According to my Kindle, I am 32% through Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin. I think I like it now. I didn’t like it at first. The title grated against my understanding of humility and servant-leadership. The opening sections did nothing to change my perception.

But people I respect spoke highly of the book (such as Michael Hyatt here and here, especially since his company did not publish the book). Jay Lorenzen (onMovements) is reading it so I look forward to his thoughts.

It is growing on me. I’m intrigued by the concept of emotional labor. Some statements from Godin’s book:

• Emotional labor is the hard work of making art, producing generosity, and exposing creativity.
• Every interaction you have with a coworker or customer is an opportunity to practice the art of interaction [emotional labor].
• One of the most difficult types of emotional labor is staring into the abyss of choice and picking a path. [This is especially meaningful to me as a leader where I regularly stare into the abyss of choice and am responsible for leading us in a path towards our mission.]
• Emotional labor is available to all of us, but is rarely exploited as a competitive advantage. We spend our time and energy trying to perfect our craft, but we don’t focus on the skills and interactions that will allow us to stand out and become indispensable to our organization.

Then I thought about my partners in ministry — those who engage in the mission with Kay and me through faithful prayer, funding, and encouragement. Am I indispensable to them? Am I producing generously and creatively with them? Am I practicing effective emotional labor from their perspective?

I’m still working through thoughts. What about you? If you’ve read Linchpin and have thoughts, write them in the comments.

I read a good article today. 11 Things to Consider Before You Send the Next Email.

Recently a friend sent an email that had some hard things that needed to be communicated. Email is typically not a good place for hard things, but my friend used a very creative idea.

He started his email with: Sorry for the robust nature of this email. I’d much rather have this discussion face-to-face, but given the timely nature of this issue, I felt it couldn’t wait. Here comes the truth. I’ll stop by your desks later to give you hugs of grace.

I don’t know how others received this, but for me, it worked!

Why do so many settle for commonness?

I was reading in 1 Samuel 8 this morning and came across this thought:

“We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”

We want to be like everyone else. We want someone else to fight our battles. We want to be led.

I dug out an old poster given to me by Larry Poland in 1976. It has marked my life for many years.

I Do Not Choose to be a “Common” Christian

I cannot separate my faith in Jesus of Nazareth from my everyday life, conduct and speech.

I cannot justify loving only those who love me, aiding only my friends, and praying only for fellow Christians.

I have no desire to carry the name of the Son of God to the level of my own base intentions.

I aspire to be like Him, to live on unseen resources by faith, to tap the unlimited supply of His love through the life of His indwelling Holy Spirit, to emerge from my moral conflicts “more than a conqueror” through His power, and to rise above all earthly standards to the completeness of His perfection.

I acknowledge that this is an impossible quest but accept the challenge of its impossibility in the knowledge that its pursuit will force me to rest on Him.

I desire no little challenges, expect no unrippled seas, and abandon all personal “rights.”

My present failure to fulfill these intentions merely proves that God isn’t finished reshaping my raw materials.

What about you? Will you join me today in choosing to be uncommon?

I just finished reading John Piper’s book Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ: The Cost of Bringing the Gospel to the Nations in the Lives of William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton. Great book. I’ve been thinking deeply about the role of suffering in the propagation of the gospel since I first listened to a Piper sermon in 2007 called Doing Missions When Dying Is Gain. If you haven’t listened to this Piper sermon, get on over to the Desiring God website and listen. It’s free. You can listen online or download to your favorite MP3 device.

Speaking of free, you can download Piper’s book for free too. How sweet is that? So if you’d rather burn 128 pages in your printer, you can print your own copy. Or do what I did. I recently purchased an Amazon Kindle 2 (I’ll write about that sometime). I converted the book into Amazon’s Kindle format and read the PDF on my Kindle. It’s not as clean as a true Kindle book, but it worked fine and God stirred my soul at a deep level.

Some of Piper’s thoughts that I can’t get over:

I am saying that this suffering is part of God’s strategy for making known to the world who Christ is, how he loves, and how much he is worth.

… this voluntary suffering and death to save others is not only the content but it is also the method of our mission.

“… Christ’s suffering is for propitiation; our suffering is for propagation.”

[Colossians 1:24] is one of the most important verses explaining the thesis of this book—that missionary sufferings are a strategic part of God’s plan to reach the nations.

In his sufferings Paul is “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for . . . the church.” What does that mean? It means that Paul’s sufferings fill up Christ’s afflictions not by adding anything to their worth, but by extending them to the people they were meant to save.

So the afflictions of Christ are “lacking” in the sense that they are not seen and known and loved among the nations. They must be carried by missionaries. And those missionaries “complete” what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ by extending them to others.

God intends for the afflictions of Christ to be presented to the world through the afflictions of his people.

Paul’s missionary suffering is God’s design to complete the sufferings of Christ, by making them more visible and personal and precious to those for whom he died.

And these thoughts are just from Piper’s introductory teaching. His exposing the lives of William Tyndale, John Paton, and Adironam Judson and they way they lived out the sufferings of Christ so that “‘the gospel of the glory of Christ’ (2 Corinthians 4:4) spread to all the peoples of the world and take root in God-centered, Christ-exalting churches.” Piper calls this “The invincible purpose of God in history.”

So get on over to Amazon and buy the book. Or get it free from DesiringGod.org. If you need to whet your appetite more, listen to Doing Missions When Dying is Gain. And may we not regard God’s call lightly. It’s why Kay and I are doing what we’ve done for 33 years, but now with greater clarity and purpose than ever before.

I like to see the work of my hands be built up and prosper. My guess is that all of us like to see our work built upon, not torn down.

William Tyndale’s words this morning reminded me that God doesn’t want to build on another man’s foundation. God’s building process first razes all, then builds block by block.

If God promise riches, the way thereto is poverty. Whom he loveth he chasteneth, whom he exalteth, he casteth down, whom he saveth he damneth first, he bringeth no man to heaven except he send him to hell first. If he promise life he slayeth it first, when he buildeth, he casteth all down first. He is no patcher, he cannot build on another man’s foundation.

He will not work until all be past remedy and brought  unto such a case, that men may see how that his hand, his power, his mercy, his goodness and truth hath wrought all together. He will let no man be partaker with him of his praise and glory. [Tyndale, The Obedience of a Christian Man, p. 6. Quoted in Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ, http://www.crosswalk.com/books/11606829/page12/]

He is no patcher, he cannot build on another man’s foundation [not even mine!].

He will let no man be partaker with him of his praise and glory [not even me!].

Lawn mowing is the ultimate introvert exercise. No one interrupts you (they might be asked to take a few rounds). No talking to anyone.

As I mowed today and philosophized this new realization, I grew in my understanding. I realized that lawn mowing is the ultimate exercise for Myers-Briggs INTJs. Not only am I totally alone in my I-ness, lawn mowing doesn’t take much thought. That leaves an NT with a free mind to soar with other ideas. I do some really good thinking while mowing the lawn.

Then there is the J-judging. I’ve never really understood that, but I read this today:

Key words for judging: structured • decided • organized • scheduled

People who have a preference for judging use their preferred judging function (whether it is thinking or feeling) in their outer life. What this often looks like is that they prefer a planned or orderly way of life, like to have things settled and organized, feel more comfortable when decisions are made, and like to bring life under control to the degree that it is possible.
(http://www.knowyourtype.com/judging.html)

Now I get it. I just thought everybody was this way. Who doesn’t want a planned life, an orderly life, having things settled, feeling more comfortable when decisions are made? It’s the only way to live!

And lawn mowing is a great time to get things settled, planning out next steps, deciding.

Ahh, what a great INTJ experience. I think I’ll mow my neighbor’s lawn today also!

I read a great Bill Hybels’ article this morning on keeping Conflict above Ground: Building community out of controversy. Our pastor quoted from it during his sermon.

Here’s the beginning:

Unity isn’t the word we use to describe relationships at Willow Creek. The popular concept of unity is a fantasyland where disagreements never surface and contrary opinions are never stated with force. We expect disagreement, forceful disagreement. So instead of unity, we use the word community.

The mark of community—true biblical unity—is not the absence of conflict. It’s the presence of a reconciling spirit.

I love that phrase “not the absence of conflict, the presence of a reconciling spirit.” I think this is a mark of a healthy team, a healthy family, a healthy marriage, as well as a healthy church. I also like his concept of learning to fight fair. I think it’s really important. I use it in counseling others who are in conflict with someone.

Are you healthy in your conversations? Are you experiencing community?

A friend sent a link to a very provocative article, That’s why they call them browsers. Those who are seeking to use web technologies to communicate deep thoughts should read and re-read this article. The article is the Mars Hill Audio’s Ken Myers’ thoughts on Nicholas Carr’s Atlantic essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (July/August 2008).

Here is my response to the one who sent the article to me. Perhaps you have some thoughts. Comments welcome!

It is a very interesting set of thoughts, which were delivered in a medium that encourages avoiding deep thinking about his concerns!

I often think about previous shifts brought about by technological processes and wondered how people thought about them. For instance, I wonder what people were saying and writing in the years following the invention of the printing press. As the world moved from an oral society where great thoughts were read aloud by the few who could read, or shared around a circle after dinner, did they bemoan the loss of personalization where the reader/speaker could add to the story through voice inflections and dramatic reading/telling? Did they feel that the printed word encouraged an intellectualization rather than an emotionalization of a story? Did they feel that stories that communicated truth were being denigrated by words and sentences devoid of personal stories? When the time to think deeply moved from when the speaker/reader was available to when the listener wanted to delve into a book?

Much of Myers’ article could be re-written back to the transition from orality to print. For instance, “the fact that we read fewer books is a symptom of a deeper problem” might have been “the fact that we listen to fewer lectures is a symptom of a deeper problem”.

Or what about the 1950s when the telephone enabled personal conversation communication without being physically present?

Or the 1930s/40s/50s when movies replaced theater or television replaced movies? When people no longer dressed for a formal occasion, when intermission (with it’s social mingling) was replaced with popcorn and sodas purchased before entering the movie?

The internet communication media are not the first time we’ve experienced McLuhan’s observations that media “supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought.. This won’t be the last time, either. I think the key is in Myers’ parting thoughts: “That requires the cultivation of disciplines and habits of attentiveness, practices which are robustly discouraged in the conventional experiences of everyday life in what is increasingly Google’s world.” It becomes more difficult in our modern-day world, but God is always at work in us, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

I really enjoyed reading this post of C.S. Lewis’ attitude toward attending church. It’s interesting to read in his own words how his attitude changed over time. He was still the same recluse by nature, but the Spirit worked in his heart to change him.

John Piper says that we cannot know what prayer is for, until we understand that life is war.

He explains further:

Life is war. That’s not all it is. But it is always that. Our weakness in prayer is owing largely to our neglect of this truth. Prayer is primarily a wartime walkie-talkie for the mission of the church as it advances against the powers of darkness and unbelief. It is not surprising that prayer malfunctions when we try to make it a domestic intercom to call upstairs for more comforts in the den. (John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad, page 45).

I’ve been thinking about Piper’s words as we have prepared for today. The entire staff and associates of Campus Crusade will be gathering at many scattered sites for a Worldwide Day of Prayer.

Kay and I always look to this time. The theme for this Day of Prayer is “Our Strength and Our Shield”.

Psalm 28:7

The LORD is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
My heart leaps for joy
And I will give thanks to him in song.

Another portion of Scripture on this theme is found in Psalm 46:1

God is our refuge and strength,
An ever-present help in trouble.

He is our strength and our shield, our refuge and our strength.

Because life is war, and prayer is our wartime walkie-talkie.