Vetrean Pastor, Life time Learner, Problem Solver, Servant-Leader and Motivational Speaker.

November and December 2011 Books I am reading....

 

I love our weekly high school bible study..........They have big hearts for God.

 

THANK YOU NORTH MASON BIBLE CHURCH!!!!

 

A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs - NYTimes.com.... This is one of the best articles I have read

Laurene got down on her knees and looked into his eyes.

“You can do this, Steve,” she said. His eyes widened. His lips pressed into each other.

He tried. He always, always tried, and always with love at the core of that effort. He was an intensely emotional man.

I realized during that terrifying time that Steve was not enduring the pain for himself. He set destinations: his son Reed’s graduation from high school, his daughter Erin’s trip to Kyoto, the launching of a boat he was building on which he planned to take his family around the world and where he hoped he and Laurene would someday retire.

Even ill, his taste, his discrimination and his judgment held. He went through 67 nurses before finding kindred spirits and then he completely trusted the three who stayed with him to the end. Tracy. Arturo. Elham.

One time when Steve had contracted a tenacious pneumonia his doctor forbid everything — even ice. We were in a standard I.C.U. unit. Steve, who generally disliked cutting in line or dropping his own name, confessed that this once, he’d like to be treated a little specially.

I told him: Steve, this is special treatment.

He leaned over to me, and said: “I want it to be a little more special.”

Intubated, when he couldn’t talk, he asked for a notepad. He sketched devices to hold an iPad in a hospital bed. He designed new fluid monitors and x-ray equipment. He redrew that not-quite-special-enough hospital unit. And every time his wife walked into the room, I watched his smile remake itself on his face.

For the really big, big things, you have to trust me, he wrote on his sketchpad. He looked up. You have to.

By that, he meant that we should disobey the doctors and give him a piece of ice.

None of us knows for certain how long we’ll be here. On Steve’s better days, even in the last year, he embarked upon projects and elicited promises from his friends at Apple to finish them. Some boat builders in the Netherlands have a gorgeous stainless steel hull ready to be covered with the finishing wood. His three daughters remain unmarried, his two youngest still girls, and he’d wanted to walk them down the aisle as he’d walked me the day of my wedding.

We all — in the end — die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories.

I suppose it’s not quite accurate to call the death of someone who lived with cancer for years unexpected, but Steve’s death was unexpected for us.

What I learned from my brother’s death was that character is essential: What he was, was how he died.

Tuesday morning, he called me to ask me to hurry up to Palo Alto. His tone was affectionate, dear, loving, but like someone whose luggage was already strapped onto the vehicle, who was already on the beginning of his journey, even as he was sorry, truly deeply sorry, to be leaving us.

He started his farewell and I stopped him. I said, “Wait. I’m coming. I’m in a taxi to the airport. I’ll be there.”

“I’m telling you now because I’m afraid you won’t make it on time, honey.”

When I arrived, he and his Laurene were joking together like partners who’d lived and worked together every day of their lives. He looked into his children’s eyes as if he couldn’t unlock his gaze.

Until about 2 in the afternoon, his wife could rouse him, to talk to his friends from Apple.

Then, after awhile, it was clear that he would no longer wake to us.

His breathing changed. It became severe, deliberate, purposeful. I could feel him counting his steps again, pushing farther than before.

This is what I learned: he was working at this, too. Death didn’t happen to Steve, he achieved it.

He told me, when he was saying goodbye and telling me he was sorry

via www.nytimes.com

Our Greatest Need— D. A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation

Our Greatest Need

If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor.

But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death; and he sent us a Savior.

— D. A. Carson,  A Call to Spiritual Reformation

via takeyourvitaminz.blogspot.com

Guest Post: How my Fiance Changed My Mind About Leadership | Ron Edmondson

Leadership is not someone in charge telling us what we should or shouldn’t do.
Leadership is less about power than it is about relationship.

I’m getting married in two months and being in relationship has taught me a lot about leadership. My fiance is a really good leader to me. Here’s what I’ve learned in the months that we’ve been dating.

Leaders have to have long term vision and short term strategy

From the first time I spoke with Darrell he knew he wanted to marry me. His long term vision gave him confidence to move forward with me. But vision in itself didn’t make him a good leader to me.

He didn’t call me and say, “I want to marry you – how do you feel about that?” He said, “I’m interested in you. Can we keep talking so I can get to know you better?”

He was a good leader because he used his vision to develop a short term strategy.

The long term vision without the short term strategy would have scared me half to death. The short term strategy without long term vision would have left us talking on the phone forever and ever.

Good leaders have both vision and strategy. They can’t lead without one or the other.

Leaders have small asks and can communicate them well.

Part of his “strategy” was creating small, safe asks for me to move forward in relationship with him. He would say, “I really enjoyed talking to you. Can we we talk again tomorrow?”

We lived across the country from one another so after several weeks of over-the-phone conversation he said, “I’m ready to meet whenever you are. Think about if you’d rather meet in my hometown or yours, and when you’re ready I’ll make it happen.”

I was never confused about where we were headed or what his intention was with me, but I also didn’t feel like I had to have a plan for “step 8” when we were still on “step 3.”

If I had been confused about where we were going or what he was asking of me I might have felt insecure and backed out of the relationship altogether.

Good leaders have to be able to communicate what step of the process is being executed and what is required of each person who is participating.

Leaders acknowledge and affirm the effort that is given.

After we had been dating for a few weeks he said to me, “I’m so grateful for the time and energy you’ve invested in this relationship. Your time and energy are valuable and I’m honored that you would gift them to me.”

I felt so honored by that statement it made me want to give even more time and energy to him.

It’s easy to give your energy and your effort to someone when you recognize that they appreciate what you’re investing. If you want people to respond to your leadership, first speak to what they are already giving.

You’ll earn their trust and their affection and they’ll likely give you more than you’re even asking.

Leaders lead by words and example.

When people ask how I knew I want to marry Darrell one of the things I say about him is that he is the first to admit when he is wrong.

So often he leads by example. He acts with integrity and conviction and I follow him. He sets the tone and I mirror it. Sometimes he acts incorrectly and he is quick to speak to that.

He uses words to lead me in those times. He says, “I was wrong to do/say that. It would have been better to do/say ______. Will you please forgive me?”

It is good to lead with actions. When we act with integrity those around us follow. But it is not enough to lead with just actions because leaders aren’t perfect. Good leaders use their words to speak where their actions fall short.

Good leaders need both words and actions to lead well.

It hasn’t always been easy for me to warm up to the idea of leadership but I’m getting used to it more and more every day. I’m thankful for the way

via www.ronedmondson.com

Thanks Pastor John Piper: 20 Reasons I Don't Take Potshots at Fundamentalists - Desiring God

1. They are humble and respectful and courteous and even funny (the ones I've met).

2. They believe in truth.

3. They believe that truth really matters.

4. They believe that the Bible is true, all of it.

5. They know that the Bible calls for some kind of separation from the world.

6. They have backbone and are not prone to compromise principle.

7. They put obedience to Jesus above the approval of man (even though they fall short, like others).

8. They believe in hell and are loving enough to warn people about it.

9. They believe in heaven and sing about how good it will be to go there.

10. Their "social action" is helping the person next door (like Jesus), which doesn't usually get written up in the newspaper.

11. They tend to raise law-abiding, chaste children, in spite of the fact that Barna says evangelical kids in general don't have any better track record than non-Christians.

12. They resist trendiness.

13. They don’t think too much is gained by sounding hip.

14. They may not be hip, but they don’t go so far as to drive buggies or insist on typewriters.

15. They still sing hymns.

16. They are not breathless about being accepted in the scholarly guild.

17. They give some contemporary plausibility to New Testament claim that the church is the “pillar and bulwark of the truth.”

18. They are good for the rest of evangelicals because of all this.

19. My dad was one.

20. Everybody to my left thinks I am one. And there are a lot of people to my left.

 

via www.desiringgod.org

How To Communicate With A Leader With A Different Personality « Chris LoCurto's Blog

Above all things know thyself.

• Get to know you – You have to first get to know you! If you don’t understand yourself, you can’t really understand why you act, react and process the way you do. And the key to giving information is understanding how you receive information. Once you know this, you can adjust your style to better communicate with others — not changing who you are, just adjusting how you communicate.

via chrislocurto.com