I don’t blog on politics anymore, but yesterday President Obama addressed the question, “Why are you a Christian?” posed to him by a woman at a small town-hall meeting in New Mexico.

His answer was profound:

And I think also understanding that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings, that we’re sinful and we’re flawed and we make mistakes. And we achieve salvation through the grace of God.

That’s about as theologically correct a statement as you can make. He covers Christ’s atoning death, human depravity, and salvation by grace in two sentences. And this from the president whose faith is perhaps the most doubted in history, at least recent history.

Admittedly, President Obama’s views on Christ’s resurrection, the Trinity, and a host of other issues are not addressed here, and as he goes on to talk about the need for religious tolerance in America, some of his statements do make one wonder if he is a universalist or inclusivist.

I’ve included the clip below, and I’d encourage you to watch it. The President begins his answer at 1:30.

I sent out our weekly small group curriculum on Monday last week and got a couple of responses from the leaders I sent it to, one asking that we send it Sunday instead of Monday, the other requesting we incorporate some of the following week’s assigned Bible reading since the group meets on Thursday and doesn’t cover the recent reading.

To be honest, I was a bit peeved. My thoughts: “Sorry, I decided to spend two hours with my wife in between church, a coaching meeting, preparing for a mission trip meeting, the mission trip meeting, and church again.” And to the second response: “That would mean I have to be four days ahead on my Bible reading and write a lot more, which isn’t likely to happen.” We work hard to provide this curriculum, and it’s not good enough?

Then I remembered what I had written in the e-mail:

If you have any questions, suggestions, or constructive criticism, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Yeah, good one, Will. Ask for feedback and then get upset when you get it. Alan Danielson recently wrote on the importance of feedback in an organization, and two of the three keys to being an effective One Minute Manager involve giving feedback.

If you want to lead people well, you need to be willing to give feedback, to let those on your team know when they do things right, and when they do things wrong. How else will they know what behavior is encouraged and what behavior is discouraged?

Perhaps more importantly, you need to be willing to receive feedback. You don’t know it all, and you don’t have it all figured out. There may be an area in which you are not serving your organization or your team optimally. If you react harshly to feedback, especially from your subordinates, you leave yourself with innumerable blind spots. You can’t possibly see all of the ramifications of your decisions. Those around you will notice things that you don’t. They need to be able to tell you both what is working and what is not working without fear of reprisal.

Opening yourself to (and even soliciting) feedback will go a long way towards making you an effective leader, and one people want to follow.

I recently got two exciting e-mails within hours of each other, one from a doctor in his late thirties whose grew up as a missionary kid in Brazil, the other from a twentysomething who only recently began following Jesus. Both lead small groups at NCC.

The first group, led by Dr. Scott Myers, reaches out to medical students and professionals at Georgetown and George Washington Universities. Their group had gotten large and so recently multiplied. Scott, who recruited four new co-leaders for the fall semester, writes:

Our Medical sg had 27 Monday!! (mostly [Georgetown University] and [George Washington University] med students). … Hannah and I started this sg, but have asked Allyson & Alex to lead this semester (part of the “see one, do one, teach one” philosophy of our univ)…

The second group is led by Ashtan Moore and Tara Kumar, an engaged couple. Ashtan and Tara started leading just five months ago. I e-mailed with them once in a while and heard the occasional report that the group was going well. Ashtan writes:

We’ve grown to over 35+ in members and our first gathering is tonight. We’ve managed to rig up the place to support the size of the first group, and I think we’re even going to have enough food thanks to Tara & volunteers, but we’re wondering if the size is inappropriate for a small group.

We’d rather have one, big, happy family, so that people feel like they have a safe place to come and discuss Christ. However, we want to make sure that we – like any good small group – are able to connect with those who are seeking. Also, we feel bad turning away anyone who is looking for fellowship and friends (as if that’s not obvious by our current size, hah.)

I love stories like these. They lift my spirits in the moments when I feel like my job is all about managing problems.

I believe that two of the keys to the growth of these groups are meeting a need and quality leadership, both of which I’ll examine in more depth in a future post (or two or three).

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m in a season of trying to develop myself as a leader, and there are a few blogs that I follow for leadership advice. They are:

• maclakeonline.com – Mac Lake was the leadership development guru at Seacoast for many years before leaving to work with church planters.
• drbilldonahue.com – Dr. Bill Donahue is an author, speaker, and consultant and was formerly the director of small groups for Willow Creek Church and the Willow Creek Association. He previously worked for Proctor & Gamble and PNC Finance Corporation.
• swerve.lifechurch.tv – Swerve is written by the staff of LifeChurch.tv, the second largest church in America.
• catalystspace.com/catablog – Catablog is written by the staff of the Catalyst Conference, an organization that produces high quality leadership conferences for church leaders.

Heather Zempel’s blog (http://discipleshipgroups.blogspot.com), is another good place to go for leadership wisdom. Heather is the Discipleship Pastor at National Community Church where I work. I read Heather’s blog, although I don’t usually think of it as a “leadership blog” because I’m lucky enough to get most of Heather’s leadership lessons face to face.

I’ve just added Seth Godin’s blog (sethgodin.typepad.com) to my reader. Seth is one of the world’s most successful bloggers in addition to being an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and former Yahoo executive. I’m also going to start reading Alan Danielson’s blog (3threat.net). Alan was the executive pastor of LifeChurch.tv and is now an author and consultant. I haven’t read these much yet, so I can’t fully vouch for them, but I have high expectations.

I’m looking for a couple more blogs to add, especially ones that aren’t written from a Christian setting. What other blogs should I be reading to develop myself as a leader?

We have a year-long ministry immersion program at NCC called the Protege Program. People volunteer a year of their time to work on staff at NCC. Our third class of Proteges just started a couple of weeks ago, and we wanted to give a warm welcome to those who are making such a sacrifice to be serve with us. To that end, we put together a welcome video to introduce them to the church and the staff.

A note to any potential viewers from TED: This video is intentionally full of inside jokes and is not my most polished nor well prepared presentation.  However, it does show my ability to deliver an engaging monologue, even with little preparation.  I had been given some basic ideas and cues but otherwise ad-libbed this.

Sun Stand Still, Steven Furtick‘s first book, is being released today. It is about asking God for great things, for impossible things, like Joshua did when he asked God to extend the day so that he could continue to defeat his enemies.

Steven is one of those impressive people. He planted Elevation Church at young age, and by the time he was 28, there were literally thousands of people in attendance. In fact, I’m so impressed by Steven that I have to guard myself against envying his accomplishments.

Unfortunately, Sun Stand Still wasn’t the page turner I hoped it would be. It’s not bad, but it isn’t particularly inspiring or innovative. It reminds me a lot of books like Chasing Daylight, which are about seizing the opportunities that God has for us.

However, there are certainly some great things that can be gleaned from Sun Stand Still.

While it is similar to some other books, I really appreciate the spin that Steven puts on the topic. Others focus on seizing opportunities and doing great things. Steven’s primary focus is on asking God to do great things, to do the impossible. He doesn’t mean that we should stand idly by, but he emphasizes God as the primary actor and us as role players. In other words, he gives God his due.

Here are a few memorable quotes:

[T]he level of your impact will be directly proportional to the price you are willing to pay.

Salvation is free. Obedience can be very costly.

The opposite of [great] vision: survival mode.

[T]he scope and impact of your vision will be determined by who you believe God is…

And my absolute favorite:

My calling is great, the stakes are high, and stellar character is required. My vision defines the parameters that I live by.

Want to figure out how to get your team to turn in expense reports on time? Perhaps you’re attempting to tame a school full of unruly children, or maybe you’d like to curtail drunk driving. Switch will tell you how.

Switch is all about creating change. How do we take the status quo, which is often not what we want, and bring about the changes we desire.

The authors argue there are three keys to generating change: provide clear direction, motivate, and shape the environment.

I’ll let you read the book to get more specifics. I highly recommend it. In fact, at the moment, it’s my favorite book (besides the Bible). If you have any responsibilities, at work, in your family, at church, with a civic organization… you need to read this book. And no, the authors didn’t pay me to write this. As I read I got idea after idea on how to make my team more effective, but more importantly, I got one big idea that has the potential to radically alter my organization.

More on that later…

Have you ever noticed that some people are great at working a room? They show up at a party and by the end of the night have the names and e-mails of half the guests. It doesn’t matter if they’re at a friend’s dance party or a business conference, they can meet almost anyone with ease.

I am not one of those people.

However, I am in a job where I am sometimes called upon to make connections with people I’ve never met, and I’ve learned a few tricks to help me since it doesn’t come naturally.

1. Ask (Good) Questions – I’m meeting people at church, so I ask them how long they’ve been attending, how they heard about the church, and what brought them to DC (since most of our congregation are transplants). Armed with that basic information, I’ll often move to the “genesis” question, what got them started. A job is what usually brings people to DC, so I ask them why they chose that career field. I’ll ask them what they like or don’t like about what they do. If you’re at a business function, ask they why they got into that business. Ask them what they like about it. Ask them what they would do if they weren’t in that field. Ask them what drives them.

   Be sure your questions are open ended. Don’t ask them if they like their job. That only requires a yes or no answer. Ask them what they like about their job. The question is open ended, continuing conversation, not abruptly stopping it because of a one word answer.

   This doesn’t always work. Sometimes all you can get are one word answers anyway. That’s okay. It’s not your fault. You can’t get water from a rock. Don’t let one awkward experience discourage you.

2. Don’t Force the Sale – It’s much harder to connect with someone when you feel pressure to achieve a desired outcome, to sell a product, solicit a donation, etc. My job is to help people get connected with our church’s small groups, but when I meet people, I don’t always tell them about groups. If it comes up in the conversation or if I can naturally take it there, great. If I never get around to it, oh well. Don’t let the pressure of pitching to everyone stop you from connecting with anyone and thereby selling to no one.
3. Care About the Person – This should probably be a subset of the previous point, but one of the things that helps you care less about the sale is when you care more about the person. Is whatever you’re promoting actually useful to this person? Would it actually benefit them? If not, don’t try to convince them that it will. I think small groups are good. I think they help people. That’s why I promote them. But if they’re not what a person needs at this moment, then I don’t want to try to convince them they are.
4. Eat Your Own Dog Food – Use whatever your selling. It’s so much easier to invite someone to come along than tell them to go see. For example, with groups, it’s much easier to invite someone to come to a group with me than tell them to go visit a group with people they’ve never met. It’s harder (and probably disingenuous) to convince someone to buy a Ford when you drive a Chevy.
5. Don’t Take Yourself too Seriously – You know what, if things don’t go well every time, that’s okay. As long as you don’t dump coffee all over the person’s white shirt, it’s unlikely you did too much damage. Don’t stress out about it. That will probably just make you more self conscious anyway.

What tips do you have for connecting with people you don’t know?

I recently finished reading No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City by Katherine S. Newman, which, as you would expect from the title, examines the lives of city dwellers who are employed yet still live in poverty.

Being an anthropology book based on an in depth research study, this is quite different than the kind of stuff I normally read. That said, I think it’s good to expand the minds a bit, go outside of our normal realm and do some cross-pollinating. Thanks to Mark Batterson for the idea (the cross-pollinating thing, not this book in particular).

Anyway…

According to NSiMG, two key problems are a labor surplus and a network deficiency.

The project specifically studied workers at Burger Barn (an alias for a national fast food chain). The researchers found that Barns in the suburbs paid comparatively well to Barns in or near the ghetto because while it was difficult to find people willing to work at fast food restaurants in the burbs, managers in the inner city would receive an overwhelming number of applications, thereby allowing them to pay bottom dollar because somebody would take the job.

The researchers also noted that one issue faced by many of these workers was a lack of contacts in workplaces where they might earn a higher wage. For many, their families and friends were poor as well. They simply didn’t have connections to jobs that paid better.

The book definitely had a liberal bent, viewing the government as at least part of the solution to some of these problems. While I haven’t read very many anthropology books, I’m guessing you’d have trouble finding too many that aren’t liberal.

That said, there is certainly some red meat for conservatives in here as well. The author advocates that one of the keys to a higher standard of living is to avoid having children until you are stable both financially and relationally.

Perhaps the most interesting conclusion that the book reaches is the belief that low wage workers have in the dignity of work. They fundamentally believe in the American ideal that it is better to work than not to work. Much like their higher-wage counterparts, these people place value in being a productive member of society.

I’d recommend checking out No Shame in My Game. For a 300 page anthropology research report, it was very readable. The book is a bit dated, but I still found its look at the psyche of and challenges faced by the inner-city working poor to be worthwhile. I’d also be interested in seeing how conditions changed once welfare reform, which was being enacted as this research project was conducted, was fully implemented and how the current economic climate is impacting this segment of the workforce (beyond the obvious), as NSiMG was written during a time of historically low unemployment.

On September 3 at 11:50 AM Raymond Allen Francis Joseph Van De Walle passed from this life to the next. Ray was married to Janet, my first, and by far longest tenured, boss. I worked for Janet off and on (mostly on) for six years and always knew Ray to be a kind and gentle man, in spite of my youthful exuberance.

A host of complications from cancer he had contracted (and we had thought beaten) years earlier took Ray from us before we were ready, although not before he had lived a full life. Ray had served as a park district director and corporate executive. He was a sailor and had been an Olympic swimming alternate. Most importantly, he was a loving father and husband. Having lived in Illinois for much if not all of his life, he and Janet, his wife of twenty five years, relocated to Michigan City, Indiana a few years ago to be close to the water they so loved and their sailboat, the Chrysalis.

Ray is survived by Janet; his brother Ron; his daughters Pam and Debbie; and a host of friends, among whom I am blessed to be counted.

I had not seen or talked with Ray since visiting he and Janet the fall before moving to DC nearly five years ago, but as I told Janet, he is the first person I have cried over since my grandmother almost eight years ago. Ray, you will be missed.