WHAT IS PEOPLE OF THE SECOND CHANCE? from PEOPLE OF THE SECOND CHANCE on Vimeo.

People of the Second Chance is a movement started by Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite. I first met Mike on a vision trip with Hope International in the Dominican Republic. He leads an innovative non profit group called Ethur, and has generated some incredible culture-shaping initiatives like XXXchurch.com, and the Junky Car Club. This latest project is a way of celebrating the scandalous grace of God, and acknowledging, in the words of Warren Buffet, that “every saint has a past and every sinner has a future”.

I walked into a fluorescent lit waiting room, found a seat, and turned my attention to the television blasting late night reruns of Jerry Springer. There was no one else in the waiting room, so I waited alone. I was tired, it was too early, or too late, and the thought of pre-dawn swim practice before school made me nauseous. Tonight my mother’s migraine headaches were too painful to bear—a week long migraine was enough to drive anyone mad. So on this night she asked to be taken to the emergency room, as she did a few times a year. My step father was angry and resentful, he refused to take her. He stayed in bed, struggling to accept the suffering that has slowly become his bride after all these years. Mom woke me up, asked that I drive her to Methodist, and wait while the doctor injected enough Phenergan and Demerol to deaden the pain of three patients.

There is irony in a hospital waiting room: the place where I go to find comfort seems only to evoke a sense of coldness and fear. Waiting rooms don’t listen. They don’t understand. They surround you and stare at you and give you all the space and quiet you need so you can think of every possible horrible thing that could happen down the hall, where the docs and nurses walk around with clipboards clicking their pens. In this room, fear grows wild, weakness is all too real, and sorrow squeezes out hope. Sometimes all I know is the fear of that waiting room.

This is an inspiring story of a man who’s found something worth doing every day, no matter what it takes. A beautifully done short film.

BIRTHRIGHT from Sean Mullens on Vimeo.

Whether it’s in a corporate culture, or in the church, one of the greatest challenges for any leader in an organization is the art of leading up.  Here are 6 keys to leading up, adapted from John Maxwell’s book, 360 Leadership.

1.  Get the big picture.  Don’t get too comfortable with your silo or area of expertise.

2.  Build a relationship with your supervisor.  Find common ground, learn their language, and do it with integrity.  Remember – lead up, don’t suck up.

3.  Be considerate of time. When you set up a meeting with a supervisor or boss, don’t go in having no idea what you’re going to talk about.  A helpful rule of thumb in preparing for a meeting with your boss – spend at least an equal amount of time in preparation as you do in conversation.

4.  Choose your battles carefully. Know where you want to risk your capital, and always sleep on it!

5.  Become a go-to player. Identify what asset or expertise you bring to the organization that no one else has.  As a corollary, be quick to identify the gifts of other people – pay it forward, and over time your strengths will be recognized as well.

6.  Never stop learning.  Immerse yourself in literature related to your field, because you never know when you’ll be asked to strategic insight.  A helpful saying – “The only difference between who we are now and who we’ll be in 5 years is the people we meet and the books we read.”

A friend of mine took this picture on Saturday at Mavericks.  That people let a jet ski tow them into something so fierce is beyond my understanding.

Missional Church = simple.

Catalyst recently named Matt Mooney to their young influencers list – he started something called the 99 Balloons Project.  Get some kleenex.  This is powerful.

About a year ago, Craig Groeschel introduced these five big questions that biblical communicators should ask every time they enter the study, in preparation of a message. They stare at me from the wall above my desk, and remind me what’s really at stake in communicating the story of God:

1. How has this text affected you?
2. How have you failed in the area this Scripture addresses?
3. What about this text makes you uncomfortable?
4. What do you feel about what this Scripture is saying? (I know our feelings don’t trump scriptural truth, but talking about how we feel about the text can help engage others at a deeper level).
5. How are you becoming different because of your study in God’s Word?

Donald Miller’s new book, the one with the awkwardly long title, is all the rage. Last week three of my friends who teach in churches started the new year off with a reflection on “living a better story”. I thought the book was some of his best writing. The challenge to live out better scenes in the narrative of life is something all of us can respond to.

This morning, I was reading a short reflection by a guy named Will Willimon, who gives a different pitch to the concept of living out one’s story:

“Although the modern world has attempted to convince us that we are writing our own stories, the Christian faith keeps asserting that we live in stories that we did not write. Preachers have the privilege of talking people into a world where much is afoot and some Other is the author of the true story of what is going on in us and in the world. As Paul told his congregation, ‘You are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God’ (2 Cor 3:3).”

Here are the books I plan to kick off the new year with, as I take some time to study the theology of preaching. I wish I could say they are self-selected, but they’re all a part of a class I’m taking with Will Willimon, former Dean of the Chapel at Duke Divinity School.

Bryan Chapell, Christ-centered Preaching
Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to read the Bible for all its worth
James F. Kay, Preaching and Theology
Thomas Long, The Witness of Preaching
Doug Pagitt, Preaching Re-imagined
Haddon Robinson, Biblical Preaching
James Stewart, Heralds of God
John Stott, Between Two Worlds
Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life
William Willimon, Easter Redone: Keeping Preaching Fresh
William Willimon, Proclamation and Theology
William Willimon, Peculiar Speech
William Willimon, Conversations with Barth on Preaching