I re-read this today. “Each step by any (and every) one who ships moves us.” Read it! Then pick something you haven’t released or shipped yet and get it out the door today.

What letter hasn’t been written? What gift hasn’t been sent? What encouragement hasn’t been given?

The flood is coming to Bangkok. So are the MinistryNet conferees! The MinistryNet 2011 conference is ON and it is in Bangkok!

Our theme verse is becoming Isaiah 43:2:

When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.

Kay and I are in Bangkok as the advance team. Well, truthfully we are in Bangkok to be Grammy and Grandad to two amazing grandgirls. With the flooding crisis, we have become the eyes and ears to help with on-site evaluations about continuing the conference here.

We traveled the city streets in the conference area of town which have no water at this time. We talked several times with our Thai leadership and crisis management team. We all agreed the conference should continue. Air tickets are purchased. Travel visas are approved. Hotel arrangements are made.

In contrast, our grandgirls and their mom Michelle are leaving town!

Yes, we are bringing people into town and Daniel is sending his family out of town. How did we arrive at differing decisions?

It’s because the decision-making process needs to fit the target audience. Our conference is in a 5-star hotel that is committed to providing food and water. They have large national procurement chains that continue to work during this crisis time. They have a stand-by generator with days of fuel reserves. The hotel is located in a higher section of town. The roads from the airport to the hotel are elevated and will not flood. Our conferees are adults who can take care of themselves.

This is different from the parents of 4 and 6 year olds who were scheduled to depart for furlough in 6 weeks. They purchase their food in the local stores, where food and water have disappeared from shelves due to stockpiling. Their daughter’s school, along with all Bangkok schools, are closed for 2-3 weeks. Some expect the flood waters could stay around for the month. Would you want to live on the second floor of your house and not go outside for a month?

Daniel, Michelle and their leadership decided to send them on their furlough early. Daniel will stay behind to care for their house during the flood and to help with flood relief.

Continuing our MinistryNet conference is already helping with flood relief. We were asked by the Thai leadership if conferees could bring in 4-person inflatable boats. Local Campus Crusade staff will fill the boats with water and food and navigate flooded streets helping others. In 90 minutes, we found 7 volunteers who each purchased a boat, two paddles and a foot pump. We used the internet to pull it together very quickly. After a cellphone call from the Thailand Campus Crusade crisis management team, we used Skype and email to finalize the plan. We emailed a number of conferees. We used a Google Doc to manage the signup process. Each volunteer used Amazon.com to order the items. There was not a single face-to-face meeting to plan and execute the project. It was a totally internet-based project.

In 90 minutes, across 9,500 miles, the project was initiated, planned, and executed. Next week, 7 boats will arrive to help with life-saving relief.

It’s kind of cool — a conference focusing on using the internet for ministry is able to use the internet to prepare for flood relief.

As Hannibal Smith would say, “I love it when a plan comes together!”

God just doesn’t fit into any box. We often appear to try to box God in by predetermining how he should work out a solution to my current problem.

I’m reading through Acts. It’s amazing how often God spoke directly with Paul, to warn him, to guide him, to encourage him.

So, why then did God use the son of Paul’s sister to overhear an ambush plot? Why did Paul believe him? (Acts 23:16-18)

It would have been easy for Paul to say, “Thanks, nephew. But I have this communication channel with God, you see. He speaks directly to me. In fact, he spoke to me just last night and said, “Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome.” He didn’t say anything about this ambush plot, so we’ll just let things go. I’m sure God can deal with it.”

No. Paul understood that God uses all sorts of ways to communicate with us. Paul understood a very important principle. Don’t put God in a box. Don’t predetermine how God will speak or how God will act.

Let God be God.

How do you sometimes box God in?

I recently returned from a 10 day trip to Asia. I spent nights in 3 countries.

And I checked no baggage.

I lived out of a rollerboard carry-on bag and my computer backpack.

How did I do this?

It has taken me some time to learn and it takes my wife’s excellent packing abilities. And it’s not just a guy thing. Kay has developed the ability to live for a week out of a carry-on bag. Here’s how we do it.

• Wear the shoes you will use throughout the trip. Extra shoes take up space.
• Pack efficiently. Roll your clothes. This prevents wrinkles, but also takes less space.
• Use the laundry service in your hotel. There is a cost, but it’s less than having no changes in clothing because your checked bag is missing.
• Choose clothes that can be mixed and matched. Every shirt should go with every pair of trousers.
• This is a personal choice, but I prefer wool-blend trousers, even in the tropics. I’m in meeting rooms with air conditioning most of the time. Wool trousers travel well with minimal wrinkles. They wear well and can be worn more times than cotton trousers. (Pinky Tailor in Thailand makes great trousers!)
• Be brutal about leaving things at home. You need much less than you think you do. Set out everything you think you need. Then remove everything you can.

Why is this important?

• Because I was moving every few days to another country, a missing bag would probably never have caught up with me. It was important to have everything with me as I moved from place to place.
• Because flights are sometimes delayed or rerouted. It’s important to have everything with me.
• Because I can more easily rebook flights if necessary. On the return trip, we arrived at the U.S. entry airport more than an hour earlier than expected. I was able to change to flights that allowed me to arrive home an hour earlier. After 33 hours of travel, arriving at 10:30 pm rather than 11:30 pm becomes really important! It was important to have everything with me when rebooking or changing flights.

Here are some links that I’ve found helpful

• Never have to check your luggage again
• Pack as efficiently as a flight attendant
• 10 days in a carry-on
• Fit more clothes with fewer wrinkles

So, what packing tips do you have? Use the comments to share with others.

We were in bad shape. Following the wrong course. Carrying out the wrong activities.

But God showed his love for us (Romans 5:8)
But God made us alive (Ephesians 2:4,5)

I may be failing. Ready to give up. Frustrated. Discouraged.

But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:26)

They mistreated Jesus. They beat him. They even killed him.

But God raised him on the third day. (Acts 10:39, 40)

His brothers were jealous of Joseph. They dumped him in a pit. They sold him to foreigners.

But God was with him. (Acts 7:9)

But God changes the course of history. But God changes someone’s eternity. But God changes me.

Have you had a but God moment lately? Do you need one?

Over 19,000 years of helping those far from God connect to him and find a life of meaning and purpose and forgiveness and restoration.

Kay and I were in a reception to honor those serving with Campus Crusade for Christ for extended years. It was a Hebrews 11 moment. I felt privileged to be in the room with modern giants of the faith.

19,000 years of combined experience pioneering new ways to reach people, pioneering new places to reach people. Some of these pioneers walked onto radical campuses in the 1960s to engage free speech platforms to share Christ. Some worked behind the Iron Curtain in the 70s and 80s, then rushing people and strategies into spiritually impoverished countries when the curtain fell. Some moved into eastern Asia in the 90s speaking in code to avoid detection which could result in expulsion from the country. Some lived in places with no electricity or no running water because they wanted to incarnate Jesus. These pioneers found creative ways to live and minister in dangerous, closed, and hard places.

All for the love of Christ. All for the call of being God’s ambassadors. All for the privilege of helping others know Jesus and experience a purposeful life.

This was a summer to re-evaluate, to renew, to reconnect with God’s call on our lives. We choose to not live out of our past reputation. Rather, we choose to be alive to God’s ongoing call on our lives. We’re looking forward, not backward.

Francis Chan challenged us with Jesus’ warning to the church at Sardis. Jesus warned to not live on past reputation. (Click here then click on the highlighted video.)

Kay and I celebrated 35 years in full-time ministry. I took a theology course to stay sharp. Kay spent time with new staff women doing creative things. We had time outdoors enjoying God’s creation. We had amazing times of worship with 5,000 colleagues.

We are ready to go forward.

What part of your past good reputation are you resting on that might be limiting your ability to look forward?

I’m sitting outside the Apple store. Stunned. Replaying the conversation in my head.

“You can do without your computer for 5-7 business days, right?”

Gulp! “Um, I thought that if I called ahead, had an appointment, explained the exact problem in detail over the phone, made sure you had the parts, then you could repair it while I waited.”

“Well, we don’t have onsite repair personnel during the day. Only in the evenings. Whenever we need to put a computer on the bench, we allow 5-7 business days.”

“Oh, wow! The ONE thing I forgot to make sure about!”, I thought.

The Apple store Genius at the Genius Bar really had done an excellent job. She had been very courteous. She knew her stuff. She had quickly disassembled my Mac notebook and diagnosed the problem. I thought that the external case was bent preventing the DVD drive from ejecting a DVD. She had realized that the internal optical drive was bent also. AND SHE APPEARED TO BE ABOUT 20 YEARS OLD! How do they train this stuff into their people, I wondered. (But that is the topic of a future post, maybe.)

So, I’m leaving my primary leadership tool with the Geniuses. I lead a large, distributed part of the organization. Almost everything I do is through my computer: email, Skype, documents, calendar, blogging, engaging in discussion forums. I’m what is called a knowledge worker, and my tools are computer-based.

Fortunately, two recent actions make it possible for me to keep leading without much interruption.

My colleague Russ Martin influenced me to move everything I do into “the cloud.” I store all documents online. Dropbox. Google documents. Evernote.

My colleague Ken gifted me an iPad. We need to explore tablets. As part of my forward-looking leadership, I’ve wondered if I could use only a tablet for my work. Io think the Lord is giving me an opportunity to try it out! This blog post is my first action in the experiment!

I also have a very powerful smartphone (Android-based Google Nexus) and use it to read and reply to email, Google docs, Evernote…

With the combination of cloud-based documents, a powerful tablet iPad, and a powerful smartphone, I’ll test out life without a notebook computer.

I think I’m glad it’s the Easter holidays! Although they don’t count as business days, it is a change of focus for a while.

(Note: Perhaps the young Genius saw that my countenance had fallen, and because we have a business account, she declared that my notebook was “business critical” so I’m expedited to 1-2 day service.)

What tools do you use that are cloud-based?

Karin’s grandaddy passed away last week. She is a colleague. Karin wrote a powerful tribute to her grandaddy.

I would have liked Karin’s grandaddy. Anyone who values drinking a Coke with peanuts inside is my kind of a grandaddy! It’s a Seabourn family treat also. For the Seabourns, little red spanish peanuts are the kind for Cokes!

I’m a granddad to 4 wonderful grandchildren. I hope to be a grandad to them like Karin’s grandaddy was to her.

In Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Habit 2 is begin with the end in mind.

To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means know where you are going so that you can better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.

Imagine your eulogy at your funeral. What would your friends say? What would you like them to say? Your family? Your co-workers?

Question: What do you want said at your funeral? What are you doing today to become that person?

Have you noticed how things tend towards increasing complexity? As time goes by, layers are added. Things are piled on.

I like the approach promoted by Ward Cunningham, the inventer of the wiki. He asks, “Simplicity is the shortest path to a solution. You are always taught to do as much as you can. I say, forget all that and ask yourself, ‘What’s the simplest thing that could possibly work?’”

Have you noticed that things that begin as a neighborly conversation between co-workers can escalate into a policy-based, governance-moderated process? In an effort to codify into a repeatable process, complexity can be added to both the development process and to the final solution.

Let me apply this in the area in which I lead: technology development.

In The Power of Less, Leo Babauta suggests that simplicity is a two step process. To paraphrase Babauta and apply it to technology systems development, the two step process is: identify the essential elements of what your solution should do, and then eliminate the rest. In the era of extreme programming and rapid application development, don’t build into this version what is not needed until next version. (Kind of the technology implementation of Jesus’ teaching “do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34)

Why do we tend towards increasing complexity?

I think it is driven by a scarcity mindset rather than abundance mindset. Complexity is an effort to become efficient because time and money is scarce. But if we can find ways to keep things as simple as possible, we open opportunities for others to engage with us. We can leverage our network.

Jesus contrasted complex prayer and simple prayer (Matthew 6:7-13).

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words [added complexity]. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
“This, then, is how you should pray:

“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’

Simple prayer. Only the essential elements. What is the simplest prayer that can convey my heart?

Like simplicity in prayer, simplicity in technology is a powerful path towards effective solutions.

In what ways have you seen simplicity move the mission forward?

By 2014, Information Technology shops will begin to split into two units — operational and strategic — under separate leadership.

So claims an interesting video presentation by the Pink Elephant group, a leader in IT management. The entire video is interesting. This claim is made at the 7:56 point in the video.

We discussed this video at the recent Global Technology Leaders meeting in Thailand. It was an interesting discussion.

What is really interesting is that this shift has been happening in my own organization for several years. What the Pink video calls “strategic IT” is what we call Virtually-Led Movements technologies. These are the externally-facing technologies that enable accomplishing the mission in more direct ways. What the Pink video calls “operational IT” is still very important. I appreciate the internally-facing operational technologies every time that donations to my ministry are processed in a safe and timely manner, every time my salary and reimbursements are paid, every time the network allows me to print a document.

VLM technologies are critical to accomplishing the mission of Campus Crusade for Christ. Just my own small team has several of these technologies that we are implementing:

• Global ConneXion
• Global Identity
• mLearning

What do you think about their claim that the strategic and operational areas prosper best when under separate leadership?