Belonging

It is said in leadership circles that one cannot lead in a vacuum, and that one cannot lead without followers.  In other words, leading and following both happen in the context of a relationship.

I've been thinking about this lately related to the work I'm doing with AllOne and with SEED.  In both cases, the hardest part of my work is getting people to recognize a relationship that may not appear obvious or beneficial (or sometimes exist at all).

I was talking with a good friend a couple of months ago about a group of churches in a specific geographic location and denomination.  Probably half of these churches have stopped participating in any meaningful way in the fellowship of this larger denominational body.

It is always tempting to think that we don't need others in our own local church, or other churches in our community, or in our denomination.  In my conversation with this friend, he said something insightful about how the minute we consider "that group" separate from ourselves, we create space that allows us to distance ourselves from it.  Hence the "District" or "Conference" or "Collaborative" or any such entity can be ignored because our identity is not invested in it.

This is illogical in any context.

• In an organization, for example: simply because someone works in another department or business unit, that does not mean their actions do not affect me; work flows in streams, and even if someone else's work is never directly connectable to my own, the culture and company reputation are partially formed by each other employee's actions, which affects me.
• In a neighborhood, the actions of my neighbors impact me. The color they paint their house, the state of their yard, the volume of music and hours they keep ... all these things affect me even if I try to avoid it all by hiding in my house all day and night
• In a family, the interplay between various family members impacts them all.  It is often said that you don't marry a person, you marry a family.  Even if I have no contact with anyone in my family any more, I still came out of that family, and you can't understand why I do (or intentionally do not do) what I do without recognizing the effects of growing up in that family

For Christians, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12 that we are all part of one body, whether we acknowledge -- or like -- it or not.  When one part hurts, we all hurt; when one part receives honor, we all do.  To intentionally try to separate ourselves from other parts of the body, then, is delusional and harmful.

Jesus says in John 15 that so long as we remain connected to him, we will flourish, but as soon as we cut ourselves off from him we die.  A branch that is cut off from a tree is dead: it may still look alive but it cannot live on its own.  And if, as Paul says, we are now the body of Christ, then cutting ourselves off from the rest of the body means that we are dead, even if we still look alive for a time.  This is the same as Genesis 3, where God says that the day Adam and Eve eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they "will surely die."  By eating the forbidden fruit, they died that day, even if they still looked alive for a time.

Why do we even want to keep ourselves separate, distinct from, those others in our company, our neighborhood, our family, our church or denomination?  Because we think by keeping ourselves separate we can be safe, secure from being hurt.  As if.

We are still connected, whether we like it or not.  By pretending we are not part, we are guaranteed to die.  By recognizing and living out our connectedness, we are almost guaranteed to get hurt ... but we are also guaranteed to receive fresh nutrients, the inflow and outflow of what is good and necessary for life.  I know many, including close friends and family members, who are mere shells because they have cut themselves off from the world, from those who might (or have) hurt them.  What they don't realize is that they have cut themselves off from life.

We were made to belong, and we do belong.  Do we try to avoid it, pretend it isn't so, or do we acknowledge it, recognize that pain will come, and commit to being in relationship anyway?

Posting Pressure

This blogging thing is a pretty fascinating experience.  Surreal in many ways.

There is the fact that I (and many other bloggers) essentially use cyberspace, open and public, the way an 18th century American girl would have used a diary.

Then there is the fact that bloggers have the audacity to think that others are interested in reading our diaries when they aren't forbidden.  (Surely that was always one of the attractions of reading someone's diary, right?)

Add to that the pressure to produce something interesting to keep people coming back, and to expand who might be reading your diary.  (If you kept a secret diary, someone stole it to read once and then put it back, never caring to read it again, you'd likely presume that your life wasn't worth reading about, even the top secret parts.)

A college friend of mine writes a terrific blog, and I've told her so.  This week she posted that my compliments actually added pressure to her.  Now she felt like she had to come up with something great every time she posted.  I understand that, too.

I've had many ideas for blog posts but don't want to simply dash off a quick note.  I want each post to have something substantial, profound, existential, transformational, to it.  I think I've confused two things: interest and worth.

See, I often focus on the externals, and so piquing the interest of others -- especially, I admit, those I hold in high esteem -- is consistently high in my priority list.  It's why I incessantly make jokes, though half of them (or more) bomb miserably.  I am working very hard to have people perceive me as clever, as interesting.  I face the same thing with the blog: I must post often, and every post must be perceived as terrific.

But worth is more important.  It's so obvious, right?  Given a choice between a post that someone else finds interesting or amusing, or a post that actually means something (more on that in a moment), wouldn't we almost always choose worth over interest?  Sometimes, if we're honest, we'd rather have someone be interested in our blather than disinterested in our profundity.  That's relationship talking, and it is ironically, worth considering.  But by and large, we should be opting for importance over interest.

But how does a post "mean" something?  I suppose this gets back to the purpose of a blog.  If it's supposed to be a money maker or an attraction, then I'm a slave to being interesting.  Which means I may or may not be honest, or substantive, or beneficial, when those things don't make me interesting.

If, on the other hand, a blog is more of a diary -- a way of processing externally what is happening to me internally -- then the worth is the honesty, the personal substance, the beneficence to the reader.  The worth is intrinsic, because it's about the person doing the blogging and not the grammar, syntax, or clever turn of phrase or storytelling of the blog.  That's the kind of blog I'm hoping to write here.

(Of course, then you have the fact that if I write this blog to let people see what's going on inside me, and no one is reading it ...)

Poverty is a mental thing

I live a very rich life, and yet so often I am frustrated at my own poverty.

My rich life is evident for all to see: I own a home (well, the mortgage company and I sort of co-own it), a minivan, furnishing, clothing, books (lots of books), and the like.  I have immediate, extended, and in-law families that love and support me.  I have many friends all over the world, including many of my neighbors, current and former coworkers, and classmates.  I have an active life, with many worthwhile things to do.  I never lack for anything I need, and almost never for anything I want.

And yet I am poor.

I am poor because it never seems enough.  There is always something more I want to own, to do, to, well, I suppose to be.  I suppose that gets at the crux of the issue, doesn't it?  I want more friends, more goods, more knowledge, more ... because I am not satisfied with who I am.

When I go through a buffet line, or even open my own refrigerator and cupboards, and I see a limited quantity of something, my instinct is to grab it because it will soon be gone.  My instinct, that is, is to get mine while I can, because there isn't enough ... and the implication is that I must have it.  If four of us go out to eat and there are only three items on the appetizer plate, someone must go without it, and it shouldn't be me.  Not because I "deserve" it, really, but because I'm afraid I don't deserve it.

Where does this attitude come from?  What insecurity do I have, and is it unique to me?  I imagine -- though the theologians reading this might beg to differ -- that this is some of what James 4 is talking about.  He says that no one who is a friend of the world can claim to be a friend of God.  God owns it all, and never runs out.  Jesus was the same way: the heir of God, and he never seemed to lack.

Romans 8.17 says that we are co-heirs with Christ.  So that means ... that I also have everything, and lack nothing.  But I don't live that way.  I am stingy, not generous; hoarding, not free-giving; always noting what I don't have rather than what I do have.

Could it be that poverty is not determined based on my bank account?  Or my balance sheet?  Or my closet?  But instead based on my mind?

And if so, and I am poor, then that means ... my poverty is a lack, not of funds or things, but of faith.  And that's going to be much harder to deal with.

Love of money, part II

Apologies to those who don't want to read about money :) it's been on my mind a lot the past few months as I have set out on giving up a high-paying job for completely uncertain (from a human standpoint) financial prospects.

Dave Ramsey says “money is amoral.”  And he quotes the famous verse about “love of money.”  It's interesting that any time someone quotes that verse, and emphasizes the fact that it's not "money" but the "love of money" that is a root of all evil, their intent is to anesthetize us to money's power over us.  The intent is never to put out a bold challenge as to whether we should value money at all but to assuage our consciences so that the acquisitiveness, the lust for possessions (or bargains?) doesn't come under close scrutiny.  We can then tell ourselves -- very likely deceive ourselves -- into thinking that we don't love money and therefore are safe.

But I believe Ramsey is misguided: money does in fact exert a power, and it seems to me that it is toward addiction, toward more, toward the values of the world.  Richard Foster's brilliant work Money, Sex, and Power (republished with the sanitized title of Challenge of the Disciplined Life) states this outright.  Money does not just lay around.  It preys on my mind and worms its way into my soul.

Think of it this way: how much of my time do I spend making money?  If I work a "regular" full-time job, I spend 40 hours (one-fourth of my weekly allotment) making money.  Add to that the time I spend shopping, financial planning, tracking my finances, and caring for the stuff I have spent my money on.  Likely I'm spending about 100 hours a week on money and its accoutrements.  And I'm always thinking about what comes next.  What's the next thing we should buy when we have the money?  When I get my tax return, what will I spend that on?  If I get a bonus, or have a month with three paychecks, what will I do with that money?  My impulses, my thoughts, and my emotions are all tied up with money.

That doesn't sound amoral to me.

Foster's solution is to fight the power of money by intentionally and freely giving it away.  Not so much by planned giving, but by treating money with disdain, with contempt.  I'm reading a biography of John D Rockefeller, in his time the richest man in the world.  Into his 50s, he personally read or talked with every person who wanted some of his money.  He was very thoughtful and (one gets the impression from the biography) prayerful about where God wanted him to use his wealth.

That's admirable.  And we like to think that's what we do.  We don't want to waste our money.  We call that "bad stewardship."  As though giving money to a panhandler who might use it on alcohol is worse stewardship than spending 10 percent of my income on buying a big-screen TV and cable and cell phone bills.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and dust destroy and thieves break in and steal." (Matthew 6.19)  As I look at my own house, my own life, I sure see a lot of stuff that I've spent my money on, that moth and rust can (and do) destroy.  Wouldn't it be better to "freely receive, freely give"?  Or to "give to the one who asks you" without thinking of how it might be used?

Of course, stewardship comes into play.

Notice what I just did?  This whole blog was wending toward hard, significant challenges, and instinctively I typed a line that undercut the whole argument.  For just a second, we all felt safe again, didn't we?

Why is it so important for us to feel safe about our spiritual and moral and social selves when it comes to money?  Could it be that we recognize the hold money has on us?

Which God do I serve? The Lord, or money?

One of the most interesting facets of my movement away from my well-paying job into directing and co-directing two different nonprofits is the uncertainty of income.

You'll note I didn't say the absence of income.  I am quite confident that we will have income sufficient to cover our needs.  I am, however, uncertain where it will come from.

I had many conversations with people from my old job, from church, through the nonprofits where I serve on the board, from my contacts in the community, my neighbors, and my family.  Everyone I talk with, it seems, has one central question: how will you pay your bills?  (Closely followed by: what about health insurance?  That's another blog post for another day.)

My answer is as simple as it is hard.  I believe the Lord will provide to pay the bills.  If indeed he has called me, called us as a couple and a family, to do what we are setting out to do, then how could I do otherwise than to trust him?  I'm reminded of Psalm 20.7: "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God."  In my early 20s I trusted this way, but somehow over the past 15 years that seems to have changed.  Now I'm getting back to it.

Many don't believe me about security and trusting.  But I recently, on many folks' recommendations, started listening to Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University talks.  There is much sense in there, I agree ... but to me, it sure seems like human wisdom and not God's plan.  Let me briefly explain.

Ramsey talks about saving to create "financial security."  How is this different from trusting in horses and chariots?  Am I really to save money so that I will be secure?  And how much money is "security"?  As John D Rockefeller once famously said when asked how much was enough: "Just a little more."  No amount of money is ever enough; there is always something more we want, something more we want to do.  And even if we could reach a set amount ($5k? $10k? $1m?) where are we going to draw that definition?  Shouldn't we be going to Jesus to see what he would have us do with our money?

I'm not saying saving is a bad idea, but when I save so that I have "security" I make it a human, Pharisaic rule.  Does want me to be "secure" in my finances, or in his provision?  Does he really ask me to "build wealth"?  To "pay myself first"?  Is it more important for me to own my own home, for me to have $5k in the bank ... or is it more important to use all I have so that others might have food, water, clothing, shelter, opportunity?

I'll continue to process this topic over time.  I currently think and speak like only a black-and-white new convert can.  I have thoughts of selling all I have and giving it all to the poor, trusting in God to provide for my needs in the future.  Are we all called to do that?  No, I suppose not ... but I bet some of us are.  And I bet many others of us are called to take in, to provide for, those who do.

Where is your security today?  In your possessions?  Your bank account?  Your job, which provides that income and (likely) insurance?  Or are you trusting in the Lord to take care of things regardless of your job, income, housing, and bank statuses?  May we learn better how to follow the one true God.

Juggling but that's all right

Those of you who have read my first three blog posts may ask yourselves: how in the world does he juggle these major efforts (direct one nonprofit, co-direct another, pursue the PhD)?  It's a question I often get asked, especially as I currently serve as Board Chair for two other organizations (a local nonprofit, FamilyWorks! Ministries (famworks.org) and a state denominational committee).  And of course I value and prioritize the time I spend with Rose and my boys.

Fifteen years ago my best friend Jim Smith and I were corresponding across 2300 miles: I was living in my parents' downstairs in Vancouver, Washington, having graduated a year or so earlier, and Jim was finishing up his undergrad education at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.  We'd write 6-8 page letters, single-spaced, sometimes written and sometimes typed, but always covering a range of topics both wide and deep.

In one letter, Jim wrote about the various activities he had going on and said he was struggling to understand how to prioritize.  He said he knew God came first, but then what was second.  And in prayer one day, the answer came to him: as long as God is first, it doesn't matter what comes second.  Or rather, what comes second may change based on the leading of the Holy Spirit who lives within us.  Profound, and true.

I've often thought of that over the past three years as my workload has piled up.  God built me with a large capacity for work.  Part of that is that I don't need much sleep, part is that I tend to quickly organize my work to finish it as efficiently as possible, and part is that (as an INTJ) even while I am working on one thing my brain is processing the other things I need to spend time on, so that when I sit down to actually work on them, they go much faster.  I first discovered this in college when I would routinely write 10-page papers for my literature or history courses in two hours or less, and get A's on them.

So the key is not how I prioritize my own work today, or this week, or for the next 12 months.  I make plans, of course -- I am a J who loves structure, after all -- but I've become much more comfortable with God changing my plans.

My life -- as yours, I'm guessing -- is a juggling act, where I may change what I'm focused on every half an hour.  But as Jim Elliot once said "Wherever you are, be all there."  It's okay for me to have 10 things to work on, so long as God has called me to them and so long as I am not distracted and frittering away my time and energy.  When I am talking with someone about AllOne, I am completely focused on that effort; when I have a phone call about the SEED web site, I am only thinking about SEED; when I sit down to research articles for the dissertation, that's what I do.  And when I have a date with my wife, I focus on her.  When I am hiking or wrestling with my boys, I am with them.

Would I like to spend more time in each of these areas?  Sure.  But if I am called to multiple expressions for what God has built in me, my job is simply to be obedient and do my best in each.  Just as the call was his, so the results are God's.

Doctor who?

To finish the background sketching here so we can move on to the things that strike and profoundly affect me, today's subject is the PhD in Organizational Leadership.

I have completed my three years of coursework at Eastern University, have passed comprehensive exams, and am now officially A Candidate For The PhD.  Somehow that sounds better when I put every word in caps.

As an INTJ personality, writing a dissertation is especially challenging.  Why? Well ...

• the I means I don't share what I'm thinking with other people often enough to get constructive feedback before I get too far down a road
• the N means everything is interesting and I have trouble sticking to one topic/concept long enough to research and write 200 pages on it
• the T means I live in my brain, which would seem perfect for a scholarly pursuit such as the PhD ... but I'm in a program dedicated to the practitioner-scholar, so I have to live it and not just think it
• the J means I crave and thrive in structure.  And as anyone who has pursued the PhD can tell you, once your coursework is done, you have no structure other than what you impose yourself.  (See: N for my difficulties with self-imposed structure.)

My topic started as a brand new theory of leadership: the interaction between leader, follower, and organization as a Venn diagram, recognizing that even a subtle and slight change in one results in significant changes to the way the three interact.  And that means that any theory that only discusses the interaction of two of those three components is missing the boat; and it also means that the Bolman-Deal human resources frame is probably the most important of all (hard for an INTJ to say) is because an organization is mostly the sum of the relationships involved.

What did my advisor say when I shared this with him?  Two comments.  "That's a brand-new theory, and very interesting."  "Don't do that for your dissertation; the best dissertation is a done dissertation.  Do one small piece of that theory and save the rest for the book."

Good advice, I think.

So I've settled in on trying to help small community nonprofits (SCNPs) be more effective organizations, specifically in the areas of recruitment, selection, and socialization of employees.  In essence, when the local homeless shelter needs an employee, what are some tools and practices they can employ to make sure they locate, hire, and orient that employee so that both individual and organization are most effective?

In ways only God could figure out, somehow this has dovetailed with AllOne and our service survey (see http://leadingandfollowing.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-is-this-all-about.html) as well as SEED and our need to build an organization (see http://leadingandfollowing.blogspot.com/2011/02/our-next-adventure.html).

So beginning tomorrow, the dialogue begins: I'll be posting reflections, thoughts, and questions for our exchange.  I look forward to your input.

Our next adventure

When I handed in my resignation from my paying job last spring, I expected to be working full time on AllOne Community Services (allonecommunity.org), as reflected in yesterday's post (http://leadingandfollowing.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-is-this-all-about.html).  God apparently had other ideas.

Our whole family went to Kenya last year so that Rose (and to a lesser extent me) could teach at the Kenya Free Methodist Bible School.  We stayed a few days in Nairobi at the beginning and the end -- including spending Zephaniah's 8th birthday on a safari at Nairobi National Park -- with Vickie Reynen, the International Child Care Ministries (ICCM) Africa regional coordinator.  Rose and I had numerous conversations with Vickie about adapting to Kenyan culture, trying to learn from what is positive in the US church and what is positive in the Kenyan church.  We spent many enjoyable hours talking and being toured around.

Our middle two weeks in Kenya were spent in Kericho teaching at the modular school.  For most of the days this meant Rose was teaching while I was hanging out with my sons.  And I was afforded a lot of time to process my current experiences and think about other things.  (If you care to read more about that experience, you can check out my notes on Facebook.)

One of the things Rose and I consistently heard during and after our time there was how well we fit in.  We spent most of our time listening; even though we were the teachers, we recognized that any subject expertise we brought to the table was less than the gap we had in cultural awareness.  So our classroom sessions were facilitated discussions, where we would present some basic material and then ask the students to share with us what that looked like in their cultures.  And we also enjoyed being with the students.

Imagine our surprise when a couple months after returning from Kenya, Vickie mentioned that she had suggested us to the missions agency for a possible microenterprise ministry leadership position.  What Vickie didn't know was that Rose and I have been talking for several years about opening a fair trade store and coffeehouse here in our neighborhood.  Once we even filled out an application to lease space, but the building owner leased it to another tenant instead.  So we were intrigued.

The intrigue continued through a couple months' worth of conversations with various folks at Free Methodist headquarters.  It appeared that God was opening the door for us to step into this ministry at just the time Rose would be stepping down from pastoring and I would be leaving my former employment.  We continued, prayerfully with each step, until it became clear that this is what God has for us as a couple.

What does this mean?  Well, first we have a lot of work to do, understanding what SEED (which stands for Serving, Empowering, Encouraging, Developing) currently does, where it is strong and where it could use improvement.  And meeting all the folks at FM headquarters along with the existing SEED project sites, which are scattered across the continents: projects in Peru, Kenya, Uganda, India, China, Cambodia, and the Philippines.  And there are a hundred potential sites in 30 or 40 countries.

We also have a lot of work to do to understand the options.  We are familiar with microcredit/microfinance, with Fair Trade, and with market and SWOT analyses, for instance, but every place, every culture, every person or group of people, is going to be unique.  We know that God has prepared us for this work, not to the extent that we can be confident in our own abilities but so that we have some raw material that he will put together in the best way to meet people's needs.

This new adventure will be a dance of leadership and followership at multiple levels:

1. Clearly, we need to be responsive to God's leading all the way through
2. Rose and I will be learning how to lead and follow, and partner, with each other in working together on a daily basis.  We have very different strengths and very different approaches, so molding those will be a great challenge -- and a lot of fun. We could not have even thought about this 14.5 years ago
3. We'll all be learning about how to lead and to follow as we work with conferences, churches, headquarters, non-US sites, and possible donors

Yep, in case that wasn't clear, we'll be starting fundraising in the near future as the SEED position is not currently funded.  ICCM has agreed to pay our travel and operations expenses while we raise money to cover salary, medical, and daily living costs.

So again, God has taken us from a position of having a very safe, solid income to not knowing how we'll pay the bills.  And because he's leading, all we have to do is follow and trust.  More to come on that.