing my Ego like, “Who hurt you when you were little? Why do you feel the need to do this?” New person at church? “They probably don’t know much about different atonement theories, they look like they’re from lower-income, probably can’t contribute much financially…” and this is just happening uncontrollably; a sad little reflex our egos have.    I’m nowhere near the place where I’ve tamed my Ego from even speaking up, but I’m definitely beginning to see it for what it is. And instead of letting those comparisons and labeling that my ego is doing DEFINE those people, I’m letting my Soul press through and actually connect with them. The immortal diamond within me searching to connect with the immortal diamond within them. The Jesus in me finding the Jesus in them. Oneness finding Oneness.    And that awareness is all we can ask for. I don’t think we’ll ever be WITHOUT the big lie, but at least knowing it’s a lie is a start. Calling it out for what it is. Putting it in its’ proper place.    Immediately all of the “HOT TOPIC” conversations become a little bit less heated. There’s less of a desire to be “RIGHT” and more of a desire to be “WHOLE/COMPLETE/CONNECTED.” Experiencing communion… common union. With everyone around us, every thing around us. That awareness is the ticket, for me, right now at least.    This is so interesting to me because the business we own and operate, this branding agency, is in the business of Ego. People pay our team hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to manufacture a reputation for them, and then “Position” them against their competitors using tools and tactics of comparison. We’re literally in the Ego business. Playing into this side of us as consumers. It’s good for business, but not great for rejecting the Big Lie of good vs. bad, right vs. wrong, us vs. them. And that’s something I’ll have to wrestle. And we’ve even begun to do that… To not manufacture who you WANT to be, but rather presenting accurately who you truly are… But trying to find the Soul of a business is tricky work. And maybe impossible.    To try to tie a bow on this little exploration, I’d encourage you to try to start catching yourself in the act of letting your Ego drive… catching yourself in the act of believing the lie. That separation is somehow worthwhile; or that the fruit of separation will somehow, someday be beautiful. I don’t think so. I think the stem of nearly all of our problems is the myth of division; the sin of separation.    The Bible is full of calls into Oneness, and then we get busy creating rules about who is “in” and who is “out” in this Oneness thing. Like you can only be a part of the Union if you follow these rules.    1 Cor. 12:13 Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.   later in vs. 27 All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.   Ephesians 4: 3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. 4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.   One. One humanity. One body. One Oneness. We all share the same spirit. Let’s act like it.    I know this level of alignment and unity feels WAY out of reach with the world and how divided everything is… But what if we started just in our immediate vicinity. Our immediate sphere. Our family. Our closest friends. Recognize when our Ego begins drawing distinction and comparing/contrasting… And don’t beat yourself up for it, but just recognize it, pat it on the head and gently place it in the backseat. “Nice little ego… good boy. Ok, you can go back here. Yeah, you’re safe back here.”    This has implications all over it. Personal, emotional health. Relational health. Financial health, when we stop trying to keep up with the Joneses.    A bit of a rant today, but it’s something that’s been present on my heart lately… and something I think I’m just barely beginning to scratch the surface of. Hope this was interesting and worth your time. If you guys have any questions or thoughts or suggestions for future topics, I’d love to hear from you. Shoot me an email at john@emery.agency    I love you. Make it a good day.

Hey friends, hope you’re doing well. The response to episode 30 “Coming out of the theological closet” has been extraordinary. I’ve actually already recorded a follow-up episode to that, specifically about our LGBT brothers and sisters, and clarifying some elements from Episode 30—but I have a meeting coming up next week with our elders about this topic, and I want to honor them and their pace. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about unity, and the primacy of it, which of course doesn’t mean to never speak up, but to do so in a way that brings as many people as possible along for the ride… not jerking the wheel and confusing people. SO > That episode will come out next week, and we’ll continue our conversation on LGBT inclusion in the church.    For today, I want to just share a word of encouragement. I’ve been learning a lot about leaders that have shared unpopular critiques to established cultures, and it’s been really, really inspiring. William Wilberforce speaking out against the European Slave trade, Abraham Lincoln and his leadership during the most divided time in our country’s history… All the way up to Lecrae, a hip-hop artist today that is speaking out against systemic racism, especially within the Evangelical church. And through it all… You could call it the “through-line”—has been this theme of speaking truth to power.    Speaking truth, of course, is what everyone *thinks* they’re doing. Most people believe truth is on their side. Our president, beloved Donny, has just crossed his 10,000th lie in office. All of them documented by the media, which he of course says is lying… So we have to begin the conversation with acknowledging that all of our understandings of “truth” — objective truth — is severely flawed. All of it is influenced by culture, by opinions, by upbringing, by authority figures telling is what truth was growing up, by books or documents, Bibles or Constitutions, prophets and pastors, all claiming to be true, of course.    A large swath of American Evangelicals look to the Bible for truth, which is good, because the Bible is full of a lot of truth, but even within that there are differences of interpretation, divisions amongst denominations… the latest figures put the number of Christian denominations around 33,000 worldwide. That’s 33,000 different ways people have interpreted Jesus’ words, the creeds and beliefs we ascribe to, and the different ways the church should practice in the world. Some scholars believe that number is inflated, but even if it’s inflated by a multiple of 2 or 3, it’s still shocking.    How does one church have so many different ways of doing things?    And guess what? Everyone believes they’re right. Everyone believes they’ve found the truth.    Even within the Catholic church, under the leadership of 1 pope, there are 242 different catholic denominations.    I share all of this because we need a healthy dose of humility with how we approach truth — as if it’s some truly objective thing that we can arrive at. I’m not sure that’s true… And I recognize the irony in even saying that.    Consider Peter, for a moment... one of Jesus’ right-hand men. Raised Jewish, followed his Jewish rabbi Jesus, and was ready to establish his church for Jewish people. Ok? Not you and me. Just them. A very small percentage of the earth’s population. Around 600,000 people at the time. About 1/10 of a percent of the earth’s population as God’s chosen people and everyone else is out. Jesus had said a lot about “ALL” … but apparently that didn’t catch on, and the early church was still just for Jews. Then Acts 10 happens, where Peter goes up to a rooftop to pray while someone is making him lunch. read Acts 10:9-36   Ok, this is not a small deal. For all of history, God’s people believed they were the chosen people. That was their truth. A very small group of Jews entrusted with a very big message. And then, all of a sudden, on a random afternoon, during a single moment of prayer, God changed Peter’s heart. And the rest of history. Peter fought it at first, thinking maybe he was just hungry or not hearing God correctly, but when the Spirit of God persisted, he listened. And immediately he saw the fruit of it. Immediately he’s invited somewhere that he would’ve never previously gone, because of his religious upbringing and following God’s law, of course… And then God changes Peter’s mind. And all of history changed as a result of that one moment of prayer.    Peter was a very normal, very human human. And he was faced with an opportunity to keep something small and exclusive, or to listen to the Spirit and take an unpopular stance amongst his Jewish community, to bring the Gospel to Gentiles. And if you’re not one of the 13 million direct-line Jews on earth today, again, only a fraction of a percentage of the earth’s population, you’re a direct beneficiary of Peter following that unpopular direction.    Here’s what I want to share about all of this… We live in the age of the opinion. Everyone has a social media platform, some with enormous followings and influence, some of us with small followings and influence, but we all have a say. And we all say… don’t we? Everything we interact with gets a Yelp review or Facebook post or Instagram story sharing how good or bad or fun or terrible something is… It’s not the age of information anymore, it’s the age of the opinion.    So how then do we discern what is true? How do we discern what God might be saying to us? And what God might be wanting to do through us? Or a new dream you have for a business that’s never been done before and you’re wondering if you’re crazy or if you’re a genius and when you share it with people they don’t get it, but some of them do… And at worst, it all just leads to inaction. Our insecurity in discerning what is true paralyzes us, and we stay where we are, only sharing the Gospel with Jews… keeping the dream small and exclusive, a mere fraction of what could be.    This morning I saw a quote on Facebook that my aunt shared… Shout out to my wonderful aunt Laurie… she’s an educator in Portland Maine, and she shared this quote from Rumi, 13th century Persian poet, theologian, Sufi mystic, and it was this: “Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?”    Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?   In Peter’s story, we see him wrestling with whether it was true or not. He saw a vision, heard a voice calling him to do something that God had ALWAYS forbidden, and he says, “No.” Then the vision repeats 3 times. Then he’s left perplexed. Was that true? Was it not true? Then immediately he’s presented with an opportunity to spend time with Gentiles in a Gentile home eating non-kosher Gentile food. All of which God had ALWAYS forbidden. Then read the rest of Acts 10… v. 34 Peter says, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right. This is the message of Good News for the people of Israel (exclusive language) — that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of ALL… (inclusive, global, universal)…    While Peter was still wrestling with whether or not it was true, he was presented with a situation that proved to him that it was NECESSARY. His experience, his rationality, his educated opinion in his specific culture and context, led him to believe that God wanted him to stray from the established Jewish laws and commandments around eating Kosher and not dining with Gentiles… and it changed history. Other Jews at the time undoubtedly called Peter a heretic.    How could this be true? The Jewish Scriptures were clear. They had no other holy writings to go by…    Peter realized that this word from God during a time of prayer was true by its necessity… The necessity to include and genuinely have the Good News be Good News for all…    So, brothers and sisters, what is truth? How do we know it? And when do we speak up—especially when it’s going directly against the grain of the establishment?    Whether it’s a religious establishment, like it was for Peter, or it’s a political establishment, or a educational establishment, or your workplace and the internal culture that’s become almost like a Law that everyone is living by…    When do you finally say something? When these three things align: Truth, necessity and kindness are in alignment… When that idea you’ve been wrestling with or that Word from God you’ve been perplexed by passes through those 3 gates: truth, necessity and kindness. (And you can replace that last word with whichever virtue you’d like: Compassion, empathy, love, kindness…) It just needs to be anchored in a deep, ethical, morally sound bedrock.    It doesn’t mean you can’t say difficult things… In fact, most of these types of truths are very difficult. Think back to the truths that we’ve been taught by leaders like William Wilberforce, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr… All of them ethical, but speaking truth to power, because of its necessity.     Psalm 15: 1 Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord?     Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? 2 Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right,     speaking the truth from sincere hearts. 3 Those who refuse to gossip     or harm their neighbors     or speak evil of their friends. 4 Those who despise flagrant sinners,     and honor the faithful followers of the Lord,     and keep their promises even when it hurts. 5 Those who lend money without charging interest,     and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent. Such people will stand firm forever.   If you’re burdened by something, and you’ve been patient, and you’ve shared it with people you love and they affirm that truth, and your experiences affirm that truth, and you recognize the necessity of it, and you’re able to do it surrounded by kindness and compassion and love… I say go for it.    Say something.    I love you guys, make it a good day.   

When you know, for certain, people are being mistreated, it’s a difficult tension to manage. When do you speak up? When do you work behind the scenes? Often you feel that you’re not doing enough, and sometimes it feels that you’re trying to do too much. It’s a tension that I’ve walked with for the past 10 years of being in formal ministry, on staff at a local non-denominational Christian Church.    Much like a marriage that you know is falling apart… How do you minister to both sides while not betraying the dignity and inherent worth of either party? How do you love people through a divorce? How do you love a parent that you know is mistreating their children? How do you “show up” for friends that you know are doing something wrong? How do you love people that have the right motives but the wrong facts?    Seeing Christ in both sides and articulating that, but also not being afraid to speak truth to the lies that both sides believe… And by God’s grace, eliminating the concept of “sides” altogether.    After Charlottesville, President Trump tried to address the chaos by saying “There are people on both sides at fault.” Which, objectively, is true—but isn’t helpful. There’s a clear side that is anchored in fear and hatred, and another side that is anchored in genetics and geography.    How do we love the “other” without upsetting the Country Club? How do we welcome the prodigal back home without upsetting the older brother?    Honestly, I’m not sure it’s possible. And that’s ok. Every once in a while, you actually have to stand for what you believe to be true. No caveats. No footnotes. No hiding or massaging words…    And this is that time for me. This won’t likely surprise anyone, but it’s both embarrassing and hilarious and painful that I’ve not yet spoken plainly and clearly my heart to you, my LGBTQ brothers and sisters and non-binary siblings.    I have a unique position in the Church, where I wasn’t born into any one tradition of thought. I was handed morals and virtues and ethics in abundance, but I wasn’t handed religious tradition or dogma to add on top of that. So when I was introduced to faith in middle-school through YoungLife, I didn’t have a whole lot of baggage to bring with me.    It was as simple and innocent of an introduction to Jesus as if you were being introduced to someone’s famous friend, but you knew nothing about why they were famous. I knew it was a big deal, but I wasn’t star-struck. Jesus seemed to be simple and true and worth spending time with. I kicked the tires, fell in love with the wisdom of the Christian tradition, and hopped on board.    It wasn’t until I was a few years in that I began to realize all the rules that came with following this Jesus character. I quickly learned what I was allowed to say, how I was allowed to pray, how to reconcile some of life’s greatest mysteries with some simple apologetics, memorize some verses for the bridge illustration and then go off on my way to evangelize the world for Jesus.    I had this Good News to share, and I was excited about sharing it. But then the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq took off, and I began to see my Christian mentors advocating for the seeking and killing of men and women from different traditions. The “image of God” that we were all formed in must not have made it all the way from America over to the Middle East.    And I began to recognize the mental gymnastics that leaders would go through to reconcile their socio-political beliefs with this ancient text, that was supposedly “inerrant” and therefore had all of life’s answers hidden somewhere on one of the thousand pages. They’d find an Old Testament text about David and war and God being on their side and that was all they needed to sleep well at night.    I learned that it was OK to pick and choose which Bible texts I referenced based on the situation I was in, and to not consider the over-arching heart of the entire text and tradition, which I had believed up until that point, that all people were God’s image bearers, and that God loved all people equally and unconditionally, and that Jesus had died for all people’s shortcomings, for all time—past, present, future. Silly me, I had thought that the Gospel was Good News for all people.    In college, I learned even more subtleties to dance around between denominations, and which groups of people really loved the Holy Spirit, and which groups worshiped Mary, and which people worshiped JUST the Bible and which churches wrote the best worship songs and which leaders to trust and which leaders were heretics… By the time I graduated, I had a nice, neat compartmentalized mind with little pithy answers to any of life’s greatest questions, and an arrogance in my faith that was all-consuming. We were right, they were wrong, we were saved, they were not, we were in, they were not. I learned to pity people that were different than me. I learned when to say, “Oh, I’ll pray for you.” And when to mean it and when it was just a Christian insult.    All the while, feeling like a bit of an outsider, but so desperately wanting to fit in. As an Enneagram 3, it’s easy for me to pick up on a tribe’s values and immediately embody whatever is needed to become a central figure. I was hired at a church immediately out of college and became a pastor with no formal seminary, Bible degree, training… I had taken a few classes on the Gospels at Gordon College but by in large, I was a chameleon that was doing a good job of learning on the job.    Spiritual growth and maturity is largely marked by 3 distinct seasons. Construction, deconstruction and then re-construction. There is learning, then unlearning, and then relearning. We’re taught to build up a set of beliefs early and strong. We build a container to hold our little faith in, and we make the walls thick. This faith being very vulnerable and susceptible to attack. We find big, strong voices and powerful pastors to align ourselves with. All the answers, all the confidence. So we have this Fort Knox of a structure surrounding this trembling heart of a captive bird.    Eventually, as our faith grows, the structure no longer contains us. Our faith gains a strength and an expansiveness that transcends this little container we had once needed (and cherished). So we deconstruct. We take every brick down, evaluate it, and decide whether or not to take it with us on the next leg of the journey.    Much like a broken bone needs a cast for structure and support while it forms again, there comes a point where the cast itself becomes a burden, and it inhibits health and growth and movement. The cast plays a role early on, but you can’t develop strength and mobility by keeping it on. What got you here is good and fine, but it won’t get you to where you’re going.    We say that in business all the time: What got you here won’t get you there. You honor the past, you thank it for all it did for you, and you move forward. You include and transcend. You take whatever is helpful with you, you leave behind the unhelpful structure that’s holding you back, and you walk forward into whatever God has next for you.    I’ve been a follower of Jesus for just under 20 years now. I’ve stood on big stages and led very, very small groups. I’ve traveled internationally for ministry and I’ve stayed very close to home and loved my neighbors. I’ve used my theology as a weapon in the past to keep certain people on the outside, and I’ve had moments of transcendence where I felt as if I were completely integrated with God—the source of all life. I’ve developed spiritual disciplines of fasting and imaginative prayer and writing songs and studying tradition. I’ve tried to learn from everyone I’ve encountered in faith.    And here I am, today, with fewer attachments than ever. I used to dream of the day when someone would call me a “pastor,” and now the term feels as common as saying, “friend.” I wanted to start my own business, so I did. And it’s successful. Wonderful. We wanted to start a family, and God gave us two beautiful children. There have been seasons where we’ve had to fight for health in our marriage, and we fought and we won.    I say all of this without an ounce of arrogance. It’s all been God’s grace, when I’ve risen and God’s grace when I’ve fallen. As I write this today, at least at this very moment, I find no attachment to titles or positions of prominence. My identity isn’t in my role as pastor or CEO or even husband or father or son or even in my masculinity. I hold all of those things with open hands. They are beautiful and I am enamored by them, each and every day, but they do not define me. I recognize that even the freedom to say that comes with all of the privilege afforded to me as an able-bodied, white, American man that was raised in New England, given a college-education and have never been without the safety net of supportive parents. I recognize that. I own that. But I’m not defined by that.    I am defined by Christ. Not the small, American Jesus with guns that looks more like Donald Trump than a poor middle-eastern man with dusty clothes. I am defined by Christ—the life force that flows throughout all of Creation and unites all things.    And I am more in love with Jesus than ever before. I am more dependent on the Holy Spirit to speak to me and through me and minister to the parts of my soul that I haven’t yet ventured into yet. And I’m more passionate about the mission of God—the sharing of the Good News to all people—than ever before.    I even love my Bible. Contradictions and all. The primitive stories that seem to paint God as a war-lord, and yes, even the confusing passages that have harmed hundreds of millions of people over the past few thousand years.    There’s beauty there worth preserving and learning from and passing down to future generations.    Here’s where I want to make my statement: I believe that many of the well-meaning teachings, traditions, and beliefs that have been handed down to us from the previous generation of disciples are deeply flawed, and need to be dismantled before we accidentally hand them down to thenextgeneration.    Much progress has been made in the last 50 years in regards to racism within the Church and people are more aware than ever about the need for racial reconciliation. White Americans need to take a back seat and let our brothers and sisters of color to lead the conversation. We might think we’re out of the woods, but we’re not. We’re really just emerging from hundreds of years of slavery, segregation and suppression. It’s going to take a while.    We’ve seen progress here in New England churches in the past 10 years in regards to women in ministry. We’ve got one of Paul’s letters to Timothy, where he was speaking into a very specific context, that we had blanketed across the earth and kept 51% of the world’s population from believing God could use them in leadership in the Church. Men need to take a backseat and let our sisters lead the conversation. We might think we’re out of the woods, but we’re not. God wants women to lead the Church. And men that are afraid of what that might look like need to humble themselves and get out of the way.    We’ve seen progress here at our church in the last 10 months in regards to our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. But just barely. We have 6 passages of the Bible that we began translating with the word “homosexual” in the 1940s that exclude 4.5% of Americans from participating in a church family. The latest Gallup poll found that 4.5% of American adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. That’s more than 11 million U.S. adults. And the increase is largely driven by millennials, 8.2% of whom identify as LGBTQ. Straight, cis-gendered people need to take a backseat and let our LGBTQ friends drive the conversation.    Some of you might see this social acceptance as the CAUSE of the increase, and some will recognize the acceptance as the reason why more and more people are coming out of the dreaded metaphorical closet.    75% of millennials support same-sex marriage. Only 42% percent of people over 65 do. But those folks that are over 65 are the same ones that recognized the dignity of God’s image in their black brothers and sisters and fought for equality over the last 5 decades.    This is the exact same shift that is occurring with women in leadership in the church, and the same one that I predict will happen with the LGBTQ community in the Church.    Like it or not, millennials will soon be in charge of everything… 2019 will mark the year that millennials become the largest population in the country. 73 million millennials, 72 million Boomers. Politics, medicine, education, religious traditions, international affairs, environmental protections, all in the hands of this young, progressive, unafraid, highly educated group of people.    This fact causes some to dig their heels in further to fight for what they believe to be threatened. But some are viewing it as opportunity to read the wind and see where God might be moving in the coming century. The Gospel has seen dozens of tectonic shifts in culture, in medicine and science, in enlightenment, and now in globalization.    I believe in the next generation of the Church is going to be marked by inter-connectedness and inter-dependence. We are more connected to the rest of the world than ever before. We can FaceTime with farmers in Guatemala and communicate with students in Taiwan in the same afternoon.    I believe that we’ll see millennial leaders emerge that care far more about letting people know they’re loved than drawing boundary lines and being committed to the tribalism of our elders.    And I believe this will be a beautiful thing. We’ll find fewer things that divide us and more things that unite us. We’ll recognize that the same deep-rooted desire for stability and security is what drives the young Syrian man to radicalize and die for his faith in Allah, as the young American man willing to fly drones and drop bombs on his brother, for the cause of Christ.    The gospel—the Good News of Jesus Christ—is larger than Christianity itself. How could that possibly make sense? I believe that we’re seeing Christianity and all of its’ structures and by-laws and traditions actually get in the way of the love of Jesus reaching people.    The American Church is now known more by what it is against than what it stands for. And that needs to change. And I believe it will change. It’s already happening in the most post-Christian areas of our country. The Gospel is alive and well… it’s what previous generations understand as “Church” and “Christianity” that are dying.    Jesus is already at work in every culture, in every country, in every corner of the earth… With or without us. God isn’t limited by our limited perspectives or by our small views of Him. The wind is blowing, and we need to decide whether or not to raise our sails and join in with what He’s up to.    I want to state clearly here, as I close this meandering letter, that I believe a necessary shift in our understanding of human sexuality needs to take place. One that still upholds the dignity and sanctity of marriage and commitment, one that still protects young people from promiscuity and trying to find their validation in sex… but one that creates space for the LGBTQ people that are faithful, committed and drawn to the Gospel. To be fully welcomed in, included, affirmed and not given any sort of glass-ceiling in how they might participate or lead within the Church.    The same way that the collective, American Christian mind shifted 100 years ago in our understanding of blacks and the 30+ passages condoning slavery; the same way that our understanding shifted around the 2-3 passages subjugating women under men’s leadership; We will see a re-evaluation of these 6 bible passages that people use to dehumanize half a billion people worldwide that don’t identify as straight, cis-gendered people.    If your parents handed you a set of beliefs about gay people and how wrong they are for trying to find love and partnership and family, then it’s OK to set those beliefs aside and welcome more people into the family of God.    If slightly shifting your understanding of what a few bible passagesCOULD mean unravels your entire faith, then you have way more work to do than you think. And that’s OK… Give yourself grace. We’re all stumbling through the dark by candlelight, trying to live lives of meaning and reconciliation and hope. I’m just begging for a bit more humility with how we approach race, and gender and sexuality.    Maybe we don’t have it all figured out. Maybe the previous generation led us astray. My goodness, think of all the other things we’ve learned in the last 20-30 years that our parents used to do daily. From seat-belts to cigarettes to cheeseburgers to sexual abuse scandals and internment camps.    There’s a chance that their understanding of this newly emerging LGTBQ community might be a bit limited. And that maybe God doesn’t always view change as a bad thing. The story of God’s people, all the way back to the earliest documented cultures, has always been about broadening our understanding more and more and more and more.    The whole narrative arch has been a crescendo… Including more and more people along the way.    I’ve been studying these 6 passages that reference “homosexuality” for the last decade. I have copies of the Bible from the 1880s and the early 1900s, neither of which mention the word. They’d use words like “effeminate” or “fornicators.”    The original greek words used in 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1, “malakoi” and “arsenokoitai” that we began translating as “homosexual” in the 1940s were words used to describe exploitive sexual acts, such as prostitution, or pederastic-type relationships, with older men keeping younger boys as sex slaves. I agree that those sexual activities don’t align with the mission of implementing the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. I’m sure you would too.    There are many resources that I’d recommend as helpful guides through this re-evaluation, one of which is a simple book called “UnClobber” by Colby Martin: Rethinking our misuse of the Bible on Homosexuality.   When it comes to homosexuality in the Bible, after studying these passages extensively, I’m convinced that it is impossible to argue that the Bible condemns homosexuality as an orientation, or that it divinely prohibits two people of the same sex from experiencing a loving, committed, mutually honoring and respecting marriage. In fact, the most a non-affirming Christian could say against people who identify as LGBTQ would be something like this: the Bible condemns gang rape, sexual molestation, religious orgies, prostitution, sex slaves, and exploiting people for sex.    To which we all would say: Amen.    I could be wrong, and that’s OK with me. If, at the end of the day, when I stand before God and He goes back through my life with a fine-tooth comb (which I don’t even believe He’ll do) if He looks at me and says, “John, you were too liberal with your interpretation of the Bible. You were too inclusive. You told too many people I loved them and you welcomed too many people into Church. You aired too much on the side of Grace…” Well, I think I’ll be just fine. Jesus was never known for His rule following. What He was known for was standing up for the marginalized and oppressed and the misunderstood, the under-represented, the outcasts, the “sinners” that didn’t have a seat at the table.    And I’m OK with that.    I love you, thank you for listening, and make it a good day. 

Humans are hard-wired for story. We’re obsessed with the narrative of nearly everything we encounter…    Over the Christmas break we watched Planet Earth 2, which is of course captivating. It’s breath-taking visually, and each scene with different animals and environments has a different story to tell.   We humans can’t just see raw video of a Marine Iguana hatching and then scurrying off away from snakes that want to eat it… No… we need a full orchestra soundtrack, we need a team of writers to write punchy, well-timed phrases, and we need a voice like David Attenborough to tie it all together.    And you know, from watching it, they’re stitching together multiple scenes from different Iguanas running and I’m fine with that… Why? Even though they’re bending reality? For the sake of story. Because it wouldn’t give you a lump in your throat otherwise. Because it wouldn’t make sense and it wouldn’t feel complete without it. Because we wouldn’t understand (air-quotes) in our rational mind why nature means some Iguanas get caught and constricted to death a few seconds after birth, and some escape to safety.    We are obsessed with story. Netflix knows it. And continues to churn out more STORY than any other platform on earth. They know that if they get us hooked into a good story, they can stretch it out over 7 seasons and keep us in their eco-system.    Facebook knows it. They believe they’re helping us tell OUR OWN stories… I remember when they introduced the name “Timeline” instead of just having your Wall… Like they were automatically becoming our scrapbooks and family photo albums without our permission… And here we are, 10 years after I signed up for Facebook, and they’re doing all of that and more. They’re showing us every day where we were 1 year ago, 4 years ago, 10 years ago… What we believed, what clothes we wore, what we thought was funny, who we were close friends with…    It’s amazing. And scary. But also amazing.    Stories are how we learn. They’re how we make sense of the world. They’re how we grow and understand who we are and how we fit into the bigger picture of it all.    We even tell OURSELVES stories, don’t we?    Every morning when we wake up, our narrative mind starts back up with commentary.  “Ugh, that wasn’t a great night’s sleep. Now I’m going to be out-of-it for my big meeting.”  “Ahh… I should’ve done those dishes last night. Already behind… great.”  “K, I’m heading into a new year. I’m going to make those changes. The same changes I said I’d make… last year… and didn’t do. Oh, who am I kidding? I’ll always be this way.”    We tell ourselves stories, about ourselves. All the time. Constantly.    “Yeah, I’m the fat one in the family.”  “No, never went to college. I know, I should’ve, could’ve made more money, blah blah…”  “I’m too picky, I’ll never find someone to marry.”  “I have a business idea but I’ll never have enough money or time to actually do it.”    When you rip those narratives out of our minds and hear them out-loud, they sound ridiculous, right? They’re so UN-helpful, UN-inspiring, discouraging… It’s no wonder we stay stuck in these little cul-de-sacs of life, never breaking out on adventure or risk or actual meaningful change.    Until… we learn to tell ourselves a different story.    Instead of falling into the well-defined paths we typically walk in our narrative mind… What if we wandered? What if we slowed down enough to look around, and we noticed the little, barely visible paths that branch off into twisty, directions that might shake-up what we’re telling ourselves, and ultimately the lives we’re living.    What if instead of continuing the story of: “These are the genetics I was given. I’ll always look this way. People in better shape are just luckier than I am or have more time or more money to go to special gyms or have private chefs prepare them meals…” Rabbit trail; unhelpful.    What if you use that same imagination—that same narrative creativity—but you harnessed it to turn your story around. “You know what? I was born into a tougher situation than most. I had this diagnosis that always told me I wouldn’t amount to anything. But you know what? Today that changes. Today, I take control. Today, I change the script. I get to say who stays and who goes. I’m the main character of this little story and I’m in charge of how this whole thing plays out.”    I read a book years ago called “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” by Donald Miller, subtitle: What I Learned While Editing My Life. One of his earlier books became really popular and some people wanted to turn it into a movie. The only problem was that his earlier book was auto-biographical. It was all about him. So when these writers and producers and directors wanted to translate it to the Big Screen, they wanted to make changes. And if Don wanted to go through with this big project, he had to be OK with that.    They went back through his life with a lens of revisionist history and changed the boring parts, introduced new characters, dramatized some of the big moments, etc.    And one of the biggest take-aways for me from that book was this: If the story you’re living is boring, add an inciting incident.  An inciting incident is a moment that thrusts the protagonist (the main character—you) into the main action of the story.    It’s the moment that you quit the construction job and sign up for the military. It’s the moment that you finally propose to your girlfriend.  It’s the moment you take “BEFORE” pictures and then drive over to the gym to sign-up. It’s the moment you throw away that artifact from your past that would give you a pit in your stomach every time you saw it. It’s the moment you deleted those apps from your phone. It’s the moment you called your crush and left a voicemail asking them out.  It’s the moment you step foot back into a church or community of faith and start asking some of the bigger questions you’ve been running from for years.    If the story you’re living isn’t working; change the story. It’s as simple—and as terribly difficult—as that. If your story is boring, add an inciting incident. Maybe it needs new characters. Maybe the existing characters are boring and predictable and keeping you, the protagonist, stuck. Maybe it’s the environment that needs to change. Maybe you need to leave your hometown where everyone knows you and keeps you stuck in a little rut where you’ve always been.    Now, it would be callous for me to think that everyone on earth is control of their own narratives… Many are not. Many are not able to simply change their environment or who they’re forced to be around. From sex-trafficking to the poorest villages to disable people in under-developed communities… some aren’t able to change their stories.   But chances are, if you’re listening to a podcast like this, you have access to internet and at least access to health care and mobility and transportation and education… IF you want it. And that’s the big if.    This is isn’t necessarily a New Years’ Resolution episode, but it’s not not one. It’s clearly informed by what I’m thinking about going into this new year… Thinking about patterns in my life that could be changed. How I can continue to follow wherever God might want me and never assume it’s the same as it was last year and the year before that.    Sometimes a helpful exercise is simply to identify the things we believe WILL NEVER CHANGE. What, in your life, do you believe will never change? List them out.    K, you’re married. You have kids. You’ll always be a parent. You’re always overlooked at work for the promotion. You’re always late to big events. You never seem to have enough money, and yet you’re always just a bit greedy with everything…    Whatever they are, write them down. Many of them will be good things that you don’t want to change. Those are the big rocks in your river that the rest of life will flow around. You never want to be unmarried. You never want to NOT be a parent.    But the other things. The things that are more neutral and more on the negative side… Take one of those “never” phrases and just imagine flipping it. Take it from NEVER and turn it into ALWAYS. And daydream for a minute.    What if, all of a sudden, you were qualified for that job you’ve wanted?  What if you had to buy new clothes that fit your thinner frame? What if you had more energy and finally started writing that book or taking that class or making new friends or booking that trip…?   I believe that once we’re able to glimpse it; once we allow ourselves to actually see the potential; then we’ll be motivated to make those changes.    I have a sticky note on my desk that says, “People will change when they realize the PAIN OF THE SAME outweighs the PAIN OF CHANGE.”    When we realize what’s at stake… and we realize that things aren’t getting better by just letting things sit there unattended. “People will change when they realize the PAIN OF THE SAME outweighs the PAIN OF CHANGE.”    So, for you… because this is about you… How is your story panning out? Is it a good story? Is it going somewhere? Are you enjoying the narrative and the pace and the dialogue? Or does it need a change…    Does it need a new set of characters? A new setting? An inciting incident thrust upon it that will unavoidably change all of the boring parts?    It goes back to Jesus’ question in John 1:38 — What do you want?    Have the courage to answer that honestly, and then figure out what kind of story will get you there. When JK Rowling started writing Harry Potter on a scrap of paper in 1990, she knew how it would end before she wrote the beginning. She knew how it would all culminate, but she hadn’t yet decided how to start it. So she had to go back to the start and begin telling the story of a nerdy orphan boy that was teased his whole life… and then, the inciting incident… A giant name Hagrid shows up on Harry’s 11th birthday to tell him that he’s a wizard. And the rest of his life is changed forever.    Be encouraged. Be inspired. Don’t settle for the narrative that you’ve been telling yourself all these years. Shake it up. Dream about a better future and then reverse engineer how to get there.    I think you’ll find that a big part of it just has to do with the story you’re telling yourself.   I love you, make it a good day. 

As we get ready for the Christmas experience, I’ve been reading the beginning of Luke… The birth of John the Baptist foretold, Jesus’ birth foretold, Mary pregnant with Jesus visiting Elizabeth pregnant with John…    And I’m struck by how these people, who—over the last 2000 years—have been mythologized, responded to these magnificent spiritual moments and the great responsibilities that followed.    I want to highlight a few phrases for us today…    When Zacharias is told that his wife will become pregnant with a prophet named John… the angel says, “Listen carefully…”    Luke 1:22 “When Zacharias came out from the Temple, he was unable to speak to them. They realized that he had seen a vision… and remained mute.”    Verse 24: “After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant, and for five months she secluded herself completely…”    Verse 28, now with Mary, “The angel said, “Greetings favored one! The lord is with you.” But she was greatly perplexed at what he said, and kept carefully considering what kind of greeting this way…”    Do you notice any theme in these moments? These grandiose spiritual encounters… Moments that would change these people’s lives, and ultimately change the course of history…    Words like: Listen carefully… he remained mute… she secluded herself… she carefully considered…    When was the last time you listened carefully? Remained mute? Secluded yourself? Carefully considered?    For most of us, there’s not room to be patient, quiet, contemplative, being careful… Moving slowly… Deciding slowly… Having space to breathe and reflect and consider what’s in front of us.    Zacharias was so impacted that he knew words would minimize the magnitude of it all… Elizabeth needed solitude to receive the fullness of what was happening this late in life… Mary chose to listen, intently…    This all culminates in the actual birth of Jesus… Where the busyness of a small town and the pace of everyone running around forces a young woman to give birth in a stable surrounded by farm animals…    The Inn, too full for Mary and Joseph, over-capacity, too busy to consider making room, is a perfect metaphor for our lives.    Inundated by notifications, dings and buzzes, emails and likes and comments and news alerts… Every waking minute accounted for. One thing leading to the next… A subconscious fear of open time causing us to fill it all…    In pursuit of productivity, we’ve secretly convinced ourselves to fill every minute with something productive… something that ACHIEVES or makes us smarter or more informed or more prepared for that meeting…    The Inn is too full.    But guess what? Jesus came anyways.    It didn’t deter him… He took whatever space was available. In humility, became the most vulnerable thing on earth, in one of the most unsanitary places, at one of the most inopportune times…    And He continues to do that, doesn’t He?    If our lives don’t have space for Him, He comes anyway.    Those that have the wisdom and discipline to slow down might actually see Him coming… They might actually be ready… Their hearts prepared… The pace and breathing and heart-rate slowed enough to encounter Him…    Zacharias listened carefully… he remained mute… Elizabeth secluded herself… Mary carefully considered…    Each and every day invites us to either add to the noise or to absorb some of it—for ourselves and for others.    We can either heighten the level of activity and chaos and frantic living… Or we can de-escalate. We can pause. We can breathe. We can create space. And we can be prepared for whatever Jesus wants to do in our lives.    I truly believe that Jesus will interrupt our lives whether we’re paying attention or not… but how much better is it to wait and watch, than just fill our minds and hearts and thoughts and emotions with MORE, MORE, MORE…    So… in these last few days leading up to Christmas, I invite you to breathe… to listen carefully… to be silent for a few moments… To seclude yourself, whether its in your car or your basement or a quiet office… and carefully consider what this season means… What it represents… What Jesus might be up to in your life. And how the year ahead can be marked by Immanuel… God with us, in each and every moment of each and every day.    I love you guys, make it a good day.         

If you let any garden grow untended, it’s going to get messy. Maybe you were excited about it at the start… You knew where every row was, every seed planted, which cycles of water and light and how to fertilize “just right.” You knew what to expect, you knew about the potential bugs and diseases these little plants are susceptible to… And then… Over time, it got fuzzy.    The rain washed away the little row markers telling you which row were cucumbers, which were carrots, which type of tomato to expect… And things got messy. Maybe you overwatered these, and under-fertilized there, but... at least you have a garden! You’re doing it. Not everyone has a garden, but you do, and you’re doing a pretty good job.    More time passes, and you realize that you’re a little over your head… Some things start growing, others haven’t even broken ground. Your garden looks more like a compost bin than a garden. Doubt begins to creep in and you feel silly for even wanting to start a garden in the first place. Who are you to start a garden? You think just watching a few YouTube videos and buying all the stuff was enough?    And before you know it… The garden goes unattended. First for a few days, you peek out the window and see that things are still green… it’s been raining regularly. Things will just take their natural course. You secretly resolve to just let the garden be whatever it wants to be. A hands-off gardener. If bugs want to come along, fine. If weeds grow, whatever. You’re sure something good will come of it… but you just really don’t care anymore. You can hear voices from some past-life of your parents telling you you don’t have a green thumb… Or that you’re not careful enough to take care of plants… And you quietly agree with them.   It was a nice idea at first, but you’re not a gardener… Silly imagination. Waste of money. A good idea not followed-through, and more shame to add to the pile.   I want to talk a little bit about paying attention and perseverance. Two things that are wildly difficult; inconvenient, uncomfortable, no “instant gratification,” no real “user’s manuals” to go by… Just diligence, gathering information, and keeping enough oil in the lamp to keep the flame burning.    I don’t know about you, but if I look in my rearview mirror, I’ve got dozens of unfinished ideas… Business ideas, dreams for the church, relationships I had hoped to fix but never could, vain attempts to get rich quick, or to try to be something I’m not… Almost all of these things I’m glad I didn’t pursue… There’s wisdom in letting ideas come and go—I do it all the time—but this isn’t about that.    This is about the thing that you know you need to do. The thing you started because knew it was the right thing to do. The business you’ve been working at and fighting over for the last 10 years… The family you’ve started with someone you love, but you’re starting to see your control slip away. The relationship that you used to care deeply about and now you’re resolved to just let it be whatever it wants to be. It’s too much work. Too frustrating. Too heartbreaking. Too discouraging.    This is about us being dealt little blows, one after another after another… And slowly loosening our grip on our intentions. Slowly letting our standards slip. Slowly forgetting our expectations and settling for less… and in some cases, much less than we had originally intended to.    What is it about the human psyche that retreats after getting beat up a little bit? It makes sense, of course… But it doesn’t really jive with Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” nor does it align with a biblical perspective of life and faith and having God working all things together for our good.    When we begin to “give up”… it feels normal, but it shouldn’t. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it feels common to the human experience { You try something hard for a short time, or sometimes a long time, and then eventually you lose energy, gusto, focus, passion, and you begin to let it slip in quality, in excellence, etc. }    As I referenced earlier, sometimes IT IS TIME to let something go. No question. Sometimes every sign on the dashboard is blinking and it’s clear that whatever your original dream was isn’t going to pan out the way you had hoped… We need to pay attention and sometimes go back to the drawing board. Cut our losses and start again. Sometimes there are things completely outside of our control and we need to take a hint from the universe to try something else.    The multi-tier marketing scheme isn’t panning out. Our commission-based job isn’t paying the bills. That relationship has turned sour and there’s genuinely no hope for it to become healthy again. Sometimes it’s time to stop a thing. Crunch the numbers. Do some soul searching. Make the hard decision.    But sometimes it’s not the universe lining up to tell us something, and sometimes it’s actually US that’s doing the waffling… Everything is there for the taking, but we’re the ones feeling our passion fade, our belief that things can get better, our dreams starting to compromise… Settling… Letting our minds wander to something easier, requiring less sweat, taking less of a toll on us.    I wonder how many dreams go unrealized, not because of God closing doors, but because of us growing wearing from knocking. How many dreams go unfulfilled simply because we give up when things get hard?    First and foremost… Nothing is wasted. And I really believe that. If you spend 10 years in a broken marriage, only to end in divorce and starting over again… There’s a deep pain there, but none of that is wasted. All of that experience shapes your next 10 years; your next relationship; the freedom you feel; the joy of starting afresh; of being true to yourself; out from under the thumb of an abusive husband.    I’ve had to learn lessons the hard way sometimes… At first, early in business, it was a $500 lesson… I was overeager, thought it was a good idea, and wasted $500. I hated that. I felt dumb. But I learned. I learned to ask questions. I learned to investigate. And I became a better leader because of it.   More recently, it was a $67,000 lesson. Earlier this year. Building a business, choosing a model that I thought was wise… And $67,000 in, realizing I needed to change course. It wasn’t sustainable. I learned. I learned that business ideas need to make sense in a spreadsheet long before you’re trying to work it out. I learned to protect profit margins. I learned that a thing doesn’t have to be big and bulky with lots of overhead to be successful.    Nothing is wasted.    If I were to ask you: “What’s a season or relationship or decision you’ve made that you regret?” I’m sure something would come to mind… There’s some thing that didn’t pan out and you wish had never happened. Ok… Now, assuming we can’t rewrite history… What did you learn from it?    Maybe it’s the most embarrassingly simple lesson. Maybe it’s complex and nuanced. But you learned. You reflect, you dissect, you learn, and you bring that with you.    First of all, nothing is wasted. The last thing your soul needs is more shame heaped on it… Be kind to yourself. It’s your first “go” at this life thing. Nothing is wasted.   Second… If your garden is overgrown and you’re ready to give up, bring fresh eyes into the picture. Ask a friend to walk through the garden with you. Ideally someone that knows a bit about gardening, but even that’s not necessary. Just fresh eyes. Someone that hasn’t been beaten up by the thing. Someone that isn’t jaded or discouraged or ready to throw in the towel.    You’ll find that the questions they ask, the spirit they bring with them, the heart they have for you and for your success… That might be all you need. Someone in the trenches with you for a minute. Someone to help pull the weeds, relabel the rows and set up a schedule with you.    Sometimes simply having a different perspective can make all the difference. If you’re having a hard time with your finances, share your finances with a trusted friend. If you’re having a hard time with being in shape, start meeting a friend at the gym for accountability.    No one said you have to grow your garden alone. Call a neighbor over. Humble yourself. Ask for help. No one knows everything. If it’s been a while since your last humiliation (or humbling of yourself)… You’ll find that your soul actually welcomes it. It’s a heavy burden to be right all the time; to always have everything figured out… Drop the facade. Ask for help. Take a breath. You’ll be amazed at how many people are willing to help.    The last point I want to make is very simply: Anything worth doing is worth doing well. If you’re going to half-ass it, it’s not worth it. And if you’re going to do it well, it’s going to take time.    Do fewer things with greater attention to detail. Don’t be a factory of half-assed stuff. Be a craftsman of the few, excellent things you’ve decided to do. No one wants to be a mile wide and an inch deep. A jack of all trades; master of none.    If you want to grow a garden, that’s a noble thing. Do that thing well. And don’t beat yourself when your first garden sucks. It’s your first garden. Maybe next season you’ll set it up differently. You’ll choose different crops. You’ll start earlier. You’ll spend money on the good fertilizer. You’ll quit that other thing that sucked up your free-time so you have more time for this thing.    Maybe it’s time to quit and never do this thing again… Or maybe it’s time to recognize what you’re learning, to invite others around you on your journey, and to recommit to doing this thing well.    I know I plan on it.    I love you guys, make it a good day. 

There’s been a theme in my life recently that I want to share with you guys, my Vertebrae friends… I don’t think it’s unique to me, and I know others have encountered much worse than I have… But part of my promise to you guys in the first episode was that I’d share exactly what’s going on in my life, and that I’d share what I’m learning, as I’m learning it. Also, that I’d never post anything if I wasn’t inspired and just filling your podcast feed with empty ideas… That’s why I haven’t posted in a week or so. Haven’t had anything to share!   But now, I do.    Over the past few weeks, I’ve encountered a good deal of criticism. Nothing that really matters, mind you. Not criticism in work, or family, or at church, or in friendship… but mostly criticism online. Folks a thousand miles away throwing stones.   People on Facebook or Instagram that disagree with an idea I have, or a belief I hold, or a piece of advice I’ve found helpful. And it’s hard to ignore, especially when people slide in the DMs and start blowing me up.    There’s a weird physiological response I have when someone start hijacking a post I’ve made or a picture I’ve posted. My heart starts pounding, quite literally, and I feel this visceral anger… I don’t think there’s any other way to describe it. It’s like when Kanye interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech. I don’t get angry… You can ask anyone in my life. Anger isn’t something that I experience that often…. But when someone tries to hijack the platform I’ve built in people’s lives with conflicting ideas, or insulting other people on the thread… It’s personal. I know it shouldn’t be, but this is 2018, and the relationships I’ve cultivated online with people from different backgrounds are valuable to me.    The fact that I have conservative fundamentalist Christians and transexual pastors in the same place… Or cut-throat entrepreneurs and Trump supporters and progressive theologians from Australia all seeing my posts and commenting on them.    It’s a lot. I recognize that. But that’s a role I want to play. At least I think I do. Most days. Some days.    But whatever it is… This is a thought that I think applies to criticism across the board. If you’re a full-time mom and you catch little comments from other moms about parenting decisions you make… if you’re a student and you have other students or professors critiquing your work… If you’re a pastor and you believe you have a God-given dream to help grow and change your community, and long-time Christians light their hair on fire…    Winston Churchill has a great quote… He said, “Oh, you have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”    Here’s the point of this podcast: If you’re going to listen to criticism, and I think you should,make sure you listen to the right critics.    Pretty much anyone with a keyboard can throw shade nowadays, and they’re typically equally weighted with all the encouragement.    You have no idea what sort of day someone is having, when they see or hear about what you’re doing, or how self-righteous they happen to feel at any particular moment… I don’t necessarily care WHY people criticize; that’s up to them and how they want to spend their precious time. It doesn’t take much to elicit criticism. If you walk across the parking lot the wrong way, someone’s going to be judging you from afar. This podcast isn’t even for those that do the critiquing, necessarily. This is about when it’s directed towards you.    If you’re going to listen to criticism, and I think you should,make sure you listen to the right critics.   The right critics. This is how I determine whether someone is the right critic to listen to. I look at their lives, and I ask myself if I want my life to look MORE like theirs, or less like theirs.    If I want my life to look more like theirs someday, in some way, I listen. I appreciate it. I receive it and wrestle with it and often times it helps me grow. I change my mind. I transcend and include. My perspective broadens. My picture of God gets larger. It’s iron sharpening iron. It’s good, and I think quite often God is behind it. I’m grateful for those people in my life.    The other crowd, the people that I’d like my life to look LESS like, I don’t give the same platform.    If it’s online, I’ll click through to their profile and see a few recent posts, look at a few pictures of how they spend their time, live their lives, how they treat others… And it’s pretty easy to discern. I think that’s a gift of identifying as an Enneagram 3… I can read people in an instant. I can see their motives, I can see through flowery words or posturing…    If that’s used as a weapon, of course, it’s not healthy. But if it helps me understand where they’re coming from, what background, what set of beliefs, etc… I can discern whether their critique holds weight or not.    Father Richard Rohr has said, "The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.” And there’s so much there to unpack, I’m definitely going to do an entire episode on that, but for this topic, it’s really helpful.    If someone is critiquing something you’re doing, look at their lives. Observe how they’re spending their one, precious life, and then decide if they actually have authority in that area of life or not.    If they don’t have kids, you probably don’t want to take parenting advice from them. If their finances are a mess, you probably don’t want to take investing advice from them. If their view of God makes them small-minded and judgmental and scared of other faiths, you probably don’t want to sit at their feet and learn from them about that said “God.”    If the person is completely anonymous, don’t even read it. It’s not worth the mental gymnastics trying to figure out context and what certain phrases might mean. To understand anything, we need to understand context.    Con-text, “con-textus” in latin, literally meaning “to weave together,” the circumstances, the setting for a statement or idea in which it can be FULLY understood and assessed.    We need context for everything to make sense. And we need critics… Don’t hear me wrong. We need people to hold us accountable, to be our guard rails when we need them, to encourage us towards truth when we’re dabbling with half-truths…    Proverbs 27 says “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” That’s beautiful, and I’m so grateful for the irons in my life that keep me sharp.   I guess my advice is simply to choose those irons carefully. The proof is in how they live their lives. If they’re admirable, then listen. If they love others better than you, listen. If they handle conflict better than you, listen. If they handle money better than you, listen. If their life is full of beauty and wonder and their kids love them, listen. That’s relationship at its best.    But if they’re a troll throwing stones, don’t listen.    This quote by Fulton Sheen, I love. “Criticism of others is thus an oblique form of self-commendation. We think we make the picture hang straight on our wall by telling our neighbors that all his pictures are crooked.”   In a word of jockeying and posturing, critiquing others is the easiest way of falsely elevating ourselves. Like if everyone’s drowning, you climb on top of someone else to feel better about yourself. You’re not actually lifting out of the water, you’re just pushing someone else down further.    Jesus’ words are appropriate here, for any of us that feel prompted to offer to critic in the coming days…   Matthew 7:3-5 “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye[a] when you have a log in your own? 4 How can you think of saying to your friend,[b] ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.”    If you’re going to offer a word of advice, be sure you’ve done your own work first. And then, and only then, ask permission of the person you’re wanting to help correct. If you don’t have their permission to speak into their lives, it’s not going to go well. That’s what my last few weeks has been full of. People assuming they have a platform to speak into my life, when in reality, they don’t.    Whenever I feel prompted to offer advice or comment a contrasting idea to the original post, or critique someone’s theology, or tell someone how to handle their money… I’m doing a lot of work prior to make sure I even have the right to speak into their lives. Quite often I’ll actually ask their permission, “Hey, can I share a different idea with you?”    Because, if you’re honest, you don’t want to offering your pearls before swine anyways. You don’t want to waste your time handing gems to a toddler.    The truth is, is that discouragement is always a click away. If you go looking for it, you’re going to find it. Whether it’s a personal attack or it’s just comparing what you’re doing to someone or something else… You can find something that will take the wind out of your sails in 10 seconds flat. And knowing that, you have to be wise with yourself. You have to guard your heart. You need to know that the internet can be an ugly, dangerous place, full of ugly, dangerous people, with ugly, dangerous ideas. Not always, but can be.    And the same is true for the playground and the church and family gatherings.    So today… Make yourself a promise that you won’t listen to the wrong critics, and that you WILL listen to the right critics. If you want something they have, at some point in your life, if they’ve got something going right, listen to them in that area of their lives.    I have friends that have quite literally a million times more money that I do… I listen to them about money, but not necessarily how to have healthy relationships or spiritual practices. I have friends that have no money but have an intimate, expansive relationship with God. I listen to them about spiritual practices and intimacy, but probably not how to handle my money.    And that’s fine. That’s good. That’s beautiful. That’s the point of it all.    Listen to the right critics. Be challenged, grow, and become more and more the person you dream of being someday.    I love you guys, make it a good day. 

Information doesn’t equal transformation. Here’s the reality: We’ve become fat on information. Intellectually obese. We know more about the world and business practices and education techniques and parenting and health care and politics than any previous generation. If we genuinely have a intriguing question that we don’t know, we Google it. And when was the last time you Googled something and DIDN’T find what you were looking for? It’s rare. I very rarely stump Google. And if I do, it’s typically because I don’t know how to ask the right question. It’s all there. At our fingertips. Training, education, information, tips and techniques from the best of the best. In our lifetimes, we’ll probably see colleges and universities dissolve how we currently understand them. Young people will still need these vision-quest type of experiences where they leave their parent’s nest to discover themselves… That formative time will still be needed, but the Gen. Ed. classes and liberal arts majors, and even the niches and specialties will take new shape. More hands-on training from a young age, lines will be blurred between high school and college. If anything has become clear to our generation, those that have navigated the advent of this Information Age, it’s that knowing MORE doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll unlock what we’re wanting to unlock… If that were going to work for us, it would’ve worked already. Maybe we know enough already, and it’s time to start practicing. Just like a body builder just eating clean and lots of protein doesn’t do anything, unless they’re actually exercising… Practicing… Tearing their muscles and letting them heal to be larger, stronger, more defined… The consumption is important, but it’s just one part of the equation. In the same way, consuming new information is helpful to inspire and educate and inform… But we need to implement. We need to exercise. We need to bring it into the real world and see how it functions, off the page and in reality. We know clinically, in America, that anxiety and depression are on the rise. And we can attribute that to a lot of the things in our culture like immediacy (needing things to download, stream, ship immediately), comparison (seeing everyone else’s highlight reels while we’re living our “behind the scenes), exposure (seeing all the beauty in the world, and also all of the horror in the world, at all times, 24 hour news cycles…) Previous generations got the news at one point in the day, and then they’d have 23 hours to process, internalize, digest, and cope. Now, if we have our phones near us, we’re inundated with terrible news all day, every day. Is it any wonder our teenagers are crippled with anxiety and depression. This is the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is us not being hardwired to handle ALL the good and ALL the evil at once. Too overwhelmed, too exposed, too brittle and handle it all. So, back to our information and transformation. If you’re anything like me, you’re constantly consuming new ideas. I can’t get enough of them. Somedays, when I’m properly caffeinated, I’ll be reading a book, then search the author on YouTube, then watch their TED talk on a different topic from the original book, then be down a new rabbit trail… It’s the blessing and the curse of having all this information at my fingertips. If you’re recognizing that you DO have dreams to start something new, or different, or change trajectory, but can’t seem to crack it, I’m going to suggest something I’ll call an "Information fast.” You already know enough to start. You know your first 3 steps. Reading ahead to chapter 10, 11, 12 isn’t helpful right now. We need to focus our energy and attention to what’s right in front of us. And practice walking these first 3 steps. I remember teaching friends to skateboard and everyone wants to learn to kick flip before they can properly ride down the street. They were drawn to skateboarding for the kick flips, but hadn’t yet fallen in love with riding itself. Here’s a question: Would be begin skateboarding if you knew you’d never kick flip? Maybe kick flips aren’t in your future, and that’s OK, but will you let that ruin the fun of actually riding your skateboard around a nice concrete skatepark? Chances are, yes. If you’re anything like me, we lust over the later chapters and try to skim read the introduction… We want the arrival, the destination, the success, without the development of foundational skills. So what does an Information Fast look like? I have no idea. But it might look like committing to ONE book, and actually implementing some of its advice along the way. Focus your energy towards ONE resource, and don’t just consume the information, implement it. Practice. Stretch yourself. Give yourself a month to learn to ride the bike. Fall, scrape your knees, bruise your shins, and then (and only then)… Turn the page to what’s next. Maybe I’m the only one, but I doubt it. I bet there’s something you’ve wanted to do for a long time… Starting that side hustle, pursuing that dream of woodworking, being a better friend, getting in better shape… There’s a point in which the mountain of information actually becomes intimidating, and the more we try to consume, the less likely we are to actually try. Like kids learning a second language at a young age. Yes, their brains are more open to learning language at that point, but there’s something to be said for the fact that they don’t know how MASSIVE an undertaking it is to learn a second language. They don’t know what they don’t know… So they just start. And learn a few words. And they allow themselves to internalize them, because they’re not daunted by the entire Dictionary of Mandarin that I’d be consumed by. Again, more information doesn’t promise more transformation. Just like more work doesn’t always mean more money, and more money doesn’t always mean more happiness and satisfaction… There’s a point of diminishing return. With everything. And I’m interested in finding the middle paths… Maximizing the joy quotient, and satisfaction, and PROFIT (don’t get me wrong, I still run a business)… But not at the expense of being run ragged. Or confused. We need to put our own governors on what we consume, because no one else is going to do it for us. Media companies want nothing more than to suck you into Netflix series and buying single-use products and subscribing to monthly deliveries, and keeping you exactly where you are, on the couch. If no one’s going to put the brakes on for us, we need to develop discipline to guard our hearts and minds, and ears and eyes. There have been times when I’ve woken up and looked at Facebook and the first thing I see, 5 minutes after waking up, is a video of a someone being shot… A police shooting or news from overseas or a school shooting… We’re not designed to be able to handle that stuff, hardly ever, let alone when we’re vulnerable and unguarded. We already know Facebook isn’t looking out for us like we wish it would, so we can’t rely on it. We need discipline to step away from it. To put the books down. To pause the TED talks. To turn off the talk radio or podcast we’re listening to, and actually begin implementing some of it. Because if don’t, we’ll find ourselves at the end of our lives with a hell of a lot of knowledge and little to no wisdom. With all the information in the world, but no experiences to look back on and reminisce. What is it that you’ve always wanted to do? What dream of yours has the pace of life has been putting on the back burner for the last few months, years, decades? What hobby have you been researching for years but haven’t taken the plunge? Maybe there’s an intro class you can sign up for. Maybe there’s an entry-level product you can buy and start playing around with. Maybe there’s a group in town that gets together once a week to practice this exact thing. You already know enough to get started… So get started. And make it a good day.

Grace is unfair. Have you ever been surprised by grace? Have you ever been in a tough spot, where you believed you knew what was coming… Maybe sitting in the principal's office, or opening a letter from the IRS, or answering a phone call from foreboding phone number. You thought you knew what was coming… You were going to get what you deserve. You’re finally caught. You’re anxious, sweaty palms, eyes dilated… And then… Surprise! * The Principal decides to give you another chance. * The IRS is issuing you a refund. * The doctor was just calling to reschedule your appointment because it’s no longer a pressing concern. Ahh… Deep breath. What a relief. And not only that, a fresh lease on life. A new outlook. Wind in your sails. Surprised by grace. I’m not sure exactly how to define “grace.” I’m not looking for a churchy definition. I’m talking us sitting in a coffee shop talking about life and you ask, “What is grace?” How would I answer that…? I might answer it as “receiving what we haven’t earned.” Or “receiving beyond what we deserve.” Grace is above and beyond. Grace not only surprises us; it blesses us. We walk away changed, not only from the gifts we’re holding in our hands, but also shocked by the compassion shown to us. When I was arrested, 14 years ago, for possession of marijuana, [ JOHN ARREST.jpg ] I remember being at the police station. It was a Friday or Saturday, and the police officer said, “Ok, we’ll see you on Monday at such-and-such court house.” And I was like, “Oh, no.. I can’t make that. Sorry, I’ll be at school.” And he was like… “Mr. Emery, you’ve been arrested. This isn’t optional. We’ll see you on Monday.” And that’s honestly when it hit me. “Oooo… This is serious. I could get in serious trouble.” People have served jail time for less than this. The weight of the situation settled onto my shoulders. * The funny thing is that now I’m good friends with one of the Lieutenants, so I messaged him on Facebook and asked him to run this. The most important part of this slide is that END OF APPEARANCES thing. When Monday came around, I walked in alongside this rough-and-tumble kind of guy. He caught my attention, because he looked like he was supposed to be at the court house. I didn’t. He looked like a criminal. I didn’t. But we both had these charges against us. And low and behold, his name was called right before mine. I watched him walk up to the stand, make his case (it was domestic abuse), and the Judge wasn’t having it. He sentenced him to 30 days in prison, they came up to him right then, put him in cuffs and walked him back through a separate door than we walked in through. This, as you can imagine, was not a good sign. I had just walked in off the streets with this guy… he was “free” 15 minutes ago, and now he’s in jail. So then it’s my turn. And I walk up with my rent-a-lawyer, he pleads my case, the Judge rules it a CWOF, “continuance without a finding,” which results in 6 months probation, and I get to walk out with my parents and go home. No guilty plea, no conviction, nothing I have to write onto applications for work... Not only that, but when we went to the Clerk to pay for everything, they let us know that we could pay for my 6-months probation monthly, and have to come back every month for drug testing and meeting with my probation officer, or we could pay the 6 months up front and never see them again. No probation officer, no drug testing, no nothing… If you had the means to pay whatever it was, $500-600, they call it a day and you’re free. So that’s what we did. (Can anyone say ‘privilege'?) Grace is unfair. It started out really bad… So bad that after that guy in front of me I thought I was going to jail. Then I was surprised by the CWOF ruling, then surprised again by paying up-front and essentially walking out scott-free. I can honestly say that I didn’t get what I deserved that day. I deserved less. I deserved punishment. But instead, grace. And, simply because my parents happened to have enough money—this privilege that some don’t have—my slate was wiped clean. Beyond what I deserved… Receiving a gift that I hadn’t earned. Grace is unfair. There are times that you get a gift, but secretly you feel like you deserve it? Any Millennials in here? Grown-ups call it entitlement… Whatever that means. * Weddings, birthdays, Thank You cards… * Gifts might surprise us, but then after we sort of feel like we earned it anyways. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Ellen Show giveaways type of surprise. There’s a moment in David’s life that I want to look at today… One in which he’s not the recipient of grace as much as he’s the participant in distributing grace. I’m going to share a story 1 Samuel 30 (that I’m pretty sure you’re unfamiliar with), and then draw parallels to a teaching of Jesus, and then we’re going to see where we find ourselves in the middle of these stories… Ok? 1 Samuel 30 NLT 1 Three days later, when David and his men arrived home at their town of Ziklag, they found that the Amalekites had made a raid into the Negev and Ziklag; they had crushed Ziklag and burned it to the ground. 2 They had carried off the women and children and everyone else but without killing anyone. 3 When David and his men saw the ruins and realized what had happened to their families, 4 they wept until they could weep no more. 5 David’s two wives, Ahinoam from Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal from Carmel, were among those captured. The story starts with David and his men returning home… They’ve been sleeping on the cold ground, missing their wives and children, ready to reconnect with everyone, rest, rejuvenate… But instead, they find their wives and children missing and their homes burned to the ground. Scripture is clear to say that they women and children were safe, but there’s no way these men would’ve known that. They just see destruction, and their imaginations run wild with the worst of scenarios… Imagine. That would be devastating. This is FEAR-BASED IMAGINATION, that Kelly taught on last week. I can’t imagine the grief that these men were experiencing. Going off to war is psychologically devastating enough, but home is supposed to be HOME… And you’re supposed to be allowed to RETURN HOME and have it be exactly how you left it… But not for these guys. 6 David was now in great danger because all his men were very bitter about losing their sons and daughters, and they began to talk of stoning him. But David found strength in the Lord his God. And you see what the grief does to these men. Immediately (v. 6) the men place the blame on David, the guy who led them off to battle in the first place. It’s the worst part of our human nature that immediately needs to blame someone for the wickedness and evil in the world… So they blamed David. That was their plan. David’s men made a plan from their place of PAIN. Their grief clouded their judgment and they thought the best thing to do was to kill their leader. (Maybe not a great idea) But David didn’t let his pain get the best of him. He grieved, but in his grief he turned to the Lord. He didn’t make a plan from a place of PAIN, he made a plan from a place of PRAYER. 8 Then David asked the Lord, “Should I chase after this band of raiders? Will I catch them?” And the Lord told him, “Yes, go after them. You will surely recover everything that was taken from you!” 9 So David and his 600 men set out, and they came to the brook Besor. He didn’t know how it would all come together, but felt in his spirit that God said to go after them, and that they could recover their families from their enemies. A glimmer of hope. David believed that these women and children were still alive and that it was worth pursuing the Amalekites to get them back… Do you ever have those little moments of prayer that actually shift something around inside of you? God puts some thought on your heart and that spark is slowly fanned into flame and all of a sudden you have this indescribable HOPE in the face of disaster? (((Yeah, me neither… ))) Of course you’ve experienced that! While David’s men are busy listening to grief, David is busy listening to God. So David and his 600 men set out. And they come to Brook Besor, a river/brook that was probably 30-40 miles from Ziklag. 30 miles walking isn’t a short trip, especially when you’ve just returned from battle and you’re grief-stricken, not knowing where your families are, if they’re safe, if they’re even alive. 9 So David and his 600 men set out, and they came to the brook Besor. 10 But 200 of the men were too exhausted to cross the brook, so David continued the pursuit with 400 men. When they get to the brook, a third of the men give up. (1/3 of the worship area) 200 of the 600 men are too exhausted to continue on. And again, at this point, I can’t blame them. They have no idea where these Amalekites are, they’re basically hiking on a whim from David’s time of prayer, hoping they’ll come across a sign. 11 Along the way they found an Egyptian man in a field and brought him to David. They gave him some bread to eat and water to drink. 12 They also gave him part of a fig cake and two clusters of raisins, for he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for three days and nights. Before long his strength returned. 13 “To whom do you belong, and where do you come from?” David asked him. “I am an Egyptian—the slave of an Amalekite,” he replied. “My master abandoned me three days ago because I was sick. 14 We were on our way back from raiding the Kerethites in the Negev, the territory of Judah, and the land of Caleb, and we had just burned Ziklag.” 15 “Will you lead me to this band of raiders?” David asked. The young man replied, “If you take an oath in God’s name that you will not kill me or give me back to my master, then I will guide you to them.” And then, like only God does, there’s a sign. Something completely outside of David’s control that changes the rest of the story. A reminder that we can work as hard as we’d like in our power, but sometimes all it takes is for God to put one person in our path and it unlocks everything. So here’s God’s big gift to David: A half-dead Egyptian. And it’s interesting that this guy's an Egyptian, isn’t it? David and his men would’ve been well-acquainted with Egyptians, because their ancestors were slaves to them! And now here’s an Egyptian, and he’s a slave of the Amalekites. There’s so much going on here… These stories are endlessly inspiring. God always seems to choose the least-likely people to be the heroes of the story. Without this Egyptian, it’s very unlikely that David would find these Amalekites. David chooses to rehabilitate the Egyptian, and makes a deal with him that he won’t return him to the Amalekites, or kill him after they get what they want. He agrees, and the Egyptian leads David and his men right to them. 16 So he led David to them, and they found the Amalekites spread out across the fields, eating and drinking and dancing with joy because of the vast amount of plunder they had taken from the Philistines and the land of Judah. 17 David and his men rushed in among them and slaughtered them throughout that night and the entire next day until evening. None of the Amalekites escaped except 400 young men who fled on camels. 18 David got back everything the Amalekites had taken, and he rescued his two wives. 19 Nothing was missing: small or great, son or daughter, nor anything else that had been taken. David brought everything back. 20 He also recovered all the flocks and herds, and his men drove them ahead of the other livestock. “This plunder belongs to David!” they said. This next part of the story—honestly—I have mixed feelings about. Part of me loves the vengeance. It’s the epic battle part of the story… If it were depicted in the movies it would be in slow-motion and David’s men would all have 6-pack abs and they’d be spinning and stabbing and getting back their wives and children… It works. Part of it feels good. Justice. All the bad guys die and the good guys win. But… if we believe in a Creator God that loves all of His creation, we have to believe that God didn’t rejoice at this slaughter. These Amalekites, wicked as they were, each held within them a piece of God… They were made in God’s image too… They had wives and children and parents that were proud of them, and hopes and dreams… This is where nuance in how we read our Bibles is important, because God didn’t tell David to kill everyone. He told David to “overtake them” … v.8 “Yes, go after them. You will surely recover everything that was taken from you!” In the ESV translation it says that God said, “Pursue, for you shall surely overtake and shall surely rescue.” That word “overtake” doesn’t mean slaughter. It doesn’t mean to slaughter them throughout the night, murder, stab, behead, burn to the ground or anything like it. That Hebrew word, “Nuh-sag” means to “reach, obtain, get, hold…” But for David, that meant slaughter… Mass murder. Like if someone said, “Go get them!” And you’ve got all this adrenaline and grief and anger swirling inside you, and you’re like, “Oh, I’ll get them! You better believe it!” And I understand that 3,000 years ago, we were far more barbaric than even today and the likelihood of David and the Amalekite king sitting down and talking things out isn’t likely, but we need to see where God’s promises END and where our own sinfulness and desire for revenge BEGINS… Personally, I think God’s heart broke when David’s men slaughtered the Amalekites, because God can see the dignity and beauty inside all of His Creation. He knew those men (and boys) better than anyone. He knew their hopes and dreams and that some of them didn’t really want to be there but they felt social pressure to be soldiers and that some of them had been abused and corrupted into being soldiers at far too young an age… I’m not trying to be all Hippie about this, but this is important to how we understand some of the violence in the Old Testament. Just because someone DOES something in the Bible doesn’t mean that God’s full blessing is on it. It just means that it actually, historically, happened. And that people wanted to preserve that story for some larger reason. If David had entered that Amalekite camp with a different approach, maybe God would’ve made good on His promise without all the violence, bloodshed, loss of life… We’ll never know. God promised that David would “overtake” the Amalekites, and he did… but the way he went about it doesn’t necessarily reflect God’s heart for humanity. K, back to the story. David and his 400 men, “overtake” the Amalekites, killing everyone, except for a few lucky guys that escaped on camelback. Here’s where to story gets interesting. Up to this point it’s a relatively predictable battle narrative. “You took something of ours, we’ll kill you to get it back.” … not that interesting. This next section is the whole reason we chose this passage to talk about. This is what makes it amazing… 21 Then David returned to the brook Besor and met up with the 200 men who had been left behind because they were too exhausted to go with him. They went out to meet David and his men, and David greeted them joyfully. David returns back to Brook Besor with all of the women and children, as well as a bunch of new riches. The men that were too exhausted to continue on greet them and everyone is celebrating… What was lost is now found. Those that were dead are now alive. All is right in the world. Imagine those reunions… And while the women and children are unharmed, they’ve witnessed terrible things over the last few weeks… You can imagine that these women were not well-respected and all of the terrible things that were done to them. But they’re home. These families are back together. People collapse together on the ground, rejoicing at this reunion. 22 But some evil troublemakers among David’s men said, “They didn’t go with us, so they can’t have any of the plunder we recovered. Give them their wives and children, and tell them to be gone.” But immediately greed enters the picture. An “us vs. them” erupts in the camp. And… guess what… Entitlement shows up on the scene. “THIS IS UNFAIR!” The men that battled don’t want to share any of the riches with the men that stayed behind. They feel like they earned it. It wasn’t grace for them. It was transactional. And they weren’t about to share it with these lazy jerks that stayed back at Brook Besor. 1 SAMUEL 30:23 But David said, “No, my brothers! Don’t be selfish with what the Lord has given us. He has kept us safe and helped us defeat the band of raiders that attacked us. 24 Who will listen when you talk like this? We share and share alike—those who go to battle and those who guard the equipment.” 25 From then on David made this a decree and regulation for Israel, and it is still followed today. David shares everything they received with the brave and the cowards alike; with the strong and the weak; with the powerful and the exhausted; with those on the front lines and those that stayed home. Because… Grace is unfair. This is a story where David’s men are focused on David. They’re whole world revolves around him. He’s their leader. When something goes wrong? Blame David. When things go well! “This plunder belongs to David!” You can see how quickly his men are jerked around by their emotions, and how their earthly focus affects that. If all we’re focusing is ONLY what’s directly in front of us, we’ll be victims of our circumstances. If things directly in front of you are going well, life is good. If it’s not, it’s not. David’s men are focused on David. David is focused on God. And you can see how that affects their decision making. His men wanted what was “fair” … David wanted to be gracious. Which is inherently unfair. Reminds me of one of Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 20 NLT Jesus tells this parable of a landowner that’s hiring day laborers to help him work his vineyard. He basically hires folks, telling them he’ll pay a day’s wage, they agree and he puts them to work. He does this throughout the day. At 9am, at noon, at 3pm, at 5pm (right before the end of the day.) Then he lines them up to pay at the end of the day… And, shockingly, he pays them all the same wage. $50, $50, $50, $50… MATTHEW 20:10 When those hired first came to get their pay, they assumed they would receive more. But they, too, were paid a day’s wage. 11 When they received their pay, they protested to the owner, 12 ‘Those people worked only one hour, and yet you’ve paid them just as much as you paid us who worked all day in the scorching heat.’ 13 “He answered one of them, ‘Friend, I haven’t been unfair! Didn’t you agree to work all day for the usual wage? 14 Take your money and go. I wanted to pay this last worker the same as you. 15 Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be jealous because I am kind to others?’ 16 “So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last.” v8: “beginning with the last, up to the first” — Jesus could’ve told the story with the first hired being paid first, and it would’ve likely avoided the difficulty of the interaction. But He doesn’t do that. He wants the earlier hires to see the denarius handed to every person up to them. It seems Jesus was interested in teaching a lesson about entitlement as well… Whenever God’s grace is received with an entitled heart, it turns into poison. How many times have we seen God’s gifts perverted, abused, taken advantage of, ignored… But when we receive God’s grace to us with open hands… That’s where the magic is. That’s when we begin to live with gratitude. That’s when WONDER and JOY find us again. That’s when grace is grace… That’s when grace can actually surprise us… When Grace is unfair. All of this, of course, leaning forward towards Jesus being arrested and executed. And in that public execution, Jesus, with all of the power in all of Creation at His disposal, chose instead to break the cycle of sin and death, and instead blessed those that were killing Him. LUKE 23:34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” Grace is unfair. You know what “fair” would’ve been when Jesus was being executed? All those Roman soldiers drop dead, Pontius Pilate too, maybe Barabbas, certainly the Apostle Peter after denying even knowing Jesus to save his own tail… I don’t know about you but I’m so grateful that God’s idea of justice is different than ours. Justice is getting what you deserve. Grace is getting what you don’t deserve. God is unfair with how He works in our lives. Some of us have a transactional view of our relationship with God. “If I do this, then you do this. If I give this, then I get this. A + B = C, every time.” But if you’ve been a follower of Jesus for more than a few years, you know that this isn’t how it works. Sometimes my wife and I will give thousands of dollars to a cause close to God’s heart, and guess what… That money doesn’t show back up. Or maybe it’s “doing the right thing.” And you think doing the right thing will feel good. But it doesn’t. In fact, most often there’s a cost to doing the right thing. God has no interest in keeping a transactional relationship with us. You know why? We’d owe Him a heck of a lot. God, in His grace, dismantled that transactional faith on the Cross. God, in His grace, showed us grace. And that’s how we interact with Him to this very day. Grace is unfair. And it’s not in our best interest to try to mess with it.

Tour Guides & Travel Agents.   Quick episode today with a leadership principle. Maybe you don’t feel like a leader, or hold a specific position of leadership in any organization, but this applies across the board… For any grown human that has relationship with those around them.   If you ever influence people around you to help them make decisions, or recommend things, or “lead by example” with how you live your life.    Tour Guides & Travel Agents.   Which very simply means you’re either a tour guide, walking with someone through the experience, showing them the way, bringing them somewhere you’ve already been, and helping them get the most out of the experience.    Or, you’re a travel agent: Sending people somewhere you’ve never been yourself, regurgitating what others have said, or whatever Rick Steves says…    Tour Guides & Travel Agents.   Now, of course this isn’t literally about travel. This is about leadership. Bringing people somewhere. Introducing a new idea. Giving advice. Wise counsel.    Maybe around relationships, or career, or spiritual guidance…    People want to know whether the wisdom they’re getting from you is first-hand, or if it’s something you read on the internet, or just something you heard on a podcast or a late-night show.    Trust me, I’m all for sharing things I’ve just heard, from any and all types of media, but there’s a difference when something is really important. When it’s shifting something in someone’s life. When it’s serious. When it really matters.    Will you be a tour-guide type of friend? Or will you be a travel agent, recommending something you’ve never actually experienced?    In spiritual leadership, it’s really easy to get sucked into Travel Agent activity… Recommending books you’ve never read, or spiritual practices you’ve never personally practiced. You’re essentially sending people into uncharted territory… Or at least territory that you yourself haven’t walked.    And people pick up on it. They know—maybe not at first—but certainly once they get into it. They know that you’ve recommended something that you don’t actually know much about.    Now I’m not saying that I never recommend something I haven’t tried or seen first-hand or experienced myself, but I know that I want to be a tour-guide, on the trail with them, experiencing it together along the way…    Not just sending, hands off, transactional type of thing.    When i’m leading worship, I want to be a tour guide, not a travel agent. I want to have ALREADY BEEN where I’m inviting people to go. And of course, it’s different for me every time, but I’m not inviting people into a spiritual landscape that I’ve never experienced.    I know what it’s like to get lost in this song, and I know what to look for over the next ridge. At least enough to lead others through it.    There are countless historical figures that were either tour-guide-type of leaders, that would lead from the FRONT of the army, or travel agents that would send their men out into unknown battles on their own.    It’s a simple encouragement. And simple to recognize.    Keep your eyes open today. Watch the leaders around you. Watch our political leaders. Watch for the opportunities that come your way to either be a tour-guide or a travel agent. And really resist the urge, and the ego-fanning, that you get from pretending to be someone you’re not.    If you want to have authority in your leadership, do some of the legwork of traveling on your own, or sitting under another experienced tour guide, before ever launching out leading an expedition of your own.    And if it’s unavoidable, because maybe it’s truly uncharted waters but you’re leading people through it, tell them that. Tell them where your past experience ends and where your current experience begins. They’ll respect you. They’ll have grace for you. They’ll follow a bit closer to you.   All of this ego stuff that makes us feel good for the 10 seconds we’re saying it, really doesn’t have a good shelf life. Puffing ourselves up and acting bigger or better or smarter or more attractive or more accomplished than we really are feels good for 10 seconds, but then we have to try to navigate that falsehood… Lie our way out of it. Or fake our way through it. And who knows how much collateral damage there could be then.    So that’s it. Tour guides and travel agents.    Be the real thing. Be present with your people. Walk with them, wherever they’re at.    I love you guys, make it a good day.  

Here lies a woman that loved her phone more than her friends. We are gathered here to celebrate a man that focused more on providing for his family than he did actually enjoying his family.  She was a daughter, sister, friend that always seemed to find the worst in life and obsess over it.  He was known for sparking political debates on Facebook threads.  She had thousands of followers that admired her, but no friends that truly knew her.  Here lies a man that never felt good enough, and his life passed him by before he knew it.    It’s a simple question but a complex answer: What do you want said of you at your funeral?    People get all tangled up thinking about their lives… Too tangled, I believe. And I’m right there with you. I’m just as guilty of getting into feedback loops wondering if what I’m doing matters, or where I should be investing my time and energy and money… Certain questions are helpful for finding clarity and honing in on doing what we were made to do… Other questions are unhelpful for doing that. Some questions that culture poses to us, or that we see on hype-Instagram accounts or all these “hustler-entrepreneurs”…    I still remember an ARMY commercial when I was a kid that showed all these badass military guys jumping out of planes, scaling walls, working together as a team… Then it ended with this gruff voice saying, “If someone  wrote a book about your life, would anyone want to read it?”    And that’s a compelling question. It’s inspiring… But it’s also super intimidating. If the answer is NO… then that’s a lot of pressure to turn your life around and all-of-a-sudden be jumping out of planes.    A question that I’ve admittedly asked myself a lot over the last 10 years… Sometimes in a self-absorbed way, sometimes in a healthy way… Is this:   What will people say about me at my funeral?   This isn’t a new thought, or an overly creative question, but if you press into it… It’s incredibly helpful for a number of reasons.    It’s not helpful if we just fantasize about how popular we’ll be, or how many people will be there; it’s not helpful if we obsess over WHEN it’ll be (good grief, that’s not what this is about)…   This is about knowing what we want our legacy to be… And not just WHAT WE DID, like achievements and things, but rather WHO WE WERE… How we went about conducting our lives, what we offered to those around us, what our reputation was, what we believed about the world and in turn, how we treated the world around us.   NIV Teach us to number our days,     that we may gain a heart of wisdom.   Psalm 90:12 NLT Teach us to realize the brevity of life,     so that we may grow in wisdom.    If you’re 30, 40, 50, 60… Number your days.  Average life expectancy is 78 years… Give yourself a sober diagnosis. Subtract your age from 78.    If you’re younger, that might feel like a relief, if you’re older, it might incite a bit of panic… It’s not intended to do either of those things. It’s supposed to be a healthy reminder that time matters. And time can be spent well, or it can be wasted.    Time can be wasted. And I see it in my peers, and I see it in people that are retired. Time can be wasted.    If you were to die tomorrow and your funeral was on Friday of this week: What would people say at your funeral? If they were being honest, what would they say about you?    That might be a hard question to consider… But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask it. If your time was now… What would people say?    And now contrast that with what you’d WANT people to say about you? That should draw a distinction between where you currently are and where you wish you were… Your current reality and a bit of aspiration to where you want to be.    For me, I’d want people to say that I was affectionate. I wasn’t afraid of hugs, or telling people that they’re beautiful. I wasn’t afraid of rubbing a friend’s shoulders or giving them an honest compliment.    I want people to say that I was playful, whimsical… I never passed up on an opportunity to play a game or laugh or surprise someone with something fun.    I want my family to say that they always felt like a priority… Never second to a job or church. That when I was with them, I was present. That my kids didn’t just see my face glued to my phone… and that’s something I seriously need to work on. This is how this exercise can convict us in the best possible ways.    I want people to say that I was committed to health… Physical health, emotional health, spiritual health, financial health… That I didn’t neglect these areas, or expect them to happen accidentally. That I was intentional in these areas of my life.    I want people to share stories of how I helped them follow their dreams. And not in an artificial, hypey-way… but in a real way. That I saw potential in people around me and helped them to take those steps toward living their best lives.    What is it for you? What do you want people to say about you?    Asking this question can actually help us discern what we actually value in life... If it’s something you want said of you, then it’s clearly a value you hold… and if you want people to say but you don’t currently have as a priority: it’s time to make that a value of yours.    JAMES 4:14 NLT 13 Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” 14 How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. 15 What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” 16 Otherwise you are boasting about your own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil. 17 Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.   That James 4:14 was the first tattoo I ever got. It’s like a Christian Carpe Diem. Don’t take this for granted. People slip away from us every day… What type of ignorance or illusion is it that we think we’re immortal?    Part of that might draw us to spirituality and the Gospel narrative… but for a lot of us it creates a complacency.    And even if we do live forever, and even if everything about heaven and eternity is true… Our opportunity to impact the people around us for good is limited.    Life is like a dragonfly landing on your hand… You can only enjoy it if you don’t white-knuckle it… You cherish it. You treat it delicately. You draw it close and observe and allow your mind to be filled with wonder…   And then, it flies off.    As it will for all of us.    Beautiful, and meaningful, but fleeting.    What will people say of you?    And how does that change how you go about your week ahead?    What can you change?    What’s one thing you can START doing, and one thing you can STOP doing?    Don’t race past this. Take some time to consider this. Write your own eulogy, just by way of mental exercise… And then live into that legacy. Become that person. Your story’s not over. You’re not dead yet, you’re not done yet.    Behold this day, for it is yours to make, whatever you want to make it…   I love you guys. Make it a good day.                   

If you’re looking for a quick panic attack, you should check out the live tracker of the world’s population… We’re just about at 7.65 billion people on earth, a net gain of 58 million people over last year… The earth increases in population by 160,000 people per day.    There are more people on earth today than ever before. With all of the conversations about how damaging we are to the earth, some of imminent dangers of climate change, feeding this new population, fighting against all the waste…    We need to just take a second and breathe, and recognize the things that are outside of our control, and recognize the things that are within our control.    Some of us are wired to be world-changers, inventors, politicians that can drive systematic change… But most of us aren’t on a global platform. We’re local. We’re neighborhood-level local. And that’s a good thing. Because that’s where meaningful change takes place.    This stream of thought came from a single question I was asked this past week: What contribution are YOU making to the world?   And I want to ask you that same question: What contribution are YOU making to the world?   And this doesn’t have to revolve around our carbon footprint or anything like that, (although if that’s where the question convicts you, pay attention to that).   We’re presented with the opportunity to either be majoritively a consumer or a contributor.    Are you adding more than you’re subtracting? Or are you at a net-loss.    Contribution is defined as: the part played by a person or thing in bringing about a result or helping something to advance.   What are you helping to advance?    The conversation opens up a world of questions and opportunity for reflection…  Are we busy building our own little kingdoms? What are we doing with the gifts God has given us?  Which areas of our lives are getting our best energy and focus, and which areas are getting our worst?    I have a small sticky note on my computer that says, “Always be prepared to articulate the value you create.”    It started as a business exercise… To remind myself to always be communicating the value we’re adding to our client’s businesses, because in a world like branding, some of the value can be glossed over or go unnoticed.. Much like the value of safety if you’re buying a Volvo. It’s unnoticed, until it’s not. So you want to be clear from the out-set pointing out all of the areas you’re contributing to.   But that sticky note has sort of morphed over the year that it’s been there.    Value has become a much broader word. Value isn’t just boosting the bottom line of some company. Value is anywhere we’re adding good to the world.    Beauty, positivity, love, forgiveness, openness, wisdom…    Mill City Grows is a great organization in Lowell, a neighboring city, that sees abandoned parking lots or plots in densely populated parts of the city that are rundown and overgrown… And they transform those spaces into public gardens, with raised garden beds for local residents to grow their own food. They prioritize those plots to lower income folks that will actually grow vegetables and herbs that they feed their families with.   What a tangible, clear contribution being made. What was once an overgrown eyesore becomes a vibrant diversity of food and people.    It’s impossible to miss the contribution. Net gain. For everyone involved.   Wherever you want to apply the question to your life: What contribution areYOUmaking to the world?   If you imagine yourself to be a boat, moving through the world with a wake left behind you… What’s that wake comprised of?    Are people better off? Are people inspired? Are people loved? Are people encouraged? Are things better than you found them? Or are they slightly wilted?    I suppose this should be a question we’re constantly asking ourselves… Always keeping things in check.    I’m not suggesting that we never coast… or take a break. A season of abiding, just absorbing nutrients from those around us and not producing fruit. That’s necessary. We can’t always be ON, we can’t always be ADDING…    But if you were to zoom out from your life, is it contributor or consumer? Adding or subtracting? Net gain or net loss…    Life is far too short, and soon to be far too crowded, to have any posture other than adding good to the world. We’re going to need new solutions for global problems. We’re going to need people being kind to one another. We’re going to need people positioned to contribute, not simply consume.   The same goes for our nuclear families, our church families, our workplaces… We have enough leeches in the world already. We need leaders.   The immediate actionable thing here is to do a diagnosis… An honest dissection of where you’re at, what you’re caring most about, how you’re spending your time…    We all have basic needs that need to be met, but once those are satisfied, we need to shift our focuses outside of ourselves.    What contribution are you making to the world?   Maybe it’s small, and if so, the more the merrier. That’s beautiful. No one said you need press coverage. You weren’t doing all that good for personal recognition, right? Of course not. If you fly under the radar, even better. You’ll inspire others to make small, meaningful impacts as well.    There’s something that only you are wired to contribute to the world. You were made on purpose for a purpose. What is it?   What is something you know how to do that you take for granted? Start there. There are probably people that would like to know how to do that.    Whether it’s sales techniques or how to plant a garden, whether its leadership skills or parenting techniques, whether it’s how to skateboard or how to stop climate change… You can begin giving back. Adding to the common good. Contribution.    It feels good, because it is good.    So today, as you go about your day, ask yourself how you can minimize the areas that you’re sapping life out of the world, and how you can increase where you’re contributing… Adding to the good. Making the world a better place for our neighbors, the nations and the next generation.   I love you guys, let’s all contribute to make it a good day. 

Last night was one of those nights where our kids swiftly re-asserted who’s in charge. You get into these rhythms where everyone is sleeping through the night, in their own beds, going to bed at bedtime, waking up when it’s reasonable to wake up… But last night was not one of those nights. All it takes is one night to remember that we’re at the mercy of these little jerks.    Avi was up a bunch, wanted to sleep in our bed… We let him lay with us for a bit but then brought him back into his room. When I put him down, I noticed Lily was out of her blankets but curled up in a ball, looking cold, so I did the right thing, and simultaneously the worst thing possible, by putting her back under her covers. And then she was up. And then Avi was up.   Long story short, at 4am both kids wanted to be in our bed and I figured it was easier for me to just get up and go to the 5am class at the gym.    The gym was good, then came home at 615 to a quiet house, poured myself some homemade cold brew with some branch-chain amino acids in it and sat down to read more of John Philip Newell’s “Christ of the Celts,” which I can’t recommend highly enough… It’s outstanding. Really amazing…   Then Elyse came down, and we had a great conversation together, about all sorts of things. Friends that disagree with us theologically, and all of the beautiful, life-giving things we’re learning from some of these spiritual giants we sit under. It made the lack fo sleep worth it… to reconnect with her before the day started, to talk about things that matter to us, and to sort of spur one another’s spirits on, into a good day ahead.    Energy works like that, doesn’t it? When we bring positive energy into a conversation, we can transfer that energy to the person we’re with. On a spiritual plain, on a quantum physics level… We can quite literally re-energize the cells and spirit of the person we’re with. Particles are jumping off of us and landing onto them, all seemingly invisible, but we can feel it, can’t we?    You can certainly feel it when it’s the opposite… When someone brings negative energy into a conversation and there’s this transfer of negativity: anxiety, worry, a weight of despair or a feeling of being helpless… These things can just jump from one person to the next… And it might actually make the first person feel better. It typically does. Someone comes in carrying a heavy spirit, they off-load it to you, they walk away feeling lifted, and we walk away burdened.    Whatever language you want to use for this, you know what I’m talking about. Some interactions leave us feeling lighter, some leave us feeling heavier. Other people’s problems thrust onto our shoulders, and we lighten their burden, but add to ours.    Then, the question is… What are you gonna do with all of that negative energy?   You have three choices.    First would be to pretend it’s not there. Ignore it. I don’t really see that as an option because I’m big on awareness and paying attention to what’s going on in my heart. Being unaware of these things is a recipe for disaster. If you’re holding a grenade and the pin has already been pulled, you’d want to know. You don’t want to accidentally blow up on the next person that walks by.    The second option is to transfer that negative energy to someone else… Which is what I most commonly do, and maybe you do too. You have a heavy conversation and you immediately need to call someone ELSE and offload some of it to them, even if it had nothing to do with them… We find the nearest or most reliable scapegoat in our lives (typically a spouse or parent) and we vent. And they catch all of it. We feel great, they probably feel significantly LESS great, but we don’t really notice. We feel good! It worked! Phew, onto the rest of our day! Not great, long-term, to live like this.    The third option is to absorb it. And this is the hardest but perhaps the most Christlike option. This is what Jesus was up to on the cross… He didn’t take all that negative energy and then transfer it BACK to humanity, continuing the cycle of sin and death and “eye for an eye” and violence and retaliation. He absorbed it. He chose not to continue the cycle.    Negative energy tends to spin up and get worse and worse. Like Sonic the Hedgehog but of darkness. It gains steam like a hurricane, everyone’s negative energy feeding into it and escalating again and again until it’s out of control.   In Exodus 21:24 it lays out an “eye for an eye” form of justice, because that WAS actually progressive 3000-4000 years ago. That was a radical form of justice, because people had a habit of escalating things. At that point it was more like, “if you take my eye, I’m going to take your children.” or “You cut me off in the parking lot and I’m going to ram your car.” or “You tweeted a threat to me so I’m going to fire off a nuclear bomb.”    This was Mosaic wisdom, this was Moses trying to keep order amongst his people. "eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”    This is what the world looks like if everyone were to choose the second option, TRANSFER. I received this negative thing, I’ll pass it on to you.   This is where the incredible wisdom of Jesus shines. He comes on the scene a millennia into this “eye for an eye” type of justice and flips it on its’ head. In Matthew 5, Jesus says, "38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[a] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”    He introduces the absorption method of dealing with negative energy. Break the cycle, in the face of an enemy, bless them.    The famous quote of Mahatma Ghandi was basically him riffing on Jesus’ teaching, when he said, “an Eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.”    During the US Civil War, hatred became entrenched between the North and South. In one instance, President Abraham Lincoln was criticized for speaking of benevolent treatment for the Southern rebels. The critic reminded Lincoln that there was a war going on, the Confederates were the enemy, and they should be destroyed. But Lincoln wisely responded, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”    When an absorber steps in... it changes everything. It disrupts the cycle; throws it off balance. When someone decides to NOT pass that negative energy on, they win. They defeat that energy. It dissipates. The world is quite literally a better place. This little demon that was once alive, jumping from person to person, disrupting God’s shalom, is now dead. And you killed it. Good job.   But how do we become absorbers that don’t eventually get exasperated? Because there is definitely an unhealthy was to absorb other people’s garbage… I see it all the time, and sometime’s I’m guilty of it too. We take a burden off of someone’s shoulders and feel pretty proud of ourselves, but then accidentally might end up feeling bitter or angry or sour towards that person. Or our self-righteousness gets to be too much, we have a little Messiah complex that needs dealing with.    To absorb this negative energy in a healthy way, we have to break it down. We have to process it and properly digest it. We have to break it back down into its’ original ingredients. Deconstruct it from the little demon it had become and recognize all the little puzzle pieces that made it what it was.    “Oh, here’s a little bit of discouragement that paired with confusion. Here’s someone’s dream getting overlooked, here’s some pain from a back-handed comment someone else made… And look, it all manifested into this angry little demon.”    No wonder. It didn’t just come out of nowhere… It was financial stress that came out of a lack of discipline that paired with a lack of sleep and an unhealthy self-image that had some bass note of a bad childhood memory reverberating under it all… That’s how this little demon was born, and you broke it back down into those parts… And what that created in you wasn’t more darkness or anger or negativity…   It was compassion. Compassion.    An empathy for where that darkness came from. An understanding. Not a judgement, but an alignment with the perpetrator. Compassion.    And all of a sudden you find yourself invested. You have skin in the game to actually see this person get healthy, or succeed, or realize their true self in Christ… To find freedom and joy.    “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”    To absorb it doesn’t mean becoming a victim. It means becoming victor. With the right tools and proper perspective, we actually become victorious over the darkness in the world. And we, quite literally, make the world a better place to live. A safer place for our children, a more joyful neighborhood to live in, a healthier church family, a more successful and healthy work environment.    So, today… And hopefully tomorrow, and the day after that: Keep your eyes peeled for this. You’ll inevitably have someone load some sort of burden off on you, and rather than ignoring it, or simply transferring it to someone else to deal with… Process it. Break it down. Dissect it. Absorb it. Understand it. See where it came from, and allow that negative energy to convert into compassion.    I know it’s a lot for a podcast episode, but it’s important. I’ll probably spend the next few weeks processing this idea and seeing how it plays out in the real world. I invite you to do the same.    And if this idea is helpful to you, maybe tell a friend about it and have them give a listen as well.   I love you guys, make it a good day. 

What’s your reputation? When someone mentions your name, what comes to mind? Are you dependable? Playful? Depressing? Encouraging? Do you bring out the best in the people around you? Do you tend to talk about people behind their backs? Do you focus on the good and beautiful things in the world? Or do you tend to stir up controversy wherever you go? Do you help activate people’s dreams to become realities? Or do you complain about things you can’t change?    Chances are you have a different reputation amongst different people groups… If you ask my friends from high-school.. Man oh man. Not good. Very different than if you were to ask my friends from church about me.    What might your kids say about you? What about your spouse? Do those closest to you get the best version of you? Or do they get leftovers?    Maybe you don’t even care if people like you… Maybe you’re just looking for respect. Maybe you’re finally wanting to have power over people under you at work… Or maybe you’re terrified of that responsibility. Maybe that’s literally the last thing you’d ever want, and you just want to skate through unnoticed.    Our reputations are complex things… There are hundreds of different inputs that affect people’s opinions of us.    If you research creative work on reputation you’ll find all sorts of quotes from famous people that are actually kind of discouraging.    Benjamin Franklin saying, “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.” GREAT! That’s encouraging… It takes a thousands breaths to blow up this balloon and only one prick to pop it!    Warren Buffett says, “it takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it.”  Man… that’s depressing. Perhaps it’s so depressing because it’s actually true!    How many famous figures have fallen from grace due to one bad night or a handful of mistakes, that perhaps any of us would make in the same situation. Justin Bieber has made the news for ridiculous things in the last 5 years, but so would YOU if you were in his shoes. If I was 18 and had $265 million in the bank and had paparazzi following me around… I’d be on the cover of TMZ every morning.    Here’s the thing about reputations: Reputations can be suffocating. Whether they’re positive or negative, they can actually keep us stuck.    Reputations as the dumb kid. As the good girl. As the all-American athlete. As the fat girl. As the boy that can’t read. As the big-wig CEO or as the dad that never follows through. As the workaholic mother that never makes it to the soccer game. As the sweet girl you can take advantage of. As the brainy kid you can cheat off of. As the prude Christian. As the tough guy with the cool motorcycle.    These labels follow us. They quite literally brand our brains with these words… They nestle in deep, and we end up living our lives either in SUPPORT of those labels or in REACTION to those labels.    We either like the reputation and we live the rest of our lives trying to maintain / support everyone’s idea of us.. Making sure everyone still believes we’re successful, or we’re still the cool kid we were in high-school, or still the pretty girl that’s always in shape.    Or we live in reaction to them. We got a label in college that we’ve spent the rest of our lives trying to scrub out. A teacher in 3rd grade embarrassed us in front of the class so we spend the rest of our lives obsessively studying and getting top-of-the-class GPA.   There are ditches on both sides of this road. Both of these things can be unhealthy.    The truth is: We shouldn’t be living our lives in support of or in reaction to any labels someone spoke over us in the past. It will limit our lives to the lane we’ve already established. No room for growth or adventure or redefining ourselves. We stay stuck. We carry around those labels. We still remember the name of the person that first said it.    In a media-driven culture like we find ourselves, it’s easy to REALLY care about image. I care about image. If someone shows me a set of pictures of me, I care which one they’d post. Whether it’s conscious or subconscious, I curate my image that I put out on Instagram. Of course I do. There are things I wouldn’t want posted. Some things I love posting. I’m painting some grandiose picture of what my life looks like. That’s where we find ourselves. Our Instagram feed becomes some style board to describe our personal brand.    It’s a weird situation I find myself in, as the owner of a branding agency… But a big shift we’ve taken over the past year is placing less of an emphasis on the visual / perception management of just helping businesses appear shiny or new or better than their competitors, and actually focusing on the heart of their organizations.   Instead of just focusing on reputation, we’re focusing on character.    Abraham Lincoln once said that “Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”    He’s saying that our character is that actual object that casts the shadow of reputation. Our character is the substance.    Even better is Thomas Paine’s writing on this. He says, “Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God knows of us.”    Character is who you are when no one else is around. Character is the decisions you make when no one else is watching.    The beautiful thing here is that you are in control of your character. Anne Frank said “The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.”    It’s up to us. Reputations can sort of get out of control, and they can be impossible to maintain. But character… That’s something we have jurisdiction over.    If we have ridiculous thoughts, we can steer our thoughts. I have quite literally slapped myself out of unhealthy trains of thought. Sometimes when I’m laying in bed and drifting off to sleep, if I’m going down some rabbit trail, I’ll force my eyes back open and try to reset my brain. And it works.    We’re in control of what we put into our brains, we’re in control of what comes out of our mouths, we’re in control of how our thoughts affect our emotions, and how our emotions affect how we act.    We literally become the things we meditate on. We obsess over things in our minds and we end up becoming manifestations of those things. What if we meditated on good, beautiful, hopeful things? What if we guided our dreams to be larger than they previously were? What if we set our sight on things above? What if we refused to settle for the silly dreams that culture and society hand us?    Maybe we could actually elevate our minds and lift our character a bit higher…    What’s at stake here? Basically your life. And how much you enjoy your life.    What’s at stake? The story you tell yourself every morning.    It’s what you set your heart on and the direction your life ends up taking.    What will they say of you at your funeral? I pray it’s far deeper and more beautiful than any surface labels or reputation… I pray there’s a character that inspires the next generation to live life to the fullest.    I love you guys, make it a good day. 

When I was 14, I had a girlfriend named Jane. I told her I loved her, she told me she loved me. And we did. What we were feeling was the pinnacle of our emotional lives up to that point. The working definition of the word “love” had just been elevated. It was all we knew of love. So, therefore, when we said “I love you”… We were being honest.    Then came a new girlfriend. And I looked back at my 14 year old definition of love and sort of laughed… Because NOW I loved THIS girl… Because the experience was  SO much different than the previous one.    Then came a new girlfriend. And this girlfriend’s name was Elyse. And I REALLY loved her. She was different. She was wife material. And that feeling—that new uncharted waters type of feeling—became what “love” meant to me. Elyse became my new definition of love.    And there we were, getting married, in love. She was my new standard. And all previous girlfriends and those definitions of love were laughable. Because that’s how life works.   We experience something, we find a word for it, and that stays as our definition of it… Until it doesn’t. Until a new experience comes along and redefines the word.    It would be foolish to ignore how these things evolve… We’d be missing what life has to offer us.    You might “love” a specific type of ice-cream, but that’s quite different than the LOVE you experience when someone embraces you after a failure.    You might describe something as “powerful” or “amazing” but that all changes when you watch your wife labor and birth your first child… That’s powerful. That’s truly amazing.    And, all of a sudden, your definition of love expands a bit more.    Something I’ve observed with all of these spiritual teachers I surround myself with is their ability to “transcend and include.” Along their path of spiritual development, their lives are continually being broadened into more expansive, open, inclusive spaces. “There’s MORE room at the table for MORE people.” “More experiences fit under these definitions of a word like ‘God’…”    There’s less fear, less exclusion, less walls and fences and more bridges and compassion.    Because their love has grown. Their first-half-of-life definitions don’t satisfy anymore… They don’t negate the previous experiences, but they transcend them… They transcend and include the previous definition… Like how a tree grows from the inside out. The center isn’t necessarily getting bigger, the edges are adding onto the original sprout. It’s expanding and including…    I wonder if you can observe that in any area of your life?    Are you finding that the previous definitions or ideas or rules or beliefs just don’t hold the same weight they once did?    A friend described it like putting on a sweater that’s a few sizes too small. You can make it work, sort of, but its uncomfortable (at best), and suffocating (at worst).    Any time I see an older man getting riled up at a Trump rally, or seeing hate speech come from anyone over the age of 30… It’s just clear that they are working with a simpler set of tools… And that they haven’t done much work.    When I see young men joining gangs or standing outside Rob Bell events with a megaphone and a Bible… I can actually find some grace for them, as they’ve found something to put all of their prepubescent passion behind… Their hormones are literally filling up behind their eyes and they need some sort of outlet.    But that’s first-half-of-life stuff. That’s trying to find your way through life… When I see people that SHOULD be elders by now… Village elders… People with wisdom to share and speaking truth into these little whipper-snapper’s lives… But instead they’re still trying to bring things BACKWARDS… It’s sad. And it’s something we actually need to mourn. That we don’t have more elders in our lives. True elders. Not just a label at church, and not just a label for people that are old.    People that have done the hard work of PAYING ATTENTION for 60, 70, 80 years, and have had their definitions of love and peace and joy and unity expanded time and again… So that we might sit at their feet and learn from them; get a head start; skip years of trying things our own way; learning from what they’ve learned.    I know this sort of started with me at 14, then ended up feeling all political and mourning the lack of elders in our lives, but that’s sort of a snapshot of where we’re at today.    We need to recognize what’s at stake, and why it’s so important to continually have our minds, hearts, souls transcend and include… Why we need to be seeing fruit in our lives that we’re growing larger and more inclusive, not smaller and more territorial.    We’ve seen what territorial gets us… We’ve seen what fear gets us. We’ve seen what arrogance gets us.    A prayer I have for my life is that as my body and my physical self matures, that my emotional and spiritual self does the same. We see far too many men that are physically and financially mature, but are emotionally and spiritually toddlers.    There’s a great moment in Jesus’ ministry captured in Luke 12… This guy Luke was a medical professional, and he was obsessed with accuracy and details, and so he took it upon himself to document Jesus’ life and write down things that he and other people had witnessed Jesus do and say.    In Luke 12, Jesus has all these crowds around him; crowds so large that they were trampling on each other. At one point, someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me!”    [ READ LUKE 12:13 through end ]   Maturity is marked by our fears falling away… In light of all we’ve seen and experienced in life… Knowing that worry or any backwards energy won’t ADD to our lives…    We’re then able to live with open hands.    “But can’t those people get taken advantage of?!” Yes… Of course. And there’s a good chance they will. But that’s on the person that’s taking advantage of them. A field of flowers doesn’t choose not to grow for fear of maybe being picked by a passerby. Those flowers are responsible for one thing: Blooming.    Seeds that fall into sidewalk cracks don’t choose not to grow. They grow, because they’re wired to do that. If someone steps on them? That’s on that person’s conscience… not the flower’s.    I’m not advocating for us to position ourselves to be victims, or stay in hostile environments. Those instincts we have for self-preservation are God-given… They’re important. They’re the reason we’re here today and the world isn’t run by dolphins. We survived, we thrived, we evolved, God gave us the ability to adapt and learn and pass those adaptations down from generation to generation.    But when that instinct for self-preservation results in an entire life marked by “us vs. them” and “fear” and “worry” and “conspiracy theories…” We have to take note.    Whenever I’m discussing an idea or a person as a new example to learn from, I always look at the fruit that idea or belief or person is producing. You’ll always know a tree by the fruit it produces. Might look healthy, but if it’s not producing healthy fruit, it’s not healthy.    By fruit, I mean what’s flowing out of their lives. What’s surrounding them? What is going on in their midst? When they show up, do things improve? Are the people surrounding them BETTER versions of themselves? Or worse…    Luke 7:15 “Beware of the false prophets, [teachers] who come to you dressed as sheep [appearing gentle and innocent], but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them [that is, by their contrived doctrine and self-focus]. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the unhealthy tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore, by their fruit you will recognize them [as false prophets].   What about you? What about the fruit from your life?    Is what you’re producing wholesome, beneficial, fruit for everyone around you?    Do your beliefs (and what you believe about yourself and others) create MORE or LESS peace in your life? Do your beliefs open your eyes and broaden your definition of love? Or do they keep you stuck, afraid, isolated, terrified that you might somehow get it wrong and God (or whatever God-figure you have in your life) might withdraw His blessing?    Look at the FRUIT of what you believe. Play those things out. How do those things pan out for you? Do they result in more life and love and soul-level satisfaction? If they don’t, re-examine those beliefs.    Same with our actions, same with our politics, same with our bodies and physical health…    If I had stuck with my first love at 14, COMPLETELY satisfied with this “love” I had found… Think of all the beauty in my life I would’ve been sacrificing. If I had refused to grow in what I understood love to be, I’d still be back there with that freshman-year-type-of-love…   But instead, as a result (or you could even say “the fruit of”) allowing my beliefs to evolve, I have a new love… And that love produced two new humans, that are even now expanding and redefining what I understand LOVE to mean…    My encouragement to you today is simply this: Don’t get stuck. Don’t let fear drive. God is not BEHIND US, somewhere in the past beckoning us backwards… He is both WITH US and AHEAD OF US, calling us into deeper waters, more expansive and beautiful truths, and completely new ideas that just might change the world.    I love you guys, make it a good day. 

It’s a powerful thing to be asked point blank: What is it that you want more than anything else in life? I’ve recently heard two separate spiritual teachers ask this same question, in slightly different ways, and then began reading a new book that emphasized Jesus asking this exact question in John 1:38: What do you want?    John the Baptist’s disciples started following Jesus, and when Jesus realizes he’s being followed, he turns around and asks, “What do you want?”    On first read, that can be a pretty blunt question, and it is… But I have to believe it wasn’t said in the way WE might say it if two strangers started following us. “What do you want?” “What are you looking for in life? What is it that your hearts are after?”    This is one of those questions that no one can avoid answering… Whether you realize it or not, whether it’s intentional or completely accidental, your life is oriented towards something. You’re already putting energy into some sort of idea or dream or vision of what an ideal future would look like.   We say this to our clients all the time: “You already have a brand, whether you know it or not.” When we’re talking about “branding,” all we’re talking about is your reputation. What comes to mind when your name comes up. When someone says “John Emery” in a group conversation, what stories and thoughts and opinions arise? That’s my reputation. Whether you realize it or not, you have a brand.    Whether you realize it or not, your life is demonstrating what it is that you truly want.    Blaise Pascal: “You have to wager. It is not up to you, you are already committed.”    You can’t not bet your life on something. You can’t not be headed somewhere. We live leaning forward, bent on arriving at the place we long for.    There’s this great word that a new author I’m reading introduced me to:   TELOS: The place we unconsciously strive toward is what ancient philosophers of habit call our “telos”—our goal, our end. But the telos we live toward is not something that we primarily know or believe or think about rather, our telos is what we want, what we long for, what we crave.   I had a spiritual teacher encourage me to sit down and answer the question: “What do you want?” and journal a few sentences. Then ask, “Is there anything you want more than that?” and journal a few sentences. Then ask again, “Is there anything you want more than THAT?” and keep going until you reach the deepest heart of your desire. This is an exercise to do completely alone, not sharing it with anyone, so that there’s no pressure to act or perform or produce something that you think someone ELSE might want for you.    You, in your heart of hearts, what’s at the center of your desires for your life?    It’s not a question of whether you long for some version of the kingdom, but of which version you long for.   Paying attention to our hearts… On the adventure of life, they’re part compass and part GPS… They’re part engine and part homing beacon… The longings of our hearts both point us in the direction of a kingdom and propel us toward it.    Restlessness until we are in our proper place… Augustine quote on page 13-14. Example of diving down with a noodle and trying to put it on the bottom of the pool. It is “restless” when its held under water. It keeps trying to rip away from your hands, or stopping your momentum entirely until it’s returned to the surface. It wants to be floating. In the opposite way, when I try to float in fresh water, my body weight wants to take me down to the bottom. I’ve finally figured out how to float in salt water, but fresh water is another thing entirely.    If our hearts are absorbed with material things, then our love is a weight that drags us downward to inferior things. But if our hearts are caught on fire for larger, more beautiful things, then our hearts tend to lift us upward.    I think one of the great tragedies we see unfolding around us (that we’re actually growing calloused towards) is seeing people orient their lives around things that clearly will fail them. Whether it’s from your own personal experience or from wisdom that others have passed along to you… Seeing people point everything they have towards things that ultimately will leave them feeling unsatisfied.   I see it all the time with men and their careers. Perhaps the gift of being one step removed from their ambition, I’m able to play out where all that energy ends up, even at its’ absolute best, and see a life that is still lacking certain significance. Money is wonderful, influence is a gift… But at what cost?    “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world [wealth, fame, success], but forfeits his soul? ...what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”Matthew 16:26   I’m not positive whether Jesus was speaking in an eternal sense, forfeiting our souls, or if He’s simply speaking to the lack of fulfillment we’d experience here on earth… Regardless, at either end of that spectrum, is a wasted life. Or at least a life unfulfilled. Untapped potential.    What is it that you want more than anything else in life? Is there anything you want more than that?  What about more than THAT?    We’re all orienting our lives around SOMETHING… let’s not have that direction set by accident, or set by someone else. With Pascal’s wager metaphor… What is it that you’re willing to wager your one, sacred life on? Is it more money? Moving up the ladder? Is it reform? Challenging those in power and changing the way things are? Is it beauty? Building, creating, crafting, forming things that have never been created before? Is it reconciliation and restoration to people that have been wronged, or have given up hope?    What is it, that if you gave your life to it, even if you die before it comes to fruition, you’ll be satisfied at the contribution you made along the way?    I know this is big stuff to consider, but it’s the kind of stuff we should be considering, right?    If we’re reminded of ANYTHING on a daily basis, it’s how short our lives are. And if we only have 50, 40, 30 years left… What will we spend our time pursuing? What legacy will be left behind?    When your name comes up in conversation, what will they say about you?    I’ll end with one of my favorite quotes from Black Elk, “Behold this day, for it is yours to make.”    I love you guys, Make it a good day.

In 2010, my wife and I were in New Mexico for our honeymoon. A close friend of ours Lindsey had a family cabin up in a remote section of Eagle’s Nest, New Mexico. It checked off all 3 criteria we had for our honeymoon: It was a new area we’d never been to, it was away from hustle-bustle and craziness of life, and it was free… All we had to pay for was a plane ticket and a rental car, and we’d have this beautiful cabin on the side of a mountain for a week.    We saw a bunch of incredible things while we were there. We’d sit out in the morning on the deck and feed chipmunks and squirrels out of our hands… And these weren’t your average animals. These chipmunks were the size of guinea pigs, and the squirrels had long ears and big beautiful tails… There was one squirrel that was the size of a small rabbit, and it would come up and eat from our hands, the same one, multiple times a day, and we realized it was a momma squirrel coming to get food so she could make milk to nurse her newborn, wherever they were hidden. It felt like a holy thing to be directly participating in this mother squirrel caring for her young.    We went into Sante Fe one day and did a batik painting class with a fabulous gay man as our instructor. It was awesome, and definitely memorable.    But one of the more profound moments of our honeymoon was a day that we went for a drive that locals had recommended. They all said, “Ahh, you’ve GOT to go up to these mountains and drive through. It’s a great day trip, it’s beautiful… You’ll see families of elk and cattle and all these beautiful views.” So we went.    We were in a little, trusty SUV, we packed a few granola bars and head out on the adventure. What we had assumed was a 1-2 hour drive, based on the map we had, turned into a 4 hour drive… We hadn’t taken into account that driving through this natural reserve would be at 15 miles per hour, up and over mountains on dirt roads… When we were about an hour into it, we had assumed we were nearing the end when we saw a sign that said it was 50 miles until the main interstate… At 15-20 miles per hour. On top of that, we were running out of gas… Literally, we hadn’t planned on this long of a trip, and we’re in the middle of nowhere.    Then it started raining. And not like New England rain… this was New Mexico rain. Out of nowhere and as violent as they come.    And we had this moment where we looked at each other, and we both were assessing how much food we had in the car, and hoping that we’d soon regain cell-phone service… which of course we didn’t.    We obviously made it out alive, but to this day it stands as one of our own personal Hannukah stories where the gas shouldn’t have lasted, but somehow it lasted 8 crazy days… We made it back into Eagles Nest running on fumes.    I share all of this story for another reason entirely… While we were driving through this state forest, we saw enormous packs of Elk and cattle… Roaming free. No fences, no nothing. And the cattle were tagged, so they clearly belonged to SOMEONE, but it was also clear that there weren’t any fences or property lines. It seemed peculiar to us, coming from New England, where all the small farms have fences and and barns and everything is kept track of so specifically.    We would watch these cattle gather at the foot of these big steel windmills, for what we later realized were little water troughs. The windmill must’ve been pumping up water from some table underground and these cattle and elk were gathering around, what I’m sure were their trusty water troughs, and it struck me: If you want to keep cattle, or elk, or people, in a specific place, you can either build a fence, or you can dig a well.    You can either build a fence to keep everyone in, everything monitored and quarantined, or… You can dig a well, and trust that the animals will stick around.    Elyse and I talked about this quite a bit on our drive home, in between our desperate pleas that God wouldn’t let us get stranded in the wilderness, and it has sort of become a mantra of ours for how we approach ministry, relationships, friendships, business partnerships, etc.    Instead of building fences, we dig wells.    There’s such a temptation to protect and guard and keep things exact that we often focus our efforts on “keeping people around.”   “how do we keep so and so happy? how do we keep this family from leaving our church? how do we keep this client from wandering off with someone else? how do we keep this boyfriend or girlfriend from cheating on us? how do we protect this money that we have?”    And we build fences. Sometimes with chicken wire, sometimes with concrete.    But here’s the thing: Fences are expensive. Think of how expensive it would be to build a fence around the perimeter of this forest we were driving through… Hundreds and hundreds of miles of fencing. It would take years to build, and then consume all of our time trying to maintain that fence. How would you ever know if a rogue bull bashed through a fencepost on the opposite side of the property? You wouldn’t. Enormous amount of energy would be needed to keep that fence keeping those animals in.   Instead, you dig a well. And because animals have memory and intuition and all of these evolved survival skills: They’ll stick around. A reliable water source in the middle of New Mexico? They’re not going to forget that anytime soon.    So with our church, instead of building a fence for people to climb over to get in, and to be keep inside with once they’re there… We dig a well. We provide something that is fresh and life giving and restorative, and guess what? People keep coming back. And they tell their friends.    People come to this well and they’re poured into. It’s all by their own choice, and that’s part of what makes it beautiful.    We’ve all been in relationships, either romantic or a friendship, when the other person is suffocating us… Because of their fear of us leaving, they spend every waking minute trying to build a fence around us so we never leave. And guess what? It’s wildly unattractive, and perhaps BECAUSE of that, we end up leaving.    No one wants to be fenced in. We don’t want to be kept by someone or something and be told where we can and cannot go…    But you know what’s really attractive?    Fresh water. Especially fresh water in a landscape of tumbleweeds and sandstone cliffs.    I wonder if you have any areas of your life where you’re feeling protective, and you’re trying to figure out how to preserve and keep and maintain something that’s important to you… And you’re presented with an option: Build a fence, or dig a well.    I see businesses building fences around their services all the time. Gyms that have cancellation fees. No return policies. Penalties for switching providers… These are quintessential fence-builder mentalities. It illustrates a scarcity-based mentality, and/or a fear that what they’re offering as a business isn’t high quality.    The opposite of that would be to find a desert and then dig a well. The rest will take care of itself. If what you’re offering is truly valuable, and it’s helping transform your customers or clients or members into the people they want to be, that’s all you need to worry about.    All of the energy you’d be putting towards maintaining the fence can now be focused on new ways of drawing people in.    Now there’s a lot to be said here… Far more than I can fit into one episode (I might turn this into a bit of a series) but obviously people still try to manipulate the reason this actually works.    For example: The attractional model of doing church… Play music you’d hear on the radio and raffle off a Harley Davidson on Father’s day… That’s exhausting, and it just doesn’t work anymore. That’s like digging a well, but then when people come to drink from it, they’re drinking Fruit2o. Something CLOSE to water, but definitely not water. So they probably won’t stick around.    People know when it’s the real thing, and I’d thank God for that. It’s actually God’s grace that more people don’t manipulated into sticking around false wells. If it’s the real thing, it will gather a crowd. Might not be a huge crowd, and that’s God’s grace too, because maybe you couldn’t handle a huge crowd… But it will serve people, and they’ll stick around.    When we’re drawing up contracts with clients for our branding agency, we want to be digging wells, not building fences. They’re free to come and go as they please. We trust that we’re offering them gallons of fresh ideas and things to help their organization grow… So we’re not territorial.    Whenever you’re doing anything of significance, there will be elements outside of your control. That’s a given. Even the biggest stars and celebrities out there, they go on tour and they still need to trust that their fans will show up. Anytime you’re taking any sort of risk, there are things outside of your control… And when that happens, you’ll recognize an urge inside of you to fence something in, or force people to commit, or mitigate some of this risk and fear you’re feeling…    And then its time for your choice: Build a fence that’s really expensive and a lot of sideways energy to maybe retain some of the good that’s happening? Or dig a well and trust that if it’s good, it’ll work.    I love the metaphor of these big windmill water troughs… You build it, let nature take control, and it just works. I’m sure they break down every once in a while, but it’s a much better use of time driving around to your 4-5 wells on property every month than driving a thousand-mile perimeter and fixing fence posts.    I think there’s a lot to learn here politically, and relationally, and spiritually… These fences can become enormous vehicles for spiritual abuse, or emotional abuse, or even physical abuse. Keeping people stuck.    And I just want to encourage you today to examine some of these areas of your life… These areas that you’re in control of, when you have decisions to make around how to keep people interested in what you’re doing… I don’t think the answer is in becoming more exclusive and territorial… I think it’s about opening things up and letting people make their own decisions.    There’s freedom and beauty in that. There’s room for love in that. And that’s when true, lasting relationships are formed.    Let’s be people that dig wells, and draw people to ourselves by offering something actually good and valuable and transformative.   I love you guys, make it a good day. 

I just wanted to make a little note here for anyone listening about new ideas. We’re surrounded by them. We’re inundated with new Kickstarter projects and inventions. Shark Tank is one of the most popular TV shows because it’s full of new, clever inventions and ideas.    Some of you know that I shared a sermon this past week at our church that ruffled some feathers. Intentionally so. I was looking at how we interpret Scripture, and some of the more damaging ways to interpret it, and some of the more life-giving ways I’ve found to interpret it.    In it, the topics of slavery, animal sacrifice, women in leadership and homosexuality came up. All things in the Bible. All things that have verses that people can cite at a moments notice. But largely all things we’ve recognized to be artifacts of a day and age gone by.    No one is missing animal sacrifices, including the Jews. No one is missing slavery, except for maybe the former slave traders. No one wants to bar women from leadership in the church, except for perhaps the old guard… Men that are terrified of new ideas.    What happens when a new discovery takes place? What happens when all of a sudden, we learn something NEW about something we’ve always known. Young husbands think they’re God’s gift to their wife in bed… Only to slowly find out over the course of first few years of marriage that they have no idea what they’re doing, and none of that is pleasurable.   New information leads to new breakthrough. This is how it should be. We don’t let our close-mindedness keep us in the stone-age, of course.    We’ve learned new information about tiny, invisible bacteria living on our hands and potentially making us gravely ill… So we learn to wash our hands. It’s how humanity survives, thrives and evolves with the changing times. It’s a GOOD thing. I think it’s how God wired us.   So when new scholarship in the mid 1990s unveiled a look in the first century women and the lives they were living, it gave us new information with which to understand our Bibles. 1 Timothy clearly says the forbid women to speak in church, to cover their heads, to dress modestly, etc.    Timothy’s Church in Ephesus First century, around the year 60AD, in the mega-city of Ephesus.  Lots happening.  Timothy in Ephesus, Paul having to address false doctrines.  “Stay there in Ephesus to correct the false teachings.”  Largest city in Asia Minor, housed the temple of Diana (aka Artemis), goddess of fertility.   Bigger than a football field, gilded in silver and gold. Acts 19 talks about the people chanting, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians! Massive impact, this cult had on the city. It was a women-run temple--no men ran anything.     Artimis as origin of all lfe, paul says no adam first then eve And Eve was deceived, so she wasn't divine like the cult said   The women taught the religion of Diana, and had ritualistic prostitution.  The men could pay to have sex with these priestesses, and it was believed to increase a man's virility.   In this specific time and place, Ephesianwomen were associated with false teaching (the cult) and prostitution( the temple).  Women ruled, women did this.  But the women could fall into this b/c they were souneducated about the things of God.   So putting women into leadership of the church wouldn't just have beenunwise, it'd have been detrimental.        A.The Rise of the “New Roman Woman.” If you go way back in history, men controlled everything.   All the property, and even if they married a wealthy woman who brought lots of property into the marriage, all of thatpropertybecame the husband's.  If they got divorced, she left with nothing. Also, it was assumed that men might havea mistress or two on the side,but wives were expected to be faithful and chaste.  That was the assumption.  Up to this point, Ancient history was male dominated, and extremely patriarchal.   In the 1st C BC tho, due to increased wealth flowing into Rome and political instability resulting from civil wards, the social environment began changing and women from elite families gained political influence. Limiting laws on women were relaxed. Many wars separated women from their soldiering husbands, fathers, and sons. Result was a more public presence of women—esp. the wealthy, within the social and political arenas.  Poets Ovid, Catullus, Tibullus and the lawyer Cicero all describe this woman: wealth, clout, disregard for traditional social customs. The poets all praised extramarital affairs. The men sought adventure not on the battlefield or in the senate, but in a personal tryst with married women.    But In 44BC, the Roman senate changed the law.   They said a woman could keep her own property when she got married.   If she got divorced, she could take out what she brought in.   It created a Women's Liberation movement.  For the first time, women weren't dependent on their husbands.  Some of these wealthy women said they don't just want financial freedom, they wantall of the same freedoms.  So these wealthy women started takingyoung loverson the side.  And couples began encouraging each other in thisopen marriage, swinging, lifestyles.     Plutarch : “She must accept her husband’s extramarital sexual activities with good grace and not let such behaviors push her toward divorce." “The husband may enjoy sex with others (except married women), but should avoid provoking his wife to jealousy."   Also, women began to reject the role of Mother, and so you seethe rise of abortions for the new roman woman.   They'd dress extravagantly.  Gold in their hair, pearls, gowns covered with jewels.   You could tell what a woman's attitude was towards marriage and abortion, just by looking at what she wore.  In the 1st Century: you were what you wore.     Finally, these new roman women weren't just known for the immodesty and immorality, but also known for their brash outspokenness.  Roman Historians tell us that these women would challenge philosophers in the Symposia, and some of them would stand up and shout down philosophers, even rushing the stage and taking over.   Any time a new idea makes us angry, we need to seriously evaluate our hearts. Why would a new idea make you angry?    It could confuse you, sure. That’s fine.  It could intrigue you. Great.  It could draw you in to investigate further and research and learn more from more resources… Or, it could just make you angry and resentful.    I’ve found that the women that had questions following my sermon have come forward with genuine intrigue and honest searching, and we’ve had kind, fruitful, unifying conversations. The men were slightly different. Slightly more… angry.   If new ideas make you angry, it says far more about YOUR insecurities than it does about the new idea.    If someone knocked on my door today and proposed that Elyse and I join their open marriage and we start living in polamory, I would be seriously surprised, I would be confused, but I wouldn’t be angry. I would only be angry if my marriage was already on the rocks and I was insecure that Elyse might actually leave me…    If you study the great spiritual teachers, both contemporary and historical, you’ll find a common thread between them of openness, inclusivism, and deep consideration of other spiritual paths… They honor one another. They aren’t afraid of one another. They sit on stage with each other and have panel discussions about things that matter, inter-faith dialogue, things that further the human understand and collective consciousness… Not words of division or fear.    If you’re a person that finds yourself on the front edge of anything… You’ll have new ideas. You’ll perhaps be the tip of the spear or the first person to share these new ideas. Maybe pitching the idea to your board of directors, or your boss, or someone you respect… And they might respond in a way that hurts you.    You can bet that someone approached the CEO of Blockbuster 10 years ago to talk about streaming services, and maybe he responded with anger. “THAT’S NOT WHAT WE DO! WE’RE A VIDEO RENTAL STORE!”    Maybe true of Toys-R-Us, or Sears, or any other company that handled new information poorly.    I guess it’s worth noting that nothing I shared in that sermon was new. Not even close. Some of these ideas come straight from Desert Fathers and Mothers in the first centuries. And I guess I should also say that none of the response has hurt me, personally. I’m recognizing how stuck some people are, and how afraid they are that adjusting a single string in the tapestry will cause the whole thing to unravel… Which I just cannot agree to believe. This is way too big and beautiful to ever be unraveled by a few new (or not so new) ideas.    Be encouraged, be empowered, and let’s keep moving humanity in the right direction.    I love you, make it a good day. 

The Pharisees weren’t ready for Jesus.    They weren’t prepared. They had not trained for this.    They had studied and memorized and perfected all of the traditions to a “T”…But they weren’t ready for Jesus.    They had signed up for this life of religious duty to be living examples; to be guardians of God’s word; to be teachers and moral compasses for other Jews looking to grow in their faith… They were comfortable with pointing out the faults in others, and holding each other to incredibly high standards… They believed the way to please God was by meticulously following a long list of rules and regulations.613, to be exact.    So, as you can imagine, they weren’t ready for Jesus.    Theywereready to preserve thelast thing God had done, and continue passing it down from generation to generation—They were ready toPRESERVEwhat God had said500 years agoand keep it safe and shiny and preserved…    They were ready to be preservatives in the last batch of bread God made… but Jesus wasn’t looking for preservatives; he was looking for yeast. Something wild and active to work its way through theNEW THING He was up to.    The Pharisees weren’tready for thenew thing God was doing in their midst.    Here was this no name, blue collar guy from Nazareth(“Nazareth! Can anything good come from Nazareth?”John 1:46) And he was causing quite a stir.    By all measurable standards, Jesus was athreatto what the Pharisees were doing.  He didn’t follow in-step with what the Pharisees had defined as the social norm.  He broke the rules. The Pharisees were all pointed this way but Jesus hada new direction.    It would be like someone that would come to our church service and stand up in the middle to interrupt with some sort ofuncomfortableidea. I don’t know how honest you’re willing to be, but if someone just stood up and starting causing a ruckus here my first reaction would be“Jake! GET HIM! Get him outta here!” Because Jake is my personal body guard.    The Pharisees weren’t ready for Jesus.    I want to share today from Luke 6, a moment in Jesus’ life where He breaks the Law, and then we’ll “turn the gem” to see a few layers deeper of what Jesus was up to.    In this series, we’re using this metaphor of “turning the gem.” It’s a phrase we borrowed from the Jewish tradition where Rabbis talk about scripture having 70 faces. Just like a gem, when you turn it, or allow the sun to shine through it, you will see somethingnewandoften unexpected.So each week, we read a story from Jesus’ life, and then turn the gem to reveal a few other angles and facets of what was really going on.    Let’s read today’s text,Luke 6:1-11 NLT One Sabbath day as Jesus was walking through some grainfields, his disciples broke off heads of grain, rubbed off the husks in their hands, and ate the grain. 2 But some Pharisees said, “Why are you breaking the law by harvesting grain on the Sabbath?” 3 Jesus replied, “Haven’t you read in the Scriptures what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He went into the house of God and broke the law by eating the sacred loaves of bread that only the priests can eat. He also gave some to his companions.” 5 And Jesus added, “The Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath.” Jesus Heals on the Sabbath 6 On another Sabbath day, a man with a deformed right hand was in the synagogue while Jesus was teaching. 7 The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees watched Jesus closely. If he healed the man’s hand, they planned to accuse him of working on the Sabbath. 8 But Jesus knew their thoughts. He said to the man with the deformed hand, “Come and stand in front of everyone.” So the man came forward. 9 Then Jesus said to his critics, “I have a question for you. Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it?” Matthew12:11-12 “If you had a sheep that fell into a well on the Sabbath, wouldn’t you work to pull it out? Of course you would. And how much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Yes, the law permits a person to do good on the Sabbath.” 10 He looked around at them one by one and then said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” So the man held out his hand, and it was restored! 11 At this, the enemies of Jesus were wild with rage and began to discuss what to do with him.   Jesus breaks the Law.  (The first part of this text, Jesus and his disciples are walking through some grain fields is actually where this tattoo comes from.) It was known amongst the Jewish community that Sabbath was taken very seriously. This was something that God himself ordered us to observe. And it wasn’t some obscure holiday only happening once a year—This wasweekly. At this point in Jesus’ life, He had literally experienced over 1,500 Sabbaths. None of these actions were by accident.    This was Jesusintentionallyandstrategicallychallenging the Pharisees—who are symbolic of the status quo, the societal norm, the accepted culture at the time.    Jesus is poking, prodding, agitating thesespecific rulesthe Pharisees—and most of the Jewish people—were following.He was redefining what Sabbath meant.It wasn’t a day simply to follow as many rules as possible. It was a day to behuman. To rest from work, to acknowledge the Lord as Creator and provider, and to be a “humanbeing” rather than a “humandoing” the other 6 days of the week.    Jesus had this wedge driving into the legalism of the Pharisees, and He was prying it open… Proving to them that their rules were getting in the way of God.Their rules were getting in the way of God. Beyond that: These rules were getting in the way of Jesus being Jesus.    I wonder if we ever let “rules” get in the way ofusbeing Jesus…    What a radical teaching…Here were these rules supposedly established by God in the Old Testament. 39 categories of activities that the Mishnah explicitly says are prohibited: Sowing, Plowing, Reaping, Kneading, Baking, Shearing wool, Weaving, Trapping, Slaughtering, Building, Demolishing, Starting a fire, extinguishing a fire, putting the “finishing touch” on an object…    And Jesus says… “No, no, no… These rules and regulations are actually getting the way ofgoodthings happening.”    MARK 2:27 NLT Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.”    This—my friends—was radical.    Jesus was saying, “You’re beingtoo literal… You’re beingTOO LITERALwith what God has revealed to you. These boundaries were supposed tohelpyou to enjoy the Sabbath, not begrudgingly submit to it. These were guidelines from a loving Father, not rules from a sadistic monster. You’ve missed the point.”    And thank God—Jesus was willing to confront it. And challenge them. God Himself, in the flesh, helping us realize many of the rules we were following were missing the heart of God entirely.    Now that’s sort of what’s happening on the surface… The first facet of this story.    I want toTURN THE GEM here a bitand look at what Jesus is doing. Jesus was valuing the “spirit of the law” over the “letter of the law.” The SPIRIT over the LETTER. Maybe you’re familiar with these phrases… This is essentially the debate in politics around the Constitution—What did the founding fathers mean when they wrote what they wrote? This is the world ofINTERPRETATION, and it’s a murky water we’re stepping into.    Letter vs. Spirit. When someone obeys theletterof the law but not thespirit, they're obeying the literal interpretation of the words (the "letter") of the law, butnot necessarily the intent of those who wrote it.    2 CORINTHIANS 3:6 NIV He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.   Paul goes on to write about the previous covenant that Moses wrote down on tablets of stone, and how this New Covenant is written on the tablets of our hearts.Paul is distinguishing from an old way of writing down rules and following rules and a new way that is written on our hearts by the Spirit of the Living God.    Letter vs. Spirit is the reason our Constitution has 27 Amendments to it. Within 2 years of it being ratified, 10 new amendments were submitted for ratification. Clarifications on the interpretation, to make sure the SPIRIT of the Constitution was upheld over the LETTER. A literal reading, void of emotional intelligence and human conscience, would leave loopholes for people to exploit. Hence the amendments…    And over time, as humanity progressed, new amendments were made to uphold SPIRIT over LETTER. 13th Amendment abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude. 15th Amendment allowing any race to vote. 19th Amendment allowing women to vote.   All of this: Jesus breaking the Law and confronting the Pharisees is Jesusdoing away with legalism. I believe that Jesus never wanted us tofocus on rulesandaccidentally miss God’s heart in the process.    Jesus valuedfeeding His disciplesover and abovefollowing the Law around Sabbath. As did King David.    The Parable of the Good Samaritanis one of Jesus’ most famous parables—these little story-illustrations that Jesus would use to drive home a point. They’re memorable, they’re meaningful… Jesus knew that the way to our hearts was through story.    It’s documented inLuke 10:25-37, when anexpert in religious law stood up to test Jesus… (Don’t you wish you had half the courage of that guy? Standing up to “TEST”Jesus?) He gives Jesus a pop-quiz about the Old Testament (“Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”) and Jesus does His typical Jesus-thing and responds with a question of His own:“What does the Law of Moses say? How doyou read it?”    27 The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 28 “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!” 29 The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”   Verse 30: “Jesus replied with a story…”    Oh man, if Jesus replies with a story, you know you’re in for it. Look out, “expert in religious law,” you’re about to have your tail handed to you.    So Jesus tells this story…  LUKE 10:30-37  Jesus replied with a story: “A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. 31 “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. 32 A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. 33 “Then a despised Samaritan came along,(Disabled, transexual Muslim) and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. 34 Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them.(Oh, 1st century medicine how I love you) Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him.   This is a beautiful story, and I don’t miss what Jesus did here: A priest (“expert in religious law”) and a Temple Assistant both have an opportunity to respond in love to this wounded man. They’rebothgiven the opportunity andbothallowGod’s RULESto get in the way ofbeing Jesus in that man’s life.   The Priest and the Temple Assistant uphold theletter of the lawOVER thespirit of the law and they miss the opportunity to “Be Jesus” in that wounded man’s life.    MATTHEW 25:42-45 NLT 42 For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me a drink. 43 I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’ 44 “Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?’ 45 “And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’   Have you ever recognized an opportunity to be Jesus in someone’s life, but then you had all these second thoughts and fears creep in…“What will people think of me? What if ‘so and so’ finds out? What will my pastor think if I’m seen hanging out with that type of crowd?”    I find it happening all the time in my life… For me, (and this is just me personally), I find that I’m surrounded by people in theLGBT communitythat are hurting… People that have been beaten up by the Church and left on the side of the road. People that see “experts in religious law” and “temple assistants” crossing to the other side of the street and avoiding them for fear of being made unclean… on their way to do their religious duties.    I see opportunities to be Jesus in these people’s lives and then… the second thought comes. There’s always that damn second thought…  And I wonder what people at Harbor might think or me.  And I worry about folks on Facebook and what they might think of me.  And I’m paralyzed.    People in the LGBT community need to know the love of Jesus, and they need to be served and supported and treated with dignity and be told that they are sons and daughters of the King, just like you and me… but for me, the traditional understanding of the “rules” get in the way, and more times than not, I do nothing.    And it’s not just the LGBT community, that’s just an example.I see womenthat have clearly been given the gift of teaching and preaching and leadership being told by their senior pastors and male-dominant elder boards that 1 Timothy 2:12 clearly says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.”    And I wonder if we’re letting theletter of the lawoverrule the Spirit…    Luckily, our leadership has done important work over the last few years for women and recognized these “few and far between” verses were culturally specific—for a specific time and place [NEW ROMAN WOMAN]—not God’s eternal timeless will for all of mankind.But realizing that took an enormous amount of work.    There are over 20 verses in the Old Testament that explicitly call us to sacrifice animals as worship to God.  But then David spoke out against it, the prophet Hosea reaffirmed it, and then Jesus Himself quotes Hosea, saying"I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings.”  Thank God, for the animals AND us, that we recognize those texts were for a specific place and time, not God’s eternal timeless will for all of mankind.  There are dozens of Old Testament & New Testament texts condoning slavery (and indentured servitude). But thank God we recognized that those texts were for a specific place and time, not God’s eternal timeless will for all of mankind.  There are 6 verses in the Bible that mention homosexuality, (the word “homosexual” not showing up in English translations until the 1940s) none of which I believe are talking about the same monogamous, faithful, same-sex relationships we’re seeing in 2018.  There’s 1 verse in the NT banning women from leadership.And yet that’s all it took for centuries of women being barred from teaching, preaching, leading worship, etc.    When Jesus broke these “laws” surrounding Sabbath, He was boldly teaching us how to interpret Scripture…    If following the law means that people go hungry?Break the law. Jesus did. If following the law means that people go un-healed?Break the law. Jesus did. If following the law means that hurting people go unloved?Break the law. Jesus did.   I believe that the beauty of even having the Old Testament available to us also presents some theological problems to resolve… butthey’re worth resolving. EVERYTHING humanity knew of God, prior to Jesus, needs to be re-evaluated in light of Jesus. Every Old Testament text, every Psalm, every tradition… When Jesus came to the earth, suffered at the hands of man and then was resurrected… That changed everything.And as a result, we now must read the Bible backwards.    We start with Jesus and then go back into these previous texts.Ifany interpretationof God’s character or heart in the OT isn’t accurate to the face of Jesus,then it isn’t fully accurate.Jesus was teaching us to interpret the Scriptures in this exact way with how He lived (and broke the “law”) on the Sabbath.    I’m not saying we need to do away with the Old Testament,I’m saying we need to read it through the lens of Jesus.Jesus is the most accurate picture humanity has ever seen of God.    Jesus, in the middle of His sermon on the mount (maybe when He noticed people were starting to get ruffled and bothered by this “You’ve heard it said but I now say to you…” stuff…   MATTHEW 5:17-18 NLT 17 “Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose. 18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God’s law will disappear until its purpose is achieved.   Jesus says that He didn’t come to throw away the Torah, but to accomplish everything it was trying to accomplish. Not to abolish the Law but to FULFILL it…    So the question must be asked:“Did Jesus accomplish what He came to accomplish? Did He fulfill the Law?”I believe yes.Jesus didn’t say the Law and the prophets were somehowuntrue, but He certainly said that they wereunfulfilled. They weren’t complete as is. If they were, He wouldn’t have come.    Jesus Himself is the Word of God, and I believe He’s still speaking through His spirit to us today.He’s teaching us how toBe Jesusin a day and age ofsocial media, and24 hour news cycles, andglobalization… We know more now than any culture in the history of humanity. If something terrible happens in Tibet, we see in 10 minutes later on the news. We can hop on Skype and video chat with someone in Tasmania right now.   The Bible doesn’t have specific verses in it about how to honor one another on Facebook threads, or how to honor God with your BitCoin… Or how to love your crazyDemocratneighbor or your crazyRepublicanneighbor.The United States of America didn’t even exist when these men and women were writing and compiling the Scriptures...That’s why we have theSpirit of Godto speak directly to us about how tobe Jesusin 2018.    1 THESSALONIANS 5:19-21 NLT 19 Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. 20 Do not scoff at prophecies, 21 but test everything that is said. (then) Hold on to what is good.   Testeverything,filtereverything, and then hold on to what is good.    Brian Zahndsays this:  “God has a face and he looks like Jesus. God has a disposition toward sinners and it’s the spirit of Jesus. This is the beautiful gospel… God is like Jesus. God has always been like Jesus. There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus; we haven’t always known this, but now we do… God is not a sadistic monster who abhors sinners and dangles them over a fiery pit. God is exactly how Jesus depicted him in his most famous parable: a father who runs to receive, embrace, and restore his prodigal children.”    I fear that poor Bible interpretation over the years has gotten in the way of us trulyBEING JESUSin people’s lives… I worry when people uphold Old Testament texts that seemingly contradict the heart of Jesus (texts of violence, genocide… Any text depicting an Angry and exclusive God), and then they side with the Law instead of the Spirit.    I just had a lady tell me on Facebook that getting tattooed is a form of hating your body…Leviticus 19:28clearly says,“Do not mark your skin with tattoos.”But a few verses before it says that men can’t trim their beards, or eat your Filet Minion anything other than well-done. It also says we can’t cross-breed animals, so any of you that have a Labra-doodle or are eating Genetically-Modified corn at home—you’re breaking Levitical law.   I don’t bring this up to poke holes or have a light-hearted view of Scripture, I believe that this is actually having a HIGH VIEW of Scripture… one in which we dive as deep as we possibly can go, through every single verse in the Bible until we end back at Jesus.Any biblical interpretation that doesn’t end back at the image of God we see in Jesus isn’t good biblical interpretation.    I’m not saying you have to believe all of this exactly like I do, but you do need to study this as carefully and critically as I have.Having a high-view of Scripture means NOT just taking it at it’s face value. Dive deep.    2 TIMOTHY 3:16 AMP  16 All Scripture is God-breathed [given by divine inspiration] and is profitable (and useful) for instruction, for conviction of sin, for correction, for training in righteousness...   It’s all helpful, it’s all useful…We just need to know how to apply it. Some scriptures are included in the Bible as examples of howNOTto act. The entire OT essentially proving that following a bunch of rules to impress God doesn’t work.Jesus came and shifted the entire conversation.    We need to follow Jesus. What did we see in Jesus as He walked the earth and interacted with the people in His life?Let’s live like that!    Jesus wasn't angry. Jesus wasn't exclusive. Jesus wasn’t afraid of other nationalities or sexual orientations or genetic anomalies… God is exactly how Jesus depicted him in his most famous parable: a father who runs to receive, embrace, and restore His prodigal children.    Jesus broke all sorts of cultural “rules” and flew in the face of stereotypes and prejudices.    I want to end with a few photographs[SERMON.jpg] from the artist David LaChapelle, because I think it helps us understand culturally how radical He was…    [INTERVENTION.jpg]In John 8, Jesus stands up for a woman caught in the act of adultery.    JOHN 8:3-11 NLT 3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.   4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”   6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.   9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”   11 “No, Lord,” she said.   And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”   [ANOINTING.jpg]InLUKE 7:36-38 NLT 36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat. 37 When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. 38 Then she knelt ...at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.   39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!”   40 Then Jesus answered his thoughts. “Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.”   “Go ahead, Teacher,” Simon replied.   41 Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people—500 pieces of silver to one and 50 pieces to the other. 42 But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?”   43 Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.”   “That’s right,” Jesus said. 44 Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume.   47 “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” 48 Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”   49 The men at the table said among themselves, “Who is this man, that he goes around forgiving sins?”   50 And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”   [LAST SUPPER.jpg] The Pharisees weren’t ready for Jesus…Far too radical. Far too controversial. How dare this man redefine the Law and what it means to be in relationship with God the Father? How dare He…    But when I look around Harbor, I see Jesus at work. I see His spirit moving people to love people that aredifferentfrom them. People with different backgrounds, different cultures, different tax brackets and yes, even different sexual orientations.    I see God motivating all of us to be good Samaritans, even if we are despised in the eyes of the religious , to find the hurting people and nursing them back to emotional, spiritual, physical health… To help more and more people find their way back to God.    Let’s never let poor Biblical interpretation or previous, primitive ways of thinking get in the way of usbeing Jesusin people’s lives.    God is doing a new thing in our midst, and I pray, unlike the Pharisees, that we’re ready for it.    Let’s pray.

New song's lyrics:  You led us out of Egypt You tore down Jericho You walked with us in Eden With new love to show   You spoke to us through Prophets Gave us songs to sing Showed us miracles and healings Things that Earth had never seen   Now we fight against the change, But change is what You do Yes, Your love stays the same But Your love is on the move   Your love is on the move.    You answered death with beauty When Your stayed Your hand You showed me that You knew me When You drew in the sand   You called us from the darkness We were bound in grave clothes You stood for me in protest When they began to throw   Now we fight against the change, But change is what You do Yes, Your love stays the same But Your love is on the move   Your love is on the move.    You love with great abandon May we do the same Everyone You show us Is a child formed in Your name   Wake us from our slumber Rise into the streets May we love our holy neighbor And everyone we meet   Lord, we’ve fought against the change But change is what You do Now we stand, proud and brave To love the world like You Your love is on the move.

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Recently, I’ve been learning a lot about who I truly am.   Not about who the world wants me to be; not who my bosses or mentors or friends or parents wish me to be. Not who I think my image of God wants me to be. Not who my wife wants me to be. Not even who I think I want me to be… But who I am.   Underneath the make-up, the mask, and all the projections I’ve learned to master.    As an Enneagram type 3, I am labeled “The Achiever.” And it’s very apropos. For most of my life, I have found my self-worth in the production, presentation, and preservation of how others’ perceive me. “If people think I’m successful, I’m successful!” This has created all sorts of wild victories and utterly devastating failures (no matter the true size of failure). At my unhealthiest, I simply strive to produce whatever “they” will think is impressive (while never really being able to define who “they” are). And at my most healthy, I can transcend that need for others’ approval and be freed to bring value to the world, simply by who God has gifted me to be.    One of the most liberating things for my personality type to experience is actually failure. (And the more public the failure, the better it does to tear down the facade of success.) But because of my natural slant to want to be associated with success, I avoid failure at all costs. Even if it means jumping ship from an organization, relationship or project when it starts to show signs of decline.   Why do we feel a sense of liberation when all of our junk is exposed?  How is it that when some of our deepest fears are realized, we actually feel a sense of excitement come over us?   For me, when I’ve experienced failure recently, it’s been as if the experience tore the mask off my face; and quickly realizing that the mask was actually limiting my vision and making it harder to breathe. The thing that I thought was protecting me was actually putting my experience of life into a box. (A very pretty, gold-gilded box).   And a public display of my inadequacies actually becomes liberating.    “No, I’m not very good at that.”  “That thing scares me.”  “I’m not confident that I can make that work.”  “I don’t really feel like it.”  “I’m probably not the right person for the job.”  “I’ve been feeling pretty lonely recently.”    Even if you aren’t wired in the same way, isn’t there a great sense of relief when the people around you know you for who you truly are? And especially when they still love you.   A former boss of mine once said to me, “John, I want you to know that you’re not needed here. We don’t need you. We can find someone else to do this job. But I want you to know that you’re wanted. We want you here.”    We don’tneed you, but we dowant you.    And it reframed the whole thing for me.   Mothers, you spend most of your lives trying to nurture little ones into happy, healthy people. The last thing you need is to worry about projecting a perfect image while doing it. Pinterest isn’t watching. Be honest with yourself and the people around you about how impossibly hard parenting is. Rest in that. This season of life is probably the most confused and sleep-deprived that you’ll ever be.   Entrepreneurs, you live, eat, breathe and sleep striving for success. Every day you’re #Hustling. When will the final sense of satisfaction come? Is it when you make your first million? Is it when you have fifty employees? Is it when you sell your idea to a larger business? Don’t feel the pressure to act like someone you’re not. In your honest assessment of who you truly are, you’ll find joy (and relief that you don’t have to #hustle to find a sense of satisfaction).   Millennials, we’re wired with an insatiable hunger for more. More connection, more uniqueness, more social justice, more freedom, more self-reliance. When will we be happy? Maybe it’s not actually about our definition of happiness at all. Maybe it’s about genuine presence and making an actual impact in the causes we’re passionate about. Wouldn’t that be remarkable? If our lives actually made a difference?   I think we could all benefit from a bit of failure. A moment when we let our true inadequacies show. A time to realize we don’t have it all together. An ugly (but liberating) makeup-less Selfie.    Because then, and perhaps only then, we’ll realize that the people that love us truly love us for who we are.   (Not who we pretend to be.)

Jesus commanded Peter, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” John 18:11   Jesus is being arrested. It’s finally happening. After countless ruffling of the religious elite, calling Pharisees a “brood of vipers”, and constantly disrupting societal norms... They’ve had enough. They’re going to put an end to it.    In the middle of the night. With lots of manpower.    John 18:3 says that Judas guided a “detachment of soldiers” into the garden. Scholars estimate that a “detachment” was somewhere between 200–600 men. They’re coming to arrest a teacher and his eleven friends. And they're carrying torches, lanterns and weapons.    Jesus confronts them immediately. “Who is it you want?”    “Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied.   “I am he,” Jesus said.   When the soldiers step forward to arrest Jesus, Peter draws his sword and in a moment of equal parts “lightning-fast speed” and “complete unfamiliarity with how to use a sword” he cuts off one of the accuser’s ears. It’s violent and emotional, but also hilarious. This scene in the garden would’ve had a very different flavor if Peter was a skilled swordsman and swiftly decapitated a few of the soldiers. (Thank God that Peter wasn’t a skilled swordsman.)   Jesus is quick to correct him. “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”    Jesus doesn’t want Peter to get sucked into violence, and he also doesn’t want him getting in the way of what God is up to.    I can’t tell you how many times I find myself caught off-guard and reaching for my sword.    Peter was unprepared for this moment. Jesus had invited him to be in prayer; to be aware; to be prepared… But Peter and the others had fallen asleep. (Matthew 26:40-46)    Had they been praying with Jesus when the soldiers arrived, would Peter have acted differently? Would he have seen more accurately what God was up to? Would his perspective have been broader? Would he have trusted God’s sovereignty in the midst of the chaos?    I think yes.    But instead, he went from a deep sleep to having soldiers in his face. Of course he reached for his sword.    How often do we try to obstruct God’s plan simply because we’re caught off-guard? How many times is God up to something magnificent and painful but glorious and Kingdom-advancing… but because we were sleeping as it was coming together, we’re playing catch up, acting defensively and trying to protect what has always been?   I think I’m more like Peter than I’d ever want to admit.    By all accounts, Peter was doing the “right” thing—defending his leader. If someone comes to attack your guy, you fight back. And over the years a lot of religious people have used that same mentality to commit atrocious acts of violence in the name of God. “We’re under attack! Stand your ground! Defend the motherland!” And there have been countless times in my life that doing the “right” thing is a mile off-target from the wisdom of God.    Jesus sternly says, “Put away your swords. You’re getting in the way.”    Does this mean we never defend our faith? Does it mean we never fight to preserve what God has entrusted to us? No. But it does mean that we need to be more prayerful and watchful than ever. We need to be constantly asking God to give us His perspective. We need to be asking for wisdom and Kingdom-mindedness beyond our years.    Otherwise, we’ll simply be reacting (usually foolishly) to what He’s unfolding around us.    Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. Colossians 4:2   Lord, may our lives be marked by gratitude and expectancy. May we not miss what You’re up to, and may we never get in the way of the magnificent things You’re doing in our midst. 

To learn more about the Enneagram: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com To buy Richard Rohr's book that some of these thoughts came from: https://amzn.to/2li1ruP 

Over the course of my life thus far, I’ve been faced with a number of difficult decisions… From simpler ones like which sport to play in high school, or which college to attend—to more complex ones like who to marry, and which profession to pursue… How many kids do you have? When do you invest your money and when do you take risks with new adventures? When your daughter has Type 1 Diabetes, which healthcare do you choose? How do we want to structure our business? Employees or contractors? LLC or S-Corp…    I have a “GoDaddy graveyard” ofGREAT IDEAS!!! that didn’t turn out to be great ideas at all. I’ve started down paths to pursue starting clothing companies, learning environments, online courses, co-working spaces, art galleries… All ideas. All on the cutting-room floor.    We’re faced with thousands of decisions every day. In fact, if you do some research you’ll realize that we make somewhere around 35,000 semi-conscious decisions per day. Nearly 300 just on food alone, according to researchers at Cornell.    what to eat what to wear what to purchase what we believe what jobs and career choices we will pursue how we vote   Less tangible decisions like… Who should I trust on this one…? What should I believe about XYZ…? Some of the most profound “decision-making” has been around how I view myself, and understand my faith, and how I should exist and operate in the world around me. Who should I invest time in? Who am I discipling? Which leaders am I committed to developing? When to work and when to rest?    You’ve likely heard of the phrase: Decision Fatigue. And it’s real. Somedays I’ll hit a point where a seemingly simple decision has me stumped. All morning I had no problem with pricing out $25,000 websites, and then I’m standing in line at Starbucks and I can’t for-the-life-of-me decide whether to order a Cold Brew or a Can of Tuna Fish… It’s like the little Drill Sergeants in my mind all took a smoke break at the same time and I’m left with no one upstairs.    Something that I learned from Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg is about how they dress themselves… Both some of the most influential and central people on the face of the earth… Nearly impossible decisions to make. And they both dress with the same philosophy.    In 2012, Obama told Vanity Fair that the position of being President required him to cut away the mundane, frustrating decisions like deciding what to wear every morning. He said, “You'll see I wear only gray or blue suits," he said. "I'm trying to pare down decisions. I don't want to make decisions about what I'm eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make."   Zuckerberg said a similar thing in 2014. He said, “I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community,” he said, meaning he doesn't want to spend mental energy on deciding what to wear or what to eat for breakfast.   Same thing with Steve Jobs and his trademark blue jeans and black turtleneck.    A psychologist that studies decision fatigue, Roy Baumeister, says that "Making decisions uses the very same willpower that you use to say no to doughnuts, drugs, or illicit sex… It's the same willpower that you use to be polite or to wait your turn or to drag yourself out of bed or to hold off going to the bathroom," Baumeister told the New York Times. "Your ability to make the right investment or hiring decision may be reduced simply because you expended some of your willpower earlier when you held your tongue in response to someone's offensive remark or when you exerted yourself to get to the meeting on time."   I’m a big fan of avoiding unnecessary decisions… I wear a very similar wardrobe every day. In fact, I just wore a new t-shirt that felt like the most comfortable and best-fitting t-shirt I’ve ever worn… So I went to my friend’s t-shirt shop and ordered 30 of them in different colors and cuts like v-necks.   Some decisions, however, are unavoidable. And when we must make a decision, Yes or No, Left or Right… How do you decide?    I think back to a book Andy Stanley wrote in 2014 calledAsk It: The question that will revolutionize how you make decisions. And the heart of the book was this simple question: “In light of my past experience, my current circumstances, and my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing for me to do?”   In light of these 3 dimensions: past, present and future dreams: “What’s the wise thing for me to do?”    “In light of my past experience, my current circumstances, and my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing for me to do?”   This can help steer us when we get confused. It’s incredibly helpful to separate certain decisions away from “Is this RIGHT or is it WRONG?” Or even believing that only one of the directions is right. Sometimes there are multiple options with multiple strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes the decision is so nuanced and layered that it’s crippling to even attempt to label the options as “RIGHT” or “WRONG.”    The truth is that any of the options carry with them potential beauty and potential pain… Pros and Cons. And it’s helpful to step outside of a one-dimensional decision making process and begin to ask “What is the wisest thing to do?”    Not which is most fun, not which is most tempting or sexy or exciting or immediately rewarding… But which is wisest.    And then… For me personally...   I’m only ever 80% sure.About anything. I’d have to say with every decision I’ve ever made in my life, I was only 80% sure.    You leave room for that silly 20% of your mind that will never be convinced… And that’s OK. I’m only 80% sure that I made the right decision in getting married young and starting a family and building a business… There’s always that 20% that looks at friends living a different life and wondering what that would be like… Or wishing you pursued a different college major.    On a good day, I’m only ever 80% sure God exists. There arealways quite voices of doubt and rebellion, trying to convince me otherwise. And I think that HONESTY helps keep me grounded in reality. It helps me keep a healthy dialogue in my mind about what I’m experiencing and what else might be going on. When people hit 100% certainty, they’ve typically gone into the world of obsessive, brainwashing… And they lose touch with reality. That’s when people launch crusades or become terrorists or shoot up their high schools… That’s when people pick up Tiki torches and march for a white nation.    That’s when we lose the necessary humility to stay within a healthy, wholistic human race and participate with empathy and curiosity.    And here’s the truth: I’ll forfeit 100% certainty over 100% inaction any day. If I had to choose between only being 80% sure or being crippled with anxiety and unable to make decisions until I was 100% certain… I’d choose the movement. I’d choose moving forward with a little bit of doubt than rocking back and forth in the corner hugging my knees.    Walter Frick recently wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review, titled 3 ways to Improve your Decision Making:    The #1 rule he gives for good decision making is this: Be less certain. Nobel-prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman has said that overconfidence is the bias he’d eliminate first if he had a magic wand. It’s ubiquitous, particularly among men, the wealthy, and even experts. Overconfidence is not a universal phenomenon — it depends on factors including culture and personality — but the chances are good that you’re more confident about each step of the decision-making process than you ought to be.   So, the first rule of decision making is to just be less certain — about everything. Think choice A will lead to outcome B? It’s probably a bit less likely than you believe. Think outcome B is preferable to outcome C? You’re probably too confident about that as well.   Once you accept that you’re overconfident, you can revisit the logic of your decision. What else would you think about if you were less sure that A would cause B, or that B is preferable to C? Have you prepared for a dramatically different outcome than your expected one?   Something that has helped me is to find clarity outside of what’s presently in front of me. Clarity exists outside ofthe present decision in front of me.When you’re able to zoom out and begin to glimpsewho you are outside of your decisions, the decisions lose their power to produce anxiety in you. They don’t lose theirimportance, per se, but they lose their ability to cripple… There’s more freedom and grace in the decision making. You can decide to do something and try it for a while, but then give yourself the freedom to admit that it was a bad decision, and either go back to the drawing board or pivot and evolve the current thing to be something new…    Sometimes these decisions cost you money. Earlier this year alone, I spent over $60,000 pursuing a specific model with my business, only to realize that it wasn’t panning out how I’d hoped. I had a decision to make: Double-down and invest more, or, with humility, admit that it’s not working and that we need to make a change. We made the change. We had hard conversations, and we fixed the trajectory of the business. We’re heading in the right direction, and that difficult decision has relieved an unimaginable amount of pressure that I was carrying around.    I guess this kind of follows previous episodes, and includes everything we talked about with Being Kind To Yourself. You need to make decisions. You need to decide when to buy and when to sell. When to settle down and when to set out on adventure. When to propose, and when to break the relationship off… And after you make the decision—Be kind to yourself.    Pay attention to how the decision is panning out. Pay attention to your feelings. Pay attention to whatever Key Performance Indicators are put in place… And if it’s not going how you’d hoped, try to fix it. Maybe you went off on an adventure and now it’s time to come home. I can’t tell you the number of friends that made big moves in the last 5 years, that are now all moving back here to New England. And that’s fine. It’s wonderful. It doesn’t mean it was all a mistake… It just means they have greater clarity around where God wants them and where they feel most at home.    And the same is true for everything.    When it comes to decisions, try to minimize the amount of them you need to make each day. Then, for the unavoidable ones, do your best investigative work to try to get to 80% certainty, and pull the trigger. After that, if it’s not working out, fix it. Make it right. Sometimes it costs you money, sometimes it costs you a relationship, sometimes it means having hard conversations and entering into a necessary season of your pride being torn down and facing your failures… And maybe that’s the most transformative thing of it all.    SO what are you up against? What difficult decision do you have sitting in front of you? Maybe there’s no RIGHT or WRONG answer or direction to take… Maybe it’s just what you feel is the wisest choice right now. And that’s OK.    I love you guys… Make it a good day. 

When my wife and I first met, and we were dating, it became very clear, early on, that we handled conflict differently. What would pique my interest and get me excited for a hard conversation would get her blood pressure up and have her running for the hills. I would want to engage, she would want to escape. I would want to investigate, she would want to ignore at all costs.    After meeting her family, I recognized that we had very different upbringings. My father was famous for stopping a conversation in the middle of dinner to pull me aside and correct what I had just done or said inappropriately. It was awkward for 5 minutes, but it addressed the issue and we moved forward not carrying anything with us.    Elyse was more comfortable with skirting the conversation, trying to brush it under the rug and get out of the dinner unscathed. That’s what she would consider “success.”    She was a peace-keeper (just wanting to keep the peace) and I was a peace-maker, (just wanting to do anything in my power to fix it immediately).    As you can imagine, early in our relationship we had to figure this out. It was impossible for me to argue with someone that refused to argue. It was like arm wrestling with a wet noodle. It wasn’t fun because she’d give up and go silent… Ostrich-mode—Head in the sand. How can you argue with that?    I didn’t think my goal was to necessarily “WIN” but to at least have a hard conversation and make both of our points, and eventually compromise.    My dad told me in my early teen years that “soul mates” aren’tfound, they’reformed. Compromise and collaboration are the keys to a happy marriage (and a happy “anything”—for that matter). It was important teaching for a young man that’s looking for THE ONE… Someone to fulfill all my wildest dreams. Someone that’s beautiful and creative and spontaneous and wholesome and exotic and loving… I stopped looking for the finished product and started looking for the raw materials (knowing full-well that I was in my unpolished, raw-material state as well).    And I found her. And 12 years later, we’re more in love than ever.    Something I knew early on that needed to be addressed was my unhealthy appetite for conflict and confrontation. And in counseling over the past few years, I realized that it was because I had a tendency to “WIN” these confrontations… Or at leastTHINK i won them. I had the ability to out-talk people and make a few good points (however random they needed to be) and then I’d win. Who wouldn’t start liking confrontation if they got into the swing of “winning” them?    But what I recognized was that this sort of abrasive, in-your-face type of handling difficult conversations was obnoxious, and not productive. And actually, stemming out of a place of meNOT being OK with unresolved tensions. The reason I’d step up to the plate to address things immediately was because I needed resolution.    Elyse was more comfortable with giving things space, and needing time to process things. And… Truth is—A lot of times that can work. People step away from the table and get perspective, then come back together with a renewed grace about them.    I needed to learn to engage with hard conversations however the other parties needed to engage. The “rules of engagement” needed to be mutually agreed upon. If they needed margin and space to process, I had to be OK with that. At the same time, they had to be willing to share their opinions that they’d rather keep quiet.    On our honeymoon, we were in Eagles Nest, New Mexico. Our friends had a summer home on the side of a mountain there, and it seemed like the perfect place to get away from everyone and celebrate our marriage. During one of our day trips, we went to the Taos Pueblo, one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the United States. In one of the little homes there, an older Native American woman named “Chile Flower” was selling Native American wedding vases.    They’re basically a small water jug with two spouts out of the top, pointing in opposite directions (one for the bride, one for the groom), then they’re connected with a little bridge of ceramic.    She told us all about the tradition of these vases, and how on the day of the wedding, the vase is filled with holy water and given to the bride. She drinks from one side and the groom drinks from the other. This ceremony is equivalent to the exchanging of wedding bands.    Chile Flower went on to tell us the most important part, that many of the tourists don’t know… That you keep the wedding vase in a visible part of your home, and if you’re ever in an argument, you sit down across from your spouse, and you each hold your side of the vase. And you argue well. You say what you need to say, while holding this symbol of commitment and covenant.    When there’s a mutual commitment to unity between two parties, hard conversations suddenly lose the anxiety that typically surrounds them. If you’re able to say, “Hey, we need to talk about this, but we both agree that this isn’t going to be a relationship shattering thing…” it suddenly loses its’ power over us. And then of course you can share your opinions and fears and worries without fear thatTHISis going to affectTHAT.    In fact, I think it’s only when the small things aren’t addressed continually that they grow into things thatCAN affect the whole thing.    And this is true outside of marriages, of course. This is true of every type of relationship. Friendship, working relationship, within a church community or a gym community…    This past weekend I had a hard conversation with our church. Over the course of a few years, our overall giving was down and the budget was reflecting that. After crunching some of the numbers, we realized that 40% of our church wasn’t giving. They weren’t contributing financially at all. It would be like a small business of 10 folks trying to make a difference in the world, but 4 of them are just hanging out in the break room for the free snacks.    So as a leader in our church family, I wanted to share that with everyone. I wanted to illuminate the facts without shaming people. I wanted to challenge people and ruffle them just enough to hopefully motivate them to begin contributing.    It was one of those things that’s supposed to be 10 minutes long and ends up being 20 minutes long. It was a bit uncomfortable but it was surrounded by humility and grace, and we saw a great response. We saw 15-20 new families begin giving right away.    Again, it’s not about the money at all, it’s about people’s hearts being where their treasure is. It’s about people beginning to feel a sense of ownership over what we’re doing together. And it was good. A necessary, hard conversation that resulted in fruit.    Immediately following that, we went over to a friend’s house that has a beautiful pool and a great place to all hang out.. And the conversation turned from light-hearted stuff to how the Church has handled the LGBT community—poorly from every perspective. A hard conversation. Sometimes it’s an impossible conversation.    How do you embrace and Disciple an entire group of people that certain church members deem sinful? I personally believe it’s the furthest thing from “Black and white” to discuss… It’s not dualism. Right or wrong, black or white, sinner or saint. It’s 50 shades of gray between. (BTW, i’m redeeming that phrase. Screw those books. I’m using it!) It’snon-dualism. It’s person to person, story to story, life to life.   And we have a lot of LGBT folks in our church, and I love it. But people with more traditional backgrounds or conservative upbringing… it challenges them. And I think it makes all of us better.    Whether it’s racism, or politics, or different interpretations of the Bible… We have differences that we still feel are “tribal” and set up the “US VS. THEM” mentality.    And that’s exactly what darkness would want. Isolation, building up walls, introducing yet another Caste system, a hierarchy… Labels and stereotypes and everyone in convenient little boxes.    I think that’s the furthest thing from what God wants for us.    I believe that—armed with enough humility and commitment to unity—we are able to talk about anything with anyone. And we should. We need to do the hard work of establishing the Rules of Engagement… so that no one is blind-sided, and so that no one fights unfair.    And then we talk. We humbly submit our perspectives to one another, and recognize that there are a thousand different factors playing into how we arrived at the perspective… And recognize that none of us have “arrived.”    Every time I have a hard conversation, I’m reminded of the 50 shades of gray in it all… In everything.    We love approaching life like it’s apaint by number. “All the 5s are green, all the 3s are red…” But I think God is much more interested in watercolor, where it all blends together, and interacts with one another, and typically only makes sense when you step back and see the whole picture.    I love you guys… Thanks for listening, make it a good day. 

While you're at it, go check out Andrew Peterson's song: "Be Kind to Yourself." You'll be glad you did.

Richard Rohr's "Immortal Diamond": https://amzn.to/2kLABuL

It’s hard to stomach how powerless we are over certain things. Racism; poverty; intolerance; inequality… And honestly, even the smallest things can be just as frustrating. Our children’s behavior; our personal finances; hell, even the laundry.  We are confronted (daily) with our inability to control significant parts of our lives. As a pastor, I spend time with people at all different stages of their lives. Some are older and more spiritually/emotionally mature, while some are older and substantially less mature. And the same is true for people younger than me. Some people develop personal discipline and rhythms that benefit them greatly, while some people lack basic boundaries that inevitably spread themselves too thin to do anything of significance. But most all of us carry one thing in common: We want to see change. We want to see change in ourselves, in our families, in our church communities, and in our world. But how?  How do we become prophets that stand up and speak out against the injustices? How can we introduce change in an effective way? How can we lead people through fundamental shifts in thinking? And will anyone listen? A mentor of mine once told me, “Introducing change into your community needs to be treated like turning a cruise ship. You turn too quickly, everyone gets seasick and wants out. But if you adjust your course by 1º every few miles, everyone will onboard will embrace the final destination. Slow, consistent adjustments in the right direction. Is it fun? No. Is it wise leadership? Yes. Do you see where you want your community to be? Can you see it, way out there in the distance? Lock your eyes on it. Fantasize about it. Meditate on it. Pray over it. But when you recognize that you’re actually not heading that direction, promise yourself that you won’t screech the brakes and try to turn on a dime. The people around you will feel like it was a bait-and-switch. They’ll be disoriented. They’ll want out.  Sure, people will notice our 1º corrections, but with each inch of change we’re able to explain the “why” behind it. We're walking side-by-side with people through the change. And people will understand (at least the people we want sticking around will).  SIDENOTE: I guess it’s important to note that I don’t embrace this philosophy with personal growth. When it comes to change in my life, I jump into the air, pirouette, and land in a totally different direction without batting an eye. But that’s because I’m me. And if I catch a glimpse of something better for my personal rhythms or disciplines or boundaries, I’m going to implement it immediately (and unapologetically). Because the only part of me that will be offended is the unhealthy part of my ego. (I'm OK with that.) Leadership is difficult. Whether we’re leading a company, a church, or a ragtag group of children. Leadership is tough. And sometimes it means playing the long-game.  Are we willing to set our end-goal far out on the horizon; while celebrating small victories along the way?   Consider Moses, one of the spiritual fathers of Judaism and Christianity. A committed, patient leader if there ever was one. The journey that the Israelites took lasted 40 years, while only spanning ~240 miles. That’s 6 miles per year. That’s a little under 87 feet per day. For. Forty. Years. And yes, these were by far the most difficult, frustrating, exhausting years of his life. All he knew prior to this was luxury (as a part of the royal family) and personal solitude (as a simple shepherd in the wilderness). But he was faithful to seeing it through. At any one of the hundreds of frustrating moments, he could’ve thrown his hands in the air and said, “FORGET IT! I’m out. You people are killing me!” But he didn’t. “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. — African Proverb Maybe you’re staring down the barrel of a seemingly hopeless, “un-changeable” situation. And yes, maybe your scenario wouldn’t be able to handle an abrupt pivot. Maybe that would send the whole thing toppling.  But could it weather a 1º change? I’m guessing yes. Maybe it means inviting someone new to Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe it means bringing your kids to a playground on the other side of town. Maybe it means refraining from laughing along with the "guys" at work about that "thing." Maybe it means hanging a new piece of art in your home. Maybe it means starting that conversation you've been putting off for two months. If you’re leading yourself, be relentless. Be annoying to yourself. Pivot. Pirouette. Change your habits. Do whatever it takes to be as healthy as possible. But if you’re leading others; remember what it takes to turn a cruise ship. 

“Remain in me, and I will remain in you! The branch can’t bear fruit by itself, but only if it remains in the vine. In the same way, you can’t bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. People who remain in me, and I in them, are the ones who bear plenty of fruit. Without me, you see, you can’t do anything. — John 15:4-5 Remain. It’s one of the hardest things to do… Remaining faithful. Staying engaged. Participating wholeheartedly.  When it’s new, it’s natural to be excited. The sheer thrill of “new” envelopes us. We soak everything in and allow this new part of us to blossom. Faith is beautiful at first. A recognition of our helplessness; an admission of inadequacy met with an extended hand of grace. It changes how we see the world, and how we see our own lives… Everything suddenly has a deeper layer to it. A footnote clarifying what was really going on when that thing was going on. (e.g. Something mindless and devastating happens, but suddenly you begin to recognize the impossible beauty that seems to be flowing out of it.)  And then… Ten years happens. Or maybe it’s 25 years, or 25 days. But the thrill subsides, and suddenly all of the “new” has become “normal.” And you’re left with this one-word challenge from Jesus: “Remain.”  Reading this passage, you can hear a sober plea from Jesus, knowing full-well how difficult it is to stay faithful in a relationship long-term… Even if it is with the Creator of the Universe. Jesus is asking us to stay onboard, even when the sails are limp and there’s no land in sight.  This “bearing fruit” metaphor is Jesus painting a picture of what it looks like for us to know why we were created, and see that “why” clearly demonstrated in our lives. How confident and self-assured must an apple tree feel when its’ limbs are full of fruit! “This is why I was made… This is what I’m contributing to the world.”  And all of the self-obsessed questions and over-analyzation disappears behind a newly discovered meaning. And yet, many of us never glimpse it. We follow the paths carved deep into the mud by our ancestors and do whatever would make our parents proud (even long after they’ve gone). And we wonder why we’re plagued with over-consumption. Over-consumption of digital media, of the Earth's natural resources, of approval-seeking social media posts...  It’s almost as if we’re turning over stones, looking for our purpose under each one.    Is it under this promotion at work? Nope.    Is it under this viral social post? No…    What about under this life milestone? Still no. It’s important to remember that none of these things are bad, or wrong. Jesus wants us to live fulfilling lives. He wants us to succeed and achieve and advance—but only in the things that matter.  I often find myself praying, “Lord, may today be productive in Your eyes. Not what I consider successful, but what You’d like to see me doing with my day.” And it reframes my priorities like the crack of a whip. As with most things, we humans must taste the bitter before we come back to the sweet. And Jesus is standing there with a plate full of fresh fruit, waiting for us to come to our senses. We need to be kind to ourselves, and as patient as God Himself is with us. Over the nearly two decades that I’ve been a follower of Jesus, it’s become clear that God has far more grace for us than we have for ourselves.  God’s not angry. He doesn’t want you to be ashamed. He doesn’t want you worried or striving or meditating on your failures… He wants you, in your simplest state, with your branches full of fruit.  How do we get there?  Remain. 

Every time I start a new journal, I open it to the first page and scribble all over it. Why? It disarms the pressure of a brand new journal… These sacred, white pages… waiting for profound thoughts and notes to fill them. So where do you start? You scribble. Immediately make it imperfect. Not in some sort of sadistic way, but in a freeing way. How do you fight the fear of a blank page? You just start writing a few words. Even if you go back and disregard them later, they broke the seal. They got the wheels turning. And that’s exactly what this is.  Introduction and background. Been wanting to do this for a while but had never found a thread (through line) to connect it all. The vertebrae in my life felt like they were out of alignment.  Helping grow fruit on other people’s trees.  I’m constantly ingesting (and hopefully digesting) teaching from around the world. Leaders in faith, in marketing, in emerging industries, in family, in leadership… There’s not really anything that ties them together in my life, except for me. I find these things profoundly interesting, and they’ve impacted my life in incredible ways. So I want to share. A few rules up front.  I promise that there won’t be some sort of regular schedule, or target length of these. Sometimes they’ll be 10 minutes long. Sometimes they’ll be a 3 hour conversation with someone that I love.  Sometimes we’ll put out one per week, sometimes a Tuesday morning, a Thursday night and a Sunday afternoon…  I am forcing myself not to get hung up with details like that. Which leads me to my next rule: I promise that I’ll never share anything when I’m not inspired.  I know friends and marketers and pastors that feel sucked up into a hamster-wheel, needing to produce content incessantly, without ever taking time to breath and let life happen.  I’m not going to waste your time with filler-content. I’m only going to share things that I realize are changing my life, and I want to share it with whoever might be interested.  No fancy music or production. I spend my entire life creating brands and producing live events that are pixel-perfect and high-production… This will not be that. I want this to feel like we’re just hopping on a phone call. No auto-tune, no botox, no Instagram filters.  So that’s it: The first scribble in a notebook. Glad you’re checking this out. Hopefully it helps you find alignment in your life.