madavison

Go find a ladder.

While it might be fun (or appear expedient, or brave, or heroic) to try to scale a cliff with no tools, it turns out that ladders are a more effective way to level up.

When it’s time to drive a nail, a hammer is a lot more useful than a rock. Even if you have to invest in obtaining one.

Often, we spend most of our time throwing ourselves at the wall instead of investing the time to find a useful ladder instead.

Perhaps, instead of restating our audacious goals, we can spend more time finding useful tools–insights, skills, trust, attention, access–instead.

It’s worth the search.(1)

Seth Godin is a marketing guy whose daily ideas I follow.  He has an interesting worldview and way of seeing projects.  When I read the post about ladders, I thought about sabbatical time.  You may remember I announced a couple of months ago that I am gifted sabbatical time this year.  I am grateful to the Regional Board and our staff for these three segments of time, when I will pause and unplug from Regional responsibilities.

One of the things I’ll be doing is searching for useful tools to help me be a better minister.

Sometimes, ministers do this kind of thing as part of their routine each week or during a year, but the pace of life in the 21st century can blur one’s best intentions.  That seems true for all humans.

As we wander into a new year I encourage you to spend more time finding useful tools — if possible ones that require little re-engineering to make them fit your context or theological perspective.  That doesn’t mean we should cease learning, exploring, or trying new ideas.  The Internet and sharing-economy make it easy to borrow these days.  That is good and bad.  You can copy the latest filter on Instagram, Snapchat, or Facebook banner, and join that social community or movement for a while.  But, I don’t think Christian syncretism is the same thing as Christian unity.  Maybe it is better to use the 3-D printer in our minds, spirit, and faith to learn from the past — to invent more and copy less.  It seems to me that is how generations of disciples before us, (little d and big D), impacted their time.  Maybe, that is what we are called to do as well.

My first sabbatical segment is January 7 – February 1.  I will finish self-publishing an eBook.  It is a resource to help the process of creating the children’s sermon.  It follows the weekly Lectionary reading and it will be free for Oklahoma Disciples.

May God continue to bless you with ministry to do and Gospel to be in 2019.

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Note
1. Seth’s Blog, “Go find a ladder.” December 28, 2018.

What is on your Christmas watch list or play list?

I’m one of those people that doesn’t want to see Christmas ads or hear Christmas music before Thanksgiving.  Growing up, we didn’t do Christmas kinds of things until you saw Santa appear in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and finished the Thanksgiving feast.  Then, let the Christmas ritual and routine begin.  I won’t go into those details here.  And, to be liturgically accurate, Advent, not Christmas, begins this Sunday, December 2.  We are weeks away from Christmas day and Christmastide.

The last few years Lisa and I have focused on the Twelve Days of Christmas, not in any religious sense as our Catholic, Lutheran, and Episcopalian siblings do, but as a way of remembering that there was a time that commercial Christmas didn’t exist the way we know it now.  We are getting better at packages after Christmas during the twelve days and our tree stays up until Epiphany.  I guess you could say we try not to do Christmas before Christmas.  We have been less successful than we want.

Nonetheless, Lisa loves Christmas music and we both have some favorite films, feature length and shorts, we watch this time of year.  I don’t know if watching these films or hearing familiar melodies is meant to curate memory or induce confession?  Maybe, like much of scripture it is a both/and.

Here is some of my watchlist and playlist for Advent and Christmas.

My Watchlist Includes

• A Christmas Story, 1983
• National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, 1989
• The Little Drummer Boy, 1968
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas, 1966
• It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946
• The Santa Clause, 1994

My Playlist Includes

• “Christmas in Hollis” Run DMC, 1987
• “Christmas is the Time of Year” Ray Charles, 1985
• “Christmas in the Caribbean” Jimmy Buffet, 1985
• “I Saw Three Ships” Sting, 1997
• “Do They Know It’s Christmas” Band Aid, 1984
• “Christmas Pipes” Celtic Women, 2006
• “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” John Lennon, 1971
• “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” 1979
• “Santa Clause is Coming to Town” Bruce Springsteen, 1975

However you journey, wander, or bounce through Advent be sure to go and see what God has made know to you, again, or for the first time, or like the Grinch, with his feet ice cold in the snow, puzzle till your puzzler is sore.  Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means something more.

High Value

… is not the same as low price.

The price is obvious. It can be seen from a mile away. But value is more subtle. It often needs to be experienced to be understood.

The price is the same for every person who buys that item at retail. The value is different for everyone.

Low price is the last refuge for marketers who don’t have the patience or guts to demonstrate value for those that need it.
(Seth Godin, “High Value.” September 27, 2018)

What kind of value would you assign to your practice of faith or to your congregational experience?  

One of the lessons that took a while for me to learn in congregational ministry was that neither I nor the youth sponsors could make youth group a mountain top experience for every person each week.  And the same was worship or fall retreat or mission trip or any other event we might offer.  We could be intentional about the details and structure of youth group (or those other things mentioned) that could make mountain top experiences possible (maybe God sightings is a better term), but we could not control what each youth or parent brought to youth group, and what each one invested in it.  In the end, we each have to determine what we value about ourselves, our relationships, and about God.

Intentional Christian community is messy work.  It is the tough work of following Jesus and balancing belief with everyday living.  It is attention to the essentials that create unity among a diverse people.  It is a willingness to name, and let go of, the nonessentials to unity, and bless each person’s search for liberty.  It is an attitude of charity and humility, as if you are meeting Jesus or the image of God in persons, that makes intentional Christian community possible and counter-cultural.

This is the subtle value our program ministries for children, youth, and adults are seeking to create.

Sometimes that happens on the mountain tops.

More often, that value happens in the space in between.

What connects me to a sense of the sacred?
(Daily Questions, gratefulness.org, Sept 1)

For me, I experience a sense of the sacred through nature, music, art, people, and silence.

And you?

What connects you to a sense of the sacred?

What are my greatest hopes and aspirations for how I want to be in this life?
(Daily Question, Gratefulness.org, July 27, 2018)

What would others say are my greatest gifts? What can I learn from this?
(Daily Question, Gratefulness.org, August 1, 2018)

Summer break ends for many this month.  Teachers are back in classrooms preparing to greet students, and in a few instances, some have already begun school again.  Let’s begin the school year 2018-19, saying thank you those that teach in our public schools and private schools: primary, junior high, and high school.  Thank you, because along with teaching the material of any given day, (as well as reading, writing, and arithmetic daily), teachers manage.  Teachers manage: politics, expectations, student need and outcomes, parents that helicopter and are absent, personalities, technology, lesson plans, drama of all kinds, and manage their own life circumstances.  Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list, but it can be exhausting.  I wonder how often a teacher’s day is energizing?  Thankfully, I think most teachers find ways to stay centered as they manage all those in their care each day.

So, a tip-of-the hat to a few teachers that never knew they made a difference in my life.

Ms. Duncan (2nd grade, Paris, TX).  I was a new kid in school.  I was a talker and didn’t sit still well.  My mother enjoys saying that Ms Duncan was my first “crush” experience.

Coach Cain (10th grade football coach and biology teacher, Hardin-Jefferson High School, Sour Lake, TX).  Coach decided I would be the best to lead our biology class to the parking lot if the building was on fire or some other emergency.  The football players objected.

Coach Dre (pronounced Drew – tennis coach, grades 9-11, Hardin-Jefferson High School, Sour Lake, TX).  Dre was a Canadian women’s tennis champ of some kind.  She also coached volleyball. Not sure how she ended up in South Texas.  In those days I was known to have John McEnroe moments on the tennis court.  Coach Dre broke me of that behavior by making me run a mile for every outburst during tournaments.

Mr. Knipper (chemistry teacher 11th & 12th grade, Richfield High School, Waco, TX).  Unlike any teacher I had previously met, Mr. Knipper, was a German who taught in the States during our school year, and returned to Germany during the summer to teach.  He was known for allowing students to blow things up in class, and requiring students to pay for what was damaged or destroyed before releasing grades.  Choices.  He had an agreement with coaches, drama and choir department, debate club, even the cheerleader coaches.  If a student did not come prepared for his class, you missed whatever extracurricular practice or performance that day to learn the material.  I never saw him make an exception.

I’m grateful for these teachers that helped educate and shape me.  I wonder if they would be surprised by how I turned out?