Reading Buddies

October 11, 2011

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This year in our college ministry we wanted to find a social justice issue that was important to us that we could begin to combat as a group. We settled on education. We’re working on finding a project that allows us to combat that globally, but this week we started our first local project for it. We’re partnering with an elementary school to pair our students with theirs who need help reading. It took a few weeks to get background checks, paperwork, and scheduling done, but today we finally.

While I’d been looking forward to the opportunity, I had no idea how much fun I’d have. In my first classroom, I sat and read “Sideways Stories from the Wayside School” to a class full of third graders. I read this book when I was their age and forgot how much fun it was! I got to do different voices and intonations, and watching the kids reactions to that was incredibly fun. In addition to helping with reading skills, I hope to be able to use time with these kids to instill in them the love for reading that was instilled in me at such a young age.

For my second class, I was with a group of kindergartners. Today, I spent time with them at their recess to get to know them so that it’s not really awkward when I spend one on one time with them working on reading skills. The energy in these kids astounded me. I can’t imagine that I have as much energy in my pinky finger as these kids seemed to have. I loved being reminded of the innocence of young children too. They want to know your name, where you’re from, who your mommy and daddy are, and they want to show you their tricks and how fast they run. They ALL want to show you how fast they can run. It was a great experience though, and I’m looking forward to working with them over the coming months.

Like I said before, I had been excited about the reading program, but nothing could have prepared me for the fun I had today. I left incredibly excited about, and looking forward to next week. Actually interacting with the kids showed me how great an opportunity just sitting and reading for an hour a week can be to minister. I am thankful that God put this opportunity in our laps.

Grace & Peace,
Stippick

Monkey Leadership: Part 2

October 4, 2011

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So. Last week I wrote about a leadership concept that I learned from Rise of the Planet of the Apes. This week? You get treated to the other one I learned: Be a leader worth protecting.

When Caesar ends up in monkey jail, he sees this big ol’ gorilla named Bull. Bull is not nice. But Caesar recognizes that Bull could be an asset to him down the line so he tries to befriend him. Eventually when he is executing his plan, Caesar throws a bottle of the gas that makes the monkeys super smart into Bull’s cage. Caesar has invested time into his relationship with Bull. He knows Bull will be valuable to what he is trying to do.

After they break out and are in their battle with the police on the Golden Gate Bridge, there is a pivotal scene with Bull and Caesar. The helicopter is about to go down and take Caesar down with it. Bull looks up and sees this happening. He looks to the helicopter, to Caesar, and back. He knows what’s about to happen. And he throws his almost monstrous weight onto the helicopter, taking it into the bay with him. He sacrificed himself to protect Caesar.

Bull knew that without Caesar, their monkey revolution had no hope of success. I don’t believe that ANY organization should be fully based around one person. But. Every organization does have a leader.

1) If you’re the leader, are you a leader worth protecting. Is your vision and mission clear? Are the things your organization doing leading you towards those things? Are you taking interest in the individuals you’re leading? What is your character like? These are questions you have to ask yourself. These are the things you have to consider if you want to be a leader worth protecting. Not necessarily physically like Bull did for Caesar, but when other speak or act against you, are the the people you’re leading protecting you? If not, what do you need to do to be a leader worth protecting?

2) If you’re a member of an organization (you are), are you protecting your leader? When others speak or act against him or her, are you coming to their defense? Are you remaining silent? Or worse, are you participating? If you’re not protecting your leader, why not? Is it on you, or is it on them? What needs to happen for you to be willing to protect your leader?

The organization shouldn’t be built around any one individual, but the leader should be guiding the organization. If the leader is to guide the organization well, they need protection at times. Are you worth protecting? Are you protecting those leading you?

Grace & Peace,
Stippick

Monkey Leadership: Part 1

September 27, 2011

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This summer I went and saw the midnight showing of Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. Why?Because it seemed like the right thing to do. And I’m a little bit of a nerd. And I’ve decided to embrace that.

The great thing about the movie though was that I was able to take away two leadership principles. The first on being: Don’t oppress new things just because they’re new.

I think that the intelligent monkeys would argue that the reason they revolted was because they were being treated…like animals. Especially Caesar, who was discovering that he was becoming so much more. The scene where this is most evident is when Caesar is breaking out, and Draco Malfoy (Or…the actor who plays him who also plays a character in this movie…) is shocking him, he grabs his hand and yells “NO!”. The look on his face when he realizes that he can talk communicates to the viewer that he is only just realizing the extent of his development.

The monkeys were treated merely as animals because that’s all they’d ever been known to be. Animals whose functions were limited. No one (besides James Franco) had ever considered that there could be more to them. Their newness was oppressed simply because it was new.

As a leader, you can’t afford to look down on and squash new things simply because they are new for 2 main reasons:

1) Your organization will never move forward. When you keep doing all the things you’ve always done because you’ve always done them, you won’t reach new people. When you’re not reaching new people, the original people will eventually die off (sometimes for real…sometimes metaphorically). If you’re not allowing new ideas to be a part of your DNA, the old ideas will just get older and older and be less and less effective.

2) Your organization will rebel. The people whose ideas are being thrown aside, and those who support them, will decide they don’t like what going on and will do one of two things. They will decide try and take over from the inside, or they’ll leave and start something of their own.

Recently my roommate started a prayer group for some of our friends on Facebook. It was great, we began sharing prayer requests, and praises to answered prayers. Then, someone had the idea for us to meet in person as a group for prayer, and to add others from our college ministry in the FB group and invite them to join us as well. We’ve met twice now, and we can all see what it’s doing in our lives. It would be incredibly easy for me to be down on the idea, or jealous because it wasn’t mine, but instead I’ve made the choice to love what we’re doing, and give the credit for the idea where it’s due and sing its praises.

As leaders, we can’t afford to oppress new things just because they’re new. We have an obligation to hear new ideas and evaluate them individually, and as a team and decide what is best for the organization.

Have you recently said no to a new idea simply because it was new?

Grace & Peace,
Stippick

Does You’re Organization Have a Cold?

September 20, 2011

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Right now I’m rocking a wicked sinus cold. It’s not really all that fun. I’ve got the pressure in my head, my nose alternates from being stuffy to being runny, and I don’t really want to do anything but sit in my bed and watch shows on Netflix. Thanks to a good friend of mine, I’ve recently taken an interest in organizational culture (although not to the extent that he has an interest in it). As I started thinking about my cold, I wondered how my misery might equate to an organization.

So. Here are some ways you might be able to tell if your organization has a cold:

1) Members feel more pressure than they should. The pressure in my head when I have a cold makes me under perform. If your a leader in your organization, you can likely tell when members are feeling pressured. Whether they are paid or volunteered, you can tell that their performance is sub-par compared to what kind you normally get from them. Ask yourself if this is pressure that is coming from you, or from someone else. You and the member(s) may need to sit and look at expectations from both sides and see where and why they’re not being met.

2) Members you want are leaving, and members you could stand to lose can’t be moved. If you’re organization has a cold, it’s likely that you’re leaking members who are contributors; members who are involved in ministry, or who are ministry leaders. On the flip side, you’re probably getting stopped up with members who can’t really be bothered to do much; members who’d rather sit in the pew Sunday after Sunday than volunteer somewhere, or get involved in a ministry. Ask yourself if there’s anything you need to change personally to begin to retain members, what you need to change organizationally to begin to retain members, and how to go about getting members engaged, or moving somewhere they’ll be more comfortable collecting dust.

3) Members are becoming lazy in their mission. Again, this is a time where you make an honest evaluation, and realize that members (probably more particularly leaders and/or paid staff) are under performing. The reason for this though is different than the pressure. This more likely comes from a lack of caring, or the member having lost sight of the vision/mission of the organization. Because of this, they seem not to care about what’s going on, and so their work becomes less satisfactory. Unlike the other two things, this probably has more to do with the member than your organization. A helpful course of action is, again, to begin to look at the expectations of the members responsibilities, show how they haven’t met them, and look at why.

Those are just some thoughts I have on the subject. Do you have anything to add?

Grace & Peace,
Stippick

Link Love…

February 25, 2011

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A few weeks ago, I came across this article on the Washington Post website in the “On Faith” section, and was fairly astounded at the claims it made. I shared it through facebook, but thought I’d give it some time here as well. I was pretty offended by some of the statements, and my boss, who has a fairly liberal theology for being in central Texas, said it was the most “intellectually offensive thing he’d ever read.” The article is:

“Debunking ‘Biblical marriage’: why the Bible can’t dictate today’s sexual morals”

The second article is:

“What does the Bible say about sexuality?”

Here is part three:

“What does the Bible say about sexual desire?”

 

Here’s my biggest issue with it. The author, Jennifer Wright Knust, is a professor of Religion at Boston College, and an ordained American Baptist Association Pastor. She’s also got a book out that covers the same topics: Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions About Sex and Desire. Apparently all it takes these days to be ordained, get a masters in, and teach about the Bible is to have glanced at a couple of verses. It scares me for the future of the church at large, and offends me as someone who is pursuing full time ministry.

I’m honestly very surprised that whoever read this article before it was put on the world wide web didn’t laugh at it and throw it in the trash. While the “On Faith” section of the W.P. doesn’t only cover Christianity, it has a journalistic duty to ensure that what is said isn’t…moronic. In my personal opinion? It reflects poorly on their integrity. Not because the article says something I disagree with, but because the article says numerous things that disagree with the text upon which it is based.

Read the articles for yourself and see what you think. For Christ’s sake though, read the Bible for yourself. Don’t pull text. Read it. In context. Study it. Tear it apart. Form your positions, not opinions, from there.

Grace and Peace,

David Stippick

Get your serve on.

February 23, 2011

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I read an article from the summer 2010 issue of Neue magazine that asked the question “Is the church responsible to find people friends?”

The point the article makes is that, at work, and in life in general, we as people are pretty good at making friends on our own. We gravitate towards people who have the same general interests and likes and dislikes as we do; sometimes to keep it interesting, we make good friends with people who are nothing like us. But. For some reason we as the church feel the need to make sure that everyone is in a small/cell/life/affinity group. We want to make sure people have friends. We want to make people be friends. We don’t however do such a great job of getting people to serve. We get them “involved” or “doing life with” a group of people. But what are they doing? It goes on to make the point that we can accomplish fostering relationships by having people serve together. If we spend more time organizing stronger serving opportunities, people are bound to gather around them, and build relationships with the people they’re serving with. (That’s a mediocre paraphrase of the well written article by Tony Morgan)

People can be in a serving group, and growing with that group of people. They can invest in each others lives with prayer, meals, Bible study. All the same functions are met.

As I read the article, I realized how true it was. When I’ve been at church functions designed to help me “meet new people”, I’ve gone with people I know, and it’s a bit awkward. I might meet one or two people I didn’t know…but probably not. What I do have great memories of though, is people I served with. Students and adults. Some of my best memories are serving on ministry teams, and on mission trips. Some of my strongest bonds are with those people. Because we were doing life together, and working towards a common goal. That work looked different from time to time, but that was part of the fun of it.

So, are you just going somewhere? Do you have a class or small group that you just meet with? What do you guys do? What is your purpose? If you’re not serving by doing something together? Start. Or find somewhere where you can. Plug in. Start serving. Give of yourself. One of the greatest tools of the Devil is to get you to go to church and sit in a pew, and to go to your small group, or whatever you code name it, and sit there, and not. Do. A. Thing.

If you’re on a leadership team? Stop fooling yourself into thinking that people will begin to serve when they feel comfortable in their relationships. People will begin to serve when you give them an opportunity to serve. Ask them to serve. Tell them to serve. Beg and plead with them to serve. Let them know they can serve, or go sit in someone else’s pew. Your job isn’t to make them feel good about coming to church ever Sunday week in and week out for 20 years, your job is to equip them to do the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4:12). Someone told you that your job was to do it all, and that that made you special. They lied to you. Your specific, full time, vocational, call to ministry is no more important than your neighbor’s call to ministry as an accountant or a teacher, save for where scripture tells us that if you are a teacher (speaking of those whose calling it is to teach the word of God) that you will be judged more strictly (James 3:1). Complete shame on you if you have ever made a believer feel as though your ministry is any more important than theirs.

Equip. Serve. Give. Do. Grow. Learn.

Grace and Peace,

David Stippick

The Forgotten Purposely Crazily Radical Bible

February 9, 2011

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I know I wrote a few months ago about reading the Bible…but I really felt like addressing it again.

In the last few months as I’ve dived more and more into the Bible for myself I’ve been shocked at my own Biblical illiteracy, and the same trait in so many other Christ followers. I don’t mean that we don’t spend time in the word, but we rarely take time to actually study it, and work out what it is saying. The Bible tells the most compelling story of all time, and all the while asks some enormous things of us. And we don’t really know that a lot of the time.

Now. We can tell you all of Rick Warren’s five purposes. We can tell you how Chan says we’ve eliminated the Holy Spirit. We can engage you in conversation about what Platt says we need to do to really turn Christianity around in the America. Few of us though, could genuinely articulate the verses or passages that led Warren to believe those are God’s purposes for our lives. We don’t really get what the Bible says about the Spirit. We prefer to gloss over the red letters that call us to a life that looks nothing like that of the life of this world.

Don’t get me wrong, I think we can learn a lot from guys like that who have had wild success in their ministry, and I don’t think their intention was ever that we hold their literature as being equal to or greater than the words of the Living God of the universe. But a lot of us make that mistake a lot of the time. I’ve been guilty of it. I just think that we all need to take a moment and genuinely weigh the amount of time we read books for leadership development, or a new ministry strategy against the amount of time that we spend in the words of our Savior, and how much of that time we actually spend studying those words and figuring out what they really mean to us and how we should be living that out.

I’m all for books that may help me avoid the pitfalls of the guys who came before me, or that can guide me to a deeper understanding of a particular topic. But David was in pitfalls long before Saddleback was planted, and Paul quit murdering and started preaching centuries before there was an upside down house on the cover of an orange book.

Grace and Peace,

David Stippick

(Big thanks to my roommate and friends for the great conversations that inspired this post. Also. Yes, I did whore out this post where the tags were concerned so as to hopefully generate more traffic. I have no shame.)

“Just An Intern”

November 17, 2010

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Last week at the opening of The Brick Coffee House a good friend and I were talking about how my job was going (he’s actually the guy who told me about the job), and as we were talking, he asked me this question, “Are you ok with just being an intern?”

I had to think about that. Am I ok with being “just an intern”? A lot of people my age are pursuing careers in their chosen fields, and many men and women in ministry have had their first full time staff job and are moving on to the next one at 22/23. So, am I ok with being just an intern?

Absolutely. Here’s why:

  1. As I understand it, our economy is still in the crapper (can I get a ruling on that…is it supposed to be really bad, or getting better this week?). I recently learned that the place I was working before I was in school had the locks changed. There went that job. I’d be out searching for something else. But right now? I’m in school. My housing and meals have already been paid for. I don’t have to worry about that. I have to worry about gas a little bit, but mostly whether I want to order this book, or that book. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’ll have some loans (I’m already working on scholarships for next year, I plan to scholarship as much of this baby as possible) to pay back when it’s all said and done, but (again, as I understand it) by the time I’m ready to enter the workforce with my degree, the economy is projected to be a little more stable. So, not only will I be going after what I want to do, I’ll be going after it with more experience than the other guy, plus I’ll be able to match his almighty degree. In short? It’s financially responsible for me to be in school right now, working as an intern in my chosen field.
  2. It’s best for my ego. I was getting dangerously close to doing things the way I wanted because that’s I how I wanted to do them, and it was going to be great, and it was going to glorify God more than anything anyone else around me was doing! Either that, or I was getting frustrated with my situation, and full of myself. It was more likely that second one. Being “just an intern” means that, even though my boss has given me a certain amount of freedom, I still answer to him. And to his boss. I’m not it. If I was…I’d probably be very inclined to think much of myself and forget that my job is to make much of Jesus. That’s an important distinction, and it’s a trap that I think a lot of young people in ministry get caught in. I don’t want to be caught in that. So for right now? The best place for me to gain experience, and perspective, is by working as an intern in my chosen field.

In the end. After thought and prayer. I am very ok with being “just an intern”.

-Stippick

Sabbathing

March 2, 2010

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I originally wrote this on my Mission Year blog on February 24th, 2009. Got a nice reminder about it last Sunday though.

We have a Sabbath built in to our week, and it’s great. I generally spend mine doing absolutely nothing but reading, web surfing, and blogging. I enjoy it…but that book that we’re reading that I told you about (Practicing Our Faith) made me rethink how I will probably be spending my Sabbath from here on out.

In the Jewish tradition, they are called to observe the Sabbath for two reasons. One reason is because God did. He worked for six days, and rested on one. If we are assuming that the world can not go on without our work for one day…how arrogant does that make us? What does that say about how we view God? The other reason is to remind them of their newly found freedom. He reminds them of their slavery in Egypt. Slaves can not take a day off, free people can. (Exodus 20:8-11; Deuteronomy 5:12-15)

In the Christian tradition, we kind of have this day built in to our weeks as well. Sunday. We get the family all together, go off to Sunday School, go to service, go out to eat, go catch a quick nap at home (if we’re lucky), then back to the church building for budget/personnel/ministry team meetings, and then there is always the possibility of the Children’s Choir performance or some banquet or other after that. We don’t honestly get that much rest, because we’re so involved. That totally used to be me.

The Sabbath is supposed to be a time of rest. A time that we use to thank God for giving us the time to rest, and for the work he has given us to do.

Sunday is no longer protected by legislation (Blue Laws), or custom. Because our lives are so busy on other days, we have to cram all those meetings and events in to one day. A lot of the time we don’t think about the fact that some people don’t ever get a day off, because they work multiple jobs, or have to put in insane hours at the one job they’re trying to keep. When we go out to lunch at a restaurant, we don’t wonder if our waitress has had a day of rest this week.

How great would it be if groups of three or four families got together to spend their Sabbaths together, and keep each other accountable to just…resting. Maybe they set up a rotating schedule of who provides food, or they all contribute every week. And they make a commitment not to be committed to anything that is work (or church work related). As far fetched as it sounds, if the body of believers decided to take back their Sunday as a day of rest, a Sabbath (this is most often the best bet because it is a relatively open day), then eventually the church governance would get the message and stop scheduling meetings on Sunday, and (and yes I really believe that if enough people did it this would happen) if people stopped going out to eat, restaurants wouldn’t open, and perhaps they’d learn something from S. Truett Cathy (founder of Chik-Fil-A and does not allow them to be open on Sundays).

We get scared of hearing something like this, or of considering making it a priority because ‘What about this project I have a work’, or ‘Yeah, but the garage isn’t going to clean itself’. Consider this though:
“People who know the Sabbath pattern of creation, liberation, and resurrection nurture a dissatisfaction with this system, however, and can work for change. Keeping Sabbath, we grow in our longing for a system where all people have work at a living wage, and time for rest and worship too.” – Dorthy C. Bass
People who decide to take a stand against what the culture decides to observe, and celebrate the Sabbath can change the culture.

Using your Sabbath as a day to rest, commune with God, and others, and respect the right of others to do the same will change your life. I promise

-Stippick

Legen- Wait for it…

February 8, 2010

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Dary. (That is a reoccurring line from How I Met Your Mother. Which happens to be one of my favorite shows)

“The name of Jesus was legendary.” That is a line from a book I’m reading right now called “simple small groups”, by Bill Search*.

That statement was in reference to Jerusalem in the time immediately following the death of Jesus.

The name of Jesus was legendary.

It was almost infamous even to the Roman empire in the area, and especially to the Jewish people as a whole. Everyone knew who He was, and what He claimed, and who He claimed to be. And you either believed that or you didn’t. And at that time…it was a very risky thing to believe.

As I read that line though. I got to thinking. The name of Jesus is not legendary today. The majority of people in developed societies/cultures/countries, have heard that name, and may or may not know what He was about.

But His name isn’t legendary. And that’s my fault. And yours. (If you are a person who claims to be a Christ follower). Because that’s not really our concern. We are concerned about whether or not our church, or our Pastor, or our community of believers (or ourself or our families), become legendary in the name of Jesus. But if we’re completely honest with ourselves, we’re not, as a whole, really worried about whether or not the name of Jesus becomes legendary.

So. What can you (I/we) do this year to make the name JESUS legendary? This month? This week? Today?

Right now?

-Stippick

* You can get that book here.

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