God’s word encourages planning. Consider “Plans fail for lack of counsel” (Proverbs 15:22) and “In his heart a man plans his course” (Proverbs 16:9).  Yet two things that are equally true are that change is all around us and ultimately God is in control.  Because of the lack of control most of us have over our future and the plans we make today are likely to be interrupted tomorrow when something changes, many leaders fail to plan.  In times of economic uncertainty or rapid change, for example, leaders are tempted to forgo the planning process until things “slow down” or “calm down”.  That, however, can prove to be a fatal blow to an organization’s future.

The age of discovery and information, the industrial revolution and technological improvements all helped to usher the world into the rapid change and instant everything mindset.  A natural reaction to that paradigm shift over time is for many leaders and organizations to “wait and see” what happens, because no one can as easily predict where we will go next as a society and culture.  The truth, however, is that if change is constant and we are encouraged to plan, then somehow those two worlds must collide.  We must learn to plan for our organization’s future in the midst of rapid change.  This process may be one of the greatest challenges for leaders of this century and culture.

The wise person will always plan for change and through change.  The leader’s role needs to be one of keeping the organization true to the overall mission and vision of the organization while at the same time always being aware of changes on the horizon which could enhance or threaten the organization’s success in the future and, in the end, steering the organization through those changes. Plans today must be much more adaptable and flexible to change and more inclusive of others and their opinions if they will succeed; but plans must be made that serve to move the organization forward.  

The world is constantly changing and God does hold the conclusion to a matter, but the “wise man builds a house” carefully, through planning, hard work, and by adapting to the changing culture and environment. Don’t quit planning during times of uncertainty or rapid change!

Some of the best success in my life has often come after times of the greatest failures of my life.  I have lived long enough to experience success and failure repeatedly.  When I have occasion to minister to those experiencing times of failure, I’m able to assure them with confidence that the failure they experience today has the potential to bring tomorrow’s success. 

When you are going through a period of failure remember:

1.      One of God’s greatest teaching tools is failure.  In our times of failure we are reminded of our weakness and His strength.  We learn to pray and walk by faith during times of failure.  (But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9)

2.      Failure should not decide your future.  Most people who experience great success experienced great failure many times.  Check out a couple great websites I found on failure.  Motivating Stories and Great Failures. 

3.      Failure is a great time to refocus.  Failure becomes sort of a forced look at your life and the direction you are heading.  If you need to make adjustments following a failure is often the perfect time. 

4.      You can build from failure.  The old saying “there’s nowhere to go but up” is true of failure.  When you hit the bottom the next step is towards the sky.  Aim high! 

5.       You get to share the wealth of wisdom learned through failure. God teaches others through our examples of getting up and trying again after our seasons of failure.

No one enjoys failures or certainly would ever ask God to bring failure into our life, but if we approach failure with the right attitude it will not keep us from success and may actually help us reach higher heights than we would have ever reached without failure.     

Jeremy, our oldest, has his fraternity initiation this week, so since he lives in the fraternity house, he has to stay at home this week. (There are benefits to going to college in your hometown.) When Jeremy is home we share a bathroom again. I went in this morning to take a shower and this is what I saw: Jeremy’s travel cosmetic bag. It was a sudden reality that I’m in a different stage of life. Cheryl and I are closer to the empty-nest period of life than we are from it. This time next year, after Nate graduates from high school, it will just be the two of us.

(Thankfully we are still in love with each other and enjoy each other’s company so much!)

Recently Cheryl and I watched the musical movie “Momma Mia”. I didn’t share with Cheryl at the time, but the song that tugged at my heart the most was entitled “Slipping Through My Fingers”. The lyrics have a line that says “The feeling that I’m losing her forever”. That’s the way I feel about my boys right now.

As pleasant as it sounds at times to have independence again, there’s a part of me that’s already dreading it; and I’m suddenly flooded with questions in my mind: Where did the time go? Did I take advantage of those years? Have I prepared them for life? Will they still want us to be an active part of their life when their gone? Another line in the movie says, “Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture and save it from the funny tricks of time…Slipping through my fingers…” Aren’t there times you’d like to “freeze the picture” with your children?

Still, I’m thankful for the men my boys are becoming. Last week a professor pulled Jeremy aside to compliment him on being “the spiritual influencer of his fraternity”. He truly cares for people. Nate is less relational than Jeremy, but has his own giftedness. He is already leading in more church environments than some pastors I know. If they continue the path they are on today, God will surely one day say, “Well done!” to their lives. In fact, I’m sure He already is saying that about them.

I’m in a different stage as a parent. I’m more reflective than I was when they were younger. I am becoming a sentimental dad; less rigid with them, actually more of a friend. I don’t want to teach them as much as just hang out with them.  (Sounds like I’m getting ready to be a grandad some day….no time soon though.)  Most of all, I truly feel I’m the one blessed to say they are my sons!

Glad to have the travel bag here…even if only for a week.

Kudos go out today to fellow church planter Freddy T. Wyatt.  May he and Susan’s example of faith be an encouragement to us all.  The bags and truck are packed and they are on their way to the Big Apple.

Freddy T. and Susan Wyatt recently left a great job at an established church they truly love to help plant churches in New York City.  They left a good salary and benefit package to have to raise tens of thousands of dollars of their own support.   They leave an area of the Bible Belt where people are usually at least open to hearing a faith story to enter a land where they may face as much rejection as they find friendliness.  Their step of faith comes while they have a young, preschool son and Susan is pregnant with twins about to enter this world in a few months.  It’s truly a modern day Hebrews 11 faith example.  You can read more about their story here by checking out their blog NYCMission.  

Their faith challenges me to be even bolder in my own faith, but also reminds me that there are hundreds and thousands of followers of Christ willing to do whatever God calls them to do to advance the Gospel and bring God glory with their lives.  If we want to see a lost world come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, more believers must be willing to take huge leaps of faith.

Do you know people whose faith story has challenged or encouraged you?  (Feel free to pay tribute to them here.) 

I’ve been asking lately to see some good news.  Well I saw some today. It was the headline in our local paper.  The headline in the Clarksville Leaf Chronicle reads: 101st begins mass return from Iraq 80 soldiers home from a 14-month deployment.  We love our soldiers and their families.  Welcome home heroes!  Over the next few months our church and community will be surrounded with smiling faces, tears, and reunions as our troops come home from Afghanistan and Iraq!  I can’t wait!  God bless their speedy return. 

I hope we don’t don’t allow panic over our economy to alter our vision of being a free, independent nation.  I hope we stay true to the basis of our founding.  According to a recent report, the International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in an interview published Sunday that the world body needed to tighten its control over financial markets.  He went onto say, “We can have national or regional authorities, such as the European Union for example, but we need a global guarantor, an institution which monitors standards,” 

Let’s be careful before we hand over our oversight to other nations and the global economic powers.  I’m not sure the people in France know what is best for us in Kansas or Tennessee (or even Wall Street).  Oversight, such as the European Union provides, is more encompassing than just over monetary policies. We talked with people this year in the country of Malta who, after recently joining the EU, are no longer able to hunt birds, which was a national sport of patriotism to some.   

We have problems.  Let’s strategically figure them out and solve them.  Surely after 200 years of experience as a nation we can do that on our own. 

Yesterday both presidential candidates Obama and McCain were at the White House working “together” (sort of) to discover a solution for the national economy.  This is historic, isn’t it?  I don’t recall two candidates from major parties coming together or even communicating with each other as much as these two have.  They have made joint appearances several times.  They have periodically called for a cease in campaigning to support or honor something they saw as bigger than the election.  (September 11^th, Hurricane fears, etc.) 

As I sit here listening to the debates I like some of each candidate. It makes me wonder….could this be the year we introduce the Co-Presidency to the United States of America?  McCain can handle foreign policy and Obama can handle domestic policy.  Those are the only two areas people seem to care about and polls show each leading in those two areas. 

Maybe the “Co” deal is the way to go this year.  It works for Grace Community Church. 

Do you remember the scene in “It’s A Wonderful Life” where George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart) was forced to forgo his honeymoon because there was a run on the bank?  The people were afraid their money wouldn’t be available, so they wanted to take it out of the Bailey Building and Loan Association in cash. George tried to explain that their money was invested in each other’s homes.  It wasn’t enough to appease most of them and George was forced to try to make it through the day by trying to hold on to at least one remaining dollar.  That was fiction, but unfortunately it is based on a principle of fact.  If people panic, it impacts all of us and can eventually cause a collapse of corporations and even our economy.

The fact is that the American people have lived well for a couple of decades.  We have mostly lived on borrowed money.  The “excitement” of wealth has driven stocks higher; often higher than their real value and inflated real estate values beyond reasonable appraisals.  It was only natural that a correction would one day come to our economy.  I am not sure a government bailout of companies who lived beyond their means is appropriate, but it appears one is on the way. 

I’m certain though that now is not a time to allow uncertainty to send us into frenzy.  Even the government won’t be able to “bail” us out of a mass panic.  Someone asked recently when I would think it was time to panic about the state of our economy. I guess that would be when Americans are trying to illegally cross the border into Mexico. Our economy still has life in it.  It will recover.  The fact is that corporations that are healthy will be even healthier when these current economic struggles are gone. 

Now should be a time to make wiser choices with our finances, but really, shouldn’t we always be doing that, as individuals, corporations, and governments?  Let’s follow the advice of George Bailey and “Calm Down”.  Or, better yet, let’s follow the advice of Jesus and “not be afraid.” 

Someone shared an article with me by Raymond P. Rood entitled “How Then Should Organizations Live”. (http://www.humantechnologies.com) In the article Rood makes the point that every organization has three basic needs. They are growth, maintenance, and development.  For an organization to thrive it must do all three well.  Yesterday at our all day staff retreat we expanded our thoughts on these three needs as they relate to the life of our church and each individual area in which we serve.

Growth: Rood says “growth needs focus on productivity and expansion.”  The growth of any organization is vibrant and fast-paced and requires lots of energy and attention. It’s a world of numbers and percentages of increases.  Without growth, the organization will eventually die, but if an organization only grows and never matures, that growth will not sustain itself for long.

Maintenance: According to Rood, “maintenance needs focus on order and the reduction of problems.”  The more an organization grows, the more it needs a structure in place to manage the growth; that’s maintenance.  Some people love the maintenance world.  It’s my least favorite, but it is extremely necessary for the organization to remain healthy.  Still, if all an organization does is maintenance it will become dull, boring, legalistic, and uninspiring.  (Did I paint that well enough?)  Some organizations, and even churches, die because they live in the maintenance world.  They become one large bureaucracy of rules and regulations designed with good intentions to sustain the organization’s growth.   That leads to the third basic need of organizations:

Development: Rood writes that “development needs focus on organizational quality.”  The development needs of an organization are designed to take it to the “next level” of success.  This is where an organization really matures, develops lasting principles and values, and prepares itself for years of growth and success.  Without developing an organization it will eventually wither and die.

My experience leads me to believe that every person in an organization prefers to live in one of these basic needs.  Some prefer to always focus on growth, some on maintenance and others on development. I’m a development guy. I love being a starter and I’m entrepreneurial, but in an established organization, I drift towards development…which usually involves starting something new in the same organization. If that’s all I had to do, I’d be happy. To be an effective leader of Grace Community Church, however, I must discipline my time to focus on all three needs. I can specialize in one, but I must be committed to playing a part in each area.

Considering these three basic needs, consider your own organization or area of responsibility.

• Which of these are missing in your equation?
• Which do you prefer doing?
• Should you discipline yourself in the other areas so you can be a healthier organization?

Today I was asked for advice on dealing with parents from someone close to the age of my children.  I also gained insight into my staff from someone much older than me.  Both were valuable encounters.

I need wisdom from those who have previously walked where I am walking now.  It has become apparent to me as I have reached the middle days of life that there are those who can learn some things from my experiences.  Somehow I think this is a missing component in today’s culture.  In the age of constant change and instant information we seldom simply learn from experience, because we are always inventing something new.  There will always be experiences which can help us avoid pain, plan more efficiently and improve the overall quality of our life. 

I’m considering ways the church can help the older generation connect with the younger generation and vice-versa.  Surely there are ways to bridge the generational gap that exists between young and old and help us learn from each other and exchange wisdom, even when our generations seem so far apart. I’m open to suggestions. 

Right now, until something better comes along, I think I will continue to glean from those who have experience I don’t have, personally seeking their input into my life.  At the same time, I will purposively attempt to invest in those who do not have the life experience I have as they invite me to participate in their life.  Perhaps a more “novel” way will come along someday.