Author: Adam McLane

  • Life After Debt

    Americans borrowed less for an 11th consecutive month in December, paying off credit cards while increasing borrowing for cars and other products. link

    This is great news. For 11 months in 2009 the American people not only covered their bills, but they paid down debt. The irony of that is clear. 2009 was a horrible year financially for a lot of people.

    This next line in the USA Today article clears up why the stock market tumbled on this news.

    The mixed picture raises hopes that Americans may soon return to spending, a necessary condition for economic recovery. link

    Our national economy, jobs in America, and some would tell you the future our our nation itself… depends on you and I going deeper and deeper into debt to buy stuff we don’t need with money we don’t have. Cute, eh?

    Maybe we should all collectively just hold on to our money for another 11 months and enjoy this recession a little more so we can all get out of debt?

    Think about it like this. In the worst economic year in decades and we collectively covered our monthly bills and paid down our debts for 11 straight months. This is great news! And it also reveals that debt is a head issue and not always a money issue.

    I know for our family 2009 was a hard year. We had to wrestle through stuff we didn’t like to wrestle through. But the flip side is that we are way better off financially for it. Less debt, more savings, and an attitude of frugality we hope lasts a lifetime.

  • Your intentions don’t mean squat

    It’s taken me a while to recognize this truism. People don’t care what my intentions are, they only care about my actions.

    My intentions don’t mean squat.

    What matters is what I actually do.

    Sometimes I get this right.

    And sometimes I get this wrong.

    OK, most of the time I get this wrong.

    What that was is a defining moment. And the thing about defining moments is that you either define the moment or the moment defines you. – Roy McAvoy

    Whether I like it or not each day is filled with many defining moments. And in each of those moments I try to remember…  either define this moment with my actions or this moment defines me.

  • Excuses and Fear

    When you look past the excuses and manage to control your fear… you can do amazing things. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of those two things stopping me from what I want to do.

    3-2-1…. What are you going to do?

  • Daddy Wants You to Ask

    On Sunday, my 6 year old son Paul, wanted to go to Game Stop to look for a new game for his Nintendo DS. When I was in first grade I got an Atari 2600 and that thing was my life. The same is true of Paul and his DS. We share this heart connection over video games.

    All day long he wanted to go. He first asked about it before we went to church. No son, too early. Then he wanted to go right after church. No son, we need to eat lunch. Then he wanted to go right after lunch. No son, I want to rest. Then we went to Yogurtland as a family for a snack. While it was just a couple hundred yards from Game Stop, the timing wasn’t right. Then we got home from Yogurtland. No son, you need to do some homework. Then he did some homework and I ran out of excuses.

    Can we go to Game Stop now? Yes.

    Paul and Megan had each been saving their allowance and happily stuffed their pockets with every penny they had. Each week they can earn up to $5 if they maintain the family rules and perform some basic chores. The truth is that it’s a pretty easy $5 to earn as I’m a softy of a dad. (Kristen rolls her eyes at me each week as she doesn’t think they’ve really earned $5. I’m a benevolent father, what can I say?) Megan had $25 in her pocket and Paul had $23. As we drove the few blocks over to the video game store Paul was careful, yet firm, to remind me that I had been in Minneapolis last Sunday and mommy hadn’t given them their $5. And that it was also Sunday. So if they would each clean their room and finish their homework they could earn another $5.

    Practically speaking, Megan had $35 she could spend and Paul had $33. When you are 6 or 8 years old, like my kids, that’s a lot of cash. It represents 7 weeks of saving every penny you have. They were aware that the money burning a hole in their pocket represented a lot of homework and a lot of room cleaning and a lot of avoiding temptation to buy candy or smaller toys. To earn and save over $30 is an accomplishment! Truth be told, $35 is a lot of money to daddy, too! I rarely, if ever, carry that much cash with me. (Do I need to mention that saving $30 is more than most Americans save in the same amount of time?)

    It was a lot of money. I was proud of them.

    We parked the car and the kids floated into the store. Paul, who had been to the store with me twice before, instructed his big sister on the game plan. “The DS games are on the wall by the front door… you don’t even need to ask anyone, just start looking as soon as you get in the door and they are right there. The used games are on the lower parts of the shelf. The new games are up high. Used games are cheaper so you can get one for like $10. New games cost more than $20.”

    The store was full of older kids looking at XBox 360 games so we were completely ignored. The girl at the counter barely acknowledged our entrance and quickly got back to showing the older kids the latest and greatest in the world of gaming. They were boys who play video games and she was a girl. This was the closest thing any of those nerds would come to a date for a long time.

    My kids didn’t notice or care about the clerk. They had serious business to do.

    Megan, our animal lover, scoured the lower shelves for used games about pets. There are games to take care of dogs, cats, birds, exotic animals… on and on. Some games have a lot of different pets while others specialize in a certain pet. Megan loves cats and within minutes she was trying to decide between one game which was about cats of all ages and another that was just about kittens. 1000 titles and my girl had it narrowed to two in about 3 minutes. I noticed she was happy in the $10-20 range. She carried a certain confidence in knowing that she didn’t have to spend much money to get a fun game to play with. Plus, if she only spent $15, she’d have $20 left over.

    Paul scoured the shelves looking for Pokemon games. He found 4-5 games that all looked about the same but had different price points. Confused, I showed him how to find the copyright date on the back of the game. The newer ones were more expensive, the older ones cheaper.

    As Megan and I were comparing the two games she had narrowed her choice down to, I saw out of the corner of my eye that Paul had put all of his games back on the lower shelf where he had found them. He took a couple steps back and craned his neck almost to the ceiling. Not quite 4 feet tall it must have been nearly impossible to see games on shelves 8 feet in the air. He was looking at the brand new games. His eyes scanned the best sellers on the top shelf. Then they started looking at the second shelf and stopped cold. The brand new, special edition Bakugan Battle Brawlers game.

    He pulled on my waist. “Daddy, look! It’s the brand new Bakugan game… it comes in a big box, too. How much is that one?” I reached up and took it off the shelf, handing it to him. His eyes were huge. His entire disposition had changed. He had gone from hunting for something cheap to discovering something almost mystical and beyond comprehension. As the game box changed hands his eyes devoured the front cover and started to read it all to me. Then he turned it over and realized something horrible. It was $35. His heart sank.

    Almost immediately he gave it back to me. In an instant he went from this mystical experience right back to shopper mode. “No one has that game at school yet, daddy. It’s too much, I don’t have $35 I only have $23 and you owe us $10 more, that’s just $33. And that game is more than I have.”

    I knew he wanted it bad. He didn’t cry but I could feel his disappointment. Within 15 seconds he had gone through a sea of emotions. Searching, finding, holding magic, disappointment, and then back to searching.

    This little interaction tugged my heart.

    He walked away and went back to the older Pokemon games. He wasn’t unhappy or upset. In earlier years he may have collapsed on the floor. He was just matter of fact. This was a sign of my little boy growing up. He wanted a new game for his DS and the fact that he didn’t have enough money didn’t mean he couldn’t get a new game. It just meant he had to get a game that wasn’t exactly what everything he wanted.

    Back by the Pokeman games on the lower shelf, I went over to him and crouched down to his level. You know Paul, you have $33 and that game is $35. You are pretty close. Just $2 away. Next week you would have enough to buy it. “I know, it’s OK. I’ll just get one of these. I really want that game but I don’t have enough right now.”

    “Paul,” I said, “you remember that we have a rule that if you want to borrow next weeks allowance to get something now, that it’s OK. You just have to ask daddy.”

    I got up and went back over to Megan. But I kept a close eye on my son. I knew that I had put him in a tough spot. He is wired just like me. He doesn’t like to ask anyone for anything. He knew that I would loan him the extra $5 so he could buy what he wanted. But asking dad for the loan was really hard.

    As he looked at the lesser games I could see him biting his lip. He really wanted the Bakugan game. The fact that it came with an action figure made those lesser games seem really inferior.

    But asking daddy for $5? That was a dilemma.

    He looked at the Pokeman games. They now weren’t what he wanted. I watched him wrestling through the McLane stubborn nature. It’s something I know all-too-well.

    Megan chose the kitten game and was happy as a lark. She started to wander the store as Paul made his final selection.

    Paul came to me empty-handed and sullen. I bent down for a serious father-to-son talk. Biting his lip he explained the whole situation to me. “The Pokemon games do look like fun, daddy. And I do have enough money for them. But I really want that new Bakugan game. It looks really cool and it has a Bokugon that I’ve always wanted.”

    Uh-huh. So what do you want to do?

    “Well, I really want to get that Bakugan game but I only have $33 and it costs $35.”

    Yeah, son. All you have to do is ask me and I will let you borrow $5 from next weeks allowance.

    “I know…”

    He was breathing deeply. I could feel his heart pounding. He was biting his lower lip. He really didn’t want to ask me. As much as he wanted to borrow the money, he was really weighing his options. I could tell he wanted me to just cave and offer to loan him the money without his having to ask. But he looked into my eyes and could see that I was going to make him ask.

    Finally, after about 30 long seconds of this dance he opened his mouth.

    “Daddy, can I borrow $5 so I can get the Bakugan game right now?”

    I stood up.

    “Yes son, you bet.” I reached high up on the shelf, grabbed the game, and handed him the box. He confidently pulled it from my hand, found Megan, proudly showed his sister, showed her everything about it that was cool in his eyes, and dragged her to the counter so they could pay.

    All he had to do was ask daddy. I wanted to give him the money. But I wanted to be asked. When he asked, both our hearts leapt.

    What does this story have to do with our prayer life? As believers, we have a Heavenly Father who is waiting to give us both the things that we need and the things that we want. The Bible says, you just have to ask. That doesn’t mean God will give us everything we want. But it does mean that Daddy wants us to ask.

    Philippians 4:6-7

    Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

  • Learning about community from the Didache

    I’ve got bad news for Tony Jones haters. There’s nothing to hate about his latest book, The Teaching of the Twelve. In fact, you may love it.

    Last week, I finished reading his little book about the little book, the Didache. The didache is a book that dates back to the ancient church but didn’t quite make it into the cannon of Scripture. Unlike some of its contemporaries, it didn’t make it in because it was steeped in gnosticism… instead the didache likely didn’t make it in because it didn’t provide deep theological teachings, warnings, or narrative about Jesus. It’s not really a letter or narrative at all. Authorship is also unclear. Instead, it’s a group of teachings– probably from various authors– that baptismal candidates likely studied before being accepted as Christians in a small town in the first century.

    In other words, the Didache (greek word meaning teaching) is a practical guide for living in community with other believers. That’s an area I am growing. I’ve spent the last 10 years teaching on and focusing on individualistic growth in relationship to God. All the while, I’ve been fascinated by books about first century Christians, Essenes, the Qumran community, and early church history. There was a contradiction there between the individualistic faith of American believers and the community faith I read about in the first century. I have long been trying to figure out how to rectify the two as there is a gulf of difference between what we do today and what was practiced then. Deep down, the Holy Spirit has stirred in me a desire to figure out how we can do life together. I don’t have it figured out… but I’m on a journey of discovery towards figuring it out.

    Like a lot of conservative Evangelicals, I tend to approach books by Tony Jones with my ears finely tuned to look for a twist to something traditional about his hermeneutic. For some reason I’m left looking for the agenda behind his words. I don’t know where this started… but it was something I carried into buying and reading this book. My radar was finely tuned!

    So, for those haters, here is the bad news. Tony’s latest book approaches Scripture in a thoughtful, academically pure way. It reads the same as many of the scholarly texts places like Dallas Theological Seminary, Wheaton Graduate School, or Trinity Evangelical Divinity School would require of New Testament students. He doesn’t lift the didache up as Scriptural, rather uses this groups application of Apostolic teachings to explain how that culture was applying early Christian teachings. Even when the text permits him to hypothesize to tear away at traditional Christian values, he instead affirms them. When the text talks about a pre-millenial view of the community in the first century, he doesn’t try to spin it to another viewpoint… instead affirms what the text makes clear, that community looked forward to the imminent return of the risen Christ.

    Conservative haters are left with nothing to hate. In fact, I think a lot of my friends need to read this book as we all figure out… “What does it mean to live in community as believers?” Yeah, we need to learn. Yeah, we may just be doing community wrong. Gasp! The horror!

    I will leave you with the same encouragement that lead to me buying this book in the first place. Before you hate, before you criticize, before you call names, take the time to read for yourself. Read it, like I did, with a critical eye. Then, when you go to critique, you can do so intelligently. But my feeling is that if you actually read the Teaching of the Twelve, you’ll be as impressed as I have been with the treatment.

  • Preparing for Haiti

    I chose to be just crazy enough. More importantly, I want to encourage others to be crazy enough to recognize that they can change the world. — Adam McLane, August 28th 2009

    In moments like this I feel like there is little I can do. While I would love to hop on a plane and “go help” the truth is I don’t have any skills that are actually useful. (I doubt they need a blogger) I will do the next best thing. I will give what I can and commit to joining the people of Haiti who stretch out their arms and call out Jesus’ name. — Adam McLane, January 13th 2010

    It’s now been a couple weeks that I’ve known I was headed to Haiti to help in relief efforts. In the course of that time I’ve been all over the place emotionally. I’m scared, I’m excited, I’m nervous, I’m worried, I want to just jump on the plane, I pretend like it’s 10 years away, I shop for stuff I think I may need, I change the subject when people bring it up, I watch more CNN than humanly necessary.

    Back on January 13th I had no idea I would be heading to Haiti less than one month later.

    But it is true. On February 11th I will land in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and begin an overland journey to earthquake stricken areas of Haiti. In my mind I keep hearing reporters say, “Haiti is a dangerous place on a good day, and certainly this is no good day for Haiti.” (While I am not an expert in rapid response relief, I’m happy to be traveling with a team who is!)

    And yet I hear the voice of Jesus over that. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

    On top of the obvious, there are a couple other elements that have me excited for this trip.

    1. The team assembled by Adventures in Missions for this trip is crazy diverse! The first time I talked to Marko about the trip he joked that when talking to a couple other bloggers one of them said, “We’d all just have to get together and hug it out.” We come from different denominations, liberal/conservative stripes, theological heritages, ministry-types, and even ministry companies who compete against one another. And yet, the need in Haiti is way more important than anything that should/could potentially divide us.
    2. The team is calling you to Haiti. As soon as I told others that I was going they asked me, “How can I go too?” This is one of the secondary purposes of the Advance Team. We are going first, we are exploring what you can do, we are answering your questions, and we are imploring (begging?) you to come to Haiti with a team soon. That resonates strongly to how I encounter the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I long to see Jesus not just regenerate the hearts of the people we encounter but also the places we go and even the institutions which seem beyond renewal.

    Soon the world’s cameras will leave Haiti. We will not have daily updates from Port-au-Prince. What will remain when the spotlight leaves is the hard work of rebuilding a country brought to its knees. This will be done by the Haitian people, NGOs, and the church.

    I am going to Haiti because God’s people in Haiti cried out in Jesus’ name for help. I am one little tiny part of that very big response from Jesus to those cries in the darkness on January 12th, 2010.

    And it is my hope that this little diverse team of people who is laying aside their differences for the sake of the churches response to the crisis will begin an amazing opportunity for Jesus’ people to change the world’s mind about believers.

    What would happen if tens of thousands of God’s people laid aside their differences and came together in one response to change on country forever?

    What would happen? I don’t really know. But I do know that it’s going to start with you.

  • How not to park a boat

  • Going Green-ish

    One of our family goals this year was to make some changes to how we consumed the world’s resources. Some of it is a desire to live more simply and some of it is just a realization that the stuff our little family does, when added up with millions of other families, really impacts our planet. So while we’ve been at it for a month, this is the first time I’ve talked about it on the blog. Simply put, I wanted to make sure we were actually doing stuff before I said we were going to be doing stuff!

    Here are a few things we’re doing so far this year:

    • 3 weekends ago we planted a little garden. We know it’ll take a couple seasons to truly get it productive, but we wanted to get something going. As the seasons go on we plan on expanding the garden. We definitely have the space in the yard. We just need to build up the beds.
    • We joined a CSA to support locally grown, organic produce. We picked up our first box this week, this is big change in how we spend money on groceries.
    • We are installing a drip system for watering outdoor plants. San Diego is a coastal desert. That means that we only get a little bit of rain each year and watering plants in the garden is a big deal. This will help us waste less water as well as hopefully make the garden grow a little better. The people from Drip Depot have some sweet stuff, can’t wait to see how it works.
    • Get serious about waste! Kristen asked for, and got, a worm composting system for Christmas. While it isn’t a huge impact, we want to reduce our food waste that goes in the garbage by at least 25%. We’re also trying to be more conscious about buying things we can re-use and recycle.
    • Still rocking the trolley when I can. We’re in a bit of a funk with this because of my travel schedule and the weather. But I’m doing my best to eliminate the need for a second car (we only have one) by taking the trolley to and from work. We eliminate the need for a second car by keeping our work schedules flexible as well as being quick to rent a car when needed.

    We’ve tossed around, but not acted on, some other ideas. More on this as the year goes on.

  • Life is Good

    I am happiest when I have a lot of plates spinning. Not sure why but I’m just wired that way. These days I am very happy. There are lots of plates spinning in my personal life, ministry life, and work life. There is some convergence in those things… but there is also considerable separation as well.

    Why is it that things that make us happiest also tend to drive us insane?

  • Smart Media

    The most important lesson I’ve ever learned about business and social media was from Duck Tales Scrooge McDuck.

    Work smarter, not harder

    This mention of my work by Derek Johnson of Tatango proves my point.

    I’m not a guru. I don’t have a degree in media design. I have never taken a marketing class. I don’t have an MBA. The truth is that there is nothing special about me— all I do is stuff that is obvious.

    That’s good news for un-experts like you and me. You don’t have to have a bigger budget, you don’t have to have a pedigree, you don’t have to schmooze a newspaper editor, you don’t have to buy Super Bowl ads.

    In today’s world a smart message is all you need. Spend all your energy (cough, and money) investing in working smarter not harder.