BibleScribbler

We Can’t Reach Something We Are Afraid to Touch

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[13] He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. [14] And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.

[15] And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. [16] And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” [17] And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Mark 2:13-17 ESV

One of the brilliant things about poverty as mission shows up here. Jesus wasn’t afraid of the tax man. Since the man Jesus was talking to couldn’t take away anything that Jesus had, Jesus wasn’t afraid to talk to him. Jesus might not have even had the case to be bitter towards what Matthew had taken in the past.

If we fear for our lives, we won’t talk to dangerous people.

If we fear for our wealth, we won’t talk to those that steal.

If we fear for our comfort, we won’t talk to those who impose.

If we fear for our good reputation, we won’t talk to those that are below us.

WCAGLS Session 13: Gary Schwammlein

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Session 13: Gary Schwammlein and Bill Hybels

"The local church is the hope of the world, when it's working right. I went to the local church, they don't even have enough hope to share with the people that go there on a weekend, much less the world!"

He said that too many people just quote the first half of Bill's quote, but that is just wrong. "you need the whole quote!"

In Calcutta India, there is a church that feeds 10,000 people a day. There are 250 churches among 20,000,000 people, in a population that is less than 1% christian.

When there is a passionless church operating, they are wrong. They need to shut down and sell their building to somebody that will do what God wants them to do!

Strengthening the leadership gifts strengthens every other gift in a church.

"If you want your leadership to matter, lead in the things that matter to God." [that goes for everything!]

This guy was in Vietnam, praying in a hotel room, and the words to an old German hymn came to mind. He found it on youtube and played it on repeat for 2 hours while he prayed! Praise God for YouTube!

"If you're not dead, you're not done!"

WCAGLS Session 9: Vijay Govindarajan: Innovation

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Session 9: Vijay Govindarajan: Innovation

Innovation is reacting to change.

How many things you are doing today go in box one?

  1. Manage the Present. (efficiency)
  2. Selectively forget the past
  3. Shape the future

How do you do innovation and efficiency all at the same time? That's what counts.

Continuously improving the quality of what we do today is still limited.

High Jumpers

The scissor jump can only get you up 4 feet.
The western roll took people to 5 feet.
The straddle
Then Fosbury flop took people up to 9 feet!

We have to improve the quality of the scissor jump while we discover the fosbury flop.

The innovation is a virus to ongoing operations. Status quo takes over the dominant logic. If it is working, do it!

If dominant logic is left unchecked, you'll grow old while new stuff is birthed all around you.

Creativity is the idea. Innovation is applying that creativity economically.

Idea + Leader + Team + Plan = Innovation

since 99% of it is execution, that is where this guy is focusing his work. People don't need help coming up with ideas, or help with creativity. How do we make this stuff happen!?

Innovation leaders are not subversives. Sometimes they think their job is to break all the rules and do something bold and crazy. They act like Steve Jobs.

"Harness the great capabilites of the performance engine."
I don't know what that means, but it sounds great.

"you can't just turn scissors into a flosbury flop" (Context is everything on that quote! But it's right on. )

New Wineskins!

Some of the stuff he is talking about gets back to my idea that some churches need to just shut down and close for 3 months and then reopen from scratch.

If you want NYTimes digital to happen, you can't use your print newspaper team. You use different metrics, you use different culture. It's ok to keep them in the same building and link them to the existing team, but much of the team is going to have to be different.

No silicone valley startup can come up with 100 years of digital archives. NYTimes has that! Interract! Work together!

You have to have some shared, amphibious staff working on your breakthrough innovation.

The scissors pays for the development of the flosbury flop. At some point the flosbury flop is going to be the old thing, the performance engine that will fuel the next thing.

Be distinct and separate with your tasks. Don't measure new innovations the way you measured your old reliable stuff.

The team is fighting Organizational Memory. Remember your critical assets, use your history, but do something you've never done before.

Conflicts are healthy if you know how to manage them. That's where your history helps out your innovators.

zero based planning and organizing

  1. Your current business is linear. Reacting to present markets. Signals are clear pointing us in various directions.
  2. (He didn't say anything about this.)
  3. You are betting on the future. You are predicting and learning to resolve unknowns. There are weak signals of where the future is going, so you test, spend a little, and learn a lot.

I wonder what Seth Godin would say about this guy's stuff. Some of this sounds like stuff in The Dip by Seth Godin.

Your team 3 should be evaluated on their ability to learn, apply the knowledge they gain from failures. Can they conduct low-cost experiments and then learn a whole bunch?

Reverse-Innovation
in the past, 3rd world folks invented stuff in the USA and then sold them in the 3rd world. In the future, he says 3rd world will invent 3rd world solutions, and the people in the 1st world will want it.

"Rich people might be interested in learning what these poor people are doing."

"Some say innovation is value for money. I say that innovation is value for many."
"Innovation is a lot more, for a lot less, for a lot of people."

Income inequality has reached alarming proportions. We work hard at producing products for the rich. That's the source of income inequality. What would happen if we innovated products for the poor? Products are already MADE by the poor, what if they are meant to be consumed by and help the poor.

[he just said he discovered "the secret sauce of innovation"]

The US lives in Box 3 thinking. As a culture we look to the future and try to create it.

I'm curious how much we do that anymore. I'm thinking with immigration hate, if we've killed the american dream.

the guy came to america with $11. he spent $6 on a candy bar because he figured there isn't much difference between just having 5 or 11, but at least he'd have a candy bar.

Accepting ideas from any part of the world is a strength of America, he says. I'm not totally sure that is still true!

I wish it were!

Let's make is so!

Innovation by the poor, with the poor, for the poor!

God's Providence in a Ford Aerostar

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In 2007, my family and I returned from a long trek in Central Asia. With lots of uncertainty, we left & gave away our Dodge Caravan to some friends there. We trusted God to provide for us stateside.

We came to our temporary apartment from the airport in Evansville and there on the dining room table was the title to a Ford Aerostar! Crossroads and Evansville Auto Mission had provided us with a van! We could see God’s obvious hand in moving us to trust Him and give away our van in Asia.

Today, 5 years later, I returned the van to the Auto Mission. It served us well most of the time, brought an element of adventure to every drive (even just driving to church on Sunday!) and kept us from a car payment for the past 5 years.

Thanks to the Lord & His people for this chapter of the Sullivan’s transportation.

I’m not sure we’ll miss it, but I’m thankful for it!

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Poverty the Blessing & the Prosperity Curse

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Psalm 17:13-14

NASB Deliver my soul from the wicked with Your sword, From men with Your hand, O LORD, From men of the world, whose portion is in this life,

And whose belly You fill with Your treasure;

NET Use your sword to rescue me from the wicked man! Lord, use your power to deliver me from these murderers, from the murderers of this world!

They enjoy prosperity; you overwhelm them with the riches they desire.

If you never read it anywhere else, you can read it here. Prosperity and the riches of this world are a curse, not a blessing.

Some of that sounds good: to have your belly full of treasure, to have all of the riches you desire, but the context is worldly men or murderers, not the blessed.

This fits along with 1 Timothy 6:9

Those who long to be rich, however, stumble into temptation and a trap and many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

It is so crazy how we are ripped off every day to the point that we think it is totally normal to constantly covet and wish for stuff!

Jesus was right on when He said

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. (Matthew 6:24 NASB)

Even in christendom we make jokes about being afraid God will send us to Kookamunga. More and more I’m thinking that more of us would be better off if He did! How pure and attractive our devotion to God would be if it were coupled with poverty!

Ooh Ooh! What if the goal of all of this Christian financial money management stuff was to train and equip yourself to live in poverty in spite of your income! Wow. May God help me with this stuff.

<<Written on my dual core i7 MacBook Pro>>

Jesus The Poor Naked Felon

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Matthew 25:36-40 NET
“I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘I tell you the truth, just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me.’”

http://bible.us/Matt25.36.NET

Usually we read this and we see that we should take care of people. That’s right and true. We should. Did you catch who the people are? They are the very people we middle class white folk most want to avoid!

* Strangers (not just unknown people, let’s remember the STRANGE in STRANGER)
* Naked (read this as too poor for clothes or dressed ‘inappropriately’)
* Sick people (he doesn’t list types of illnesses. Just sick.)
* Prisoners (no qualifiers here either! What are you in for? Doesn’t matter)

I was walking by some guys yesterday and my reflex was to either look away or generally avoid them. Then I realized that if I’m going to take the events in Matthew 25 seriously, I need to hold a funeral for that kind of behavior!

I need to be inspired by Mother Theresa, Francis of Assisi, and Jesus Himself and remember what happens to people that reach out to lepers–they often touch the face of God.

What’s really crazy is that NONE of the people at the end of Matthew 25 knew they were serving Jesus. The people that enter the eternal kingdom of awesomeness didn’t know when they cared for Jesus. They cared for these strange naked sick prisoners and found out later it was equal to caring for Jesus Christ, Lord of All.

The people that are doomed to eternal fire didn’t know they were neglecting Jesus. They just neglected the strange naked sick prisoners and found out later to neglect them was to neglect Jesus.

This makes me turn on my radar. Who is within arm’s reach but I don’t want to touch? Who am I avoiding that I need to steer my life into?

Where is Jesus hiding so that my arrogant life can die and His humble loving life can live out of me?

Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. (Matthew 25:34 NET) http://bible.us/Matt25.34.NET

Squeezing Yourself through the Eye of the Needle

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Mark 10:23-27

And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” 27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”

You know what? I think all of that stuff about the door to the Temple that was really narrow being the “eye of the needle” is a bunch of crap. If Jesus was talking about that, then the disciples would have reacted the way we do:

Oh, Jesus just means that to make it through, you have to take your luggage off of your camel.

No, [redacted]! They freaked out! They were struck, astonished, amazed! They began defending themselves (Peter: We’ve left everything! Isn’t that enough?!)

It is troubling and it should be. What in the world would Jesus consider “rich” and would that same thing count today? The point, as always with Jesus, is not that you need to do a certain deed to enter the Kingdom of God. That’s how the rich man thought. That’s how the disciples thought. Over and over again, Jesus was pushing them to re-think.

He sums it all up right here:

“Then who can be saved?!” [they asked]

“With man it is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God.”

Did you catch that? Salvation is impossible with man. Man can’t do it. The rich young man wanted to know what he could do. Rather than flat out tell him no, Jesus showed the young man his barriers. It’s just like Jesus to beckon us, to draw us, like a kid playing hide and seek and making noises the whole time so you’ll find him.

If that rich man would have given up his possessions like Jesus told him, he would have been desperate. He would have seen that he was incapable of anything, much less achieving eternal life.

It is not our accomplishment or  righteous attainment that swings us into eternal life, but our helpless, dependent willingness to be pushed.