Alignment Isn’t Just for Your Car: Gaining Alignment In Organizations

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  Awesome Alignment: Image via Wikipedia

  Ducklings swim behind momma duck. Human babies like to wander off.

• North Korean communists follow their leaders like ducklings behind a momma duck. Americans like to wander off.
• Muslims bow, read, and wear burkhas in obeisance to their leaders, but Christians tend to wander off.

• Ducklings have no choice. Biology determines their behavior.
• North Koreans have no choice. Violence determines their behavior.
• Muslims pay a price for rebellion in Muslim countries. Strict discipline and even punishment shapes their behavior.

I’m thinking about how a group of people self-selects to line up behind a leader, a purpose, or a set of beliefs. I’ve said a few times in the past two weeks that if a community of Christians decides to pay a pastor a salary, have communion “X” number of times a year, or meet in a certain style of worship then who are we to criticize? The group has decided. They’ve lined up and followed momma duck.

Yet, how does the group decide?

Who sets the variables before the group and how does the group select?

On Saturday, our core of committed Journeyites experimented with just such questions.

We started by reading a hundred verses from the Bible and writing a phrase on a post-it note if something in a verse stood out. We sorted these phrases by “Mission, Message, or Method.” We spent a half hour praying after this exercise.

Then, we discovered how God has worked in The Journey’s history. We wrote positive events on blue post-it notes and negative events on pink. We pasted those notes in chronological order on a timeline. We teamed up with a prayer partner to pray after this exercise.

In our third task, we sorted out the values we had worked under for the past seven years. We brainstormed about seventy relational values. Words like “big events,” “pastor-led,” and “contemporary/non-traditional” formed. We voted for five relational values to carry us into the next phase of our growth: Prayerful, proclaim Christ, Spirit-led, love, and Mission.

We began to see structural (institutional) values, so again, we brainstormed, discussed, then voted for four structural values: Spiritual Leadership, Community, Accountability, and Fiduciary Responsibility.

Finally, everyone gave at least five ideas of things we need to do this year to fulfill God’s purpose. Each project or task needed support from the values and the Biblical foundation. Instead of voting right then, we send in our votes this week and get the results this Sunday. We know our first priority is Organization: Delegation and Finances. Sometime this week we’ll get a good feel for what God wants us to do.

This process, though artificial, creates alignment. Everyone got to share. Everyone discussed. We saw the full range of thoughts and agreed to focus on just a few. Ahhhhh….alignment at last!

God really, really wants UNITY in the body. When we act like human babies or normal Americans we don’t bring glory to the Body of Christ. Alignment is difficult, but churches that have it GROW and produce amazing fruit. I’m trusting that God’s alignment is happening in The Journey.

Crazy Coincidence or Answered Call to Creator?

Madeleine L’Engle said something like: too many coincidences after praying added up to design!

This past year we have prayed for God to heal people, to protect people, and to raise test scores and money. If you saw my journal you would see it full of cries for help. Someone might call it “prayer-whining.” To God alone, I can pour out my greatest fears and failures. Unfortunately for Rhonda, she’s next in line. I have seen answers to prayer that astounded and others that oozed into view.

C. S. Lewis in “The Screwtape Letters,” said,

“But of course the Enemy will not meantime be idle. Wherever there is prayer, there is danger of His own immediate action.”

Today, I rode my bike to our men’s Bible Study. On the way, I detoured a couple of miles to get some keys made for one of our leaders. I ordered, “two of each.” When I gave our leader the keys, three miles later, only “one of each” was in the bag.

On the way home I detoured back to Home Depot, got off my bike, and noticed a squishy back tire. I made it the three miles from the men’s group  without having to walk. Was someone praying for my safety at 9:30 a.m.? I immediately asked God to provide someone to take me home, like some guy with a pickup who was checking out. Immediately, and I mean, immediately, I looked up to see my good friend AND biking buddy, Matt, walking up to me. Unfortunately, his trunk was full of golf clubs.

God where are you? Now I have to go the “natural” route!

I called Rhonda. She said she would come, but not a second later, I saw another friend, Lindy. She saw the flat, and immediately, and I mean, immediately, said she could take me home in her JEEP!

Someone could immediately say, “Coincidence!” Granted, this is a possibility, but two friends within three minutes of praying for a ride home?

Two nights ago our Wednesday night group prayed for an impossible case involving guardianship, the courts, and very, very high-strung, gung-ho, C.P.S. workers. Yesterday, I got a call saying that the miracle happened. Everything is working out better than anyone had ever seen with the state picking up the tab IMMEDIATELY!

Jesus told us to ask. Why is that so hard? Need a job? Ask! Don’t stop there. Give God what you fear, and ask him for the $XXXX.XX dollars to live on.

Here’s what will happen:

• Insight into the problem (wisdom)
• New ideas on where to look or who to ask
• A long view to the future when it all works out. (hope)
• Energy to get your credentials, resume, and applications ready
• Energy to look or ask (resurrection power)
• Perseverance to keep going (Holy Spirit’s nudging)
• Someone who tells you where to look for a job
• Voila! Hired.
• Then, you will know that He is God! (Faith)

Coincidence? Your hard work? Luck? I’m living proof that the crowd of coincidences coinciding with concurrent constructions communicates confirmation for answered calls to God!

Of course, I have faith. Without faith? Joyless slogging alone through life’s endless problems. And I wish you all the luck!

The Weirdest Place to Read the Bible

When I was in college I lived in the dorms. 25 guys shared a bathroom. Our hallway was one of the main entrances to the dorm. All day and night people walked through our hallway. The dorm had over 600 residents, but another 200 used its classrooms daily.

Our University had 38,000 students. People, people, people. Days and nights had constant activity. Someone was always awake roaming the halls. Like normal college students, we stayed up late and went to class early.

Where could I go to find meaning in all the activity?

My roommate was always sleeping or studying. My room was noisy. The student lounge early in the morning was usually vacant, but a cleaning woman or meeting interrupted me so I couldn’t go there. I tried my closet. Emptying out a space on the tiny floor, I leaned against the wall, closed the door and began reading my Bible. That didn’t work either. I woke up two hours later!

The Block "M" in the middle of the University of Michigan Campus (from the umich.edu website)

I’d try the library somewhere in the stacks on the 8th floor of the grad library, with a stunning view of the campus and central diag. Soon, I’d find my mind wandering, my Bible or prayer list ignored, and my body wishing it was throwing a frisbee with the twenty other students playing on the diag.

My favorite place to get alone was only three blocks away. People rarely went there. It was wooded and quiet. The lawn was mowed. The bushes were trimmed. I could find peace, quiet and time with God. I could find shelter from rain and snow. Late at night or mid-day, it was quiet, people avoided it and I learned about God!

It was a cemetery! At the back of the cemetery was a building with a beautiful sculpture of the last supper. An eternal light shone from its recesses. In the cold, I’d bring a sleeping bag. At night I’d bring a flashlight. Nobody ever bothered me there.

However, I had to stay very quiet. Two or three times lovers would stroll by arm in arm. I didn’t want to scare them, but once, I made a rustling noise, and of course, the two ran off laughing, the boy, the hero, saving his damsel in distress.

Reading around the remains of the deceased made Colossians 2 a brilliant jolt of life to my spirit. In it Paul describes what happened at the cross, “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” In a way, I felt powerful over the dead spirits in that cemetery. I could feel the cross making a spectacle of the powers and authorities of Death. I understood the triumphant victory cry of God when His son finished well, perfectly, without a flaw, his mission.

I haven’t read my Bible in a cemetery in over thirty years. I’ve found my powers of concentration 10x better, even in Starbucks, because I’m finding triumph and power for living at its source: in God himself in those pages.

So, if you’re having trouble concentrating when reading the Bible, try a cemetery! It’s so crazy, it just might work!

Retreat to Advance

Retreat means to get away from the battles of life to a purer nearly stress-free lifestyle.

Jesus retreated about a third of his time! Some retreats were overnight. Another was for 40 days. He spent every Sabbath on retreat!

Retreats are not to do something, not to see something, and not expensive. Those things add stress.

Each year I try to go on a retreat with some friends. There is little stress. We eat a pick up breakfast and lunch so minimal prep and clean up. We have a nice supper and take turns cleaning up. We have a Bible study in the morning, and more study and sharing at night. Most of the guys have a Bible in their hands or a book to read during the day. Lots of talking takes place. Some go running or biking. Fishing has been great, too. We miss our families, but the fresh air, beauty of the lake and nature, including vicious thunderstorms in the middle of the night, soothes our nerves.

The purpose of retreat is perspective. We get a new way of looking at life and God. God talks in whispers. He shows new possibilities. God rearranges the patterns of perception. Our neural pathways get freed from stagnant transportation. Creativity expands. It’s as if we have rubber bands wrapped around our minds and spirits during normal life, so that retreating loosens the rubber bands.

When I lived at Cedar Campus, a Christian community in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, for six weeks one summer, I experienced a new community. The experience was so powerful it became a template for my future retreats: expository preaching, robust singing, deep secrets shared openly, communal labor, praying and personal Bible study for hours a day, physical exercise, great food, and God-seeking, serving, Christians all around.

Big retreats are not always possible. So, a simple retreat has these elements in it:

1. Sleep and nap as needed
2. Long periods of reading the Bible
3. Praying, writing in my journal, and reflection on the moment, life, family, career, etc.
4. When with other people study the Bible (don’t get caught in business talk or petty subjects as the main thrust of the retreat)
5. Excercise
6. Good, healthy, home cooked food
7. In nature

You’d be surprised how many camps, monasteries, and Christian schools allow for low-cost get aways! Some are free, meals included. Think about what the huge health benefits of a retreat for yourself and those around you. I can’t imagine not going on retreats, nor could Jesus!

Why Pray?

“True prayer challenges us to be ruthless in our sensitivity to the truth in honest interactions with others, as well as in our intimate interaction with God in silence and solitude. To forget our time alone with God is to court the disaster of undisciplined activism. But to ignore the holiness of our time with others is to set the stage for quietism.”

–Robert J. Wickes, Seeds of Sensitivity: Deepening Your Spiritual Life

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Morning Prayer

Lord of all Creation,

Make this day a day of beauty,

your handiwork noticed,

the weave felt,

eyes open wide to artist’s strokes.

Pour out Your Spirit of beauty,

unconfined to the spaces I resort

to know.

Find me willing to be surprised,

and one who reflects your beauty.

In all things may Christ have Preeminence today,

In the Holy One now and forever…

AMEN

Crying. I feel like…

In the morning when I rise…

 

give me Jesus

 

In the morning when I rise…

let me worship Jesus

 

In the morning when I cry…

give me Jesus