2014 in Review

Kendall's Compass for Cross-Cultural Ministry

• Remove aura of perfection
• Go where people are
• Listen, speak their language
• Respect their history, sociology
• Make internal culture inclusive

Mistakes will be made by everyone. "Be patient, bearing with one another in love, forgiving whatever grievances you have with one another." Ephesians 4:2, 4:32

Unknown Sources:

Samaritans, like the rest of us, need to feel they belong before they can believe.

Greed = perpetual state of dissatisfaction. The antidote is to simplify. Giving is the act of relinquishing control.

Clutter is an indicator of financial management and spiritual state. Stuff = happiness. Overwhelmed. Where is my contentment coming from?

Healthy families talk out their feelings. Unhealthy families act out.

The wounded and hurting have a hard time attaching to environments that are healthy.

Science reveals God's majesty.

Discouragement precedes destruction.

Tapping into your child's overwhelmed sense: The thing that your kid is stressed about is probably a strength that is underdeveloped.

Social media = in a conscious state of inattention

Be exceptional for the benefit of others.

Illiterate societies are easy to control.

Pride is a prison. It shuts us in; God and others out.

Prostitution is not the world's oldest occupation. It's the world's oldest form of abuse.

Jonathan Storment

In a pluralistic society, you will be judged by how well we benefit the people who don't belong to you.
Grace before anything is an indictment [of sin].

Bianca Olthoff

Scarcity breeds clarity.

Justin and Trisha Davis

An ordinary marriage is simply an overflow of an ordinary relationship with God. Ordinary is defeated as we tell the truth.

Brene Brown

• Power of Vulnerabilty, TED Talk
• Stories are data with a soul.
• Shame = fear of disconnection
• In order for connection to happen, we have to risk being seen. People who have the strongest sense of love and belonging are those who believe they are worthy of love and belonging. They fully embraced vulnerability.

Cynthia Tobias

Focus on the Family

Focus on strengths. What do they do well? When are they happiest? How do we transfer these strengths to school. Creating confident learners early in school sets them up for confidence in life.

Kathy Koch

Nurturing Your Child's Intelligence, Focus on the Family

• Plant kids where they can bloom.
• Paralysis and shut off part of the brain because discouraged, shunned.
• Develop character qualities so able to use abilities for good, not evil.
• How am I smart?

Dr. Larry Crabb

Unrecognized self-centeredness in the way we relate.
I want to put Christ on display by the way I relate. When Jesus was on the cross, he took care of his Mother, saved the thief, and forgave his killers.

Ask my wife, "What is it like to live with me?" Have to courage to respond non-defensively.
When do I make you feel alive? When do I make you feel dead?

Subordinate the expression of my feelings to the purpose of God. Desire, but don't demand.

Women afraid of feeling invisible to husband. They relieve pain by getting away.

Other centeredness = Thinking about the value of my wife and what I can do for her.

Debbie Storey

SVP Talent & Diversity Officer, AT&T

If you're 100% qualified for the job, it's not growth.

Austin Channing Brown

Reconciliation is what we do as we listen to hard truths form the marginalized around us...spending time in each other's spaces...creating shared spaces where both can breathe freely. If your culture is the standard for rightness, you have found the Imago Dei in others to be insufficient. Reconciliation is how we respond after being told we are . Reconciliation is having our hearts broken that people are experiencing these things, not having our feelings hurt for being called out on it. Staying in relationship until all these are cast out and love reigns.

Shane Hipps

The first step in the journey of discovering your true voice is fearless honesty. Nonjudging awareness.

Sean Palmer

• Sometimes we lack the will, the clarity, or the courage to talk about things that matter.
• We have experience that makes us more sympathetic to one side/party/person or the other.
• This is the kind of tragedy that says we need to eliminate everything that contributed to it.
• We've become a tool to the Right, an enemy to the Left, and prophetic to neither.

Elizabeth Lesser

TED Talk

Share me some of your life experiences. What issues deeply concern you? What have you always wanted to ask someone who holds a different perspective?

Larry James

• Part of the retreat into the church is to escape the challenge of the real world.
• Fine art of de-escalation.
• The mark of election in this country is money and success.
• You're important to me and I want to hear that. 
• Build relationships and knit the community together in ways that it hasn't been before.

Shaunti Feldhan

You have to believe the best of your spouse's intentions when you're hurt.

A Time to Speak 

Panel Discussion of Christian leaders on Justice and Reconciliation

• Dr. Darrin Patrick, The Journey Church, St. Louis: We are taking responsibility for the brokenness in our city.
• Unknown: Without proximity, there's no empathy.
• Albert Tate: Come have a black dinner. Umm "black dinner?"
• Derwin Gray: Quit seeking unregenerate people to do what we're called and commissioned to do. Let's not have an evangelical sit-out like we have in the past. Provide people a biblical vocabulary before the news outlets do.

Unattributed Quotes from Newsworthy with Norsworthy Podcast

• Take intentional step to get to know people not like us.
• What's the Jesus response to this?
• It's not about winning. It's about living a discipled life.
• Do the realtional work when the gun's not loaded.
• We're impacted by people with whom we share an identity.
• We vote group specific.
• Real human beings with good hearts disagree with me.
• Make a conscious decision to discern more than decide.

I Am A Terrible Blogger. I Quit.

Blogging for me started with the best intentions -- reasons that now escape me.
Making a blog a viable tool is a full-time job for which I won't invest the time.
Furthermore, I'm not one to toss out my opinions on everything under the sun.
Neither is my life an open book.
Sooo... I'm done.

BUT

This will now be a place to keep notes of inspiring and challenging quotes for my own keeping and for my kids to read someday.

Life is still amazing. I'm still dancing.

Most Maturing

An Invitation to Serve, Priscillia Bui, Mission Year

If I was placed at the school to serve, why was my ability to find joy in serving others tied to the type of work that I was doing? I realized that in serving the staff and students at the school, it did not matter the type of work that I was doing, but rather, with what type of heart I was serving with. I saw how much I was trying to make the service about myself and what I could do, rather than about those I was serving. I could do my work with a bitter and resentful heart or try to find joy in simply serving others. It was then that God revealed to me that the heart of service is simple – to serve others wholeheartedly and with joy, regardless of what the task may be…And so my question for you is, wherever you may be and whatever you may be doing, whether it is something you love or hate, what is God inviting you to and how is He inviting you to love those around you?

Question of the Week

Watching HBO R-Rated Movies, Jon Acuff

A few months ago, my friend asked me a question, “How come we Christians get upset about the nudity in the show ‘Game of Thrones,’ but not at the violence?”

 

Listening to Bianca

Various talks by Bianca Olthoff

“The outcome of fasting is to recalibrate the heart and mind.”

“Forgiveness is to embrace the wound someone has given you…willingness to suffer discomfort for the heart of Jesus.”

They’ve Got an App for that!

10 Mobile Apps, No Make That 49, That Make Our Day, Lee Odden, Online Marketing Blog

Experts have stated that the average person has 40 apps on their mobile device, but regulary use only 4-5 of them.  So, add a few more from this list!  A few new ones for me:

·        Vine

·        Timehop

·        Grocery IQ

·        Paper

Top 300 Christian Blogs for Ministry

Churchrelevance.com

I love finding interesting reads. I particularly am interested in spiritual growth, ministry, church digital strategy, reconciliation, and discovering what’s cool and fascinating. That’s why I was thrilled to see Church Relevance magazine unveil their “Revamped Top Church Blogs List”. Patheos and representation are what resonate with me after going through this list.

1.      300 is A LOT.  I used up four lunch breaks to be able to look at them all.

2.      Patheos sure offers lots of content, with many Catholic, Evangelical, and Progressive Christian blogs making the list.  Seems like a good resource.

3.      If you like Justin Timberlake, go to Patheos.  The paid ads section on the right-hand side serve up plenty of JT videos from his Mickey Mouse Club days until now.  Dance on!

4.      As far as I can tell, 51% of the writers making the list were men, 20% women, and 29% various.

5.      Do the ladies feel represented?  20% is probably high compared to most Christian conferences and events.  Rachel Held Evans offers her list of women writers in response to another list.

6.      And while we’re on that, how about people of color?  5%. Low, but probably comparatively high.  Between Worlds offers her list of culturally diverse Christian writers.

7.      I wish my affilitation (churches of Christ) had more of a presence in mainstream Christiandom. We tend to keep our voices away from many conversations and conferences.  There may be reasons for that, but not here, not today.  I feel we have a lot to offer and can learn some things too.

8.      At the end of the day…er week… I walked away with 39 blogs to add to my Feedly.  That makes a whopping 83 feeds on my account!  Digital overkill, I know.  But how can one ignore potentially good content?

 

Most Conciliatory

Civil Religion a Modest Proposal, Jonathan Storment

When we demonize the other, we rarely have healthy conversations about the issue of disagreement. We divide up the world into right and wrong, and lose the ability to learn and grow from each other.

…

Modesty basically means to not over-estimate ourselves, it is the virtue of knowing and embracing our limitations. We don’t know everything, we don’t know for certain what’s best for the world, and no human should find themselves so certain that they can dehumanize another because they disagree with them.

Most Challenging

3 Tips for Responding to Criticism

Most Personally Relatable

Say Anything, by Allison Vesterfelt

…my answers tend to be clouded by what I fear they will think of me....Maybe our ideas—the real ones—matter for something....If that’s the case, if what I have to say matters, I need to learn to not hold back. ...Because it’s in the sharing, I think, that healing comes, humility comes, growth comes. It’s in the sharing I’m changed, and you’re changed, and a bridge is built between the two of us.

Head Bobber

Where are the People of Color in Children's Books?  by Walter Dean Myers

When I was doing research for my book “Monster,” I approached a white lawyer doing pro bono work in the courts defending poor clients. I said that it must be difficult to get witnesses to court to testify on behalf of an inner-city client, and he replied that getting witnesses was not as difficult as it sometimes appeared on television. “The trouble,” he said, “is to humanize my clients in the eyes of a jury. To make them think of this defendant as a human being and not just one of ‘them.’ ”

I realized that this was exactly what I wanted to do when I wrote about poor inner-city children — to make them human in the eyes of readers and, especially, in their own eyes. I need to make them feel as if they are part of America’s dream, that all the rhetoric is meant for them, and that they are wanted in this country.

Books transmit values. They explore our common humanity. What is the message when some children are not represented in those books? Where are the future white personnel managers going to get their ideas of people of color? Where are the future white loan officers and future white politicians going to get their knowledge of people of color? Where are black children going to get a sense of who they are and what they can be?

And what are the books that are being published about blacks? Joe Morton, the actor who starred in “The Brother From Another Planet,” has said that all but a few motion pictures being made about blacks are about blacks as victims. In them, we are always struggling to overcome either slavery or racism. Book publishing is little better. Black history is usually depicted as folklore about slavery, and then a fast-forward to the civil rights movement. Then I’m told that black children, and boys in particular, don’t read. Small wonder.

Because it Still Matters

The Racial Subtext in Church by Kelsey Munger

"Guys like that [black guys] don't go to church."

 

How could she think that? Why would she think that?

Maybe because when Best Friend looked at the “missionary bulletin board” at her church she could spot the missionaries because they were the only whites in the picture, and the new converts and “assistants in spreading the gospel” could be identified by their brown or black skin tones.

 

Maybe because she’d been to church camps, conferences, her parents had even worked at a bible college, but she had never heard an African-American preacher or bible teacher. There must not be any Christian blacks in America or, if there are, maybe they don’t have anything worth saying.

Maybe because the only brown-skinned children to ever make a guest appearance on one of her friends’ MySpace profile pictures (yes, that’s what we used back then) was a child in a third world country that someone had met while on a mission trip — they were never neighbors, children from one of the Sunday school classes, or a friend’s younger siblings. They were the poor, the unreached.

Maybe because the only pictures of dark-skinned men and women to appear on church promotional material were for advertising a mission trip to Mexico or a fund raiser for the poor — they were never the faces of one of the bible study leaders or an upcoming conference speaker. They were the people in need, the ones we — white Christians — reached out to.

How did Best Friend get to the point where she honestly thought there weren’t any good Christian black men in America? Because she’d grown up in a family, a church, and a community that was not only extremely white, they were extremely disengaged and uninterested in issues related to race.

You The Man

Reframing Biblical Masculinity, Tim Krueger

Several hallmarks of “biblical manhood” look suspiciously like modern, Western, middle-to-upper class rites of passage: employment outside the home, financial independence, marriage, and fatherhood, for instance. Jesus, on the other hand, never married or had children. He abandoned his family business in favor of ministry, becoming financially dependent on others—even women. He could be tough, but he also wept in public. Day after day, he soiled his reputation as a man of God by hanging around the wrong people. In short, Jesus fails spectacularly to live up to the ideals of “biblical manhood.” This, to me, suggests that we might be off track.

 

 

Head Bobbers Thru March 24

Where have I been?  I dunno.  But I'm back!  Still haven't figured out what I want this blog to be about and who I want as my audience.  So goes life.

One Liner
Unknown
An ordinary marriage is simply an overflow of an ordinary relationship with God.

Best App: Kindred

How Any Church Can Increase Their Giving, Justin Lathrop

Consider working with Kindred to increase the giving at your church so you can continue to do ministry.

Most Godly

God Loves Fred, Jonathan Storment

…to fight the monster with the monster’s game plan is to eventually become the monster. To hate Fred Phelps and to claim God does [too] is to invoke his idea of God and just replace the villains. That doesn’t mean that we can’t say certain behaviors are wrong. But If we are Jesus followers than we need to create worlds, where no matter what, whoever you are, we welcome and see the image of God in you. We’re not going to going to label and dismiss you. When we confront you it will not be because the world we have created is too small to deal with your sin, it will be because the world we created is large enough for you still.  We're loud when we disagree and we're silent when the wrong people do the right things.

Keeping It Real

Do We Really Want Community, Micah Bales

If we desire enduring community, we’ll sometimes be required to sacrifice of our own priorities, even deeply felt ones, for the sake of the family, the congregation, and all those other types of committed fellowships that are increasingly disintegrating in our present day. This is a bitter pill for us as members of a culture that glorifies independence, choice, and individual autonomy. The decision to live in real community is a radically counter-cultural one

Youthful Epiphany

Conflict Resolution: Most Importan Skill in the World, Dawson Vosburg, Mission Year

If I talk a big game about loving your enemy in the context of war or capital punishment but don’t give every moment and decision and relationship of my life to that kind of forgiveness, it’s all just a bunch of hot air.

Right On

Reframing Biblical Masculinity, Tim Krueger

In 2010, an Iowa dentist fired his assistant of ten years, because he suddenly found himself sexually attracted to her, which adversely affected his marriage. I heard plenty of people celebrate his commitment to his marriage. Fewer seemed to ask why his marriage vows or his personal lusts were her responsibility. When an adolescent boy gawks at a woman in church, we chastise her for immodesty. When girls and women are raped, we ask, “Why did she put herself in a compromising position?”  When our philosophy is “boys will be boys”, he is simply and innocently a man, but she is a temptress.

And the SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP AWARD goes to:

From the Penthouse of Privilege, The Ghetto Monk

Too often are poor and oppressed people (especially people of color) regarded as threats here in America, while poor and oppressed people in other countries are viewed as victims. This type of perspective is dehumanizing to people here and to people abroad. To overlook the problems here and to focus on issues elsewhere sends the message that poor and oppressed American's problems are either insignificant, unimportant, or non urgent and at the same time it leads to the objectification of the "exotic other." I've seldom come across a mission group or charity organization that submitted to the leadership of indigenous people, rather they import their own ideas and solutions.

Head Bobbers (Wk of Jan 26)

Head Bobbers is my new title for my most interesting reads.  Yep, I changed it.  In keeping with the dance motif of my blog, I figured Head Bobbers works better.  A Head Bobber is anything I hear or read that moves me - you know, make me bob my head like I would with music.

AND... This is the inaugural week of the Sit Down and Shut Up Award.  This gives recognition to a piece of work that deserves nothing but for me to stop and listen.  Because it's that powerful.  It's like a beautiful voice that captivates you, makes you stop for a bit.  Right on.

So what did I bob my head to this week?

SCARY STUFF: Top 25 Oddball Interview Questions
I'm sure employers have a reason, but these make me nervous!

OH THAT'S WHY: Why HR Should Consider Asking Oddball Interview Questions
Interesting, but still makes me nervous!

BEST LINE: Why You Forget that God is Good, Jon Acuff
"Because we forget to stack some rocks during the moments God shows up."

BEST ANALOGY: How not to be a Racist, Bryan Loritts

Horseradish should never be eaten by itself, but when a touch of it is applied to such meats as Lamb, now it takes on a whole new meaning…What Paul understood is that culture by itself is as meaningless as being served a plate of horseradish for dinner, with nothing else.  Culture only finds meaning when submitted to Jesus Christ…Come out of your horseradish.  Engage others who look and think different from you, but do so to the glory of God.  Don’t be ashamed of your culture, but don’t revel in it either- let God sanctify and redeem it.  In the process what you’ll discover is a greater affection for Christ, others, and a greater awareness of who He’s created you to be.

BEST JOURNEY TO CLARITY:  Bootstraps and Safety Nets, Amanda Opelt

Like many Americans, I felt a certain sense of indifference towards poor in America, and there was maybe, buried deep in my subconscious, even a mild contempt.  I had this sneaking suspicion that the poor in my own country couldn't possibly be like the poor I had encountered in India.

…the only way to cultivate effective change in the lives of those in need is to become, yourself, a sort of safety net for them. The resource, the friend, the positive voice, the math tutor, the spiritual mentor they never had. It's complicated, and it can be messy. But Jesus never seemed to mind a mess, and no one he ever healed or scolded or cried for or embraced had a simple story. 

AND THE SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP AWARD GOES TO:
For the Love of Money, Sam Polk (must read full story to see his admirable life change)
There were plenty of injustices out there — rampant poverty, swelling prison populations, a sexual-assault epidemic, an obesity crisis. Not only was I not helping to fix any problems in the world, but I was profiting from them. During the market crash in 2008, I’d made a ton of money by shorting the derivatives of risky companies. As the world crumbled, I profited. I’d seen the crash coming, but instead of trying to help the people it would hurt the most — people who didn’t have a million dollars in the bank — I’d made money off it.

We Want Our Boys Brilliant, Our Girls Gorgeous, Don't We?

Parenting is tough.  Verily, I say to thee, parenting is tough!  It’s enough to deal with the typical food-throwing, floor-peeing, sassy mouthing, neo-narcissistic toddler with whom I have sparse amount of time to mold into responsible, industrious, loving contributors to humanity.  But on top of that, we have the seemingly evasive task of guiding our mixed-race daughters in navigating a culture built on white privilege that marginalizes their appearance, history, and day-to-day experience.  Plus, we follow Jesus, which also requires us to embody values often contrary to the world around us. Yet, along with those three challenges of beloved parenthood, we get to add a fourth – fighting gender bias – that evil sexist undercurrent that complicates our upstream progress.  As a man, I can choose the luxury of “see no evil, hear no evil”.  As a responsible husband, father, Christian, and decent human being, I better see it.  And I want to.  I need to.  I have to.

That is why a recent study highlighting our tendency to regard boys above girls strikes a chord with me. The work in reference is published by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, an economics Ph.D. candidate at Harvard, who published his research as an op-ed in the New York Times, January 18, 2014.  It ran in the Dallas Morning News under the headline, “Brainy Boys and Fat Girls”.   His study is based on aggregate data from Google search terms.  While not surprising in the least bit, his findings slap me into reality nonetheless.  Here are a few standouts:

• ·       Parents were more likely to ask about sons on every matter related to intelligence, including its absence.  Although girls are more likely to exhibit gifted traits, parents expect the boys to be geniuses.
• ·        What concerns do parents disproportionately have for their daughters?  Primarily, anything related to appearance, despite evidence of boys having a greater tendency to be overweight than girls.
• ·        In general, parents seem more likely to use positive words in questions about sons, such as “tall” instead of “short”, and “happy” instead of the more girl-common descriptor, “depressed”.

As I resume my routine throwing out the Sunday paper, I can’t but hear a muffled question from the recycle bin into which I routinely toss things that I’m done with. 1. Can I simply walk away from the issue that my girls must deal with for the rest of their lives? 2. Would I have even taken the article as seriously had it been authored by a woman? Those are tough questions. My actions, thoughts, and level of tolerance (or intolerance) henceforward will have to provide the answer.

The Juice - Week of Jan 12-18

Most Teachable Moment: Why do Christians lie so much?
"...Christians feel the need to be perfect when they're not, they feel the need to cover up.  To hide what they've done or hide the fact that they're still not the person they wanted to be by now... We create shallow lives that shine on the outside, but crumble on the inside...When I became a Christian, I did not become immune to sin, I became in tune to how desperately I needed grace."

Most Liberating: Sermon from Overland Park Church of Christ
"Freedom is not doing what you want to do.  Freedom is doing what you were designed to do." (I don't know the title, date, or speaker because I'm a bad note taker).

Swift Kick in the Rear: Culture Change at Texas

1. Players will attend all of their classes and sit in the front two rows of all of their classes.  GAs, academic folks, position coaches will be checking constantly now.
2. No headphones in class.  No texting in class.  Sit up and take notes.
3. If a player misses a class, he runs until it hurts.  If he misses two classes, his entire position unit runs.  If he misses three, the position coach runs.  The position coaches don't want to run.
4. No earrings in the football building.  No drugs.  No stealing.  No guns.  Treat women with respect.
5. Players may not live off campus anymore, unless they're a senior who hits certain academic standards. The University will buy out the leases for every player currently living off campus and put them in the athletic dorm.
6. The team will all live together, eat together, suffer together, and hang out together.  They will become a true team and learn to impose accountability on each other.  The cliques are over.
7. There's no time for a rebuild.  "I don't have time for that."  The expectation is that Texas wins now.
8. Players will learn that they would rather practice than milk a minor injury.
9. The focus is on winning and graduating.  Anything extraneous to that is a distraction and will be stamped out or removed.
10. Strong met individually with seniors and key leaders and re-emphasized that the plan is to win now. They can lead the new culture or be run over by it.
11. "I don't want to talk about things.  I'd rather do things.  We just talked.  Now it's time to do."