• 5 things you don’t have to tell me in your bio

    I look at every bio for each new follower on Twitter and friend request on Facebook. And let me tell you, there’s some pretty important stuff missing and some pretty unimportant stuff that is taking up space.

    Hint: Clean up your bio. People look at it.

    5 Things you don’t have to tell me in your bio

    1. That you love Jesus (Show me, don’t tell me.)
    2. That you are married to your best friend, that she is smoking hot, or whatever. (Is that how you talk about all women in your life?)
    3. Your age. (I don’t care.)
    4. Anything about your children. (I’m happy you are a parent, but not really relevant at this point in our relationship.)
    5. A quote. (I’m glad you like C.S. Lewis, but is that all you want me to know about you?)

    5 Things that you should be in your bio on Twitter or Facebook

    1. Your name. (Doesn’t have to be first name, last name. But if you aren’t in the witness protection program, it might as well be.)
    2. Where you live. (Not the street address, just where in the world are you?)
    3. What you do. (Occupation, employer, etc.)
    4. What you are about. (Keep is simple)
    5. Something fun. (Why would I want to follow someone who is boring?)

    Who do I follow on Twitter?

    I don’t have a hard and fast rule. I used to follow everyone who followed me. But that got annoying real fast. Then I followed everyone who @replied me. But that got messy, too.  In general, if a bio looks interesting and might add something, I’ll add you. But I’m also pretty ruthless about unfollowing people who are annoying.

    Who do I follow on Facebook?

    If you look like a real person, I’ll accept your friend request. If I am suspicious that you might be a spammer from Africa or India, I’ll check the “limited profile” button.

    One thing I do, and it’s mostly for my own sanity, is that I keep my entire friend list in two categories. “Friends” and “People I haven’t met.” I don’t want anyone to really think I know 1400 people.

  • POLL: Are you willing to pay to read news online?

    From subscription to free to subscription and back

    Quietly, newspapers are starting to charge online visitors subscription fees for full access to their sites. In just a few days, The New York Times, will noticeably switch from a free system to a 3-tiered pay system.

    I believe The New York Times Company, like Rupert Murdoch from News Corp, have been emboldened on this concept by The Wall Street Journal’s alleged success with online subscriptions. News Corps brand new iPad-only newspaper, The Daily, will cost you $39.99 per year. I download the iPad app, and while it is brilliantly beautiful, the reality is that it the actual news is just news I can get on CNN.com or USAToday.com for free.

    Also, in a weird twist of fate, the iPad versions are actually more expensive and just as ad filled as the print editions. (I get the print edition of Wired for less than $1 per issue. Why would I pay $3.99 per issue to get it on my iPad?) This messes with people’s internal cost vs. benefit analysis and stops them from buying more than one “curiosity” edition. Conversely, subscription rates are going down and not up for iPad versions.

    At the end of the day I don’t think this strategy will last very long. When the payment gateways pop in on folks current sources for news, eyeballs will shift from paid content to free content, and the big news companies will re-evaluate their strategies. (At the same time giving lesser known sources of news incredible new levels of traffic.)

    Think about it: When you hit a payment gateway when looking for a news story, what are you going to do? Google it and find a free version of the same story. Duh.

    The Tortoise and the Hare

    What’s really interesting here is that the big news companies will lose money on a silly, short-sighted strategy. They are going to spend big money building these gateways and even more money trying to market these new ideas. Whereas, the smaller companies who might want to go to a subscription model, but just not have the capital to make it happen, will likely be the big winners.

    A better idea

    My opinion? Why in the world are these companies asking individuals to pay? Why not force the ISPs to pay, like ESPN did with ESPN3.com? That’s where the money is. Even if cable companies raised rates on their customers to cover these new costs, we wouldn’t whine because we are addicted to high-speed internet.

    All of this begs the poll above. Are you willing to start paying for news that you get for free today?

  • 2 Things I Learned from the Mishnah

    A couple weeks back Kristen and I took Jackson into the pediatricians office to get circumcised. This is one of the things that has changed since we had Paul 7.5 years ago. Now they wait until a baby is two weeks old before doing circumcision. When Paul was born the nurses took him for a bath and a hearing check and he came back circumcised. Don’t ask me why this is so, it just is.

    Our pediatrician is wonderful older Jewish gentleman in his early 60s. He’s the kind of doctor that when you tell other doctors who your kids pediatrician is they all go, “Oh, he’s a great, great doctor.”

    After he explained that the latest research thinks it is best to wait a couple of weeks to circumcise I quipped that maybe Jewish law had been right all along, waiting until the 8th day. As he continued preparing little Jackson for the procedure he and I struck up a conversation about Genesis 17. (Kristen rolled her eyes, she’s heard my little rant about this 100 times.) My initial thought went OK well so I moved on to my main point. I told him that when I was in Bible college I asked the professor two questions about this passage: When Abraham circumcised his entire household in one day who went first? And did God give a diagram so they knew what to do and how much foreskin was enough?

    I was showing off and he wasn’t impressed. Kristen smirked.

    He didn’t laugh. Everyone laughs when I tell that story.

    Instead he said, “You see, this is a problem for the Protestant faith. While you’ve rightfully elevated the written revelation of God you’ve completely discounted thousands of years of oral tradition.” He went on to explain that parallel to Moses’ recording the Torah in written form an oral tradition was passed from priest to priest explaining how to interpret the laws, how to translate many things into daily life, and how to actually do some of the things that the written word commands.

    In other words– Mishnah told ministers how to do their job. That’s how they learned how to do things like circumcision. Later, about 200 years after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, it was decided that they needed to record some of that oral tradition because the Jewish people were increasingly scattered. This resulted in what is now the beginning of the Talmud, what’s called Mishnah.

    I was a pretty good student. All I remember learning about the Talmud as a student was that there was Mishnah, defined as oral tradition, and Midrash, defined as commentary. It was literally just a test question and a couple of paragraphs in a couple of books.

    After the procedure we took Jackson home. And I went on Amazon and bought a Mishnah translation of  for my Kindle. With 25 other books I could be reading, I’ve been reading 1800 year old instructions on how to be a good rabbi.

    Reading through Mishnah has opened my eyes to two things:

    1. I never understood the non-temple responsibilities of a priest, Levite, or rabbi quite the way I do now. The Old Testament makes the job seem mostly ceremonial. In fact, their job was deeply engrained in daily life. The entire first section is about farming/gardening. I can envision the rabbi in the field with the farmer, “OK, you need to put wheat over there.  Yes, you can plant barley in an adjacent field, just angle it like this. Now make sure your furrows are as deep as they are wide, about the width of your foot. Now, the vineyard. The reason you don’t want to plant onions between rows in the vineyard…” This wasn’t an office job. It was literally and out-in-the-ministry-field life, helping congregants understand God’s way for doing just about everything.
    2. Perhaps one of the problems in the Protestant church today is that we don’t have Mishnah? We disregard (disrespect perhaps?) oral tradition so much that we’ve assumed that those old time ministers didn’t know what they were doing. When was the last time you spent a day making house calls? Visiting jails? Visiting hospitals? We don’t bother with such things– let the volunteer deacon and small groups do that. We have important stuff to get done in the office. Like meetings and preparing for our programs and updating our Facebook status to complain about going to meetings all day. I think this has lead to the average minister considering himself more of a manager than a minister. They consider their sacramental duties limited to the things they do in the church itself. Teaching the Bible, preaching, communion, baptism, etc. Sadly, our profession is no more engrained in the daily life of our congregants than the occasional appearance at a congregants home or a visit when they are in the hospital. Instead of going and being with people every day we spend the majority of our time thinking about how to best serve the church when they come to us. Maybe, just maybe, it isn’t supposed to be like that and our predecessors had it right and we have it wrong?

  • Steps of Justice

    If you haven’t yet checked out the Steps of Justice 30-Day Prayer guide you are really missing out.

    What I like about the guide is that it isn’t just something to read and put down. It’s an action guide. It raises your awareness, leads you to prayer, then gets you doing something about it.

    It’s dangerous.

    So that’s my challenge. Do something dangerous by picking up Steps of Justice and giving it a try. Better yet, get 10 of them and use them in your small group. Or buy 100 and get your church involved. Or 1,000 and ask your neighbors to pray. You get the idea.

  • Incredulous grace

    Have you ever smelled grace?

    The kind of grace that you feel and sense immediately, snaps you to attention warning-less, and fills the room with warm memories of when you first encountered the risen Jesus?

    The smell is so strong it simultaneously sparks remembrance and whets your appetite for more.

    Some believers permeate this kind grace toward others from their very pores. The grace, mercy, and love these people exude is almost unbelievable yet entirely undeniable.

    I call this incredulous grace.

    Incredulous grace tenderizes the meat of the Gospel, making it palatable to even the most highly-refined and cynical person. It is so unbelievable that it is undeniable. It raises a frenzied appetite as its goodness fills the air of the grace-givers-space. It’s simple complexities are hard to fathom but easy to experience. When you taste its richness for yourself you are torn. “Do I tell every soul who will listen or do I keep this secret all for myself?”

    And yet.

    Most of us don’t want to learn how to prepare and serve incredulous grace. It costs too much and takes too much time. We prefer the fast-food versions.

    The sad reality is that there are no short cuts to incredulous grace. It’s prepared only one way, you have to fight to tenderize love, mercy, and grace into the toughness of your body, born as slaves to sin. We have neither the patience to wait nor the innate desire to mature to the point of preparing only the best.

    We rationalize, why get the best when a fast-food fix comes so cheap?

    Instead, we settle for a grace-like substance. We get fat on imitation grace which bears only a chemical likeness to the real thing. It’s unsatisfying. But we convince ourselves that it was meant to be that way. We chose ineffective efficiency over inefficient effectiveness.

    Why?!? Why do we reject incredulous grace for cheap grace?

    Because we are damaged people. To forgive others means we need to forgive ourselves– many of us are too wounded and paralyzed to know how to do that. The fast-pace of modern church life leaves no room for marinating all-night to loosen sins lock on our flavor. We need instant results so we settle for a quick-fix even if it leaves us still hungry.

    And yet some of us awaken to this full palete and decide to fight. First, we resist the addictive urge for fast-food mercy, grace, and love. Then, we learn to loathe the hypocrisy of a grace, love, and mercy industry. Finally, we rise above the pettiness of it all and simply rest in recognition that we are called both the giver and receiver of grace… merely called to prepare the way for the true Grace-giver.

    In the end, to our delightful shock, the aura of grace smelled enwrapping our flesh isn’t our grace at all.

    It is Christ’s smell resonating through us.

    When people look down on us for these acts of incredulous grace we sadly know that they aren’t looking down on us. Our sorrow is in the revealed depravity of religious people who are looking down on the very hands, feet, and actions of Jesus. His grace simply isn’t good enough for them. They turn their noses at the bouquet of a perfectly prepared prime rib for the cheap potpourri of Coke & a McRib. Sadly, true grace has never touched their lips. They know of forgiveness but have not tasted its delights. And they don’t have a clue what they are missing.

    On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

    In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

    “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

    The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:25-37)

    Amen.

  • Right turns only

    According to this video, UPS truck drivers avoid turning left to save money.

    Turns out that it’s true. How do I know that? Because Mythbusters tested it.

    What does this have to do with anything?

    • It always pays to measure things and test theories, no matter how crazy they seem.
    • The shortest route isn’t always the fastest nor the most effective.

    HT to Derek Johnson

  • Self-talk

    • Do you believe in yourself?
    • Are you proud of yourself?
    • In quiet moments do you have positive or negative thoughts about yourself?
    • When you are at work, how do you feel about your work environment? Does being there energize you or steal your joy?
    • When you are at home, how do you feel about your home environment? Does being there energize you or steal your joy?

    For some people, their whole identity is wrapped up in playing Eeyore in the real life drama they star in. Each day is a disappointment and they exude a “why bother?” attitude.

    Others play the role of Charlie Brown. Life could smack them in the face daily, their best friend could humiliate them, and their dreams could shatter– but they wake up with a generally positive life outlook on the next day.

    Three things I’ve learned about this stuff that is worth noting:

    1. Anyone can choose to be an Eeyore or Charlie Brown. We all have equal potential to be either character.
    2. How people feel when they are at your home or office dramatically impacts the bottom line. However you measure success at your home or at your office will be greatly impacted by the positive or negative feelings people who are there feel about being there.
    3. A single person flavors the pot one way or the other. I’ve been in negative work environments where one person comes in and is the catalyst for the whole group to feel more positive about themselves. And we’ve experienced the opposite at home when one person has a negative outlook and it ruins it for everyone.

    Sadly, many Christians perpetrate the lie that in order to really “get it” as a believer that you need to put on your Eeyore costume. I’ve visited churches where the whole staff has a loser complex. (Their success or failure comes from the same place of dissatisfaction and self-loathing.) And I’ve visited homes so positive they don’t even notice (or care) that they have roaches.

    This makes no sense. Jesus didn’t die for us so that we’d wallow in our sin. Quite the opposite. John 10:10 says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

    What’s the point?

    You might not have the ability/power/opportunity to change anything about where you live or work today. But you always have the power to change the flavor of the pot with your attitude.

  • Over-communicate with your leaders

    Over-communicate with your leaders

    Want to avoid confusion with your team? Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.

    I define a leader as someone who takes people somewhere they would otherwise not go on their own.

    All-too-often, as I look back on my life in leadership, my tendency is always to get a mile ahead of my team because I have under-communicated the basics with them.

    Why are we doing this? What’s our intent? What do we want to get out of this experience? Who are we targeting with our ministry? Why are you serving? How can we accomplish our goals? When is the best time to do this? On and on.

    Every once in a while I’d get this feedback: “I know you have a reason for everything we do, and you’ve given us all the information about what we are doing, but I am not understanding why/how this is going to happen.” When I was young in leadership I somehow too this as a compliment. But now I see it for what it is… a weakness I need to address.

    When my team lacks focus and drive to execute the vision– That’s my fault not theirs. I tend to communicate the vision too little and the share details too much. In the moment, the logistical details seem more important than the over-arching vision. But in the end, you need both.

    You will have leaders who are OK knowing stuff as they go. But to really take a ministry somewhere you need to execute along the way to accomplish the vision.

    3 Ways I combat my tendency to under-communicate

    1. Give people the big picture often. Before each ministry cycles starts, (school year, calendar year, however your church does it) schedule a meeting with key leaders to go over the plan. When I do this I present a white paper for the year as well as the teaching calendar, event calendar, and a description of a discipled person. In other words, I start with the end in mind and show my team how we’re going to get there together. In youth ministry, at about the same time, I host a parents meeting and go over the same information… plus some other stuff like cost of events, permission slips, etc.
    2. Put your pedagogical statement out there. It feels cheesy to think about, and I totally stole it from Doug Field’s youth ministry classic, “Purpose-driven Youth Ministry,” but I think it’s useful to put the purpose for a ministry, in writing, on everything you do. Even better, when I am teaching a lesson and there is a handout for leaders, I also like to give them a quick sentence about what we are teaching. “The main idea of tonight’s lesson is that students will learn ______.” This puts your leaders on the inside, thinking of your teaching strategy right alongside of you, and values their intelligence/abilities.
    3. Get stuff to people early. This is the one I wrestle with the most because you’ll always have some people who feel like they need every detail when you can only provide the big picture. Such as, I have volunteers who want small group questions 1-2 weeks in advance so they can think about it in advance. The problem is that I can’t give that because I rarely actually work on the talk until 24-48 hours before I teach it. But I can tell them the passage and the main idea of the lesson. And usually, that’s enough. The same is true for events and trips. I need to give them the information early enough where they can rearrange their schedule and jump on board to help. If I forget, or am lacking, in that then I should expect them to bail on me.

  • Book Cover: How to Share Your Faith on a Plane

    [download id=”15″]

    I have a knack for getting an empty seat next to me when I fly Southwest.

    On more than 60% of my 2010 flights I sat in the window seat and had an empty middle seat. In January 2011, I flew with Southwest 11 times and had an empty middle seat 7 times. (The other 4 were completely full flights with no empty seats.)

    As I bragged about this to my friends, they began to wonder: How in the world is Adam doing that?

    I’m not going to share all of my tricks. (Here’s a blog with some decent tips) But one thing that definitely helps looks like this:

    • Make sure you are in the A boarding group
    • Sit in a window seat, then place a book or your iPod/headphones in the middle seat.

    It’s the book detail that my friends bring up and eventually resulted in the graphic you see above. More often than not I am reading a non-fiction Christian book like Kenda-Creasy Deans Almost Christian or John Ortberg’s Faith and Doubt. For some reason those types of titles tend to cause on-coming passengers to continue moving towards the back of the plane more than the latest issue of Sports Illustrated or Wired.

    That’s the genesis of this fake book cover. My friends and I hypothesized, “If people won’t sit next to me because I’m reading a book with a Christian title, what would happen if I made a fake book cover with an overtly Christian title AND made the book about evangelism?”

    That’s how this was born.

    How to Share Your Faith on a Plane: 25 Scenarios for Converting This Flight from Transportation to Transformation

    Instructions:

    • Download the pdf.
    • Print/cut it to the size you need. (The original size is the size of a standard hard cover book with a jacket)
    • Replace the jacket your book came with and follow the tips on the back cover.

  • That’s Local Funny

    This is one of those things that is funny and not funny at the same time, isn’t it? I’ll admit I find it hilarious for all of the wrong reasons. Look at your neighbor and say, “F you.”

    What’s the lesson here?

    • Some things are funny on paper, will work live, but probably aren’t appropriate.
    • You really need someone to look over your notes before you preach/teach/speak in public. A true friend would have gently said, “You know what? This is really funny. And it makes a great point. But no. Don’t do that.“
    • Sometimes your creativity has unintended consequences. Like you congregation walking around at work the next day going, “F all of you!“

    HT to Britt