A manager or a leader

Management is about coping with complexity--it is responsive. Leadership is about coping with change--it too is responsive, but mostly it is proactive.*

As a look back on my three years at Princeton, I wonder whether seminary is more apt in creating managers or leaders? And as I begin to look out into the vast job openings within the PC(USA), I see that it is in need of leaders, but will be mostly receiving managers.

"managers manage complexity by planning and budgeting--setting targets or goals for the future. Such planning seeks to produce results that promote order in organizational structures and systems. By contrast, leaders, deal with change, creating it, responding to it, or leading it. Leading organizational change begins with setting a direction and a strategy--developing a vision for thfuture along with accomplishing that vision."*

I have said it before, it seems as though the focus of our denomination is upon "stopping the bleeding;" hospice care for congregations; maintaining status quo (or in other words managing order), rather than creating vision and change for the future. We are responding to what is around us, rather than proactively creating it.

McManus, in An Unstoppable Force makes an interesting point that the church used to be the creator of culture, but has now either remained rooted in the 1950s (neo-1600s), or tries to catch up to culture. I think about the countless number of Young Life Skits we would create which would mimic MTV shows (i.e. Pimp My Bike). So rather than the church producing a new culture through adaptive, creative change that calls the world forward and towards Jesus Christ, the church (mainline, but not limited to ml) has become a static institution, in need of hospice care, and managers to keep things "decently and in order."

It is sad if we allow those four words of scripture to freeze the denomination into a ritualistic institution, when one member of the Trinity is a dynamic agent and power of change.

*Robert Banks. Reviewing Leadership.

You know you are an adult when...

I was thinking graduating from college would have been that point, Or perhaps voting in an election, Or when we found out Lindsay is pregnant.

But, recently I have realized I am an adult because I complain about taxes alot.
Mainly in two areas:
New Jersey's 40% tobacco tax is ridiculous, and worth every minute of my drive to Pennsylvania for good cigars at Mr. Stoogy's.

And now added to my list is iTunes, they charge tax on their song selections, even on a gift card.
So, now I am curious to know if someone buys a card at Target as a gift, are they taxed as well?
If so-then that would be a double taxation, and seems very wrong to me.
Either way, iTunes could at least charge 99 cents (tax included).

Oh well,
Still have 28.94 left on my card, so I must return to pay the man at iTunes.

PS- shouldn't Christian music be taxfree due to the separation of the state and religion?

imago marathon

Thank you to Evan Andersen for these photos

Philly Recap

It seems that I have recovered, somewhat from Sunday's adventure: the Philly Marathon--it still hurts to walk.

After 16 weeks of training for my second marathon, my brother and I hit the start line in downtown Philadelphia. The first 6 miles was through Old Town, and a very pleasant run; minus the guy who was running near us in a red dress and a kate spade bag, which by the way was a real Kate Spade bag as he proudly told anyone who asked (and people asked).

Then we crossed over the bridge into UPenn and West Philadelphia area. For the next 6 miles the only spectators we saw were the Sig Ep brothers who were more interested in their 10am beer pong and hooting at the ladies then really providing much support. After that it was a long time of rolling hills and wondering what in the world am I doing here.

At the half-way point a third of the runners ducked off the course because they had completed their goal: the Philly Half Marathon. For us, however, began the second half of the race which was north 6.5 miles, south 6.6 miles along the same road. So, 3 minutes into my second half, in the southbound lanes came the winner of the race nearly 2 hours faster than I.

Around mile 23 I came across a woman who had stopped running because of leg cramps. As we went by her, a "helpful" spectator was saying "it is not worth it, it's just running, don't worry about it." The racer looked at this woman and she trailed off saying, "what are you talking about, it is a cramp, and i have already gone..." The rest of us runners understood what she was meaning, no matter what it took that final 5k would be completed.

For me it was the final 2 miles that were brutal. Running by the boathouses of Philadelphia, I just kept my head down and put one foot in front of the other. Finally, the Rocky Stairs appeared, and I was able to "sprint" (felt like an all out sprint at least) to the finish for a 3:55.59.
Which was to the exact second of my 9min/mile goal.
For my brother, he hit the wall around mile 22, and had his legs cramp up as well, but he was able to regather himself and finish strong with a 4:10.

In the end, I was a sore, tired, vomiting, but elated. Nothing that I hot bath, a long nap, and a Friendly's milkshake could not repair.

Oh, by the way, the man in the red dress finished a few minutes ahead of me.

Panther Apologetics

So I have been searching for months to find an internet feed of Panther football so that I may enjoy the mediocre Panthers.

Then one day while driving back from Philly, I discovered 1110AM, which is WBT out of Charlotte, NC. The strange thing is, I get this AM station only at night. The stranger thing is 920AM, which is a mile and half down the road from me, goes out once the sun goes down.

So in other words, I am able to pick up a radio station 600miles away, while a station located a mile down the road is inaudible, in order to listen to my local announcers call the Carolina Panthers MNF game (Who by the way, are lightyears ahead of Tony and Joe).

Couple this with the fact that ESPN has been out for 5 days in CRW, and "magically" reappears hours before the Panther's kickoff, and I think you cannot find a stronger proof of God's provision and providence...Or perhaps my sacrilege.

Strangers to Death

One of Miami (FL)'s top defensive players was murdered Tuesday night, and the question throughout sports radio these past couple of days is whether or not Miami should have 1) had the team practice on Wednesday and 2) agreed to play this weekend against Maryland (#23).

The major points made by Dan Patrick and Keith Obermen along with their emailers today was that this would be a great way for the players to make tribute to their murdered teammate, and to grieve his loss.

However, I am struggling to see that connection. In a Church History course this semester my professor claimed that Americans believe the appropriate length of grief, on average, is 2 1/2 weeks (you can email the prof for citations). In other words, we are afraid of death, we do not know how to handle death, and therefore we avoid talking about death and grief.

I can see that avoidance through this concept of paying tribute to the dead teammate. To put it bluntly, the teammate is dead, he will receive no benefit from the game being played (so the argument that he would have wanted them to play is moot, because it is not about him but rather it must become about his teammates.)

In CPE this summer, I realized how much I, myself, avoid emotion, especially strange and uncomfortable emotions. And rather than trying to embrace and be stretched by that raw emotion, I tend to want to diffuse the situation through avoidance and ill-timed humor. Dan Patrick today spoke about his brothers and sisters waiting around for someone to crack a joke at his father's funeral, because no one knew how to they should act. And Keith Obermen spoke about appreciating the fact that he had to go on-air 3 hours after 9-11, basically for the next 40 days, which helped him avoid having to address those emotions. He said, "I do not know what I would have done."

In other words...he, nor I, failed to discover how to grieve because we'd rather avoid that learning experience. Our culture teaches us to avoid grief, and that allows us to avoid the fact that we, ourselves, are constantly near death. Instead, culture tells us that we should continue playing a game "to honor the dead," or more appropriately "to help us from having to address those strange and awkward emotions of grief."

When one looks at the Jewish community, I forget which branch, and sees their tradition of grieving of a loved one for an entire year, we often think how strange and impractical. But isn't it strange only because our culture now believes the appropriate length of grief is 17 days, afterwhich we should then be prepared to get back into the fast pace life we are accostumed to by avoiding, escaping and bottling up these emotional opportunities for growth, self-examination and ultimately Revelation.

Because otherwise, we are thrown back into a culture where the day Corey Liddle died in a plane crash, Peter Gamens was asked, "So how will this impact the Yankees rotation?"

All in one

Adding up my milage for the year I have already surpassed my goal and reached 1163.7 miles
Had I done it continuously, I would have reached...

Anita, Iowa


Town motto: A Whale of a Town
Activities to do in Anita:

Saturday Night Bingo with a jackpot of $500

Monday Night Auction of a "variety of household goods and tools."

23nd Annual Whaletown Triatholn (their typo, not mine)

Sunset

Retreat

I arrived excited for a fun three day get-away. The setting was idyllic and I felt that this was a much needed retreat from school.
Then, I met the man who would be instructing me. And from the start, I was broken.
I was told what I had been doing for years was wrong. That my most basic premises and ideas were incorrect. That the advice parents, friends and others had given me only contributed to this deficiency. He said that if I continued down this path, my body would ache, I would constantly be angry and frustrated, and that things would not be fun.
For 45 minutes, I was broken down to my most basic and vulnerable state. Unattainable rules, in the forms of parables and analogies, kept being bombarded at me, but it was too confusing and too much for me.
And so I left that first encounter having not experienced the idyllic excitement I had expected when I signed up for this trip. I went back to my accomodations reflecting on the instructor's words. I reconsidered everything I had thought I knew. And I realized, he was right, this old form was not getting me to where I wanted to be.

So the next morning I arrived, tentative and broken, but willing. It was during our second discussion, that glimmers of hope arrived. Things were being rebuilt and occasionally I understood what was being asked of me. It was those moments that made me experience a hope for a transformative future. I saw the potential of his promises.
But as quickly as those glimmers appeared, they would disappear.

So after our second discussion, I was sent out on my own to practice what had been preached. Suddenly being thrown back into the real world, I realized how easy it was to fall back into my old tendencies. The old ways I would do things were luring me; to repeat the activities that had caused me to meet this guru in the first place.

However, when I would take a deep breath, relax and consider the sacred advice I had received, the old would disappear and a better form would appear.

Leading me to par, birdie, par, bogey the final four holes.

Strange how my golf school experience mimics the model of evangelism I learned with Young Life: sin talk, cross talk, and take it home message.