Break It Down to Get ‘Er Done – Well

Mmmm... hot legs - the real reason run.

“One man’s mile is another man’s marathon.”  Don’t know if anyone has ever said this before, but sure sounds like someone has.  Or how about this one, “How do you run a marathon?  One step at a time.”  The reason the marathon is on the forefront of my mind is because I’m planning on running the Philadelphia Marathon this year for the second time.

One thing that’s impressed me as I’ve started training is that whether I’m going out to run 4 hard miles, going to the track to do a few 400s (one lap around the track), or actually going to run the full 26.2 miles; each of these runs/workouts is its own challenge, even marathon.  I found that to perform well, even just to run one good lap around the track, I need to break these challenges down into thirds or fourths. 

For instance, if I don’t divide just one lap around the track into manageable chucks then I go out too fast and putter out in the end.  So now when I go to the track to run 400s, I’ve broken each 100 into different focusing phrases that I repeat rhythmically in my head as I run around the track:

• The first 100 I say, “Accelerate it up, accelerate it up, accelerate up…” as I want to build speed.
• As I go around the curve for the second 100, I say, “Lock it in, lock it in, lock it in…” as I want to maintain my speed.
• For the third 100, I say “Stride it out, stride it out, stride it out” as I want to increase my stride going down the second straight away.
• And finally for the last 100, I say “Push it out, push it out, push it out” as I want to finish strong and leave it all on the track.

I’ve begun to apply this approach to my work – breaking my days, weeks, and projects down into manageable chunks with focusing phrases.  My natural tendency is to look at the day, week or a project and just try to tackle it and “get ‘er done;” but just like at the track I don’t have the energy and focus to finish strong.  For instance, here’s how my day might look when I segment it into thirds:

• First part of my day I want to “cross off client project to dos”
• Second part of my day “long term project and CRM planning”
• Third part of my day “social media and Internet marketing research and planning”

Now that I got my day broken down, I have focus for each part of the day and natural breaking points for me to eat something, read something funny, pray, and re-energize for the next part of the day.  Let me know how you approach your daily, weekly, and project planning – what’s working for you or how you feel you could improve in your approach to your work days, weeks and projects?

Everett

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Hello From Philadelphia

The following is an update I posted on the Goodwill Youth Group blog and figured worthwhile to post it on my blog since it’s my content!:

Hello everyone from Philadelphia.  I miss you all, but am glad that we are still connecting through Facebook, phone calls, texting, Twitter, and definitely prayer.  Your prayer and words of encouragement have meant a lot to me – I feel like I rode them down to Philly and you gave me tremendous confidence and trust in the job interviews.

I had my last interview this past Tuesday, so now it’s time to wait to hear if I get a job offer late next week.  Please pray that the branch manager, who makes the final decision, shows me favor.

My roommate Dave and me in my bedroom. 

Here’s the street that we live on, right outside our door.

Every day, a few times a day, I go to this park a block away to pray and read scripture.  Here I am sitting in the park below a memorial depicting the starvation the Irish experienced in the 1840s and 1850s and their journey to this country.

Living around this memorial are other people who are hungry – many homeless people spend their nights on the park benches.

Usually, when I go to this park, I am overcome by a deep sense of loneliness, which I know I share with many of you.  It’s funny being lonely while simultaneously being surrounded by millions of people.   I thank God that Dave, my close brother in Christ from college is my roommate, and that I have family, and friends like you guys to stay in touch with.  I started going to Tenth Presbyterian Church (http://www.tenth.org) and I’m going to check out their twentysomething small group this Sunday.  I’ve also met some pretty cool people through this tango class that I’m taking for the next 5 weeks, which, as I figured, is a great way to meet people – especially female people! 

I encourage you to follow my example in dealing with your loneliness because it’s OK to be lonely; the issue is what you do with your loneliness.  Know it is OK to be lonely and seek God with all your heart through prayer and his word in your loneliness; stay connected with youth group, your youth leaders, and church; invest in the important relationships with your family and friends who build you up; and look for opportunities to do positive and constructive things with people.

Always feel free to shoot me an email or send me a note – I love hearing from you and am always encouraged to see how you’re growing in your faith and knowledge of Jesus and your consideration of others.

Everett

Striving for Social Transformation and National Health One Handshake at a Time

Reading Jon Meacham’s biography of Andrew Jackson, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, and was impressed with his description of Yale and its president Timothy Dwight during the early 1800s:

“Under it’s president, Timothy Dwight, a grandson of Jonathan Edwards, the college was suffused with the idea of Christian service.  ‘In whatever sphere of life you are placed, employ all your powers and all your means of doing good, as diligently and vigoroursly as you can,’ Dwight preached…  faith was about not only personal conversion but social transformation and the health of the nation.  In their minds, and in the minds of thousands of American believers, there was a direct connection between the godliness of the people and the fate of the country” (76).

I’ll let you draw your own comparison between the Yale of 1800 depicted in the above passage and the Yale of today.   One community that I recently participated in that is seeking “social transformation and the health of the nation” is Tenth Presbyterian Church, http://www.tenth.org in Philadelphia.  I just moved to the area and have been there twice, so I’m not sure if that’s going to be my main faith community yet, but their vision is based on Jeremiah 29:7, “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”  And they are definitely living out this mission in practical ways, such as helping provide quality health care to the impoverished hispanic community in North Philly.

I’m encouraged to see the church striving to reach out to people in a practical wholistic manner.  I’m also challenged to do the same every day.  For instance, this morning I walked one -block to this park to have some devotional time and it turned out this must be a regular sleeping spot for homeless people because there were three horizontal on park benches around me.  I did what I could to meet their need for food and talked to one guy who said he doesn’t have a name and should just be known as stranger.  We shook hands and I told him he isn’t a stranger to me or to Jesus who gave him name.

Four or Five Secret Ingredients to Jesus’ Discipleship Sauce

Just listened to Youth Specialties weekly podcast (http://youthspecialties.com/freeresources/podcasts), which featured Seth Barnes (checkout his blog: http://www.sethbarnes.com/) talking about discipleship. Barnes first talked about his passion for discipling his own kids, which is huge. Jim Burns’ (http://www.homeword.com/AboutUs/JimBurns.aspx) main point in Partnering with Parents is that parents are the most effective disciplers of their own kids and that youth leaders need to equip parents to disciple and purposefully influence their kids for Jesus.

Barnes lays out five, which I’m condensing to four, “secrets” to discipleship that he derived from his study of Jesus’ methodology in Luke.

1. Jesus goes with the goers – instead of trying to reach as many young people as possible, Barnes is promoting the idea of investing in a few, perhaps twelve like Jesus.
2. Model greatness – we have to live out our faith before our young people through service, missions trips, prayer, personal spiritual discipline, so that they can see what authentically following Jesus looks like.
3. Next Barnes talks about how we need to create the paradox of security and risk. On the one hand we need to create a safe place for our young people to seek after Jesus and open up their hearts to Him, youth leaders, and peers. So a safe place for soul work, but also provide an environment for young people to take risks and face danger. Barnes talks about how missions trips can help put people in these types of situations.
4. Invest deep and long (this is the one I’m condensing) – spend time with young people and give them opportunities to talk about the deep issues of their hearts: pain, dreams, and desires. Also be prepared to go the distance with them – stay in touch with them after college, and connect them with resources, tools, and other ministries that can reach them in ways that we don’t have the time, resources, or ability to.

My next blog post will discuss how I’m seeing these four secrets play out in the lives of five senior high guys that God’s given me the privilege of investing in.

Discovering What Jewish Followers of Christ Have to Offer the Church

Went to Kehilat HaDavar (http://www.kehilat.org/), a messianic congregation in Lawerenceville, Ga.  The words that were on the tongues of the teacher and people who talked to me were torah, righteousness, torah, Yeshua, shabbot, torah, commands, did I mention torah, and instructions.

Rob with his son outside of Kehilat HaDavar, which means The Word Fellowship.

Eric, a teacher and active congregant who discovered his Jewish identity in Christ in his twenties, sat down with me over a bagel and coffee and explained how impotant the Torah is – it means instruction – because it points us to Jesus – the goal of our lives.  In their information display they have an article on what Torah means to them from http://ffoz.org/_php/phprint.php.  I still have to finish reading this.

The congregants, a collection of about 50 to 75 Jews and Gentiles are honoring God and seeking to please Him by living out his commands and instructions – The Torah.  Eric emphasized this to me, as well as the teacher, and this guy Rob in the parking lot – that Jesus came not to abolish God’s commands, but to fulfill them and be an example for us in following the Torah.  They asserted what our English translation of scripture calls “law” is really Torah, which is far more than laws and restrictions, but God’s freeing and life-giving instructions to us, which are embodied in Yeshua.

Worship was beautiful.  Lean-earthy Jeff with his talis draped over his shoulders was a one-man worship machine leading us in messianic worship – playing the guitar, some hand-held percusion noise-makers, a recorder, and the keyboard.  A circle of Davidic dancers gathered in the front corner of the sancuary, and some people in the audience had tambourines and bongos going.  I liked the variety of ways and freedom in which people participated in worship.

Then one of the teachers, not the main one, spoke for an hour on Leviticus – go figure!  He read a few verses in Hebrew, then English, and then offer his commentary and some of his story of turning to Yeshua.  He emphasized the importance of observing the Sabbath and following Torah.  But he says he observes Torah by choice, in celebration of the freedom he now has in Jesus.  When talking about the ancient Israelites he said “we.”  When he started reading God’s commands about handling infectious discharges I went to the bathroom and when I came back he was still reading about discharges.

This community of followers of Yeshua has a lot of positives to offer the church.  I appreciate the sense of righteousness and freedom that they maintain by choosing to hold close to some of God’s very tangible commands.  Also, they demonstrate tremendous community, setting aside Shabbot to spend worshipping, learning, and eating together: breakfast from 9 to 10, worship service from 10 to 1230, lunch, followed up by some classes through the afternoon.  This community lifestyle results in tight-knit healthy families.

However, it will be difficult for the larger church to benefit from this messianic community of Jews and Gentiles as long as there is an attitude and belief that the majority of Gentile believers and people worshipping outside a Messianic context don’t have it completely right – they’re not obeying all the commandments like the Sabbath, they’re too modern, they’re using incomplete translations.  With an underlying belief that “we got it right,” it is very difficult to connect with other followers of Christ in a way that results in mutual edification and encouragement.  When I asked Erik how he thinks other churches view their congregation, he said “I think they think we’re waiting for a UFO or something.”

Regardless, I do have hope in Jewish and Gentile followers of Christ coming together to support each other, draw from each other, and celebrate each other’s spiritual heritages.  The church, at least the American church, is hungry for some of the time-tested life-principles, practices, and understanding that was truly handed down from God to the Jewish people.  What the Messianic Jewish community needs to do, and perhaps I can help, is offer these principles, practices, and overall understanding to the church in very gracious and practical ways that families can receive and incorporate into their lives, while celebrating the unique role Gentile believers play in God’s redemptive history of the world.

Trusting Jesus in the Nick of Time

It’s 11 am Easter morning and my roommate and I are scrambling around our apartment vacuuming, cleaning the windows, scrubbing the toilets, folding clothes in our bedrooms, washing the floors, while getting the lamb in the oven before the 1:30 pm arrival of our respective families. 

Basically, we’re doing all the cleaning we should have been doing on a weekly basis in one pressure-packed two hour window of time.  At one point we looked up at each other with Swiffer and some other cleaning agents in hand, and laughed at the fact that while we knew our families were coming for a few weeks we now find ourselves trying to get up all the crap and cobwebs that have accumulated over time, especially in the corners and hard to reach places.

Then we laughed again at the clear parallel between our last-minute preparations for the arrival of our families, especially my fastidious mother who’s sharp eyes and sniffer are keenly trained on picking up any signs of neglect, and the unfortunate situations of the wicked servant and five foolish virgins who Jesus used as warnings for us about being caught unprepared for His return.  The wicked servant in Matthew 24:48-51, whose master leaves him in charge of the house; reasoning that the master will be gone for a while, he takes advantage of the other servants.  The outcome isn’t so funny for the wicked servant when the master returns unexpectedly; “He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 

While a harsh reminder, nevertheless, a good reminder to take Jesus’ words to heart, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour” (Mt 25:13).  While it is difficult to do a deep-cleaning of our apartment a couple hours before our important guests arrived, it is flat out too late to hold off on letting Jesus in to do a regular deep-cleaning of our hearts.  Jesus is simply asking us to trust Him with all of our hearts now, even the parts of our hearts that don’t want to trust.

Looking back on the day, I am impressed with how much we did get cleaned up in a couple hours while making a solid Easter dinner for nine.  We got our acts together in the nick of time – my mom actually commented on the cleanliness of my bathroom – holding off on using the toilet between our deep-cleaning and her arrival paid off.  When it comes to our hearts – our souls, the nick of time is now to get right with Jesus.

 

 

 

Discipling is Hilarous

One of the guys God’s given me the privilege of pouring into went through Proverbs 6 with me on the phone. He made going through the scripture hilarious. If anyone has a difficult time reading the Bible, I recommend reading through the Bible with some teenager.
Here are some of the comments he made:

• After reading “the LORD hates… a person who sows discord in a family,” he remarked, “I guess the only time it pays to be deaf is when there’s discord in the family.”
• In reaction to “My son, obey your father’s commands, and don’t neglect your mother’s instruction,” he commented, “Not always true.  I often agree with my dad more than my mom.  She always asks me to do the dishes.”  I asked him, “What’s one positive thing about doing the dishes?”  He responded, “I get to wash my hands.”  We stayed on this one for a while.
• “Keep their words always in your heart.  Tie them around your neck.”  He asked, ”You don’t want to strangle yourself do you?”
• After really focusing on how sometimes our parents ask us to do things we don’t feel like doing, but we can honor God but being obedient to them anyway, I asked him, “What’s one thing you can take away from this?”  He said, “Sometimes you gotta follow what you think is right cause we do have a conscience.”  Which meant it was time to go back to Proverbs 6:21 and wrap it around his neck a bit tighter! 

These guys are almost as stubborn as me!  And require almost as much grace, patience, and compassion as Jesus has shown me.

Time with My Mentee

For the past 3 years I’ve been spending an hour a week with Edwin, my mentee. Edwin is now 15 years old and is staying at both a home and school for special needs children. Edwin has no parents. The only family he has known has been the two children’s homes he has stayed in, the staff, the social workers, Cindy who’s worked with Edwin and remained in touch with him since he was 5, and me for the past three years.

Recently after spending time with him, it occurred to me that he has a scattered concept of time. He has difficulty putting the months in order, understanding that his July 2nd birthday is months away, and that in three years he’s going to be considered an adult by the state.

I talked with his social worker tonight about how we can help him develop a better concept of time. She had a great suggestion – we could make a calendar together. This works out perfectly since we were surfing the internet saving pictures of his favorite celebrities to my hard drive. So we’ll make a calendar using pictures of what is now a collection of Miley Cyrus and Jake T. Austin – I’ve learned to go with the flow with his interests.

By the way, here’s a great article on the impact of mentorship in Parade magazine a few weeks ago:

http://www.parade.com/health/2009/03/mentoring-programs-change-lives.html

Doing What Jesus Wants Me to Do

I recently read in Doug Field’s book Refuel that a huge lie out there and in our heads is “there is never enough time.”  However, Doug Fields refutes that lie by looking at the life of Jesus and writing that there is always enough time to do what God wants me to do. 

 So with that, this blog is going to change directions as I focus my writing and reflections on what God wants me to do.  This does fit into the overall blog title of ”Trust, Leadership, and History,” but at least changes the focus in my head as to where I saw this blog heading.  And that does bring up the question, “What does God want me to do?”  Right now, I know His will involves pouring myself into the lives of some younger guys through mentorship and purposeful discipleship – helping younger guys follow Jesus.  This also involves partnering with parents – helping them follow Jesus and being the number one influence on their children to do the same. 

Dad and me united by a common cause

 

And somewhere in the mix, I know I’m to live a distinctively Jewish life as I follow Jesus and help create the space and place within the church for Jewish believers in Christ to embrace and explore their Jewish identity while worshipping alongside Gentile believers.

I’m not exactly sure how all this is going to play out, but these threads are going to be the focus of this blog.  Let’s see how Jesus weaves ‘em all together.

Cell Phones and Wallets are for Suckers

Click the hyperlink at the bottom of this post to see a poem I wrote after losing my wallet, all forms of ID, and my cell phone on a photo-hike four hours before my flight out of Palm Springs.  The main scripture God keeps bringing me back to is “Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again, Rejoice!  Let your gentleness be evident to all.  The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in prayer and petition, and with thanksgiving present your requests before God and the peace that transcends understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:4-9).

Well the last 30 hours of my life put this scripture to the test, and I definitely enjoyed a strange peace and received a lot of grace and kind gestures from all sorts of people.  Click one of the hyperlinks below to view the photo-poem that recounts my journey via a pdf file.  I took the photos in the pdf on my hike.

Bump and Grind Photo-Poem (lower resolution)

The Bump and Grind Photo-Poem (higher resolution)

Specific thanks to the staff at Rancho Las Palmas Resort & Spa, http://www.rancholaspalmas.com/, who helped me out big time as mentioned in the poem.

Big thanks to Mary Swindle for the emergency relief cash! http://www.keystaffsource.com/

And much thanks to Doug, Mom, and Dad for bailing me out of another tough spot.

Oh, yeah, and last, but certainly not least, thanks to Hugo who found my cell phone and wallet on the trail and called me 5 days later once his nephew helped him figure out how to turn that fancy phone on.