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Picture a couple of goldfish in a cartoon. Only instead of a fishbowl, they’re holed up in a blender. One looks to the other and says, “The stress here is killing me!”
We had that cartoon at a place I used to work.
We also had that kind of stress. We never quite knew when somebody might show up and punch “Puree.”
Morale was hard to come by in that environment because we presented one set of values to the public, but lived by a different set behind the office doors. Information was available only on a “need to know” basis, and most people, most of the time, didn’t “need to know.” Accountability ran down a one-way street. Underlings were accountable for everything, including their email accounts and their bank accounts, while “leaders” answered to no one.
Oh… did I mention that this was a church? [click to continue…]
Never has there been a higher call – or a greater need – for men and women of God with the heart of a Shepherd.
The Shepherd leads. He feeds. He knows the sheep by name, and lays down his life for them. His leadership arises from a heart that has once and for all died to all else but the lives of the sheep. He cares for the ninety-nine who cling to the sound of his voice; yet he pursues with reckless abandon the one who, intent on finding his own way, is now lost.
Be a Shepherd, for God’s sake! And in so doing, be an overseer.
Remember, you can never over-see what you aren’t seeing over. Rise above your own sins, self-interest, and troublesome circumstances – then you will discern what is happening in the lives of other people. Watch! Don’t allow yourself to become oblivious to what is happening in their lives. Remember, you don’t have to take your eyes off the sheep in order to hear from the Chief Shepherd.
Be a Shepherd, for God’s sake! And in so doing, be a willing leader. [click to continue…]
Saw a strange thing the other day. We’d driven to Abilene to watch the Hardin-Simmons Cowboys defend the Wilford Moore trophy against local rival McMurray for the 20th straight year. Division III football at its finest.
HSU had already knocked out the starting quarterback. Number 2 wasn’t faring much better. Scrambling around in the backfield, he was nailed at midfield for about a 12-yard loss.
McMurray lined up for the next play. Shotgun formation. All of a sudden, the quarterback called timeout, turned toward the sideline, and ripped his helmet off. Next thing I know, he’s on his knees, then hands-and-knees, and he wasn’t praying.
Hmmm. Maybe he was. [click to continue…]
Halftime, Durham, North Carolina. The Duke Blue Devils have just scored the first touchdown that top-ranked Alabama has surrendered in two-and-a-half games.
Not exactly a moment to panic, however. Alabama leads at the half, 45-13.
Cue the halftime interview with Coach Nick Saban. “Coach,” Sideline Babe says, “Were you upset about giving up your first touchdown of the season?”
“I don’t care about the touchdown,” Saban replies. “I’ve just been talking to our guys about playing to a standard.”
Fast-forward one week. Halftime again. This time, nobody wearing white and crimson was strutting to the locker room. The defending national champions are trailing a very strong Arkansas Razorbacks team in Fayetteville 17-7, and it’s no fluke. These Hogs are good, and Bama’s looking rough.
Somebody… not namin’ names here… but somebody woke somebody up. Final Score: Alabama 24, Arkansas 20.
After the game, Coach Nick had this to say:
“I want them to remember what it’s like not playing the way you’re capable of playing, not playing with the intensity and focus you need to have. We have a standard we want to play to, we want to play to it all the time. We certainly didn’t get that done in the first half.”
Another Clock is Counting Down
Football is not the only place where the clock is ticking toward zero. [click to continue…]
One of our inside family jokes has to do with a certain child of ours who had the hardest time simply apologizing or admitting she was wrong.
(This same child, as a two-year-old, used to wear a t-shirt with the picture of a well-known TV character who had a similar problem. The most he could ever do was say, in his coolness, “I was wr-r-r-r-r.” I wonder if the t-shirt rubbed off somehow.)
Anyway, the conversations would go something like this:
“You need to tell her/him you’re sorry.”
“But I didn’t mean to.”
“It doesn’t matter – you did it. Say you’re sorry.”
“But I didn’t mean to.”
“But you did it.”
“It’s not my fault.”
“SAY IT!”
“I DIDN’T MEAN TO!”
Where Could She POSSIBLY Learn Something Like That?
To this day, we haven’t really understood what a simple apology symbolized to this child, but she wasn’t buyin’. But let’s face it. We all come by our reluctance to admit fault pretty honestly. [click to continue…]
I have a confession to make. I can’t pass a mirror without looking at it. Call me weird, call me vain, just don’t call me when a mirror is close by. I probably won’t hear you.
Sometimes I primp. Sometimes I frown. Sometimes I actually impress myself and sometimes I just sigh. But whatever the reaction, it won’t cure me of wanting to take another look next time.
I have a hunch that I’m not alone. A lot of people spend a lot of time looking at themselves in the looking glass. Mirrors are an important part of our culture. Some people cover their walls at home with them. Michael Jackson once recorded a song about it. And where would we be without that fairy-tale question, “Mirror, Mirror on the wall…?”
Did you know that mirrors can lie? [click to continue…]
Tense truth: We are individually accountable to God for what we have done with the death and resurrection of His Son and with the life He has given us. However, we are completely dependent on a community of relationships, and cannot survive or thrive in isolation. Our community won’t be there when we stand before the Lord, but they must be connected to us until we get there.
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From the genius of David Hayward comes this funny/sad characterization of a lot of people I have known (and one or two I have been).
No coincidence that David posted this on the same day I made this statement: There is not enough of you available to live all your life. You’re a fool to try…
Ever see a sequoia tree? Fantastic piece of God’s creation. An awesome living structure that can reach as high as 300 feet.
Ever see a sequoia tree standing by itself?
Chances are, you won’t. Strange thing, this tree – to be so tall, it has a very shallow root system. If it stood alone, it couldn’t make it; when the wind grew strong, it wouldn’t take it. So the sequoias build a network of root systems and together they flourish, side by side.
You and I were designed to function like the sequoia tree. [click to continue…]
We pass a word around our office that my associate once used to describe me, and it stuck: Crispy.
He used it a few years ago when he and our office manager decided they’d seen enough of me in the state I was in and informed me that I was taking my wife on an R & R trip to the mountains. My reservations had been made, and they weren’t taking “no” for an answer.
I hope to God you have somebody who looks out for you like that. I wasn’t aware of how emotionally and physically fried I was. The sad truth about stress, crispiness, and burnout is that often others see their effects on us before we do.
It wasn’t the first time I’ve been crispy, and it probably won’t be the last. But there’s a further step that can be devastating. Burnout, in a clinical sense, means you have completely exhausted every form of energy necessary to continue. More than just losing interest (“I’m sort of burned out on jazz these days”), I’m talking about those times people go to their wells and find them completely dry. Times when people shock those who know them best by walking away from relationships, careers, or wisdom.
“Stress makes people stupid,” a management consultant once told Daniel Goldman. Burnout reveals it to the world.
So how do people get in such a state – past stress, past crispy, all the way to emotionally nuked? Let me suggest three quick and easy recipes for complete emotional, mental, or spiritual exhaustion: [click to continue…]
I haven’t said anything about the current political scene for a variety of reasons, but this scares me. I haven’t seen fawning like this since I escorted W. A. Criswell into a Baptist pastors’ meeting.
Something’s wrong when the same people who want to make sure terrorists get equal time and a “fair and balanced perspective” do this kind of drooling. And something is even more wrong when the people whose vocation is to report the facts and to ask the tough question lose their calling to a thrill running up their leg.
Good grief, Chris, have some dignity.
But this isn’t about politics or the press so much as it is about healthy leadership. I’ve seen the same kind of crap surrounding pastors, business leaders, and celebrity-types who never had to give an account to anybody for how they influenced people.
When leaders create or inherit an environment where nobody asks the tough questions, they are setting themselves and their organization (or nation) up for their own demise.
[click to continue…]
Picture a couple of goldfish in a cartoon. Only instead of a fishbowl, they’re holed up in a blender. One looks to the other and says, “The stress here is killing me!”
