inspire…influence…transform
Well…I’ve been working for a while on a new site. It’s not quite finished but it is over on a different feed. I will not update this site again. New site will officially be up on Friday the 20th, but technically…if you see this, you can get to it now and I’d love it if you would give me some thoughts.
I don’t do html or css but have changed some colors around and am working on adding other stuff now.
new site address is http://jasondtaylor.org
thanks for subscribing and for following.
Anna and I went to a new church today. We’d visited there once before when we first moved to Bend, but hadn’t returned since. No reason really, just at that time we knew it wasn’t where we needed to be. It was a great service and as expected, the teaching was really good. Antioch Church in Bend.
Pastor Ken shared a story about taking a group of 11-12 year old troubled youth from LA to the mountains for a retreat back when he was in college. Late one night, he “snuck out” with the kids and they all took their bed rolls out to a hillside and watched the twinkling of the stars well into the night. For every single kid, it was the first time that they had been able to see the stars. They were astonished. The light pollution in LA had been so severe and none of them had ever been above it so they’d never seens stars. Can you imagine that? They had no idea the glory of looking into a clear night sky and seeing million of God’s most wonderful creations twinkling down at them.
He was driving towards how religion can many times be the same as light pollution. It can be a distraction and get between people and God making it actually harder for them to see and find Him, or what He is bringing. Religion should rather encourage, get behind people, come alongside and encourage, empower and assist them toward God.
I immediately wondered if I do that as a coach. I believe that coaching, discipling, mentoring takes an enormous amount of humility and submitting to the Holy Spirit as well as a sound foundation of biblical truth. But it’s still very easy to find ourselves swayed by the current thought or philosophy of the day. Not all of it is bad of course and there’s nothing wrong with bringing good wisdom and teaching into the life of leaders BUT I (we) need to guard against getting between people and God and rather, stay behind or alongside of them encouraging, cheering them on and assisting them to be and do – who and what GOD desires.
What do you think?
What do you do with in-between time? The time between the creation and idea of a dream and it’s completion? It can be confusing and disruptive when we are living out the dream or plan in front of us and it’s suddenly derailed. The questions and confusion hit immediately. Did I…? Should I have…? What might have…?
Walter Brueggemann wrote that the Psalms could be divided into three types:
I’ll share a story from my own life of this process.
1. Move to Bend, OR feeling and hearing that God is going to take care of a piece of real estate I owned, knowing that if it’s not sold it could sink us financially. ORIENTATION: God’s given the clear green light to go – we go.
2. House doesn’t sell, job doesn’t cover bills, wife doesn’t get teaching position we were counting on, moving to a new home after 35 years in one place is NOT easy… DISORIENTATION: God isn’t paying attention, I didn’t hear him right, He’s not there, I need to fix it, God sucks.
It’s in the Disorientation that we grow. In fact, thank God for these times. I read a quote in the book I’m reading right now that states “the most important time is between the dreams, not the dreams themselves.”
3. So disorientation gives way to REORIENTATION: We’re okay, things are as we expected but we’re more aware of the need for daily surrender and trust in what God is giving, we’re communicating more about finances and living with more discipline and through it all, learning to be more generous.
Thanks God. Sorry for all the mean stuff I said about you last year.
How bout you? What do you do in the in-between time?
We all have these times. Try to look for the opportunity and grow. Know that DISORIENTATION is a natural part of maturing. Embrace it as best you can.
“Let anyone who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall.”
I’ve been reflecting this past couple days on thoughts that seem to be summed up in this statement. I’m working through a book called the Emotional Healthy Church by Pete Scazzero.
The main takeaway for me has been the incredible need that all leaders have to make sure they’ve taken a good look at their emotional health.
I would say in my limited experience that we give very little attention to this area of health. Really. I believe in leadership circles, both in and out of “the church” we give it lip service but there is a sense that really focusing on emotional health is a weakness, or it’s too touchy-feely, or it’s simply not for us. There’s a underlying current that people who would focus on anything having to do with serious emotional introspection need counseling and somehow have “problems.”
Like the rest of us don’t. I guess maybe that’s the point. Take a good hard look on your emotional state of being. Do some reflection. Take a day or a morning to fast and pray and find out if there’s some areas to shore up here. I would say I’m a fairly stable emotional person but after reading this and spending some time in prayer, I’m “readjusting” my perspective. 🙂
When compared with the emotional health of Jesus, I’d have to say, I’ve got some growing to do. Here’s a list for Scazzero’s book.
More to come on this topic as I finish the book. I have a feeling that I’ll be parked on some of this material for a while and I sense that personally I will be doing some introspection on it for sure.
I’d be curious of how this idea of “Emotional Health” stacks up with thoughts from Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence. I’ve not had a chance to read that yet, but will as soon as I can get my hands on a copy. Our local library doesn’t have it! Lame.
Focus
No matter what you do, right now, in this day, in this place, in this economy you already know what you need to be doing.
I have found myself lately getting the “circle the wagon” mentality, something Tim Sanders calls the “scarcity” mindset.
Have you?
Then yesterday I was listening to a podcast on my run and what I heard was so SIMPLE that I was ashamed I hadn’t just intuitively thought about it. And I fancy myself a pretty smart guy, so if I didn’t intuitively figure it out, maybe, just maybe there are others out there who would be encouraged by this.
Here it is.
The things you need to do to be successful (however that is defined for you) in this current market are exactly the same things you should be doing in a good market.
There it is. Pretty simple. No snake oil, no get rich scheme hidden in those words. There are no quick fixes. Focus on doing what you should be doing in a good market, do it better than anyone else and then when the market turns, and it will, you’ll be better positioned for growth.
“A rising tide raises all boats.”
What’s your normal go to response to difficult relationship situations?
Ever think about it? Count to 10…hide…react…respond? I’m sure if we think about it we all realize that in most situations we do have a default that is more often than not how we act or behave when faced with a frustrating person or situation.
I was challenged today by the thought that our first reaction should be to give them to the Lord. Huh? Give them to the Lord? That’s certainly not the first thing that comes to my mind when I’m either hurt by someone or frustrated or simply unsure of how to get my point across in a debate. But it makes sense.
Give them to the Lord. What does this mean? To me, it means that the solution is not mine to force. The individual is not our responsibility, nor do we need to feel the responsibility to bring them over to the “right” side. There is no side. There’s certainly a balance with this so please don’t go crazy with this thought.
There are times when as a coach or a leader or an employee or a friend that I find myself frustrated in some way by another person’s behavior or actions. That frustration is fundamentally my issue not theirs. Give them to the Lord, love on em, care for em, and ultimately trust God with the outcome.
Simply said but hard to do.
What’s your go to response?
This is one of my favorite expressions. We use it all the time in our business in Albuquerque and from time to time here at work. It’s a pretty simple metaphor, when you watch children playing together they are able to live and create and imagine some of the most incredible stuff. There’s a freedom and exuberance in their play that is refreshing.
In life, this gets more complicated but no less important a goal of interpersonal relationships. Can’t we all play nice in the sandbox?
I’m reading through the book of Romans in the New Testament of the Bible right now. For me, it’s one of the hardest books to read, it’s the most confusing in terms of content and causes me the most question and wrestling. It’s just a very weighty book. I’ve been pushing through and emerged in chapter 12 this morning with a small epiphany. Paul is trying to get the early church to play nice in the sandbox. Even 2000 years ago, the church needed to hear that message.
Something in Paul’s message unfortunately isn’t sticky enough to actually change our behavior, actions and opinions. It might be that it’s just a really complicated deep delivery, or that it’s argued using vernacular and examples that had more connection then. There has got to be an analogy or a metaphor or a story, a way of explaining what it means to live with unity and oneness in Christ in a way that will actually change how we act? Maybe it has to start with a sandbox. What do you think?
If given the opportunity to talk to all the church leaders in America for 10 minutes, what would you put before them to get them to play nice in the sandbox?
By the way, just so you know, my worst injuries always came in the sandbox. My middle brother bashed me on the head with a trowel and sent me to the hospital for stitches, so you do have to have people willing to play nice too.
This will be short. I’ve been thinking of a few very simple, easy to implement communication tools. These are NOT gadgets and widgets for your computer, they are however good ole’ fashioned skills that you teach your brain, your mouth and your ears.
PRACTICE ACTIVE LISTENING
We all need to learn how to actively listen better. It seems hokey and feels weird but once you get the hang of it, you really do see tremendous results immediately. I for one, need to do this more and am working hard to practice this alongside NOT interrupting people. A shout out to my coworker, David Makela, who does this extremely well. Even though I think it’s hokey.
Here’s how it works in a simple but straightforward example.
Person 1 “I can’t decide if the brown shoes go with this outfit or if I should try the black ones.”
Person 2: “So what I hear you saying is, that you’re just not quite sure which pair of shoes is going to go best with your outfit? Did I hear you correct?”
Person 1: ” Yeah…actually, I’m not even sure that I like this outfit. ”
Person 2: “You’re not sure you like it? What is it about it that you don’t like…?
See how simple that is…and it’s a great segue way into my second point:
ASK CLARIFYING QUESTIONS
Questions like: Why do you feel that way? What is it about…? What do you think? Are there options I’m not seeing? Etc… And if you ask clarifying questions, don’t forget to practice active listening right back!
SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD
I think GapingVoid is a great site. Check out some of Hugh‘s other work. This one says it all. Communication is not about ME, it’s not about YOU, it’s about US.
What’s your GUIDEPOST on communication?
So, I’m not kidding when I say that I think Google is quickly becoming the goto location and source for all things on the internet. I am seriously considering moving away from Microsoft product. Given, Microsoft product probably does most if not all of what Google will do but it’s not free and it’s frankly just not as intuitive.
I’m a coach. I meet regularly with many clients over the phone every two weeks for a set amount of time. The calendar for those sessions, for each client is set for the year and is maintained by my assistant coach. So the only people that have access to that calendar are me and my assistant. In addition, each session I also take notes for myself as well as action steps that the client and I agree upon. These are actions that the client is agreeing to complete before the next time we meet. We also track maximum points of accountability and emails back and forth etc…
Here’s the problem I’ve been facing. The software I currently use doesn’t allow my client to see the calendar. And all action step updates and maximum accountability is back and forth in the form of email and documents that must be saved, rewritten, tracked, opened closed… It works but it’s not smooth, it’s not simple, at least it’s not as simple as a lot of the processes available to people today. And as a coach, I have a belieft that it’s in my best interest and the best interest of the client if I can help them develop productivity and efficiency in utilizing today’s tools. We both need access to not only the calendar but it would be extremely helpful for us to be able to share the action plans back and forth on a continual basis.
I wasn’t always a a coach but was a leader in a church for a long time. In my own experience as a client, there were times when I needed assistance or had a question or simply wanted to share something in relation to an action item or something related. What if I could share all of that livetime over the internet with my coach? Well you can; using Google’s calendar and notebook, I can do everything that Microsoft Office does, and ACT does quicker, faster and with greater efficiency because it’s also connected to a sharing function which allows me to tie in my client.
My current software set up has some pretty nifty built in features but these can easily be reproduced in an online format and shared between myself and the client.
Although a coach specific solution is sure to come, for now, Google provides a quick and easy alternative for sharing (securely) information and calendars with 1 or 1000 people. Cool stuff.
Check it out!
Sunrise
I couldn’t think of what to name this post so I just dated it. I wasn’t planning on blogging this morning, it’s early and I’m reading the bible as I start my day but I am overwhelmed by a simple truth.
In Genesis there is a well known story, I would assume even by those that do not read the bible, about Joseph, the son of Jacob. Is is 1 of 12 brothers, all sons of Jacob and he is the favorite. Joseph unfortunately in his youth does little to bridge the divide that forms with his brothers because of his status in the eyes of his fathers and immense it must have been because one day his 11 brothers see him coming from afar and decide to kill him. One of the 11 has the wits about him to hold off the slaughter so they throw him in a pit and decide to sell him into slavery for 20 pieces of silver.
If you read on in this story it is unbelievable how many bad things happen to Joseph as he tried so desparately to be a man of faith, of integrity of deep unwavering character. At every turn he is faced with this decision to turn on God, turn on his faith, give up, throw in the towel and believe me, as I read this story again I’m astounded that he doesn’t.
As the story comes to a close, however, we find Joseph as 2nd in command of Egypt, saving millions of lives during a famine and being restored to his father and brothers. His explanation is simply that what they meant for evil, God meant for good.
Simple? Yes.
What happens to us in life, betrayal, has been happening since the first act of man towards his Creator. It happened to Christ when every single one of his 12 discpiles abandoned him when he was being put on trial and ultimately killed. Abandonment, betrayal, these are not things that happen only to us, they are a fact of life.
It’s the simple way that these men, Jesus, Joseph, others…react. They had as we have the same choice to grow angry and bitter at our circumstances or to trust. To trust that our lives are meant for good, the circumstances that we face, no matter how lonely or how base are somehow, someway meant for good. Even when people do us wrong, ultimately I, we, can trust that there is a larger story playing out, on a much grander scale than we can ever understand.
That gives me optimism and encouragement today, I hope it does you too.
Jason Taylor 
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