• Have you declared independence?

    Photo by Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    There is something in our DNA as Americans which is completely antithetical to the life Jesus calls us to live. It is our staunch, stubborn, streak for independence.

    There’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking the time to celebrate our nations independence from England. But let’s not get too caught up in it.

    As followers of Christ, Jesus asks us to be dependent on him. He is our provider and protector. He has proven himself over and again… And yet, our nature draws us to seek greater and greater independence from him.

    Seth Barnes has a great reflection on this:

    We are self-sufficient by nature; we have to be taught how to depend on and consult with our Lord. This is why the “American Dream” is so at odds with the life of God. The American Dream is about security and comfort. The two cars, the house, the nice job, the insurance policies, can all release us from the need to depend on God. None are wrong in and of themselves, they are just twigs in a nest.

    Jesus told his disciples to pray for their daily bread. When you need God to this degree, it gives you the opportunity to see His goodness as He provides, which in turn enables you to trust Him.

    I am one of many American Christians who struggle with this issue of trusting God (in the radical way that He wants to be trusted). Why? Because we don’t really have to trust Him. And many of us don’t fundamentally know if He is trustworthy.

    Self-sufficiency is an insidious trap that can sideline us for life from God’s Kingdom purposes. Which is why it is so important to practice the life of abandon as an exercise of our will before our nests become so comfortable that leaving them seems impossible.

    Happy Independence Day everyone – may God grant you a measure of dependence on Him as well. Read the rest

    Preach it Seth.

  • Our Fair City



    San Diego is really pretty, originally uploaded by mclanea.

    Sometimes we get to play local tourist. Today was one of those days.

    Heck, 7.25% of the fun of hosting Lisa here this summer is having an excuse to play the role of tourist… one more time.

    There is a certain allure to San Diego. And amidst all the other stuff we often loose site of some of the most amazing places in the city.

    Like Balboa Park. This place is incredible. A complex of gorgeous museums, public spaces, fountains, and the San Diego Zoo. It is crazy big, too. It stretches from 4th Avenue to 18th Street! We’ve been there a bunch of times and I still think I’ve only seen about 25% of it.

    I remember hanging out with Mindi Godfrey shortly after I came on staff at YS. She said something that has stuck with me. And I kind of laughed it off at first. But she was completely right. She said, “Sometimes I stop and think to myself… it’s so cool that I get to live here.”

    San Diego. We suffer for Jesus here.

  • Today’s harvest



    Today’s harvest, originally uploaded by mclanea.

    This is what I pulled out of the garden today. This is a pretty typical daily harvest for us these days. We have a few pounds of green beans to pick tonight, as well.

  • To Kill a Mockingbird

    Photo by TexasEagle via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    Our house has a mockingbird problem. I want to kill this mockingbird.

    Harper Lee may have already written this book. But let me tell you that a lobotomy will never do. It is not severe enough.

    The only acceptable punishment for being a mockingbird is death.

    See, the mockingbird who calls our yard home, is a party animal.

    This dude likes to start his singing at about midnight and rock that party until the break of dawn.

    And his party is loud. Like 100+ decibels loud. So loud it will wake you up from a dead slumber and keep you awake for hours, thinking of all the ways you could kill him.

    • A dart would be fun. Not a pretty one, either. Like a dart which a child played with in the 1950s and I would buy from a garage sale. Dull and rusty would do the trick.
    • Since our mockingbird hangs out at the top of the tree, I’ve actually plotted tossing our cat up there. She would certainly kill him. But would need a surprise attack. Like a catapult. Or trebuchet. I would take great pleasure in both the flinging of our cat gently onto his roost… and watching her kill this loud monster.
    • Like the Lorax, I have thought that I could rid myself of this problem by cutting down anything taller than 2 feet.
    • Craigslist. Surely, if I put an ad on Craigslist, someone will have a female making noise in their yard. Forget eHarmony, she’s a perfect fit.
    • I’m looking for a mockingbird recipe. Now I know why all of the recipes for Mockingbirds also involve the word “tequila.” If you have one in your backyard the only way to sleep is to drink oneself blind and pull your sombrero over your head.
    • Perhaps this is a business idea? I could buy an island. Then hire a band of bird wranglers, led by Jack Colton from Romancing the Stone, who would rid our nation of these noisy pests for a fee. We would release them on the island to sing and mate to their hearts content. I could probably even sell the idea to Animal Planet for a reality show. Mockingbird Island: From Pest to Profit.

    Moving is not an option. This bird would merely follow us. It’s there to mock us. We lay in bed at night searching our souls. We wonder, what have we done to deserve the mockingbirds presence?

    The bird, and its incessant intolerable noise, must die.

  • Portrait of a Thriving Family

    So, to be a cover family of a thriving family, this must be what people are looking for…

    • White
    • Married
    • Kids
    • Middle-class
    • Patriotic

    Dear Lord, I hope your portrait of a thriving family is much broader.  Its my prayer that Heaven is full of people who aren’t like me yet thrived in their life with Jesus. Amen.

    p.s. In fairness, the rest of the magazine exhibits plenty of diversity of race. Single, no-children, working class, or non-American… not so much.

  • Celebrating Marriage

    Why celebrate thirteen years? Why not? Photo by Leo Reynolds via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    Why 13 years?

    I think the conviction to host this party was born one day last fall as I was stumbling through the Old Testament. Over and over again I saw the phrase, “remember the things the Lord has done.” And as I read that it just kind of hit me… when was the last time I just celebrated something? Like… for no other reason than to celebrate extravagantly in what God has done?

    Never. That’s when.

    In kind, I gave this party to Kristen as a part of my Christmas gift. She never saw it coming. And since December 25th we had been talking about and planning for June 25th.

    The party was a gift to us. The party was a gift for our friends. And the party was a gift for our kids.

    It was definitely a gift given and a gift received. About 25 people gathered at our vacation rental for a BBQ. There were times when I would just look around and the only thing I could do was smile!

    Thirteen years of marriage may not be a traditional year to celebrate a marriage.  But thirteen years married to me? Kristen deserved some recognition.

  • 7 Steps to Building an Online Personality

    This video covers that basic principles very well. If you can get through the weird music break in the middle, the second half is excellent in providing examples.

    HT to Dave Luke

  • Innovating with an established ecosystem

    Photo by fmgbain via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    Starting a new organization is an entirely different task than innovating to change an existing organization.

    Both are hard. But changing and existing organization is way harder.

    For most of my career I’ve been in turnaround roles. Kristen and I have a little joke… My entire adult work life has seemed like one roller coaster ride after another.

    Click, click, click, click… up we climb.

    Click, click, click, click. My heart races.

    Wait for it. Wait for it… Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

    Arms up. Screaming bloody murder. Thinking of the Tom Petty song, Free Falling.

    Down the big hill we go.

    Over and over again I’m left to help try to innovate our way out of the mess.

    And, so far, I’ve been pretty successful at it by most people’s judgement.

    How does one innovate within an existing ecosystem?

    1. Become Switzerland. There are political factions within any organization. If you want to get stuff done you need to be neither and empathetic both sides at the same time.
    2. Spike the football. When you do something that everyone is happy with its OK to just look into the camera and say, “Thank you very much. Woohoo! Hi mom!” I’ve seen a lot of people fail in an organization because they were afraid to take the credit for their own ideas doing well. Don’t be an idiot. It’s OK to be the guy to do good stuff. Spike the football.
    3. Own the data. Existing organizations are horrible at owning their data. I like to look at the results of a long-standing program that has had no results and say, “30 years of VBS and not a single new family? Why didn’t we just light that $300,000 on fire? At least we would have had a good BBQ.” When people are tied to tradition or the way they’ve always done things, sometimes you need to be the person with the frying pan who hits them in the head. Helping people in leadership own the data is the catalyst to getting stuff done in an existing organization.
    4. Be creative. Face it. A fist full of money and a fat belly has never created a single good idea. Have you seen Bing? No budget, no time, no research, shot in the dark… that’s when good stuff happens. That’s when the best ideas pop into your head. Creativity and innovation come out of suffering and frustration. These are your friends and allies, not your enemies.
    5. Opportunistic eyes. I keep a list of ideas I’ve got on ice. Then, when I’m in a meeting and everyone is scratching their heads looking for something new, bam… I’m pull out my concept. If I ran around screaming about every idea I had all the time I’d look like a mad scientist.

    What are some ways you’ve learned to innovate within an existing ecosystem?

  • Listen to the Right People

    A big mouth doesn’t always equal an effective mouth

    Photo by sroemerm via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    One thing I’ve noticed happening in Christian-land these days is that there are a lot of voices saying quotable things about stuff they have no clue about.

    The biggest one, something I’d label a pet peeve, is people who have successfully planted a megachurch trying to teach people in existing churches how to change their church culture.

    It’s all a big misunderstanding.

    Let’s face this one reality– A guy who planted a church and it grew to 10,000+ members cannot possibly help a 100 year old church of 300 who is struggling. Nor can they help a church plant that started in a house with 25 people and has grown to 200. Or a church that was once 1000 but is now 85.

    Let’s face a second reality– If a person is a wonderful communicator of biblical truth they are not likely a prophet to your struggling ministry. They don’t know a single solitary thing about your situation. Nada, zip, zilch. If you had the chance to meet them they might tell you the same thing. They are probably impressed with what God does through their ministry, too. But that doesn’t mean squat to your church context.

    Do take their words of encouragement personally. But let’s face it, they don’t know how to fix your church.

    Should I try to change my church?

    Of course! Just make sure, when you need advice, you listen to people who have actually done what you are trying to do.

    • Hire a consultant. Having an outside expert come over a series of months is probably the best and fastest thing you can do to systemically change a church. A neutral third party can be the best money you’ll ever spend.
    • Get to know people. It shocks me how fast newly hired church leaders want to move. Most church issues are based in culture. Over-eager church leaders will try to change stuff without understanding the culture enough… thus making the problem worse. Then they quit and leave the mess to someone else to clean up.
    • Become the expert on your community. You have the one advantage that truly makes a difference. You are there. When you read a book, article, or hear a message, everything you take in should be screened through the matrix of your unique church culture. Something you hear can be a fantastic idea– but a complete disaster in your culture. Become the expert of your community. (Which means spending decreasing time in the office and increasing time meeting the people you are trying to reach.)
    • Innovation is always welcome. I’ve never been in a church where new ideas were frowned upon. The trick in a church is how you implement an innovation. If people spent half the time on implementation that they spend on generating new ideas they’d be a lot better off.
    • Fools GoldPhoto by sportwrapper via Flicker (Creative Commons)

      Focus on transforming the people you have. The people in your church already have access to the people you want to reach. A popular speaker says, “You need to focus more on reaching than keeping.” That phrase shocks me. It sounds brilliant but is incredibly rude. Do you want to go to that church? I know I don’t. Rather than focusing on shedding people you don’t like why not focus on teaching in such a way that transforms those people’s hearts? Why not pray for those who are your enemies that they might become your allies? You don’t turn around a church by shedding all the people. You turn around a church by transforming people’s hearts around a common vision.

    • It’s about we not you. When I read books and listen to speakers I’m shocked at how little value they give to the leaders of their congregation. When a leader starts to say “this is my vision” everyone should automatically know that this person isn’t leading people. Vision is inclusive.
    • Measure the right things. Do measure stuff. Just make sure you measure the right stuff. I can’t believe how many people are upset with their congregations because they are measuring stuff like butts in seats and dollar bills. We both know those aren’t Kingdom measurements.

  • The Volunteer

    I’m a big fan of this video. I think it turned out great. And I think its a great compliment to the first one we released a couple weeks back.

    The most loudest people in youth ministry tend to be the people who do it as a profession. But I think we’d all agree that the ones making the vast majority of the impact in youth ministry are volunteers. Hats off to them!