Learning Curves

If my life had a theme for 2009 it was this: Learning curves. Specifically, learning curves of the steep and tricky, zippy, herky-jerky type. Though this theme wouldn’t have occurred to me if it weren’t for the sales guy at the Apple store yesterday. I had gone because the screen of my current laptop is sporting a nice crack that allows me to see only the top two-thirds diagonal of the screen. And everyone and their mother seems to be telling me now is the right time to switch back to the Mac.

So, anyway, yesterday as I quizzed the sales guy on exactly why the Mac would transform my life as I know it, I leaned in to hear his wisdom above the buzz of the crowds. After pointing out various features and “cool stuff,” the poor guy just said the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time: “The learning curve can be pretty steep for those coming from PC to Macs….”

Ach. My body tensed. My heart raced. The sales guy lost his sale. While normally I am big on learning and while normally I would not fear the week or two “transition” it would take for me to get used to a new operating system (and frankly, while normally I would doubt it would take me that long), I could not deal with another learning curve. Not this year.

That’s when it hit me that this year has been all about the learning curves. In a season of my life when I thought I’d have had so much more figured out, 2009 seems to have thrown everything up in the air and out the window. There have been twists and turns I sort of expected (like learning how to market my book) to those I never saw coming (like learning how to married to a man running for public office).

Most of the things I’ve had to learn have been great. All have been challenging and exhausting. Each has left me wondering just what God has up his sleeves for me and in my life.

But the more I thought about this yesterday, another theme for my 2009 emerged: Story. This one has been more blatant as it was the actual theme of three conferences I attended (it was the actual NAME of one of them). It started last March at GFL’s Synergy conference, where we heard about finding God in our stories. Then this fall, I heard more about the importance of telling our stories so people could find God in them. As a writer, certainly none of this was new to me, but still: that it was being hammered into my head made me stop and think: Maybe God was trying to tell me something.

As these theme intersected in my brain—and as I sat down at my cracked laptop to plunk out thoughts on this—I realized that in every talk I heard on the power of Story, learning curves were at the heart of those stories. Whether it was about a Bible hero learning just how mighty and radical her God was or a “regular” person learning, well, the same thing, these stories that I was told we should look at or tell were about God in the mix of our learning curves. About where God is as we speed along, herking and jerking. About where he is when we nearly collapse with exhaustion, weary from all this learnin’. Where he is when we beg, “Please no more. Can we just coast for a while?”

And this all made me smile. Because as crazy as this year has been (and, if I’m honest, as crazy as most of this decade has been!) it’s been a time in which I feel God growing me and using me, and it’s exactly what I always pray he’ll do.

I think it’s what all of us should pray for as leaders—that God will keep us learning and growing and stretching so that we can take our gifts, our talents, our ministries and make them honor him in the best ways possible. Even if they’re ways we never saw coming. Or even if they are.

So, that’s where I’m at. I’m wondering if this means I need to go back and talk to the Mac guy again (feel free to offer your input). Or maybe it means I need to stop praying for a season of coasting—and keep praying for learning curves.

What have you been learning this year? What are you hoping to learn in 2010?

P.S. If you’d like to hear more about the ways learning curves intersect with our story, check out this year’s Synergy Conferences: Jan. 23 in Chicago and March 5-7 in Orlando.

Justice in Real Life

My life gets crazy. I’m a mom. I have diapers to change, groceries to buy, and lunches to make. I’m a writer, a speaker and a church leader. I have things to write, talks to give, and issues to raise. Between keeping up with the kids, paying the bills, and following my calling, most days I’m happy if I can squeeze in the luxurious “me moment” of a shower.

But as a follower of Christ I also know that I am called to love my neighbor as Jesus did—by proclaiming good news to the poor, freedom for prisoners, sight for the blind, and to set the oppressed free (as mentioned in Luke 4). Seeking justice for others in these ways is at the heart of what it means to follow Christ. It’s not just a call for some Christians; it’s for all of us – including us busy leaders.

But it can be hard to figure out how I can be seeking justice for others in the midst of my chaotic life.

I read books by guys like Shane Claiborne and am inspired by how they have fully committed their lives to serving others. Yet even as I am inspired by them, I know that I can’t move into a commune in the inner-city in order to devote my life to others. It’s a great idea, just not very doable at this stage in life.

It’s frustrating that doing justice in this world often seems to fall into these all or nothing extremes. Either one devotes every aspect of who they are to seeking justice or they opt out because they just can’t see how they can fit it into their lives.

But seeking justice doesn’t have to be an all or nothing thing. Many of the most serious justice issues in our world today are actually intimately connected to our everyday lives and therefore can be addressed through simple everyday actions as well. Even those diapers I change and those lunches I make are justice issues connecting me to people all over the world—my neighbors who Jesus has asked me to love. Even in my busy life, I can choose to serve others through these daily actions.

It took me awhile (and a decent amount of research) to realize these things, and even longer to start to implement them into my life. The whole process started for me with a deliberate choice to only buy fair trade coffee. I had read the stories that coffee farmers around the world were literally being cheated of their wages for the coffee they grew. They could no longer send their children to school, and were struggling to even put food on the table. Many of these farmers were being forced off their land simply because the price they were being paid for their work no longer allowed them to even survive. Fair trade companies though choose to respect the dignity of the coffee farmers. By purchasing fair trade coffee I know that the farmers were paid a decent wage for their work, allowed to have a say in how the coffee is grown, and were not abused or threatened as they worked. Sure, it costs me a little more to buy this coffee, but I’m fine paying the full cost of my coffee instead of cheating the farmers of their wages so I can have cheap coffee. My morning cup of coffee is a justice issue.

From there I learned how the clothes I wear often are made by children in abusive sweatshops, that the cell phone I use has connections to guerilla squads that terrorize and rape women, that the chocolate I eat was grown by children trafficked into slavery, and that the energy I use has destroyed communities in Appalachia and Nigeria. My daily life connects me to people around the world, and often my choices inadvertently harm others.

If I wanted to seek justice for them, I needed to start by (slowly) changing habits in my everyday life. As with coffee, I could buy things that had been fairly produced, seeking alternatives to oppressive systems. But I could also use my power as a consumer to send letters to companies and the government telling them that I care about how those who produce the goods I consume are treated. My everyday life would continue, but I wanted to make sure that even in the small things I choose to pursue the paths of justice and love

My life is crazy, and it would have been easy to think that seeking justice is one of those things I’d get around to one of these days. But seeing the connections in my everyday life to worldwide justice issues changed me. I realized that I had no choice but to start seeking justice for others since I was already so intimately connected with the injustices they experience. It just took figuring out the small everyday ways that I could integrate justice into my life to start that journey.

Lead Like...the Amish?

A month or so ago, Suzanne Woods Fisher sent me a copy of her new book, Amish Peace, with a note that said, “The chapter called ‘For the Good of the Community’ might have some leadership applications for GFL.”

Here’s an excerpt from Suzanne Woods Fisher’s Amish Peace:

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Cooperation is a cornerstone for the Amish way of life. It is a value that is ingrained at home, reinforced in school, and illustrated in the community. As cooperation is encouraged, competition is equally discouraged. Even on the playground.

Matthew is a thirteen-year-old Amish boy who loves softball. Maybe a little too much, worries his teacher. “Just the other day,” said Lydia, Matthew’s grandmother, “Matthew told us that he was playing softball during recess and yelled to his team to get some hits. He was frustrated because his team was losing. The teacher chided him. Said he shouldn’t be so concerned about winning.”

The problem with winning is … it requires someone to lose.

Comparison, like competition, are discouraged by the Amish. For example, an Amish teacher would never grade on a curve. During so would mean that one’s child good grade depends on another child’s poor grade. The children encourage one another’s good performance so that the whole class or school may do well. Differences in learning are acknowledged and respected by the teacher and the children. “Hard learners probably have an easier time of it here than if they were in the public education,” said Susie, mother of six. “They’re still ‘in the conversation.’” She means that an individual is valued, even if he learns at a slower pace and can’t keep up with his peers. To the Amish point of view, there is a place and a purpose for each person, like pieces of a pie. Each person is part of the whole.

The very nature of competition seeks to extol an individual by crowding out rivals, causing them to fail. To lose. In the upside down world of the Amish, they seek to build community by helping all individuals succeed. Everyone wins.

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I’ve continued mulling what it means for me as a ministry leader to embody a true spirit of cooperation. Honestly, I’m not hugely competitive, but I do spend too much energy comparing my life, my efforts, and my ministry with others’—which is awfully close to unhealthy competition.

So, I’d just like to know from you how the whole competition vs. cooperation thing plays out in your ministry. How might a little bit of Amish attitude help you as a leader? How might it just not work—because maybe being driven by competition isn’t so bad…?

Easily Distracted

My eight-year-old daughter and I share a fault: we are both easily distracted. While on her way to washing her hands, it’s not unusual for her to get interested in something she passes along the way to the bathroom. She pauses, engages, and forgets to wash her hands. Her curiosity and wonder often account for her distracted-ness.

The reason behind my ability to be distracted is far less honorable. I’ll attribute it to a plain ol’ lack of self-discipline. Supposed to be working? Well, I’ll just check my email real quick. Trying to read while the T.V. or radio is on? Can’t do it. Tidying up the house? My husband calls my approach the “Zen method” of housecleaning, meaning that there is no easily discernible pattern to it. I pick up something in one room and take it to another room to put it away. While in that room I find something else that needs to be tidied or cleaned. Then I stroll to another room to get some cleaning supplies, and there I’m distracted from my task by something that needs to be picked up in that room. I don’t attack one room at a time. Rather, after a while, the whole house is straightened. My approach is shaped by the distractions I find hard to resist.

I walked a labyrinth for the first time a few years ago at a conference for Christian leaders. That particular labyrinth included stations with tactile activities to foster reflection. On the table of one station I found a map with a compass on it. Also on the map were some small magnets. I was to move the magnets around the compass and watch how they pulled the needle from “true north” to “false north.” The question for meditation was, “What distractions in your life are pulling you away from God, the true north?” It was a transformative question for me. My answers were not tasks but attitudes.

When Jesus comes to the home of Mary and Martha, Mary sits at his feet while Martha busily cleans, prepares food, and sets the table. Harried, she begs Jesus to tell her sister to help, now. Jesus tells her, “Martha, you are distracted by many things. There is need of only one thing.”

To be sure, certain tasks or pursuits in our lives may distract us from sitting at the feet of God. But what are the more pervasive distractions? Vanity? Greed? Perfectionism? Guilt? Worry? These things can distract any follower of Christ away from the true north by consuming our thoughts, time, or energy.

Likewise, churches can be distracted by many things. We may put our time or energy into things that Christ does not consider to be crucial for a relationship with him. Fear of one another or lack of trust in one another may also be things that distract a congregation from following Christ.

It takes faithful and patient discernment among brothers and sisters to identify what may distract us, personally or corporately, from sitting at the feet of Christ and basking in his presence. When we come to realize, however, that we can discard these things, then like Mary, we will have chosen the better portion which can never be taken away from us.

Unconditional Love

As Christians we’re commanded to love our neighbors, our enemies, and—as leaders—the people we’re called to lead and minister to. But what does this look like when we’re not exactly loved in return?

By definition, of course, godly, unconditional love doesn’t require love in return. I know that. God loved me first—long before I loved Him, when I was definitely living in my sins. And even after I responded to that love and accepted his gift of salvation, I haven’t always loved him well—you know, by obeying Him. But he has never quit loving me.

Parents learn this early. Even before a baby is born, they love her. And the moment they see her, they are head over heels in love. It’s a good thing. Because that baby demands everything and gives no love in return for the longest time. Fortunately they grow up and learn to love. Unfortunately, when they become teens, sometimes they break our hearts with words like, “Leave me alone! I hate you!”

Our son has been God’s gift to me to help me begin to comprehend what it means to love someone unconditionally. He came to our family just before he turned 10, from a very difficult early childhood.

His birth mother couldn’t care for him, and he was hurt and confused. He couldn’t call me Mom and he couldn’t love me—that would be betraying his “real” mother.

As the years passed, I grew to love him deeply. But as he grew, he had lots of pain to work through. He made lots of negative choices. He was trying to figure out who he was, and loving me was not a priority for him. And sometimes that was very painful.

I would ask God, “Would it be so hard for him to be able to say ‘I love you’ to me—just once?” And the Lord responded so clearly: “Unconditional love doesn’t require love in return.”

So I kept loving him. No matter what—and there were many things to challenge that love.

I will never forget the day he finally said, “I love you.” Those words came from a painful situation of his own. I was sad for his pain, but so grateful for his words that day, and I am grateful that now they come easily off his lips and are proved in his actions day after day.

And I thank God that He used Josh to teach me about the real meaning of unconditional love.
Who in your life or in your ministry needs your unconditional love now? When have you experienced a sort of love “breakthrough” in your ministry?

What Would Mary Blog?

When I started my consulting business, I did the obvious thing: I put up a website describing my services. Pretty standard fare. I recall a colleague calling a website an “authenticator” for a small business: you don’t have one, you don’t look legit.

Five years later I’m noticing that keeping a blog is becoming a kind of authenticator – implying that a person’s thoughtful, that she has something to say. A little tagline closing a short bio that directs people to more.

I was a late adaptor to the blogging world; I didn’t get it at first. It all seemed so forced and self-important—like a reality TV show in online journal format. But eventually I began wading into the blogosphere—first creating a private blog for family when we moved cross-country; then a public blog on parenting preschoolers when this venture began occupying most of my life and brain space. I started reading others’ blogs more regularly and was inspired, enlightened, challenged, encouraged.

Blogging seems particularly well-suited to a person with leadership gifts. A leader is by definition someone who influences others, and blogging is an ideal vehicle to communicate ideas and extend influence. So it makes sense that many who are natural leaders also blog – their doing so can benefit countless others.

The challenge, though, is in the tool itself--a method of organizing thoughts for others’ consideration.

To blog is to write for an audience and thus to consider how many are in the audience; how regularly each returns; whether they comment. One blogs, after all, to be read.

Enter the potential blogging trap, for the marketing mindset that accompanies blogging can easily corrupt the whole enterprise. When I started my blog I was faced with issues like how searchable I wanted it to be; whether to tag my posts; joining blogging communities to gain exposure. A friend forwarded me an email from BlogCoach on how to grow my blog . But did I want to grow my blog or, for that matter, use a blog coach?

Suddenly it felt like a popularity contest. Insecurity lurked, posing worrying questions like: is my content good? Original? Will people read it? How many hits will feel like enough? Should I spend energy trying to get more readers? Getting swept away in the promotion aspects of blogging is painfully easy, especially because the data inherent in blogging is virtually inescapable.

The platform can be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because a leader may optimally steward her gifts and infinitely extend her reach; thus her words and ideas may minister to others in an unprecedented manner. A curse because this potential offers ceaseless temptation to seek self-promotion… And to compare herself unduly to others’ blogs in content and numbers, thereby falling into an abyss of self-focus or insecurity.

All this has gotten me thinking about women leaders of earlier eras. Would they blog if they were alive today? Would Elizabeth Prentiss or Amy Carmichael or Mother Theresa? I’m not sure. Though these women did write for an audience, they weren’t megaphone-style leaders, airing their thoughts on a soapbox. Their prominence came through steadfastly doing the work God gave them. And as they did this, God used them to reach people as he saw fit. He made these women influential—expanded their audiences—because their focus was exclusively on him.

And what about Mary, I wonder—would she have blogged? Thinking about Mary—the quiet but profoundly influential leader she was—puts things in perspective for me. If she blogged, she’d do so humbly—never to validate herself or to prove she had things to say, things worth reading. She’d recoil from the notion of a blog as an “authenticator”—as would her Son who called the least the greatest (Lk 9:48).

As we blog, then, as women whom God has gifted for leadership, we must keep in mind that we do so simply for the glory of God. For me that means rehearsing the reality that it’s not about me—my originality or stats—it’s about God. It’s about prayerfully writing what He’s given me to write to the best of my ability as long as He calls me to do so. Who is impacted by my word—whether it’s two people or two hundred—is simply not my concern.

Finding God in the Chatter

Last Friday evening, a casual outdoor party in my neighborhood culminated with a half-dozen girls sprawled across my living room. As they compared splits and talked about the upcoming school year, I held skinny feet in the air as each attempted the perfect handstand. I remarked to the gaggle that I thought I could still break out a split if not for the dress I was wearing. A lanky blond with hair as long and straight as her nine-year-old legs leaned into me, whispering conspiratorially: “Oh go ahead, it’s just us girls.”

Just us girls. The living room could hardly contain the beauty, joy, and potential of those women in the making. I marveled at being invited to witness such life.

I love being part of a generation that esteems women like never before and passes that on to these girls. Women have reached new heights of success in every arena. The world is a better place because of our achievement and innovation. Yet often our complex nature and this broken world crash together like the girls falling out of their handstands. We are all head bumps and soul bruises.

I wonder what will become of those free-spirited females as their lives expand beyond the cul-de-sac and elementary school, when the world’s messages threaten their joy. My night with the girls gave me reason to pause and think about what voices they’ll hear as they become women:

• Work a job that fulfills, raise kids that behave, and save time to perfect your tennis stroke and keep your hair highlights bright.
• Talk intelligently about politics, literature, social causes--and the cover headlines of US magazine.
• Embrace your maturity with grace while slathering on anti-aging cream and spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars achieving the natural look.
• Be a great lover to your husband and devoted to your family, but stay “hot” and maintain your own bank account, just in case.
• And if you are under 21? Well, then, you should know how to create a nonprofit, letter in three sports, and toss around sex as casually as the next fashion.
• Under 18? Know the square root of 121, the calories in the yogurt you ate for breakfast, and remember “self first” so that you don’t get hurt by anyone else.
• And no matter your age, maintain hundreds of casual relationships and deny the truth that you feel lonelier and less known then ever before.

On one level, we don’t believe the voices. We recognize that they are superficial, unrealistic. But our exposure to our ambivalent culture affects us deeply, creating in us confusion about how we are to live.

In the noise of this crowd, we owe it to our mothers, our daughters, sisters and friends to seek the voice of truth—the voice of God. Where is God’s voice and what—if anything—does he have to say to women?

As Christian leaders, we want to believe that God speaks into this mess, but sometimes it’s hard for even us to pick out the real gems of truth in the costume jewelry of our society.

So how do we do it? How do we point women toward the voice of God in today’s culture? When a woman, steeped in these cultural messages, walks into your church or social event for the first time, what do you think she’s looking for—and how do we provide it?

What We're Asked to Change

During a recent breakfast meeting, an apparently well-meaning supporter of my husband’s campaign for State Representative told him that he really should’ve changed his name “like the Jews used to do” if he’s serious about politics. It’s a racist world, the man said, and people just won’t want to vote for a Rafael Rivadeneira. Too Latin.

My husband laughed at the offense and ridiculousness (“Maybe he doesn’t realize a guy named Barack Obama sits in the Oval Office,” Raf said) as he told me this, but the blood drained from my face. My hands burned as I clutched them together.

In the years of being married to a Latino—who certainly has run into racist jabs and slurs—I don’t think I’d ever been so angry at something someone said, at least regarding race. Because this tapped into the deepest roots of hatred, racism and ignorance. Into the part that said if he wanted to succeed, he had to make others more comfortable with who he was—by becoming someone else. That to succeed on a particular path, he had to change something central to who he was—and more importantly, who God made him to be. And that gets me. Big time.

My anger abated as my husband ran through names that might work better for him (perhaps something punchy and Irish: Swifty McSweeney? Or classic American politician, maybe: Adam Kennedy Roosevelt?). However, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’ve held on to some bitterness over this man’s statement.

Particularly since it echoed something I’ve heard so often in my life—starting when I was a girl, continuing through my current life as a wife, mom, and leader. No matter how much others might support our callings to any of our roles, it seems that so often women are being asked to give up, to change, to alter something integral to who we are to make others more comfortable with us in our roles.

Sometimes these things are smallish. This blog has covered stories of women being told they’re too pretty to preach. Of women needing to look less stylish. We’ve heard of women being told to use words like “think” instead of “feel” because men “think” and therefore is more respected than feeling. We’re told to be less aggressive. To be more complimentary. To get right to the point to help men understand us.

Sometimes these things are huge. That we need to change a calling entirely. Or minimize it or shift its audience. Because we must have misunderstood God and what he intended from us. That we need to put off marriage or motherhood or put off pursuing a calling. Because God apparently can’t work with both, we’re told (in not so many words).

Of course, sometimes these things aren’t so off base. Change can be good. Rude people should become more polite. Cruel, more kind. Ignorant people could stand to learn a few things. Fearful ones should grab some courage. All of us could stand to add some more Fruits of the Spirit and love in our lives and leadership, I think. All of us can use more steadfast focus on God, and less on ourselves.

But I think that leading with more Spirit, more love, more attention on God is often the thing that leads people to discomfort with our leadership, wanting them to have us change.

But while this may be a racist world and my husband may indeed lose votes because he is Hispanic, sinking into cultural sins and changing his name doesn’t help make a difference in Kingdom of God—which is what he believes he’s being called to do in his campaign.

And while being a woman in church or ministry leadership may rub many the wrong way, conforming to what makes the world more comfortable doesn’t do much for God. As followers of God, we’re to be agents of change (transformers!), not to be changed by the world. And yet, that’s what so many want us to do.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong here, but I just wanted to hear your thoughts on this. What have you had to change in your leadership life? What’s been worth it? What have you missed out on because of it? How does changing for God differ from changing for the world?