by Andy Wood on March 10, 2010
in Ability, Consumers, Five LV Laws, Following Your Passion, Leadership, Life Currency, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, Principle of Abundance, Waiting
(What to Do When Your Brook Dries Up, Part 2)
In the last post I shared some ideas based on the experience of a prophet in the Bible named Elijah about what to do when we try to draw from familiar sources of support, provision (income), encouragement, or direction – only to find that they simply aren’t there anymore. In the two days since then, I have talked to
- a man who needed counsel and didn’t have a pastor,
- a missionary who has seen a significant decrease in support,
- a former lay leader in churches who is struggling to find a church home,
- a pastor whose congregation is struggling both financially and in attendance,
- a student whose marriage engagement has broken off,
- a church member in another city whose pastor was terminated, then abruptly died.
What they all have in common – in the language of Elijah’s experience, their “brooks have dried up.”
I fully expect that nearly half the conversations I have tomorrow will be in the same vein.
Bottom line: there are two kinds of people in the world [click to continue…]
I know about as much about car transmissions as I do about clouds (which for some reason I never studied in school). I know it makes the car go, and if it ain’t working, your car won’t be going anywhere. At least, not in the manner to which you’re accustomed.
Now since I’m completely clueless, I’m also at the mercy of somebody who isn’t if something goes wrong with my car-goer. So when I need transmission service, that’s when I call the folks at A-1 Transmission.
(Ewww. Does this sound like a commercial or what?)
Seriously, this isn’t about transmission service. It’s about LifeVesting. And how a little transmission shop on 34th Street invested in my life in more ways than one.
A couple of months ago my wife reported that we had something major wrong with her vehicle. Sure enough, when I drove it, it jerked badly when it finally shifted gears, and when I would stop, it took forever to downshift back to first.
Ugh, I thought. Transmission.
But I did know who to call. I had gotten good service at A-1 in the past, and so I heaved and jerked over there one afternoon to show them I had a transmission problem.
Crazy thing was, he didn’t take my word for it. Can’t imagine why.
“Let’s go for a ride,” he said, and asked for the keys.
We drove through the neighborhoods of central Lubbock and it didn’t take the expert long to arrive at a diagnosis. [click to continue…]
(The Twelve Ways of Christmas, Part 4: The Way of Waiting)
For Scotty Thomas, Christmas was cruel. What other word can you use to describe living in a house where Dad enforced a hard-nosed rule: Christmas presents were for Christmas day?
“But can’t I open just ONE?” Scotty would ask.
“No,” his dad would say, smiling.
“I think I know what this one is,” Scotty would say, shaking a wrapped present under the tree.
“Think all you want,” Dad would reply. “You may be right. You may be wrong.” Inevitably for Scotty, it was a little of both.
Like any good 8-year-old, Scotty also had razor-sharp radar for any kid who seemed to get a better deal. Jeremy Walker got to open the give from his sister a day early. Jeff Dunaway opened family gifts the weekend before Christmas day. But Scotty’s appeals landed on stone.
As Scotty grew older and wiser (age 10 now), he became more sophisticated in his approach. If he couldn’t win by appeal, he would conquer by steal. Scotty set out on a mission to find hidden “treasures.”
Snooping through his dad’s workshop and in the attic, Scotty hit the mother lode a full 10 days before Christmas. A new bicycle, video games, a skateboard, some table games, a basketball, a couple of posters for his room, a wristwatch… this was going to be an amazing Christmas.
It turned into the worst 10 days of Scotty’s young life. [click to continue…]
Hanging on the wall at the Grace Clinic lab in Lubbock – addressed to people referred to as “patient.”
Now that’s refreshing. To a group of people (and it was a huge group on this day, smack in the middle of flu season) who would probably rather be anywhere else and had precious little time, somebody noticed – and planned to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. The message: We recognize you have a life outside what it is we do here.
What if we reapplied that idea to other common experiences? Imagine the signs you may see that reflect tiny investments in your life, or the lives of others.
Hanging in a coffee shop: [click to continue…]
Last week I was having a “what do I do” conversation with a youth pastor in another city. Seems he found himself at an impasse with his boss – the senior pastor of the church – over what leadership was supposed to look like. His take on it: the “leader” isn’t leading anybody. Not him, not the others involved in the problem. Nobody.
A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a frustrated children’s pastor about a supervisor who was repeatedly letting important details fall through the cracks. It got so bad, the entire church leadership team was hindered in getting their work done.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve counseled or consulted with employees or constituents – inside and outside Church World – who are crying out for visionary, heart-based leadership. All they get instead are insecure emperors, oilers of the machinery, or absent-minded trips down memory lane.
Whenever I hear yet another story of position holders who are failing the people they’re supposed to be leading, I have two knee-jerk reactions. First, I want to take up the constituents’ offense. I want to bark and growl and roll my eyes and look incredulously and fuss and fume. Second, I wonder if anybody could issue the same complaint about me if they were completely honest.
Just for laughs, why don’t we stick out necks out and try on an idea. Leadership failures aren’t the result of somebody setting out to ruin an organization or to make your life or work miserable. (Hey, I said “try it on”… if it doesn’t fit, we can fuss and fume some more later.) Assuming that’s true, then, where do we go wrong? How do leaders begin to suck the life out of people or organizations? Here are 10 things to watch for: [click to continue…]
by Andy Wood on June 19, 2009
in Allocating Your Resources, Consumers, Enlarging Your Capacity, Five LV Laws, Insight, Life Currency, Love, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, LV Stories, Money, Principle of Increase, Principle of Legacy
Things got a little weird that day at the Taco Bell in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. A customer tried to pass two 1928 five-dollar bills as cash to pay for his meal. The clerks had never seen such old money before, presumed it to be counterfeit, and called the police. Here’s the sad part – as currency, the cash was legit. As collectors’ items, they had to be worth way more than a bean burrito combo or a chalupa.
What a waste, right? Right up there with Esau, selling his birthright for a bowl of peas. Or the prodigal son, wasting his inheritance on a never-ending party.
But another part of my brain wants to defend our fast food shopper. After all, maybe he was hungry, and that was the only cash he had. Maybe he had no idea what he had! I’ve learned that if you don’t know the value of what you possess, it really doesn’t matter to you what you waste it on. Esau and the prodigal learned that, too – the hard way.
Anyway, what’s so different about the taco king? [click to continue…]
Here’s a new definition of boring: working at a dry cleaners at 3:30 on a Saturday afternoon. In a town like ours, where the cleaners on virtually every corner close at noon or 1:00 on Saturdays, and nothing is actually being cleaned, it can be a pretty sleepy time.
Until I show up.
The wedding was scheduled for 5:00, and everything was ready. The church was decorated, the ceremony was prepared and printed, and the wedding party was starting to party (translation: flashbulbs were popping). All I needed to do was go home, freshen up a bit, and change into my suit.
In what part of me remains traditional, I keep a black suit. It goes with anything, is appropriate for funerals or weddings or any other semi-formal something. Problem is, I only wear the thing when there is a semi-formal something.
(You probably know where this is going.) [click to continue…]
(The Further Adventures of Eugene Davis, Sophomore Christian)
“Have you seen this?” asked an angry voice one Sunday morning.
Yep, it was Eugene Davis, sophomore Christian and resident expert on what everybody else should and shouldn’t be doing.
“Seen what?” I asked politely as Eugene shoved a Sunday bulletin in my hand.
“All these parties!” he said.
In the midst of the activities list, Eugene had highlighted three youth fellowships in one week: the Jr. High, the Sr. High, and the All-Youth Pizza Pig-Out and Christmas Party that night after church.
“Well, there’s never a bad time to eat pizza,” I joked. “Don’t you know the wise men caught up with King Herod at Pizza Hut?”
But Eugene was in no joking mood.
“That’s not the point,” he fumed. “It seems like all we ever do with these kids is feed ’em pizza and take ’em on trips. When I was a teenager, we learned to give and do for others.”
“When you were a teenager, you were lost,” I replied. “Furthermore, when you were a teenager, Chicago was a cow pasture.” [click to continue…]
(A Turning Point Story)
A few years ago I was Birmingham, Alabama at lunch time, so I decided to eat at a favorite restaurant there. I had been to this place quite a few times, and had always enjoyed the food and service there.
Until this time.
The host (a new guy) sat me at the table, and informed me that my server would soon be there to take my “quick lunch” order. So I looked over the menu.
No server.
I closed the menu (a popular hint).
No server.
I thought about memorizing the menu before the server got there. I could have succeeded.
I was sitting close enough to the front door to see the host who seated me. I looked plaintively at him, and he returned to ask if my server had come. Gasp! He hadn’t? He’ll be here in a couple of minutes. [click to continue…]
Emma Thompson drops by our church from time to time. And yesterday, she prophesied.
No, not the actress. Emma and her twin sister Annie are the eight-year-old daughters of my friend and our communications pastor, Todd.
So get the scene. Our entire church foyer/fellowship area is covered with Christmas decorations. We’re getting ready for a big night of volunteers showing up to decorate the building for the holidays. The office staff is scattered out into the various rooms that have their names on the door. And in comes Todd, Emma and Annie bouncing behind.
Mary, our receptionist, is friendly territory for the twins. She often visits with them while they’re waiting for their dad to finish a meeting or project. She’s also learned that it’s good to offer them something to do to occupy them on days they don’t have homework or something.
Emma is loaded with questions. What’s all this? What are they going to do with it? When? The usual 8-year-old excited kind of stuff. Laughing and chattering away.
Mary says to Annie and her sister, “I have something y’all can do to help us.”
(Okay, get ready, here it comes…) [click to continue…]