I’m on a three day writing retreat to finish one manuscript and begin two others. It’s weird. I write 700-1000 words every day before work and it’s not unusual to write a few thousand more per day for my work. But I’ve never actually set aside 60 hours from everything else just to write.

Some learnings….

• Working on a book is really jacking with my writing mojo. On a typical morning I can write a 500-1000 word blog post in under and hour. It’s a whole lot harder to write a chapter, then another chapter, then another chapter all on the same topic in a single sitting.
• This is a skill I think I can get into. What I write every day comes so easily. I think if I had the right space I could be a 10,000 words per day writer 4-5 days per week.
• Pausing in a solo retreat is an additional animal to manage. Sitting down and creating this space to work on the book was easy. But being alone, taking long walks, eating meals by myself… that’s all slowing me down and making me really self-reflective and I’ve got ideas flying in from every direction. I might need to create writing retreats and solo retreats as two separate habits.
• I really like being in Mexico. I’m in a small beach town just 45 minutes from home. It has everything that makes me happy. (Minus having my family here) Ocean breezes, long beaches, nice hotels, in-room kitchens, street tacos. We’re a long way from this but it has me dreaming of having a beach house down here.
• Mexicans are the Americans the typical American thinks they are. I’ve now been down here enough to pick up on some cultural insights. Hang with me for a minute. Most of us who have had exposure with border areas have spent time with the poor or working poor. But when you get a little deeper into Mexico, away from the craziness of the industrial border zones, you start to bump into middle class Mexican families. These are people whose culture is hard-working, prides themselves on their law-abiding nature, are modest in how they dress, and define themselves by being very, very polite. These are the shared values with middle class Americans I wish we could build bridges on.
• It’s fun staying at a hotel that hosts big, fancy Quinceañera parties. For about $700 you can host a massive party here at the hotel for 500 guests, including food and liquor a tent (or rooftop) and DJ for 8 hours. If you’ve never seen one of these it is somewhere between a first communion party and a wedding. Last night I watched a young woman do a video and photo shoot in advance of her party this weekend. She had a full film crew profiling her complete with a make-up person, lighting director, sound direction, TV-style video camera, and producer. After that she had 3 photographers. Two took pictures while a woman overseeing the shoot laid on the grass showing her all the girly poses she should be making to get the perfect shot. Hilarious to watch.
• There’s no way to hide from my task. Yesterday I had a period where I fought through procrastination. It’s hilarious when you don’t have any distractions how you can get desperate to distract yourself. I spent an hour organizing files on my computer and deleting stuff I didn’t really need. While it was nice to get that done I totally wasted an hour and was annoyed at myself for it.
• Nailing down jello is impossible. Since I’m writing on social media and basing so much of my work on current statistics, it feels really weird to quote statistics in a book when the statistics will have new variations by the time this is published. I’ve just had to convince myself that this is why I’m writing about principles and not exact responses to trends.
• Turning off the creativity. This is non-fiction piece so I’m having to force myself to limit creativity. That’s really hard.

OK, time is up. Time to turn off the internet until dinner. (I’m cracking my own whip here, people!)

Reject the sleepers gravitational pull! His mediocrity and compromise feels so easy but brings such torment. (Eph 5:14)

While the old, learned, and supposedly wise stare down their noses at your youthful spirit– lead them by chasing your unfalteringly impossible dreams. (1 Timothy 4:12) 

Yet don’t be deceived. Those temple-loving Christians want you dead. Your dreams are dangerous to them. Your dream soaked actions threaten their man-made puffed-up power. (Mark 11:15-18)

Their positions of power are a well-intentioned den of vipers. They’d rather be popular hypocrites than simple servants to the poor, the lost, the widows, and orphans. (Matthew 23) 

But not you. O, your life itself is shalom. You don’t just study God’s Word— you’re wild enough to live it. (James 3:13-16)

You spend time with the wrong people. You’re more comfortable eating dinner with a pimp or pimply-faced punk as the self-righteous. For you dream that theirs too is the Kingdom of God. (Matthew 9:10-13)

Your faith is untamed. It’s a raging inferno of purpose. It’s more driven than any model. It’s wide-eyed and beautiful recklessness. Strategy and planning take a back seat when you’re at your best. For the Spirit both comforts and guides. (John 14:16-17)

You see earthly success as wasteful failure while embracing Kingdom dreams of another way. (Matthew 4:19)

Christ shines not on your sweet sleep dreams, but on the vivid realities of your waking walking wonderful dreams. (Ephesians 5:14)

These dreams aren’t just for you, they are you. 

The Gospel isn’t just for your eternal destiny, it lives through you to renew your neighborhood. (John 1:14)

Hold on, Dreamer!

Hold on. 

Photo credit: Climbing Hands by bhmkim via Flickr (Creative Commons)

What is it…

It’s the first book by my friend and co-author, Jon Huckins. If you’ve ever thought of integrating fictional storytelling into your teaching this is the book you need. (You realize this is what Jesus did with the whole parable thing, right? Yeah, totally biblical.) It’s a great resource– it flew under the radar a bit because he was a first-time author.

Who is Jon…

I first met Jon a couple years ago when I was in Berkeley, CA promoting NYWC. He came to a lunch we hosted and we met briefly. Then a few months later he moved down to San Diego to work with Nieucommunities in Golden Hill. Since August he and I have shared office space, done some life together, and worked our tails off on the Good News in the Neighborhood curriculum. Later this summer I’m fully stepping into Jon’s world by going on his trip to the West Bank. (More on this later.)

Why I like it…

1. I think fictional storytelling is a vastly under-developed communication skill. Even if you don’t use it as a primary teaching tool you need to have this in your bag.
2. This is right out of his ministry. This isn’t an idea that Jon had and he built content around it to support the idea. This started as something he refined in his ministry and then became a book. He’s sharing his secret weapon for capturing the hearts of hard-to-reach teenagers. You need this.

How you can get it…

BUY IT. Head over to Jon’s site and pick up a copy. (Also available on Amazon)

WIN IN. Leave a comment to this post by midnight tonight (May 22nd) and you’ll be entered to win a free copy of Jon’s book.

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.”  ~ 1 Corinthians 9:24

Ah, the prize! I am wired to win the prize. Well, sometimes I am.

Can I be honest? I’m better at running really hard than I am at knowing what the prize even is! Paul continues, “No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” Yeah, I’m certainly not beating my body about anything. (In the literal sense.)

I’ve never met anyone who is truly up to that challenge. Sorry Paul.

This passage, as familiar as it is, confuses me. It’s really clear what Paul’s prize is– winning souls. (v. 19) But that passage isn’t prescriptive and the language isn’t inclusive to assume that the prize/goal for every Christian is to preach to win lost souls.

It’s confusing because it is so direct yet so ambiguous.

Yet for the rest of us. For those who aren’t apostles. For those of us who aren’t hard-wired as preachers or evangelists… we want a prize, too!?! 

Get Your Prize!

I’ve learned to love Paul’s ambiguity. While 1 Corinthians describes this prize, Paul life had times where other prizes were his muse. The point wasn’t that his prize was THE prize it’s that God gave him a pursuit and he went after it with his all.

Let’s us cast off the silliness of prescriptive, exacting prizes and recklessly chase the prize God has laid on our hearts for today.

Don’t chase Paul’s prize. Chase yours.

Photo credit: Daniel Coomber via Flickr (Creative Commons)

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Spring firing season has begun.

The end of the school year is a dangerous time to be in youth ministry. With the program year winding down it is prime time for church leadership to make a decision on whether to keep their youth worker for another school year.

Hint: If you get invited to an unscheduled meeting with the elders in the next few weeks, you’re getting fired. I’m sorry. (Er “forced to resign” which is the same thing but makes the elders feel better about it.)

I have several friends who are going through this right now. And it really sucks. 

Here’s two things you need to nail to keep your youth ministry job

1. Measurables. Oh sure, we talk about the importance of relational ministry. But don’t kid yourself… it’s about numbers. If you want to get paid to do youth ministry (a pay check is a number, by the way) than you better deliver something everyone agrees is measurable and communicate that measurable well. This might be your career, but to a church leader the youth ministry program is just another mouth to feed. (It’s an expenditure.) They want to look at the financial investment they are making and see the results. You’d be wise to start the ministry year communicating clearly defined desired outcomes with  measurables and then preparing a presentation in February/March to show what you’ve done to meet those desired outcomes as well as the measurable impact. Flow charts, graphs, and case studies. If you think I’m being ridiculous… go talk to someone who works at a non-church charity, they have staff people whose sole job is to keep the funding coming by creating desired outcomes and presenting measurables to donors. At the end of the day the only way leadership will continue funding your ministry is to constantly prove it’s working.
2. Donor relations. Earlier this week I wrote a post called Skin in the Game. As a church staff person you need to know that those who attend the church, especially those for 10+ years, have a lot more skin in the game than you do. Don’t buy the lie that the staff have the most skin in the game at a church… it’s just not true. You are an employee hired to do #1, you are not an owner. I could point you to dozens of friends who have learned this the hard way. They thought being friendly with all the leaders or doing really important, hard work meant that they were safe. Or they thought that if they simply cared a lot and gave everything they had to it that their career would be fine. And then they got invited to a meeting and asked to resign. Spiritually, the owners might be “under your authority” but that doesn’t mean they won’t fire you. I don’t care if you’re the best youth pastor in America. If you don’t deliver on #1 above you’re in big trouble. In professional sports terms, they are the owners and you are the coaches. You job is to win and attract “fans” aka potential owners. If you’re aren’t delivering results than your job is hanging purely by your ability to manage donor relations. Manage those relationships well and you can probably hang on until you deliver on #1. But mismanaging those relationships makes a board decision to fire you a whole lot easier. (Hint: It’s not always the board who are the people you need on your side. Make sure you’re managing the right relationships.)

When I talk to friends in youth ministry who have just been let go, those are the two things it always comes down to. Measurables and donor relations. (aka “politics.”) You might disagree with me on that, and you can probably point to a case where that wasn’t true. But let me reassure you… nail those two things and you are eliminating 90% of the reasons my friends have gotten fired.

Maybe this post is too matter of fact for you? Trust me. I’m only sharing to prevent your pain. I know that I’ve taken something so personal, so much a part of you, and so much a part of your faith and narrowed it down to two bullet points for how you can keep going. I know it seems simpleton and I don’t really get your context. But you just need to know the truth. Don’t be naive. We are all capable of getting fired. Manage these two things well and all the other things you love about your job can continue. Mismanage them and you’re in for a world of hurt. It might not be this Spring, but your Spring is coming.

UPDATE: Brian Berry has a continuation of this post on his blog. Go check it out.

This is our 3rd spring with a garden. Our skills are definitely improving. Here’s a quick rundown of how it’s going.

1. Carrots – We tried a different, more exotic variety this year. They didn’t do anything. It’s time to tear up that spot and plant some beans.
2. Chards – This is our first time with swiss chard, a regular in our CSA box, and it’s gone great. Once it matures you just start cutting the outsides off that you want to eat and it keeps going. It’s starting to slow down a bit as the weather warms up, I think they are likely going to be done soon.
3. Beets – Another first time planting. We learned a lot about separating them this year. We planted them in a great big bunch, which made for amazing greenery but relatively small fruit. So we picked the big ones and replanted the little ones. So far, so good.
4. Green beans – They never took off this year. No idea why, but it was a weird spring, too. So no  telling if it was us or the weather or the soil.
5. Peas – Third year trying english peas and third year of failing. We have no idea what’s going wrong!
6. Celery – Huge success with celery. Wow! It got huge, was delicious, and is currently going to seed. We’ll store the seeds for next winter and try planting them.
7. Strawberries – One of the great things about strawberries is that they just keep going and going. We’re getting a pint or so every day right now, which Jackson manages to claim for himself.
8. Onions – First time with onions and they turned out great! We harvested half of them this week and we’ll pull the other half soon. Big, pretty red onions. We’ve also been planting green onions and other things with roots that are leftovers from our CSA box… so awesome that it just starts growing again.
9. Sweet corn – We planted sweet corn about 5-6 weeks ago and the stalks are already up to my waste. So fun to see them thriving, I spotted the first husk today.
10. Tomatoes – Our neighbor gave us a large patch in our shared way back yard and we filled it up with tomato plants. I just came in from weeding and taping them up, big old bumped crop is coming! From a distance it doesn’t look like much. But when you get inside the gate you can see these plants are thriving out there in the sun. Drip irrigation and full sun is perfect for tomato plants. They are now bushy enough where I’m no longer worried about the summer sun burning them up.
11. Herbs – We cut our herbs all the way back this winter and they are back with a vengeance right now. Unlimited mint, rosemary, and oregano.

How is your garden going? 

Oh Facebook.

You temptress. You instigator. You heartbreaker. You are so freaking addicting and maddening all at the same time. You define paradox for me. 

Here’s what we all know: You either control Facebook or Facebook will control you.

With more than 1600 virtual friends… let me be the first to admit that Facebook was starting to drive me nuts. Literally, I felt as if I teeter tottered on sanity. It was just too much.

But in the past 3-4 months I’ve been able to do a couple simple things that made Facebook much more enjoyable.

Here’s how I made Facebook lovely again

1. Manage your subscriptions – I accept friend requests from just about anyone. But here’s a little secret. If I don’t actually know you I don’t want to see every one of your status updates. So I mark you as “Only Important” on my subscription settings. So when I see someone pop up on my timeline and I don’t really know them, they get marked as “Only Important.” Over time this makes a massive difference! Conversely, if someone is in my family I mark their updates as “All Updates.” But most of my actual, in-real-life friends are marked as “Most updates” and that works just fine.
2. Manage requests - Oh baby, event notifications and game requests will drive you batty. So I kill them all. I’ve never played a single game on Facebook and I block ‘em all. I also found that all the game requests were coming from a very small minority of my friends. So not only do I block that specific game, but if you request I play a game I also mark you as “block game requests from this person.” Oh, sweet sanity!
3. Hide updates from Yahoo, USAToday, and any other site that shares my friends browsing activity – This is your next sanity finder. All you have to do is click the little dropdown on that block of links and mark the “hide” button. That makes it all go away and I never see it again. (I couldn’t take a screenshot to show you because it’s all gone!)
4. Turn off all notifications – If I want Facebook I go to Facebook. Head over to Notification Settings and turn them all off. I never want to get an email from Facebook. No direct message notifications, no friend requests, no tag notifications, nothing. Also, scroll down to Other Applications and turn all of those off.
5. Close the tab – I know it’s tempting to keep Facebook open all day. That way when a notification pops up you are able to get right there and see who liked your image or who commented on your status update. Close the tab. The coolest thing will happen! You’ll get your life back and enjoy Facebook even more when you want to. In other words, I don’t let other people’s use of Facebook interrupt my life.

Taking these measures of control and getting the settings just right has truly made my use of Facebook lovely again. And that’s a sweet sane victory!

• For being 39 and loving to hang with teenagers.
• For giving a student a hug, it might be the only hug they get all day.
• For pursing a career in something your parents think is a stepping stone.
• For giving up another career for something most adults don’t get.
• For loving a job that your boss might look down on.
• For being bored during the diving part of a swim meet.
• For going to a soccer game simply to say hi and show your support for someone who isn’t your kid.
• For liking how bad a freshmen jazz band sounds.
• For texting info about tomorrows Bible study during staff meeting.
• For being more comfortable driving a church van than your minivan.
• For asking for more budget to cover the rental of sumo costumes
• Or for losing the receipt for the sumo costumes.
• For knowing exactly how much cash and time it takes to get 15 pizzas delivered.
• For knowing that one large pizza feeds about 5 teenagers.
• For practicing games on the XBox during office hours.
• For bringing your kids on the camping trip for free.
• For reusing a killer illustration over and over and over again.
• For feeling weird when the senior pastor rips off your killer illustration in his sermon.
• For being there when all hell breaks loose.
• For being a little thankful that hell has broken loose because you know God will use it.
• For asking hard questions to discover harder truths.
• For challenging boys to become men.
• For challenging moms and dads to let go of their dreams for their kids so their kids can have dreams of their own.
• For representing Christ in places no one wants him represented.
• For challenging other leaders to think differently about teenagers.
• For challenging teenagers to think differently about themselves.
• For asking students to skip band camp for Bible camp.
• For keeping the door open when a member of the opposite sex is in your office.
• For asking the secretary to skip her lunch so you aren’t in the church alone with a student.
• For trying things that are new.
• For giving up on things that don’t work.
• For always believing that people can change.
• For reaching the wrong kids.
• For reaching kids like me.

Never apologize for being a youth worker. We need you too much. 

You don’t hear it enough. Thanks for serving today’s students. Thanks for investing your life in people the church all-too-often misses. Thanks for reaching kids like me. And thanks for putting up with the stuff you put up with just to keep going.

There’s only so far a good heart and good intentions will take you. If you’re going to work towards significant and lasting change in a community you need to have some skin in the game. 

Ministers are so… transient. We move from ministry to ministry and in many cases we move from community to community. The people in our churches know it and our fellow staff people know it.

I think this is one of the reasons why associate staff people get fired so easily. Because churches can. Rather than wrestle with the tension of putting up with you, like churches have to do with people who live in the community and voluntarily come to the church, if you are a staff person who is out to change things it’s relatively easy to get you to move away.

If that church lets you go your house will be on the market in a matter of months. Take that, sucker!

Skin in the game? Pfft. Not if its tied to your job.

Of course, it’s not just ministers who infamously don’t have skin in the game. Here are some things that surprise me.

• School teachers who don’t live in the neighborhood their students come from.
• Church leaders who don’t live in the neighborhood immediately around their church.
• Locals who complain about a lack of local businesses yet buy from big box stores or Amazon.
• Community leaders who say they are all about school yet send their kids to private school or homeschool. (I once knew a principal who homeschooled, er.. what?!?)
• Police and city employees who don’t live in the city they work in.

Ultimately, when you don’t have skin in the game what you are doing is either just a job… or you are depending on good intentions and your heart to be right.

But everyone else, whether they verbalize it or not, knows you’re not fully invested. And it’s a big reason you can get anything lasting done. Until you put your skin in the game you’re just a short-timer.

Here’s how you get skin in the game:

• Invest locally. Did you know you can use money from an IRA to invest in a local small business? Yeah, talk to your tax person. If you can’t buy a home where you live, get some skin in the game by investing in a small business you like. Don’t know how to have that conversation? Get to know the owner of your favorite local spot… and ask them. “If I were to want to invest $20,000 in this business, how could you improve it?” It’s that easy.
• Buy locally. Look, here’s Economics 101. If you don’t spend your money in your neighborhood that money is going somewhere else. Want great places to eat? Eat locally. Want a great grocery store? Shop at the local guy. On and on. Every time you buy something from Amazon or go to a big box store you are sucking money out of the local economy and sending it somewhere else.
• Live locally. Get over the excuses. (They are just obstacles) Until you live with the community you want to impact you’re just kidding yourself about making a lasting impact. You’re going to care about where you live more than where your work is, bottom line. So if you want some skin in the game your zip code is going to need to match where you want to impact.
• Educate locally. If I hear one more person talk about loving his neighborhood but sends his kids to a Christian or parochial school, I’ll scream. If you want to make your local schools better the ONLY way you’re going to make lasting changes is if your kids are there. Yup, our kids go to a charter school. But it’s also a charter school that saved a neighborhood school from getting shut down. Almost all of the kids come from within walking distance.
• Get involved locally. Start attending a board which directly oversees the stuff you care about. Into community gardening? You better be at that planning committee meeting. Care about schools? Get your butt to the school board meetings. Love your neighborhood? Find a local neighborhood board and be a part of it.

Photo credit: The Carpetbagger by Mirror Image Gallery via Flickr (Creative Commons)