Chastened but Cleansed

At heart I'm really a Pharisee. I love rules and really try to follow them (except when I think they're not logical) and I believe everyone should follow them too--no matter what. By His grace, God has been revealing my Pharisaical heart to me lately and gently nudging me toward love--a painful process to be sure.

Last night was our first night working at the Baltimore Processing Center for Operation Christmas Child. We'll be here until Saturday and our job is to inspect the gifts that have been given and make sure each leaves the PC ready to bless a child.  Now this may sound simple but, in fact, it can get pretty complex.

Operation Christmas Child is committed to the "integrity of the box".  This means you only take out what is on the list of inappropriate items and you replace the items you take out and add items to the box if (and only if) the box is not full.

Sometimes that simple rule and logic collide.

Last night at 9:45 pm the associate employee leading my line handed me a LARGE box--about the size of TWO boot boxes--that had just been returned to the line from the 'shoebox hospital' where gifts that are damaged go to be repaired. The associate said I needed to inspect the box and send it on.

It had a "Follow Your Box" label on it and the top of the HUGE box (did I mention it was big) was wrapped. Inside were three items--a very large but obviously dirty stuffed animal, an oversized used art kit, and a dirty purple purse.  When I removed the used items I was left with a BIG empty box.

Logic says that this box is too big and filling it will take up too many of the filler items meant for boxes that need just a little help.  Why not take the "Follow Your Box" label off and put it on a regular size shoebox before filling it?  I asked that question but was told that box needed to be filled to maintain its integrity.

I grumbled as I looked for larger items to fill that GIANT box that I knew was too big anyway.  I did, however, have the presence of mind to pray--asking God to help me find items that would bless the child who would receive it.  I got the box filled just before all the volunteers left the PC for the night.

Last night as I tried to fall asleep I couldn't quit thinking about that box and what nonsense it seemed to fill it. Finally, I fell asleep.

Because I have a gracious God who continues His good work in me even when I am a resistant Pharisee, my very first thought when I opened my eyes this morning was an amazing epiphany.

I kid you not--just as I awoke it was as if Jesus was speaking right to me.  And He said,

"Kathy, that's what I do for you. You bring me your pathetic gifts. Oh, on the outside they are big and wrapped in beautifully decorative paper.  But on the inside they are so often dirty, used, bedraggled, unworthy.

Yet, I accept them with love and I replace those unusable offerings with something that will bless people.  Don't you see, Kathy, I'm doing it now.

I am taking your bad attitude, your Pharisaical, rule-following and unloving heart, and I am making something new there."

Thank You, Jesus. Will you use that box to bless a child and a family. Thank you for chastening me and for cleansing me and for giving me another chance to see Your love.

Give me another chance today to follow your one BIG rule--to love God and to love others.

Joy Lest

Over and over the Bible commands me to not only rejoice but to rejoice always. Can you hear me sighing?

My life experience seems to be that joy is hardest for me to find when it should be easy.  I've seen God answer so many prayers lately--the healthy delivery of twin grandsons, the collection of our shoeboxes that brought our area total to 50,793 (pretty far under our 54,321 goal but still 405 more than we collected in 2017.) And just last week I got a great deal on an order of four pallets of items for next year's packing party.  Still, I struggle to rejoice.

And when you want to be an obedient believer but can't seem to find the joy--well, then you add guilt to the fight.

And, truthfully, I'm writing this blog so I can at least say I got one written during the month of November.

Yesterday, fighting recurring feelings of failure, I decided to go donate blood. I figured that would help me feel better.  Wouldn't you know--for the first time in my life the blood flow slowed to a near trickle at only half a pint and they had to work to get it flowing again to finish the donation. I mean, who fails at donating blood?

Apparently I'm an over-achiever in the failure department this week.  Today I was trying to feverishly finish the OCC monthly team reports I've procrastinated about for the past few months and couldn't even figure out how to input the figures into the spreadsheet.  I was out of town helping my daughter with her new twins during National Collection Week so today our new Central Drop-Off Team Leader came over to complete the paper work that should have been mailed in days ago.  We discovered we didn't have the drop-off logs/closure packet from one of our drop-off sites!  They're going to scan and send them to us (41 sheets to print off on our home printer) and they are going to be submitted late. And in a matter of days it will be time to send the OCC prayer requests to the prayer partners again. Why do I always dread trying to figure out how to do that every month?

There aren't any crises occurring in my life so why do these little annoyances seem to leave me joyless? I wish I knew.

I met with an older friend/mentor today who confessed to the same struggle lately. She reminded me that joy is one of the characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit.  So is a lack of joy a spiritual problem or maybe a result of unconfessed sin (well, there's always that.)

Meanwhile, as I ponder this I'm trusting this is only a season. Just as the sun will one day shine through these winter gray Erie skies (please say it will happen soon) I sincerely believe joy will trickle in

Doubly Blessed

Again this morning I am searching my journal and recording God's answers to so many prayers. I guess I'll have to pull out journals for the past year or so because the prayers go back that far at least.

And all those streams of prayer flowed into a river of it this week.  Anticipation has been building for months as we waited for our new twin grandsons to be born.  A double blessing in answer to more than a year of prayers.  Week by week I prayed for them to stay safe inside their mom--to grow and develop to full term babies. And I prayed for God's will for their delivery but told God my desire was to avoid a c-section and allow those babies to be born vaginally.

My daughter is an obstetrician and knows all that could go wrong in the process of pregnancy, labor and delivery. She prepared for everything and planned she would probably deliver premature babies. I continued to pray for healthy full-term boys and rejoiced as each week went by that moved her closer to her due date.

And, praise God, she made it to the date planned to induce her labor--just over 38 weeks.  Jim and I drove from Erie to Chicago on Sunday, greeted our daughter and her husband, and then settled into the hospital waiting room with her mother-in-law and father-in-law and our other daughter.

Then...we waited.

We were excited at 11:00 pm when she was 5 cm. dilated.  Now we knew those babies' birth dates would not be 10/21/18 but the doctor predicted they would come by "early morning" on 10/22/18.

Then...we waited.

At 2:00 am she was still 5 cm. then at 4:20 am we got a report she was 6 cm.

Then...we waited.

When she was still 6 cm. at 8:30 am I went to the beautiful hospital chapel (see picture above) to pray and I texted friends who are prayer warriors to pray with me.  By 9:30 she was still 6 cm. and they decided to wait just one more hour before doing a c-section.

Praise God...then there was progress.  By 10:30 am she was at 8.5 cm. (I mean, I'm not sure how you get it measured down to 8.5 cm. but it does sound more encouraging than 8 cm.)  And by 12:30pm she was getting ready to push.

Then...we waited.

Three hours of pushing later and at 3:15 pm they moved her to the operating room where the delivery would take place.  Twins are delivered in the operating room because of the risk of complications.

Then...we waited.

Finally...at 5:28 pm we got a text message with this picture and our joy broke out in the waiting room!

On the left is George Bradford who was born first at about 4:10 pm at 5 lb. 8oz. And on the right is Augustine Shaw who was born next at 7 lb. 1 oz.

It was more than two hours later before I could see my daughter in the recovery room and she recounted more of the story.  It seems that after 3 hours of pushing, George's heart rate decelerated so they needed to use the vacuum extractor to deliver him.

Then...Augustine's heart rate plummeted so he was delivered by emergency c-section. I think my daughter deserves Continuing Education credits for enduring such an array of pregnancy/delivery experiences.

Everyone is recovering now. (I mean, I think I'm almost recovered--lol)  Little George is still in the NICU because he wasn't able to keep his blood sugar level stable, but we hope he'll be out soon.

And so I sit and thumb through my journal and look at so many prayer requests that were answered--not exactly all in the way I'd hoped--but still answered fully and completely by our loving God.

Doubly blessed for sure.

Homecoming

Homecoming. My Facebook newsfeed has been filled with pictures of my friends' children in beautiful dresses ready to attend homecoming dances.  So I, too, decided to post pictures of beautiful dresses. There aren't any children wearing them yet, but they're on their way to share the love of Jesus  with the girls who will one day wear them.  

God blessed me this year with 31 fancy dresses that I've found at rock-bottom sale prices--dresses that would cost many times what I paid for them.  So at tonight's Operation Christmas Child area team meeting we decided to have a mini packing party and put them all into boxes with matching shoes, jewelry, and hair ornaments.  

And, by God's design, I had 31 quality Barbie dolls that I purchased at 90% off when Toys R Us went out of business.  They made the perfect fillers!

After we packed our boxes we talked about homecoming--the ultimate homecoming described in Revelation 7:9-12--"After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice saying, "Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, "Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen."

I can't wait for that homecoming, and I'm praying the little girls who receive these dresses will be there--around the throne to worship the Lamb.

As you look at these special dresses will you pray for that, too?

So Many Answers

Our 2018 Operation Christmas Child Community-Wide Shoebox Packing Party is over with 30,590 boxes packed. Wow, that's crazy!

I've been spending some time looking back through my journal at all the prayers God answered throughout this year that brought us to the victory of Saturday. And I can't even begin to know all the prayers that were prayed around our country and even in other countries around the world.

This year especially I am in awe of how God uses His people--the body of Christ--to come together to do things that can never be done by one individual.  People, it's incredible!

If you've read this blog you've followed the progress through the week of God's provision for the boxes and cartons to arrive on time, for the day-by-day box folding, and a host of other details that God orchestrated.

But behind the scenes as we went into the big weekend I was blown away by God's goodness in undertaking for my own deficiencies.

I was so upset with myself for dropping the ball on making contacts for things I wanted to happen to make the environment for this party better.  For one, I wanted to plan meals for the volunteers throughout the week.  I prayed about this, yet I never organized it.  The body of Christ came together, though, as people brought in donations and offered to bring in food without even being asked.  We were gifted with leftovers from a staff dinner on Tuesday night and throughout the week our lunches and dinners were covered all by God's grace.

I'd wanted to arrange for decorations that would give volunteers something to look at while walking through the line, but, again, I never asked anyone to do that. I was amazed on Friday when Donna, who has gifts of creativity, took the OCC pictures I gave her and some posters I printed a few years ago and made attractive wall arrangements and then constructed two trees of folded GO boxes. Then two teens, Korin and Kaytlyn, drew some great art on a white board that was a tremendous focal point.

On the day of the packing party I was sad again that I'd neglected to ask someone to take pictures. Then Jeannie came up to me and said, "I see you don't have anyone by your photo props, do you want me to take some pictures?"  Well, SURE I did!  And she took amazing pictures and videos and posted them on Facebook.

All evening long on Friday and all day long on Saturday God kept leading us step by step.  People made suggestions and we made a few corrections. We tried hard to keep the lines moving.

Still, by 2:00 when we were at 26,000 or so I doubted we would even get to the 28,032 boxes we did last year.  I confess my normal task-orientation went into overdrive as I passed slower people in line in an effort to get more boxes completed.

This was the latest packing party ever as we went right up to 5:10 pm before we ran out of school packs and decided it was time to FINALLY stop.  We are praising God for the 30,590 boxes packed!

On Friday night we had 232 volunteers from 18 different organizations come to pack and on Saturday we had 337 people from 34 different organization come to pack boxes.

As I looked through journal entries--starting back at the beginning of 2018--I found the one pictured above where God confirmed our goal of 30,000.  It seemed like a big jump over last year's 28,032 but God confirmed it and brought it to pass with an extra 590 just for fun.

Still, it was a hard-fought year.  Amanda, who is in charge of organizing and stocking many of the line items, had major surgery in July and had restrictions on lifting.  Pam, who was in charge of all the clothing items and school packs, developed a sore throat and cold the week of the packing party and had to struggle through.

Then on Saturday morning two major leads had a conflict and one walked off the job and left the packing party completely.  I am so sad about all of this, but, again by God's grace, other volunteers took up the slack and we kept going.  This, I KNOW, was a direct result of prayer.

On Sunday I got a message from Christy, my OCC prayer partner friend in Florida who also does a large packing party. Christy told me she was at a Beth Moore simulcast on Saturday morning when she got a strong urge to pray for our packing party.  Since they were in the middle of a worship song she decided to wait until the song was over to pray. But she said she then felt such an urgency that she KNEW she needed to stop and pray right then. So she turned in her pew to face north and held out her arms and prayed.  Praise God for her obedience, because only God knows how her prayers kept us going that morning.

God is sovereign and His plans will not be thwarted.  When we pray for one another--even though miles away--He is faithful and answers.

So...thank YOU friends for praying. Thank you for your faithful prayers for stuffed animals. Several thousand were donated the week and weekend of the packing party and only the last few hundred boxes did not have a stuffed animal (we substituted water bottles in those.)

Thank you to the person named Beth who sent me a package of beautiful fillers for 2-4 year old boxes from New Hampshire and to Cheryl who mailed a big box of new stuffed animals from Indiana.

Thank you to Pam and Keith who drove 13 hours from Kansas City, MO to be with us and for the group from the Poconos, to Lael and her group from Columbus, OH and to my dear friend Lisa who drove up from Virginia and brought 500+ cute Crayola crayon tins to load up with smaller items.

Thank you to the hundreds (maybe thousands?) of people who were part of making this packing party happen in some way.  I may never know your name, but God knows. He sees. And He rewards you with a part of the blessing.

Friday's First

The morning started with a group of people waiting in the parking lot for the church to be opened. This turned out to be a wonderful thing because we started an impromptu prayer meeting that was a true blessing.

Once in the building the majority of people started in on the box folding while the core team did last minute preparations for the Christian Academy students to start the packing adventure.

The 70 students and adults arrived at 9:30 and before long the packing commencedı.  We had the kids circulate only through the Commons area so the carbonizing area was in the same room and that seemed to work out well.  By the time they were ready to leave they'd packed 3,152 boxes (compared to 4,670 at the end of the same time last year.)

The box folding continued through the day but it was impossible to know how many boxes were folded since some were being used as others were being folded.

The evening packing started at 6:00 pm and it was hard to evaluate if having the school packs made much of a difference in the time it took people to go through the line. The registration folks report there were 229 people there tonight, and that's a record.

By the time the packing ended at 9:00 we'd packed 10,419 boxes.  So...we're about a third of the way there.  There are about 1,500 boxes to fold but they are reserving 500 in the storage container to see if they are needed.  I really want to pack every single box we have, but we will see....

And we will see soon....

Thursday Thrust

Just hours now until the start of our 2018 Operation Christmas Child packing adventure.

Since I knew the day would be getting warmer I started early this morning in the attic to get 115 bags of larger stuffed animals down the pull-down stairs so we could pack them up to take them to the church.  It's easier if I can lower the bags down to Jim, so when he had to leave to go to the church to meet the driver with two of the pup trucks to hold our boxes shoeboxes I had to stop.

A few hours later Jim and Myron made a trip to Donna's house to pick up the large plastic bags she and her husband had folded and stored in their home.  It took four vehicles to hold them all.

When they returned we decided to go back home and fetch the Schriefer Zoo before it got too hot.  I got all the bags hauled down and the guys loaded them--nearly filling the box truck.

By the time we had all those garbage bags unloaded and added to the ones from yesterday our packing party room looks more like a landfill.  The bags might not be aesthetic but they're a practical way for us to store so many thousands of stuffies.

I was excited to have Lisa Seale arrive from Virginia and we set to work filling the 500 cute
Crayola tins she brought us. They'll make really nice fillers.

Of course the box folding went on all day with the size of the crowd fluctuating but peaking in the evening with a large group of middle schoolers.

Our rooms are pretty much ready and we ended the day with 23,210 boxes folded.

Just waiting for the third load of stuffed animals to come out of the dryer...

Wednesday Wins

Praise God for some big wins today.  We got the trailer of stuffed animals unloaded and in the evening unloaded another trailed full of school packs that were put together and stored in the basement of a team member.

And...the box folding continued with a good group of about 20 people at any given time throughout the day.  We ended the day with over 16,000 folded!

The Commons area (second stage of the line) is nearly set up and tomorrow the set-up will commence in the gym area while box folding moves to the youth rooms.

The couple pictured above, OCC volunteers Pam and Keith, drove in from Kansas City, Missouri (a 13 hour drive) to be with us for the packing party. How amazing!

We also had a precious prayer walk tonight as we thank God again for the wins of the day and the wins yet to come.  Abundance.

Tuesday Tidings

Despite its busyness today felt like a day of rest.

We were blessed this morning with 27 students from Iroquois High School who came for a 9/11 service day to help us fold boxes. They worked hard all morning and assembled 2400 boxes by themselves.

We had a great group of volunteers today--probably 30-40 different persons throughout the day.  And it felt like a vacation because I got to spend a lot of time sitting and talking to these friends while we labeled and folded boxes together.

Teresa and her mother-in-law drove a few hours from Brockville to partner with us today. It was great to trade stories of God's goodness in our lives.

I spent some time talking with Julie and once again rehearsing His goodness even in the midst of trials she is enduring in her life. Praying together was a special joy.

My friend Dawn Ward from OCC visited this morning and we got to take a prayer walk around the building.  The evening brought another prayer walk as four of us prayed our way around again,  trusted God together and anticipated His victory.

By the end of the day we'd not only made two trips with a truck to pick up many of the items stored offsite BUT we finished the day with 10,008 boxes folded! And, thanks to althea ah=mazing volunteers they were folded in under 36 hours.

The towers of boxes on the pallets are falling but we still have another 20,492 to fold.

What a great day!

Marathon Monday

Doing a nightly blog the week of the Operation Christmas Child packing party is a way to help me remember what we did when next year rolls around.

God answered many prayers today.  We got the call last Friday from the trucking company, and they said they'd deliver our boxes on Tuesday.  I told them I really, really needed them on Monday and they consented to deliver on Monday as long as we could accommodate a tractor trailer.

I prayed all weekend for an early delivery and, praise God, I got the call at 7:30 am this morning that the driver expected to be at the church by 9:15 - 9:20.  Well...he was later than that.  Then when he got the truck into position he couldn't get the lift gate to work.  I put out a call for prayer and after an hour of waiting for him to try to get it to work he called for help. The terminal told him there were only two choices--he could return the load to the terminal or we could offload it by hand--all 305 cartons of boxes and 90 cartons.  We decided to try the hand offload so the driver pulled the truck around to the back gym door.  One of our guys then noticed a sign that explained a key to operating the lift gate and guess what? They got it to work. Answered prayer. So they moved the truck around to the other side of the church again and moved the pallets with our rented pallet jack.

Meanwhile I had a minor panic attack when I realized we only had 90 cartons in which to pack 30,000 plus boxes.  Tried to call my regional manager with no answer so I ended up calling the number from OCC Charlotte that was on the bill of lading and got the word that the remainder of the cartons are on another shipment. Whew! Just trying to keep us on our toes.

Because we didn't know when the boxes would arrive we'd not announced this publicly as a work day so there were only a few team members and a couple of people we could recruit quickly to fold boxes. Still, we worked hard until 5:00 pm and got 912 boxes folded today.

Unfortunately I wore out my right hand and had to switch to just labeling so I could use my left one. I'm dosing up with Ibuprofen and Biofreeze and hoping it heals up some before tomorrow.

I just got back last night from a few days in Chicago for my daughter's baby shower so I missed my normal stuffed animal pick-up at church yesterday. Today I filled my van with bags that had been left there.

After I got home at 6:00 this evening I began the stuffed animal sorting, washing, and bagging process and just finished at 11:40.  It took me that long to sort out over 1,000 animals!  I don't have the exact number, but we must need fewer than 4,000 now.  I still have a partial load to wash but I figure I might as well wait.  Someone is sure to drop off more that need a bath in the next few days.

Man, it's already Tuesday! Onward...

No Business

That's what the little voice in my head keeps telling me today...you have no business leading an Operation Christmas Child team, let alone a large packing party.

I feel like I spend the majority of my time sorting, washing, and processing stuffed animals, and that's not what a leader does. A leader recruits and selects and trains and develops and equips other leaders so they can/will do those jobs.

Meanwhile, I think constantly of all the things I should have done or should be doing. I've dropped so many balls that there are none in the air anymore.

I didn't follow through with a local appliance store who offered to collect stuffed animals for us. I have not contacted our local Chick-fil-A to see if they want to participate with us in November to collect boxes. I haven't sent out the monthly prayer requests to our prayer partners yet. Wait, I'm supposed to have other people doing all those things, right? Yep...and I would if I was recruiting. Sigh.

So why am I writing a blog, you might ask? Yeah, I'm wondering about that too.

Meanwhile...for the moment all the stuffed animals are off the living room floor (including the donation of 180 that came at 5:00 this afternoon.)  We only need 5,213 more to get to 30,000 in case you've been following that journey.  I started the script for the packing party opening but never finished it.

I have notes written for a meeting with the two central packing party leads.

Oh, and I'm ready to go pick up a large donation of crayons tomorrow that I don't need until 2019 and will have to find a place to store. I don't think that's on my OCC job description but then...very little of what I do is.

Every morning I beg God to show me step by step what He wants me to do. Some days I see answers to that prayer and some days I really don't.

Still, I have confidence God's called me to lead our area team and promises, as I've mentioned before, that His strength is made perfect in my weakness.

And I know we're on the verge of another victory with this packing party in just 11 days. WAIT! Is it really 11 days?  Stay tuned for more reports as we watch our strong God do what only He can do in the middle of our weakness.

Because, without Him, we definitely have NO BUSINESS doing any of this.

It's All About Jesus

Life and the summer are speeding on in my little Operation Christmas Child world. We had a very long, hard winter here in Erie. On those cold February days I couldn't wait for summer and planned all the things I would do. Now it's August and I've done very few of those things.

We haven't been to one local fair or festival to get our beloved kettle corn. Presque Isle, our beautiful Lake Erie beaches, are five miles away from my house and I've only been there twice all summer and never managed to see a sunset.

But...I have been blessed with lots of stuffed animal sorting. In the past 16 days alone God has provided over 3,900 stuffed animals! Praise Him! We still are praying for 7,300 or more before our packing party which is now only 23 days away (gulp.)

This is the time when all the questions start rolling in: will we have enough volunteers? How will we set up the line to keep it moving at a steady pace? Will the creation of 'school packs' this year cause the line to move too fast and overload those who are carbonizing the boxes? How do we prepare for that? How will we get 30,000 boxes folded in four days?

Well, there are more questions but you get the idea.

This morning, by God's grace, I read a passage in Isaiah 7:9-14 that really spoke to me.  King Ahaz is in a crisis. Enemies are waging war against Jerusalem and those folks of Judah "shook as trees of the forest shake in the wind."(vs. 2)

So the Lord sent Isaiah to reassure Ahaz that they would not be destroyed and said to him in verse 9 "If you do not believe, you surely shall not last."

Then the Lord asks Ahaz to request a sign--anything from heaven to hell--to reassure him, but Ahaz wisely refuses to test the Lord and says, "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign:  Behold a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel."

In the midst of the crisis Ahaz knew, even centuries before He would be born, that it was ALL ABOUT JESUS.

Compared to Jesus nothing else matters--not even the threat of death at the hands of enemies. And with the promise of Jesus there is victory even when you seem to face imminent defeat.

Thank You, Lord, for Your word to me this morning. Because even though we have a million questions, even though we have no idea how this packing party will all come together, even though we actually fear the long hours of preparation it will take to get set up in just a few days prior to the packing party itself...

even though...we know JESUS is already there bringing us victory. Because, in the beginning and in the end, it's ALL ABOUT JESUS.

Willow Creek GLS18--Craig Groeschel--Anticipatory Leadership

Here's Craig Groeschel's talk from the Willow Greek GLS18 about anticipatory leadership (which pretty much drained my brain.)

Where do we go from here?  We’ve absorbed so much.  I want to talk about anticipatory leadership. How do we look forward and anticipate what could be coming in the future?

I lead a church and we’re passionate about eradicating Bible poverty.  About 12 years ago we had an idea to create a website called YouVersion.com like a Christian Facebook.  We were about two weeks from taking down the site when Bobby Grunewald said Apple is coming out with an app.  What if we took our content and built and app and released an app with the Bible on it.  We decided to ask around to see if anyone knew how to create an app. We found a 19-year-old part-time staffer who built the app and we launched it 10 years ago.  We found the first weekend 81,000 people had downloaded the app.  On Monday the 19-year-old had a full-time job and now 10 years later 1/3 of a billion people have downloaded the app.

Everyone say “What if”—how do we anticipate where things are going?

The difference between a good leader and a great leader is one who learns to anticipate rather than react.

“Most players skate to where the puck is. I skate to where it’s going to be.”—Wayne Gretzky

The lifespan of your structure is diminishing as we speak.  If we are not changing we’re falling farther behind.  As we’re anticipating the future you have to realize what you know may be wrong.

For centuries around the world pastors ministered in one local church but now because of technology we can do ministry in multiple sites. We formed very strong opinions about how this should work.  Some called us experts. If we start to wrongly own the title of experts we’re susceptible to the “curse of confidence.” 

When Twitter came out I didn’t believe people would care what I thought about in 140 characters or less…or pictures on Instagram.  I thought it was a fad. I was sure.  Therefore, I am behind in social media influence.

When we’re completely sure, we’re vulnerable:

The Curse of Confidence

--Difficult to receive feedback

--Answer more questions than they’re asking

--Assume too much and stop innovating

How we learn to anticipate:  The three D’s of Anticipator y Leadership

Develop

Discern

Disrupt

1)   Develop situational awareness—honestly and accurately assess the true current state of our organization. Many times we don’t know what we don’t know. Self-awareness is incredibly difficult. The Dunning-Kruger Effect—people have difficulty recognizing their own incompetence. Those who rank themselves as the most skilled are generally the least skilled.  Those who are the most capable often don’t know it.  We have to work hard to fight for humility so we can assess ourselves. Most leaders could learn more from their mistakes if they weren’t so busy denying them. Look honestly and have the integrity to tell the truth. No one lies better than leaders. Look at the culture and the health of the team.  If something is not working, ask why. Andy Stanley says, “If you don’t know why something is working when it is, you won’t know how to fix it when it’s not.”  A doctor who was diagnosing me said, “I always force myself to ask 21 questions.” I asked him why and he replied, “Because 21 is one more than 20.”  You are asking questions to get to the root reason of why something is working or not—honestly diagnosing your organization

2)   Discern future threats and opportunities—I encourage you to start to learn to anticipate in areas outside of your area of expertise.  Begin to practice in areas outside your field developing theories.  For instance, I have a theory that younger people may reject social media.  I have a theory about higher education—that it might be overrated.  The cost/benefit may be starting to tilt.  How do we approach this?  --Embody healthy skepticism and lead with bold optimism. What we’re doing now will not work forever.  In 66 years Lego never had a down year, then suddenly everything changed in 1998 and profits plummeted from 146 million to 48 million in one year. Lego underestimated the digital revolution.  All kinds of things could go wrong. The price of oil could drop, the housing market could plummet…  At the same time we remember fear is a choice and so is faith.  You’ll always face obstacles but we remember new challenges always equal new opportunities. Lego showed this when they partnered with Star Wars which led to them creating their own movies.  When you see a problem you train yourself to think opportunity.  Innovation is born out of limitation. “ Innovation is seeing what everybody else sees and thinking what nobody else thought.”

3)   Disrupt what is and create what could be—Think about Air BnB or Uber. See possibilities before others see them.  Sometimes people ask me what I see as the future of the church.  These are my opinions for my culture.  My theory is that for a while churches have been trying to make the gospel cool. I think people are getting tired of cool and want more Jesus and less cool. The contemporary service is the new traditional. There needs to be more focus on substance than style.  Now I believe the focus should go from trying so hard to get them in the one hour and go to them for the rest of the hours. What matters in engaging people? They need to be needed and to be known. One of the greatest forms of discipleship is getting people into community. Less Jesus in me and more in we.  Christianity is experiencing God together.  When the world gets darker the light shines brighter. Through Jesus Christ the local church can make a difference.

What do we do from here?  Three Questions:

1)   What is the true, current state of your organization? Your leadership: Where are you successful? Flat? Struggling?

2)   If you were starting now, what are you currently doing now that you would not do? Why are you doing it?

3)   If you were starting today, what would you attempt? When are you going to attempt it?

If you wait until you’re 100% to try something new you will always be too late.

Willow Creek GLS18 -- Simon Sinek

Willow Creek GLS18 -- How do you lead an infinite game?

January 1968—North Vietnamese Army launches a surprise attack of 85,000 troops called the Tet Offensive.  There’d never been fighting on Tet before.  Americans repelled every single attack. After about a week North Vietnam had lost about 30,000 troops.  America lost 58,000 in the war and Vietnam lost 3.5 million.  How could we still lose the war?  There need to be more definitions.

If you have at least one competitor you have a game. Finite game=fixed number of players with fixed rules and results.  Infinite game=known and unknown players who keep the game going indefinitely. 

Problems arise when you pit a finite player against an infinite player. The finite player will always waste resources when those situations arise. Americans were fighting to win and Vietnamese were fighting for their lives.

We’re surrounded by infinite games—they are all around us. They are a part of our existence. Most of us only know how to lead in finite games, not infinite ones. 

The infinite player understands the only true player is yourself. How do you get stronger and better than last year?  If leading an infinite game is so different, how do you lead an infinite game?  There are five elements…

Just cause—a true cause so just we’d be willing to sacrifice to advance it. Might mean working at night, taking business trips away from family, etc.   Tests of a “just cause”=resilient (can resist change); inclusive (serves as invitation to anyone to contribute); service-oriented (primary benefit must go to other than the contributor)

Trusting teams—Leaders are responsible for creating an environment wher people can be their best selves and trust enough to ask for help…  If you don’t have trusting teams people are lying, faking, and hiding.

Worthy rival—On the stage with a rival speaking at the same event. I said to him, “You make me very insecure because your strengths are my weaknesses.” And he said, “I feel the same about you.”  So he became my worthy rival—not a competitor but like a pacer in a race to push me.  Individual rivals can push us to be better than ourselves through tactical improvements.

Existential flexibility—Have to be willing to take risks and be flexible

Courage to lead—Takes remarkable courage to believe in something bigger than myself and compete against no one but myself.

It raises one simple question: what does it mean to live an infinite life?  Every one of us has a choice to live by finite rules (driven to be richest, most powerful) or for the infinite (for a cause you believe in and when you pass others will say they were better because you were here.)

Willow Creek GLS18--Nthabiseng Legoete

Willow Creek GLS18 -- talk by a doctor who is working to make health care accessible to underserved patients in South Africa

I’m grateful for the opportunity to tell my story. When I started Quali Health I wanted to provide health care for those who don’t have access and that everyone has a fair chance at life. As the organization started I realized my role morphed into that of a leader and that’s not how I saw myself.

“The Man in the Arena” by Teddy Roosevelt

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who pointsout how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

This poem touches me deeply because it encompasses my journey. How do you fight your way out of defeat and seeming failure? How do you forgive yourself and move on?

2016 was a triumphant year. Everyone told me how great we were doing and that allowed us to attract funding and open more facilities.  Then in the spring of 2017 things started going south.  We had problems with cash flow. I did not want this to be a nonprofit because it is not sustainable. All of a sudden what I’ve been adamant about wasn’t working.  I had to step back and examine and the tendency is just to throw out the whole concept. I fell victim to that for a couple of weeks.

Then I began to see what I had done wrong. You need to focus on WHY you started. I had to realize that challenges don’t mean the dream is not working. Challenges are stepping stones to lead you to a better place.

We don’t discuss times when we doubt our own dreams and lose our focus. As long as you are achieving what you set out to achieve you are on the right path. 

While focus has to be on what you want to achieve, be FLEXIBLE on HOW you get to the goal.  My dream is to build 100 facilities but I’ve had to rethink the method for getting there. Changing the HOW doesn’t mean you change the WHY. 

I had to develop patience since I am trying to solve a problem that’s been there for hundreds of years. I needed to realize this couldn’t be sorted out by me alone.  I had to learn collaboration. 

Collaborate with those in alignment

Disassociate with those not in alignment.

Be relentless and unwavering in WHAT you want to achieve but not inflexible in how you get there.  Don’t be surprised when we face defeat, challenges, or resistance. We tend to think visions from God happen unopposed. Challenges are part of a purpose-filled journey.

I realized I had too many people who were not leading us to the goal of providing the least expensive health care. We needed to be profitable.  Most of the costs came from people who were not leading us forward so a big challenge was letting people go.

We need to forgive ourselves for mistakes.  2018 began with a process of cutting people and restructuring the organization. We suddenly had to deal with emotions and critics. You have to realize it’s not about you.   I had to face those challenges to get more efficient. Expect pain, challenges and doubt.  Don’t let the surprise paralyze you.

With faith comes letting go of yourself and how you want things to work out. I needed to look intently at the situation and see what God wanted to show me. I was so set on people being the success of Quali Health and I realized a vision cannot be dependent on any one person.

Maybe if we are able to just stand and take in all the criticism without being deterred by them maybe more businesses will succeed.  I want to inspire people to stay with their dream. Are you doing what you set out to achieve? If you are, everything else is just noise.

Willow Creek GLS18--Erwin McManus--The Last Arrow

Erwin McManus's talk from the 2018 Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit--

If we can figure out how to conquer the darkness inside of us we can keep moving on toward the light.  Most of us are here not only to try to find out how to lead better but we’re afraid there is greatness inside us that will never be actualized. We don’t want to drown in mediocrity.

A huge part of my personal journey has been a search for my identity.  My grandfather named me after Hitler’s general in North Africa. I took my son to meet my stepdad and y stepdad told me son I was just average and my brother was exceptional.  Actually I was below average.  I think that terrifying realization haunts us all. 

I began writing this book called “The Last Arrow” about saving nothing for the next life. Life isn’t really about talent or gifting; there’s so much more. We’re terrified of breaking away from the pack and becoming who God created us to be.  

I think we’re in danger of trying to learn how to conform and belong when we should be breaking out of the momentum of mediocrity.  I found a story in 2 Kings—a conversation between Elisha and King Jehoash.  Elisha tells Jehoash to shoot the arrow through the window—a metaphor for putting your life in God’s hands and seeing Him do more with it than you could do on your own.  Then he tells the king to take the arrow and strike three times.  Then Elisha became angry and said, “Why did you stop striking? God would have given you complete victory but now you only get a partial victory.”  Why didn’t Elisha tell him that before? 

Many people need permission to get started but almost no one needs permission to quit.  How many of us have confused and thought we failed when we actually quit.  We never pushed ourselves to do more.  How many of us are saving ourselves for the next life when this one is all we have?

I’ve been trying to get life insurance for seven years and could never qualify though doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with me. I tried again and kept failing the tests and said, “I’ve never been good at tests.”  Around Christmas we went for a routine exam and the doctor said, “You have cancer.”  It felt so surreal because it was unexpected.  As we were processing that right before Christmas and found it was high-volume cancer I wondered if “The Last Arrow” would be my last book.  That night I read page 93 and read a sentence I’d written a year before and I didn’t remember, “I need to tell you before you hear it from anyone else that I’m dying.” And the next sentence was “So are you.”

Most of us act like our life will last forever. You don’t get this day back.  You need to treat each moment as sacred—as if it’s the last day of your life.

Three weeks later I had a 6.5 hour surgery to remove the cancer. I gave myself permission to feel whatever I would feel.  I never felt bitter because life has been good. I never felt angry. What surprised me most was I never felt afraid.  I started processing that and I remembered when I was new in my faith journey and met Jesus.  I drove my little yellow Pinto into the ghetto and my heart was pounding so I prayed and asked God to help me.  The one verse that came to me was “To live is Christ. To die is gain.” It was as if God was telling me, “If you’ll just die right now I’ll take you where only dead men can go.”  I had dealt with death so many years before so death doesn’t scare me now.

You need to step through your fears to your freedom.  I had a little personal funeral that day decades ago and died to myself.  Death is not supposed to be in front of you; death is supposed to be behind you.  All you have in front of you is life.

I want you to know something. Before you’re ever the CEO of the company you’re a human and if you don’t deal with fear in your life you’ll never life the life you were created to live.

So many of us only have a structure to lead when the world is at peace. Leadership is facing your fears and going through them. Dick DeVoss said,”Leaders don’t run from the fires; they run into them.” 

What you fear establishes the boundaries of your freedom.  It’s only in relationship to God that perfect love casts out fear. Only God can destroy the fear and set you free with His love.  Every other master is a cruel master. 

A lot of us don’t understand that our greatness is on the other side of our pain. We don’t often recognize the pain it takes to get to greatness.

After 6.5 hours of surgery I woke up. I told my wife I was going to get up and walk.  She called the nurse who said I couldn’t get up and walk.  I refused painkillers because the point was if I could stand in the pain I could face whatever pain was ahead of me. I got off that high hospital bed and put my feet on the ground. I felt such intense pain but I took 3 or 4 steps then walked down the hall and it hurt SO much. One of the things we need to learn more of is how to walk in our pain.

Three hours later I got up and walked again around the hospital then I took a shower and got dressed. My wife said, “Why are you doing this?”  I went home and my wife had a room all set up and when she left I sneaked out of the house and walked down the street with my catheter.  Three months after surgery I went to play basketball for two hours.

I started getting emails from around the world. I got an email from a friend who was an atheist and he said, “This may be the one thing that drives me to pray.”  My atheist friends ask, “Where is the proof of life after death?”  They haven’t known life before death.  I want those friends to know pain is not the limitation of our life, but you have to be willing to go through the pain to step into your greatness.

There are many of you going through pain right now. When you live a life of pain, when you connect with the God who created you, you learn that pain is not the end of the story. Even for Jesus His greatness was on the other side of His pain.  Jesus didn’t come to give us a way out of pain but a way through the pain.

Not only is your freedom and greatness on the other side of pain but your future is on the other side of your failures. God doesn’t define you by your worst moments; He defines you by your best moments. He sees in you a future you can’t even imagine.

One day I got an email that my former business partner took millions of dollars from our company. I had to tell my wife I lost everything and she said, “I thought I was your everything.” I didn’t know how to respond so I said, “I lost my other everything.” I couldn’t eat for 30 days.  We had to talk a million dollar loan on our house to complete projects that were left undone.  I wanted God to meet me in my faith but God met me in my faithfulness.

I stand before you as a person who has had failure after failure after failure. So many times I thought I would quit. We need to stop pretending this life is easy. Your faith doesn’t make life easier; your faith makes you stronger. 

Forty years ago I had a lifechanging encounter with the creator of the universe. I didn’t care about heaven. I didn’t care about hell. But I was terrified I would live and die and drown in my own mediocrity and never live the life I was created to live. 

There’s a life waiting for you. Your faith is the strength to step into your pain and your fear and take the arrow and strike and strike and strike and strike and when you die let your last arrow be in your hand.

Willow Creek GLS18--Sheila Heen--Difficult Conversations

Difficult conversations are always...well...difficult...  Here's Sheila Heen's talk from the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit

You know those on-again, off-again relationships? I had friends in relationships like that and I swore I would never do that. Then I got into one of those relationships where I kept getting talked into giving it one more try. I wondered why I was having such a hard time negotiating myself out of this relationship. This was when I began working on how to have difficult conversations.

I kept the image of finishing this book and going home for a reading. Eventually we finished the book and went on a tour and I looked forward to the hometown reading at the end of the tour. We show up at the venue and there are 18 people there, 11 of whom are related to us.  About half way through the talk my sister takes her 3 kids out the side door and we hear the 5-year-old say, “Mom, that stunk!” The older 7-year-old said, “Charlie, it was supposed to stink!”  That experience has stuck with me because it reminds me of how we often feel about the difficult conversations in our lives.  I’m here to tell you every one of us on this planet has difficult conversations in our lives. It’s part of being human and in relationship together.  Your job as a leader is to have these conversations.  How you handle them defines your leadership.  The bad news is they are supposed to stink. 

Think about the difficult conversations in your life.  Here are some themes that were given—

--standing up for myself

--saying no and disappointing someone

--working across cultures

--telling my boss they are wrong

--helping my peer with their self-awareness

Write the name of the person you’re thinking of.  The most important thing to understand is we have to look beyond what we’re actually saying to each other to what is in our internal voice.  Think about your own internal voice. In difficult conversation your internal voice is turned up to loud.

(Video of Monicia and Paul—friends who are also business partners in the midst of a difficult conversation.)

The first thing you’ll notice as you listen to people’s internal voices they are busy with the same things every time. Every difficult conversation has the same underlying structure.

The story in our head is driven by a few key questions:

1)   Who is right?

2)   Whose fault is it?  (defines the problem)

3)   Why is the other person acting this way?

What do I do with the strong feelings I have? There are two more things going on. There are strong feelings and often conflicting feelings.  Write down some feelings in the difficult conversation you are having. 

By the time something becomes a difficult conversation we have two problems: the surface problem and the way we treat each other.

What does this say about me? At the deepest level is our identity.  This colors the story.  What about money? If you bring it up will you look greedy? 

In my off-again, on-again relationship I wondered was I a good person? Was I being forgiving?

Two topics, two talkers, and zero listeners.

So what do we do? 

1) Ask who do we each think this conversation is about? Why do we see things so differently?

1)   Instead of asking whose fault it is ask what each person’s contribution was.

2)   Instead of asking why are they acting this way separate intentions from impact.

Instead of blame, look at joint contribution—that’s where learning comes from.  Get beyond telling and persuading to asking and exploring and trying to understand.

Remember the difference from talking at to talking to and then to talking with. 

What if we could see ourselves and each other as God sees us—as people who sometimes disappoint each other but also need each other? It doesn’t guarantee we will work this out but gives a better chance.

Researchers told subjects they were going to another building to give a talk and planted someone along the way who needed help. What percentage of the subjects do you think stopped to help the person in distress?  The answer is 10% stopped to help.  The students they used were seminary students.  The talk they were told to go give was on the parable of the Good Samaritan.

That is us—the challenge in our busy lives is to see the opportunities to walk our own talk and help someone with an important conversation.  Leadership is about showing someone a better future we will co-create together.