The people in Pisa needed professional help. Seems their most famous landmark was, well, leaning.
Well, duh!
Actually, a few years ago someone discovered that the Tower was very slowly beginning to lean too much. So the city fathers had an emergency meeting and decided there was only one thing to do. They would bring in architects and professional builders who would make sure the tower didn’t topple over. One mandate, however: keep the tower from falling over, but don’t correct the tilt! In other words, make sure it stays like it is. After all, who would travel to see the standing Tower of Pisa?
It’s amazing the time and effort – sometimes even large amounts of money – we will invest in order to remain the same. And that in a world where the constant is change.
If you’re reading this, regardless of who you are, change is the one thing that is required of you, as well. It’s the one thing you and I have in common. It’s also the one thing we have a tendency to resist. Leo Tolstoy once said, “Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one wants to change himself.”
Jesus once told a story about a farmer, some seed, and four types of ground. The seed, He said was the “word of the Kingdom.” Only one kind of ground (a type of heart) received the seed to the degree that it made lasting change. Something would have to change about the ground to experience the maximum effect (change) of the seed.
There are four types of life change, based on the Parable of the Sower. You are somewhere on this list right now:
This is for all you jocks, coach dads, and soccer moms out there who never were in the band or had a kid in one. Other than my year of football futility, the primary point of my non-academic energy was spent in the band. And during football season, I got to wear the fuzzy hat. Yep, I was the drum major – the band’s field director during my junior and senior year.
The high point of marching season was traveling to either the Florida or Mississippi coast to participate in a regional band contest. Can you imagine the energy, the excitement that fills a stadium when more than 30 bands gather and perform, with no football team in sight for miles? Unlike football games, where half the crowd heads for the concession stands, at a contest people in the stands cheer loudly for every slick move, every powerful burst through the line. And did I mention that there isn’t a football team in sight?
Sunday afternoon we had a big group of couples at our house. I was hanging out with the men when Robin walks in and says, “There’s somebody at the door you need to talk to.”
Translation: Somebody’s going to ask for our money, and you’re going to make that decision.
Optional Further Translation: I don’t want to make that decision, but I reserve the right not to like it! (She knows I’m a sucker for Girl Scouts, local bands, or anybody else raising money by selling something.)
This was no Girl Scout. Boy Scout either. It was a guy about my age. And he was selling oranges.
That’s right, oranges. Grapefruit, too. And I bought them. Half a case of them, in a household of two, for $39.50.
I live half a block from a major supermarket. We don’t eat oranges that much. Grapefruit? Never.
But I bought. And I’d like to tell you why. (Yes, there are reasons beyond being a sucker.)
Thirty years ago, on the first Sunday of April 1978, I became part of a church pastoral staff for the first time. (This is me about 10 years later, in 1988.) Yesterday the awesome people I get to do life with every week made a special day even more special by surprising me with a gift clock.
Over the last 30 years, the Lord has been a very faithful teacher, even when I wasn’t being faithful to him. Here’s a sampling what I have learned, and continue to learn – listed in reverse order of impact.
30. There is nothing on God’s green earth like a seventh or eighth-grade girl.
29. To be effective in youth ministry, kids should see you as an advocate, and adults should see you as an authority. When that gets reversed, it’s time to get out of youth ministry… maybe be a senior pastor.
28. Age, young or otherwise, does not dictate your effectiveness in ministry.
27. The truth of God’s word and a love for people transcends culture and location.
26. Like Jonah, you can’t run from your calling for very long.
Kinetic Church was robbed. I don’t mean by the refs in the church league basketball tournament. I mean a thief (or thieves) stole a trailer containing 75% of the Charlotte area congregation’s equipment in early March, leaving the portable church with virtually nothing.
What would you do? How would you respond? How would you define your life if you discovered that three-fourths of your tangible assets – to say nothing of the hundreds of man-hours invested in labor – were instantly gone?
Can’t relate? How about the time somebody stole your dreams or your hope? Or your reputation? Or your innocence? Or your marriage?
You won’t believe what these guys did.
They went on the offensive. They started a billboard campaign with five different messages, as well as a YouTube video aimed directly at the thief. Check out the video below.
Kinetic Church’s response illustrates some powerful lessons in transforming painful experiences into remarkable opportunities:
“I can shoot straight, if I don’t have to shoot too far.”
“I can’t think about that right now. If I do, I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about that tomorrow.”
-Scarlett O’Hara, “Gone With the Wind”
Everybody is fascinated with Scarlett. But nobody wants to admit how much like her we can be.
One way to understand LifeVesting is to define it in terms of what it isn’t. LifeVestors have four alter-egos: consumers, hoarders, gamblers, and codependents. Today I’d like to introduce you to the first.
While in the purest economic sense everyone is a spender, the Consumers I’m talking about are takers. They spend their money, their time, their relationships on today’s wants and needs. Their primary focus is on themselves – though not always in an intentionally selfish way. They come to church for what they can get out of it. They spend their time and money in ways that, when spent, are gone forever. For them, there is no other moment but now. Tomorrow will take care of itself.
Take a look at this exquisite photo. It was taken by a guy in the UK named Wez Smith. I found it yesterday, and remembered again what an amazingly beautiful world is that we live in.
Know what it is?
I’ll tell you in a minute.
Don’t you love how even the seeming imperfections of each petal all come together to form a beautiful whole?
How even the “rough edges” all come together in a symphony of striking color?
How whatever that seed part in the middle is called (I’m no botanist) suggests the amazing reproducible wonder of future life? Future potential? Even more beauty?
There are four things – and only four things – you can spend your money on. Like me, you may keep up with your finances with computer program that has a vast array of categories. You may be a day planner diva, able instantly to analyze what occupies your time. But it still comes down to just four things.
Are you a leader, or a leader wannabe? There are four – and only four – directions of leadership.
There are four – and only four – foundations of wisdom.
Same goes for other LifeVesting Currencies – esteem, love, words, and abilities. There are four sources or directions for each:
Okay, first take a look at the following 60-second video. SPOILER ALERT BELOW! Then click on “Read the rest of this entry” if you’re on the home page and let’s talk about it.
Have you ever wished God would just make it easy? That He would fly over your house in a blimp, or sky-write His will so that it was plain and obvious? Have you ever envied the angel-set – those seemingly lucky (ahem – “blessed”) souls who had Michael or Gabriel drop by for tea and prophecy?
A few years ago somebody in Jacksonville (I think) started a nationwide conversation with a series of billboard messages supposedly from God. I’m sure you’ve seen some of them. (Example: “Which part of ‘Thou Shalt Not’ do you not understand?” -God). They were clever, sometimes convicting, sometimes sarcastic and funny. But in case you were wondering, it really wasn’t God Himself who designed the ad campaign.
What if God really did rent a billboard? Would it be easier, simpler, clearer to hear His voice? I doubt it.
The people in Pisa needed professional help. Seems their most famous landmark was, well, leaning.
