"Sweded" Looney Tunes Classic: "The Rabbit of Seville"

The movie Be Kind, Rewind has had an apparent (and unexpected) impact on my family in the way of a new fascination among my kids to "Swede" movies and favorite other media. The process, as defined by Jack Black and Mos Def, essentially revolves around a) picking a favorite movie, b) truncating it to its absolute barest and most memorable parts, and c) re-enacting it with what you have around you to the best of your ability. The end result is a fun, often hilarious and always cute (hey, they're my kids... if you don't think they're cute, you can keep that to yourself) rendition of whatever it is they are attempting to reproduce.

Recently, we've been watching a lot of Looney Tune classics on YouTube. I'm amazed at all that they have on that site... holy cow! But anyway, Elijah and Peri have some particular fondness for Bugs Bunny, and specifically, the "opera" satires that involve Bugs getting the better of [usually] Elmer Fudd to the classic music of everything to Wagner to The Marriage of Figaro.

Last night's target for Sweding centered around Bugs and the parody of The Barber of Seville, one of my personal favorites (i had a chance to see it at The Bolshoi in Moscow in 1994... it rocked!!!) called "The Rabbit of Seville" (what else?) and focused on a particual scene where Bugs dons the appearance of a Spanish lady to sucker Elmer into a position where he doesn't notice Bugs shearing his garters.

The kids' re-enactment (notice Elijah's attempt at re-creating the green "gown" worn by Bugs and Peri's pink hat - she didn't want to look TOO much like a boy... even though she was trying to be Elmer Fudd) is shown below, and if you want to see the original cartoon, you can click here to go to YouTube to watch the 7 minute classic.

ONE Prayer Update: India...

In July, Raj and i went to a 1,300 year old temple fortification near the seashore of a town called Mammalapuram (it's a large, tourist attraction), where, at sunrise, we shot the following update of the progress of the ONE Prayer movement in India. Walking through the stone ruins of this beautiful, massive, hand-built structure helped me to see anew the beauty of what God is doing in and through all of us to knit people together to Himself! Enjoy!

Thirst II: Reloaded...

In July, i visited one of the villages where GCC Water Teams will be operating in December. My purpose was to do a little recon in figuring out what the status of the village is in terms of their existing water quality, as well as getting some basic data on their demographics, population stats, etc. What is attached here is a little video that is an edited compendium of the footage that i took while there, and gives you an accurate picture of how our helping to deliver clean water to the 65 - 75 families who live there will be helpful.

By the way, we will be blogging the December Teams as we prep to leave for the field. You can track them by clicking here, or going to http://gccindiadec08.blogspot.com.

ONE Prayer Update: China

Please see below from our field ministry partners in China regarding progress on the ONE Prayer initiative in that country! -sj

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On August 8th 2008 one of our teachers was conducting a baptismal service in one of the lakes near Yian town in the Heilongjiang province. The water in this lake was quite muddy and the lake shore was covered with seaweed. One of the ladies had brought her little boy with her who was playing near the water. Several times during the service she had told him to stay away from the water. But towards the end of the baptismal process the boy still ran into the water and disappeared. Fortunately his mother realized it and jumped to his rescue, but when she entered the water she realized that it was deep and also went under.

The teacher who was still baptizing people interrupted his service and ran to the rescue of mother and her child, but when he jumped in the water where the mother went under he also disappeared in the water. At that point the whole group got together, formed a line holding each other by their hands and lowered one brother into the water who started to search for the three people in the water now. He was able to get a hold of the teacher who held on to the mother with her son. All three were saved in the end. This was truly God’s grace in action. Praise the Lord!!!

Smart Zombie: Raj

Meet Raj! He's our Director of International Missions here at GCC, and one of the most amazing people on the planet! Seriously! Under his leadership over the past 10 years, more than 600 men and women have been trained to plant churches in Tamilnadu, Southern India. We first met Raj through our partnership with The Bible League , and now have the privilege of having him on staff with us.

In addition to continuing to resource ongoing networks of Indian church planters, Raj is also running point for/with us on the India partnership component of the ONE Prayer campaign, operates our "in country" organization (called Life Mission International), and is a dedicated dad (he has two children, Bruce - who is in college, and Clarinda, who is in High School) and husband to his wife of 20 years (Prema). We'll be spending several days hammering out all of the various things we'll be doing together over 2009 and beyond, and are grateful to have him with us for a few days!

Metaphors to Muse Upon: Pirates (Part 6 - Conclusion)

So i like Morgan. I like that he was quick to rally to unconventional solutions to big problems. I like that he saw in a group of misfits and outlanders the capacity to change the world. I like that he embodied the kind of poise, precision and audacity that appears to be more and more necessary to succeed in the world in which we live. I like that he helped to forge the spine for many "Pirate Charters" where, despite the despicable nature of their trade itself, exhibited more democracy, equality, generosity and character than the supposedly "civilized" cultures who often criticized them for their brutality. And finally, i like that by doing all of the above, Morgan and his ilk managed to single-handedly bring England to the proverbial table of the global goods trade and make it a "player" for global consideration for centuries to come.

No doubt by now you've noticed that i like metaphors. I like the idea of being a Smart Zombie and a Samurai. I like the tangible picture(s) that such images give me for what i'm trying to achieve. And apparently, i like Pirates! Avast!

2nd Saturday Media...

Also thought that i would include the media that Rob Wegner showed in his amazing session here at Innovate about 2nd Saturday (our largest, most regularly scheduled "Local Access" media).

Metaphors to Muse Upon: Pirates (Part 5 - Playah's)

* Playah's -By the end of Morgan's career, he and his fleet of Buccanneers had very nearly harassed Spain into bankruptcy and brought England forward as a key player in the New World. So often we hear about nations who rise and fall at the success of their diplomacy or their armies, but in this case, it was actually the Crown that owed its eventual prosperity to a group of people it had only loosely backed, and even sometimes double-crossed for convenient deals or unstable truces with longstanding enemies. I wonder sometimes whether or not the same could be said of us. Can we sometimes save our own nations, families, churches, whatever, possibly by means that are completely other than those established by/through conventional norms or what has worked for centuries? What if, in another hundred years, the powers that be look back on private bands of men and women who pulled loosely-bound, rag-tag groups of outsiders together to systematically reinvent the support structures that they then depend upon rather than established government systems or long-standing social structures? I wonder... i wonder what a recipe that added Jesus to Morgan might look like in our current day. I think i'd like to find out. I think that we're trying. Doubtless, as we experiment here at GCC, the solutions don't involve larceny, murder or torture, but i wonder if they could be just as audacious and big, just as innovative and pioneering.

ONE Prayer Update: India...

See below for a field update from India and the progress of ministry there with the ONE Prayer movement. -sj

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Here is brother POOVARASU, which means King of Flower, who was sick from birth. He had multiple problem, heart problem, puss coming out from ear, and "un-healable" wounds. His poor parents could not care for him during his childhood due to the poverty they experienced, and could not afford to take him to the nearby town hospital. Once, while he was studying 3rd standard in a free government school, they took him to a hospital and the doctors said he needed to undergo different operations which exceeded the potential savings of his small family. Since they did not have the resources, and since bad smell used to come from his body, his parents eventually just left him outside the house, not knowing what else to do with him. People used to pass by him so often that his plight became "routine", and he was eventually completely forgotten. While he was in 9th grade, he became so sick and his pain became so unbearable that everyone expected him to die.

Since Jesus loves him, however, he had a different plan for him. On an eventful day a Christian woman passed by the village, saw the misery of this man, and it broke her heart. She immediately knelt down and touched him with compassion and prayed for him. God also touched him, healed him, and he became a new man! All the wounds and pain slowly disappeared from him. People who saw him earlier were amazed by what had happened. God filled him with a love and joy that he never experienced.
He then received a Bible from the lady who prayed for him, and started reading the Word of God. As he was reading the life of Jesus, he was moved by the love of Christ even to the persecutors and the thieves on the cross. He wanted show the same love to his parents, even though they abandoned him. He started learning from this lady about Christ. Then he started sharing about Christ to his parents and relatives. When his parents saw what had happened, they believed in Jesus as well. Few of the relatives and village people have accepted Christ. Now, if anyone is sick in the village or close by, they call Poovarasu to come and pray for them.

Now he is the most wanted man in this area for people who long for peace, healing, and meaning in life. God is using him mightily to touch many people in this community. Now he has joined our ONE Prayer KGT ("Kingdom of God") Training to plant churches in the villages around him. He has completed the first module, and is using a simple Bible study booklet that we have provided to share Christ along with his living testimony. He is so happy that he found a right training to shape his life and ministry. He is thankful to the ONE Prayer Movement for the opportunity!

Metaphors to Muse Upon: Pirates (Part 4 - The Pirate Code)

* The Pirate Code - If you happened to serve on a Spanish Galley or Dutch merchantmen, life was dangerous, difficult and, for the most part, unpleasant. Unless you were a ranking officer, you could expect to have no say in what happened on the ship, no call as to its mission or destination, no benefit reaped from jobs well-done, no part in any boon or blessing (those were reserved most often for the Captain and First Mate, and for the Company who financed them), and in return, you could be flogged, beaten or confined below deck for...well... anything, even just ranging from poorly swabbing a deck to just being at the psychotic whim of the Captain or Mate.

On a pirate vessel, however, none of the above applied. As a member of the crew, you immediately had a share in all decision-making. You helped to pick the mission, the objectives and points of plunder. You also reaped an equal share of the reward with all others, and only the Captain received a double-share. By comparison, virtually all pirate charters were egalitarian, democratic, and attempted to treat crew-members as "owners" of a shared whole. Once decided, of course, the Captains assumed full responsibility for the accomplishment of the established objectives, and the crew snapped to unswervingly, becoming a single body bound by common mission and the promise of fortune.

I love the irony that the best chance at egalitarianism and democracy that you would find in the Golden Age of Piracy was on a pirate ship! Sometimes, it seems, that beauty can be found in the oddest places! Sometimes i wonder what people 200 years will think when they look back at the "charters" that bound us together as people of faith.

ONE Prayer Update: Cambodia...

Received the following from our ministry partner in Cambodia regarding the process of how the efforts are going at moving us toward our goal of planting 500 churches in 4 nations by next June. See below! -sj

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Cambodia is a beautiful country of rivers, mountains, forests, palm trees and rice fields nestled in the heart of Southeast Asia. A relatively small country of 14 million people, most of them live in more than 13,000 villages spread throughout the countryside. It is also the location of the famed Anchor Wat temple ruins from the 9th to 12th century, a world heritage site.

But not everything is so beautiful in Cambodia. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. forces dropped over 2.75 million tons of bombs on Cambodia. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the pull out of US troops in 1975 from South Vietnam, revolutionary Cambodian leader, Pol Pot, and the Khmer Rouge army killed over 1.7 million Cambodians. They are buried in mass graves in over 300 locations throughout the country. The genocide took the lives of over 20% of the population at the time. I have never spoken to a Cambodian whose family was not directly affected by the genocide. Cambodia is a country in recovery and still has great social, economic and spiritual need.

Of the 13,000 villages in Cambodia, it is estimated that there are over 11,000 villages that do not have a single follower of Christ. These villages make up the places where over 80% of the population lives. The housing and lifestyle of these Cambodians is simple and predominantly agricultural. The villages are remote and the roads are often impassable. In fact, no one just casually visits one of these villages. Someone must intentionally go to them. That’s where you come in. The One Prayer church planting initiative in Cambodia is going to help train and mobilize Cambodian believers to go into these yet unreached villages with the gospel of peace.
Based on the testimony of a church planter I talked to in May (we’ll call him “Mark”), the journey into most of these villages in his area is not at all easy. He describes trying to find a remote village that he heard about deep in the jungle forest which rises up from the Mekong River that flows through the area. He and his companion were walking deep in the forest as dusk began to make it almost impossible to see. They had hoped to make it to the village before dark, because these particular forests are full of malaria carrying mosquitoes. He and his companion continually prayed about what to do.

Surrounded by the closing darkness of the forest he decided to climb a tree for a better view. In the distance he saw the glow of a fire. He got his bearings and they began to walk in that direction. When they approached the cluster of small bamboo and wood homes, he saw the cooking fire of a woman outside her hut which stood on stilts above her. It was not the village they were looking for, but they were glad to find people, any people.

The strangers had no idea how they would be received by these people who rarely see anyone from outside their village clusters. However, the men were greeted by a woman with a warm smile and the aroma of steaming rice. Almost as if she were expecting them, she invited them near and naturally began to ask them questions. Off to one side, under the house, lay a man. It was her husband who had passed out in a drunken stupor, oblivious to the strangers who had emerged from the forest. Bro Mark and his companion inquired about her life, her husband and family. These men shared their own testimonies of a changed life and the Creator God who loves and seeks the people he created. News about the strangers quickly spread to the other houses and people began to come and listen to them tell stories into the night as they ate with the growing crowd. They prayed for the family and thanked the village for their hospitality. The people wanted to hear more, so the men stayed there in that village, sharing God’s Word with them and seeing many of them come to faith. What seemed like the wrong village was the right village. This “woman of peace”, prepared by God, welcomed the men of God and helped the people in her village receive the gospel and they are growing in His grace.

Thanks to the One Prayer Church planting initiative, Bro. Mark will now have opportunity to train and mobilize at least 8 teams of church planters in his province to seek out more of the 200 to 300 villages he has heard about that have yet to meet a believer and hear the Good News of Christ. Pray for Mark and his teams as they risk malaria on their trek of faith, or even climb trees to seek out those who need the gospel.

Metaphors to Muse Upon: Pirates (Part 3 - Ragamuffin Army & Poise, Precision and Audacity)

* Ragamuffin Army - By the time Morgan began to piece together what became known as the legendary Bretheren of the Coast (a loose coalition of marauders who operated in the Carribean Islands in the 17th Century), he was recruiting from the most unlikely groups of people imaginable. Did you know that the term "Buccanneer" actually originates from the fact that many of the mountain men who rallied to Morgan's banner were called "barbecuers" (i.e. "boucaners", from which we also get our word "bacon") by local inhabitants because of their uncouth practices of openly flaying, firing and eating the wild pigs who often roamed the islands? These groups were mostly comprised of those whom conventional society had completely forgotten or abandoned. They were the runaway or free slaves, the bankrupt, the poor, the desperate, the landless, the uneducated, the absolute bottom of the proverbial barrell. And yet, they liked Morgan as he promised them an opportunity to rally and prove themselves, rising from the ranks of the forgotten and rigid classes of reinforced aristocracy and becoming, eventually, what Talty calls "pound for pound, one of the most elite fighting forces on the planet...".

* Poise, Precision and Audacity -Morgan consistently did the impossible. Throughout his career, the Spanish found themselves retreating into supposed impossiblities, only to have to later eat their own words later. "He'll never attack Portobello... it's too well defended!" Then Morgan sent letters of ransom to bewildered Spanish authorities after sacking the fort in one of the most daring moonlight amphibious raids ever attempted in maritime warfare. "Well! At least we still have Panama! He would never dare attack Panama! We have nearly 1,500 infantry and cavalry there!" Then, after 1671, Panama belonged to Morgan. Although he was careful with the lives of his men, he was simply undaunted by... well... anything. There was no limit to his ambition (and, unfortunately, his greed), and because he simply dared, he pushed the boundaries of what was even thougth possible by the ruling Spanish heirarchy, and forced them to acknowledge England and its rag-tag bands of Privateers as a real menace. You cannot read about Morgan without walking away with the notion that poise, precision and audacity account for much.

I LOVE the idea of gathering "people at the margins" (i.e. the "zombies" i speak of in my previous post) for a cause that ultimately becomes successful, and i love the audacity that Morgan displayed in rallying the forgotten to a cause that made the Spanish Empire tremble!

ONE Prayer Update: Sudan

As many of you know that we are coordinating the missional elements of the ONE Prayer campaign, i thought it would be fun to list the weekly updates that we are receiving from each of our field partners in Sudan, India, Cambodia and China. As a result, please see below for what we recently received from our partner in Sudan.
-sj
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Jesus walked from town to town with his disciples, but Sudan, Africa's largest country, is more than 100 times larger than the territory of Judea and Samaria. 55 church planters in two groups are already in training and have begun to share Christ in the villages of two unreached districts. Planting churches in rural towns and villages in Sudan can be very difficult because people quickly recognize and are suspicious of strangers. The church planters learn to go first to one of the village elders and ask for permission to visit the village and start a school. The word "school" does not mean an institution with a building, but something as simple as a teacher sitting under the tree or in the shade of a hut with any "students" willing to learn.

One of the church planters currently working with/through the ONE Prayer network (we will call him Michael) approached an elder in the village he was praying for. He asked the elder for permission but was refused. The elder said that everyone in the village was Muslim. The elder walked with Michael through the whole village to prove that there were no Christians there. Michael left, but returned regularly to the village, always visiting the elder and reading to him some passages from the Bible. Finally, he confessed that he had grown up in a Christian family, but did not know anything about the Bible. In order to live in this village, he had converted to Islam and taken a Muslim name. But now that the elder was hearing the Bible, he wanted Michale to start a school in his home. On the first "official" day of the school, almost 50 people came to listen.

Michael and all of the church planters visit several villages each week. The bikes that they use (like the one featured above in the inset picture) greatly improve their mobility and outreach capability. The early stage of church planting involves a lot of conversation and relationship building, and the model offered is based on Ecclesiastes 11:6 ("Sow seed in the morning and at evening, let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that or whether both will do equally well.").
8/1/08
rvg

Metaphors to Muse Upon: Pirates (Part 2 - Broke but Smart)

Henry Morgan was a rare individual, and i won't go into a lengthy history here, but there were a few details about his life that really stood out to me, and reinforced the notion in my mind that in many ways, what i really think that we're attempting to accomplish in our lives as we attempt to follow Jesus in the world in which we are emerging is "becoming pirates"! Here's what i mean:

* Broke but Smart - "Modern" Piracy (piracy itself is older than the ancient Greeks) was started by King Henry VIII after he had to sell his navy to pay off his debts, and emerged out of the need of desperate kings who could not finance their own navies, but who would offer a sort of "license" to opportunistic or desperate men who wished to raid enemy ships, forts and cities in order to carry off whatever could be of any value. This practice was given a veneer of legitimacy under the guise of being called "Privateering" (Piracy sounds like such a nasty word... so why not call it something "nicer"). In return, these mercenaries agreed to pay the crown as much as 16% of their total (10% to the Lord Admiral and 6% to the King), and their only real limitation to what they could accomplish was their own audacity. This unorthodox approach to solving really big problems (i.e. financial shortages and economic collapse from within, hostile enemies on every border baying for your blood from without) required cash-strapped kings to completely re-think conventional notions of funding their empires and defending their borders without having large standing armies. Sure, it was nice that Spain had a dedicated Navy with huge, gold-gilded ships and highly disciplined crew ranks, but small, heavily armed sloops of freed slaves, runaways, mountain men and drifters who were given freedom, opportunity and a chance to succeed as far as their dreams could take them eventually proved a match for even the highly disciplined fleets of armed Spanish, Dutch and Portugese forces. This was the world that Henry Morgan inherited as he began his pirate career.

Like most businesses, families and individuals, we in local churches, NGO's, local agencies and other such entities often find ourselves (particularly in our current economy...sheesh!) in positions where cash is scarce, demand and need are high, and pressure is on to deliver better and better solutions to really large problems that confront us on every end. I think we'll need to increasingly consider what it might look like to unleash the force of not only volunteers in our communities, but businesses and entrepreneurially minded people as well in capacities heretofore unexplored. More on that later, but the environment of Morgan's day isn't TOO different in many ways from our environment.

MC3 Video Media...

We are asked often here at GCC "what we are doing here locally in the South Bend community", and i usually respond with elaborate recitations of programs and history. In this instance, however, the media below illustrates that in an encapsulated way that is considerably more powerful that my droning and rambling. This media was produced through a combination of both "in house" (like my friend Ben Sanders) and professional volunteers (like my friend Gene Ort), and was overlay narrated by our very own DC Curry (Diretor of Granger Student Ministries). Enjoy!

Metaphors to Muse Upon: Pirates (Part 1 - Intro)

No doubt, pirates receive far too noble a wrap from conventional Hollywood media. I mean, c'mon, it's pretty hard to hate Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, no matter how much dirt and grime you smear on them, right? But in reality, old-world pirates were nasty critters, and seeing the hated "Jolly Roger" flapping from a mast like a black streamer on the fin of a shark in your wake was enough to make merchantmen and even heavily armed Spanish warships tremble for good reason. Pirates were robbers, thieves, muggers and murderers, plain and simple. They were adventurers and [usually] desperate men (and sometimes women) who would really rather have just as soon run you through with a rusty cutlass as looked at you... unless they could ransom you, and in which case, you'd better make sure that your family paid up because there was no need for them to exhibit much patience or cordiality otherwise.

But there's something about the swarthy swashbucklers that has always fascinated me. Perhaps it's the fact that they absolutely flew in the face of a dominating aristocracy (i.e. the Spanish Empire) to live lives of relative freedom, equality and adventure. Or maybe i just like things that tend to be bound together in tight, usually small, hyper-effective (and sometimes lethal) bands of men and women wound around a common purpose. But whatever it is, i've long been a fan of pirate lore and history, and recently read Stephan Talty's book (Empire of Blue Water) about one of pirate history's most famous (and notorious) pirate captains: Captain Sir Henry Morgan (yes... the Rum is named after him as well).

So stay tuned for why after reading this particular book, i was moved to consider how Morgan and his men exhibited some particularly 'Smart Zombie" characteristics, and why i think contemplating their history is worthwhile in regard to how we approach our lives today.

I Get It... Sort Of...

Okay... so my blog posts are too long. I get it. So now, in an attempt to "shorten" them, i'm going to cheat a bit. I'm not really going to "shrink" what i'm saying... but i'm going to break them up a bit when i have a long one and put them into "parts" so that if you do what i do (i.e. scan/read posts quickly through a blog reader), it won't be quite such an investment for a single posts. Hope that this works. Thanks! -jack

Of Rain and "Sweding" Japanese Anime Films...

Our kids love Studio Ghibli's animated films from Japan, and one of their favorites is about a young pair of sisters who find a magical creature called a Totoro living in their back yard. It's called "My Neighbor Totoro", and we have watched it dozens of times.

Today, amidst the unceasing downpour, Peri asked if we could go outside and play in the rain and mud. While out there, we got the idea to re-enact one of our favorite scenes from the movie. It takes place when, while waiting for their dad to come home on the bus from work, the two girls find themselves standing in the rain with their neighbor, the good natured but giant Totoro (click the link to see the 20 second YouTube clip of the rain scene from "My Neighbor Totoro"). If you like, you can also click the video below to see our attempted "Sweding" of the scene from the movie.

Homeland Security Goose Chase...

Okay, so last week, i got a great tip from Ron VanderGriend (aka. "Worldman") about some new legislation that will require some changes in the way that we are approaching our church-planting efforts through the ONE Prayer movement, particularly in Sudan. The legislation relates directly to how the Department of Homeland Security regulates funding sent to outside organizations, and so, heeding Ron's words, i set about trying to contact the government agency to try to see what i needed to do to be compliant with all requirements and move forward. Here's a quick catalogue of my interaction (or lack thereof) with them.

• I went to their web-site, and, after much searching, finally found an "operator phone number". I called it. No answer, no voice mail.
• I called the "tip line" to see if i could get a physical person to talk to. No luck.
  
• "Okay! I'll call the White House!", i thought (would you believe that the White House actually has a direct phone line?). I did. Got the White House switch operator and told them i was trying to get ahold of a person or directory at Homeland. They gave me a new number.
• I tried it, no answer, no voice mail.
  
• Called the White House back, and they didn't have an alternate number. They said that they would check to see what the problem was with the number i called.
• I searched around several other sites, and eventually found a "Press/Media Contact" line. I called it. "Are you part of the Media?" "Uh..no, but can you help me or direct me?" "Uh... let me see." 15 minutes of hold time.
• Eventually, i was directed to a person's voice mail, where i explained my situation. That was a week ago. Still haven't heard back.

So... i'm feeling REALLY good about the accessibility of some of our government agencies at the moment. Several friends have jokingly told me, "I'll bet if you just called someone and started mentioning Arabic words and conventional weapons language, you'd have several people call you back immediately! Or maybe even show up at your door!" Sheesh!

Dunkin' ...

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to participate with Rob Wegner and Butch Whitmire (two of our Pastors here at GCC) at our Baptism service. We do funky fun things with Baptism each year (last year, we loaded inflatable giant pools onto bases at a local minor league baseball stadium and then dunked people by the hundreds), and this year decided to host it here at our own campus. It was an amazing experience to see several hundred people step out of their seats and into pools out on the campus lawn to openly declare their faith in Christ. The video attached here is of one of our dear friends (Martin "Pee Wee" Neal) stepped into the pool with Rob and Butch and me, and one of our Media Crew captured the footage that is loaded here. For more about Pee-Wee's journey of faith and why this was such a significant day for him (and for us), you can go to Dan Blacketor's blog by clicking here.

Bizarre Lessons from Putt-Putt: No Room for Posers...

I took my kids miniature golfing the other day. It was hillarious. After about 4 holes, i gave up keeping score. They did really well, actually, but at 8 and 4 years old respectively, my son and daughter had much more fun improvising new uses for their putters than just "hitting the ball". The favorite use was "Posing". Example: my son would stand on top of one of the little obstacles on a miniature green and adopt a statuesque pose with his putter, usually contorting his body into some way cool, but totally impractical looking warrior stance. While doing so, he would encourage the rest of us to hit the ball while he acted as eye-candy (and a distraction) to all who were putting (or watching from other holes). Eventually, the game became more about "the pose" than it did about the holes. It might have been a par 2 hole, but 5 swings, 10, whatever... didn't matter so long as you could pose in a cool stance afterward while the rest of us played through. If i would have kept score, i'm sure it would have been something like a dectuple Bogie for each hole average or something. Ah well.

Now, you'd have to know my son. He's really into cool poses. I think it results from watching so much Anime and myriad Kung-Fu movies. We have endless discussions about how "movies are almost never about real combat". In real combat, you don't 'pose' before you strike. You just strike. In real martial scanrios, you don't monologue about your advantage, your reason for being there, etc... you just strike. In real scenarios where you are reduced to defending yourself, you're probably going to get hurt, bloody, sweaty and dirty even IF you actually manage to win or survive yourself, so if you maintain delusions about escaping unscathed and ending in a cool pose, you've been watching too many movies.

I think he's starting to get the picture. Particularly when we spar in the back yard. Poses don't do much for him. They don't even look cool if you end up on your belly with your legs tied around your neck like a pretzel. So if you spend the bulk of your time "posing" rather than carefully evaluating the situation and then executing the action necessary for victory, you're not really impressing anyone in the long run. And if you don't expect to have to get in close enough to actually take hold of your opponent and mingle your sweat, feel their breath on your neck, potentially take a cut across your own cheek and put yourself at some risk in the process, you're not really going to get in close enough to do anything of significance. And if all you do is "pose", you're never going to see your opponent stop their advance or slow their attack.

As we attempt to engage the entropy in the world around us, we are facing some very real and very lethal opponents. They have names like Poverty, Injustice, Racism, Ignorance, Spiritual Lostness, Cowardice, Lack of Leadership, Corruption and Abuse. They are the biggest, baddest bullies on the proverbial playground, and as we seek to figure out how to engage them, many of us are trying to figure out the difference between "posing" and "real combat". When we first started looking at doing community development based initiatives here at GCC, both here locally (in the Monroe Circle Community of South Bend) and in Tamilnadu (Southern India), my friend Dan Blacketor said, "well... if we're going to do this stuff, we'd better committ to it 100%. I mean, if we're going to fight giants, we'd better be prepared to get bloody in doing so if we have to. Otherwise, we'll just tick them off. And a ticked off mean giant is worse than just a mean one." So we're trying to figure out what that looks like. Here locally, downtown, we're working with literacy initiatives, vocational training, after-school care, kids programs, Bible study and small groups and feeding programs. Internationally, we're experimenting with HIV/AIDS initiatives, Conversational English, clean water, Justice and bonded-slave issues, micro-enterprise and micro-finance, construction and even technical training for low-skill secondary vocational opportunities. At this point, i'm not sure how successful we'll be in "felling the giants" that exist in our relative environments, but we're committed to getting as close as we have to in order to try... and we're committed to no longer just "posing".

New Economy, New Rules - TechPoint at Barnes & Thornberg

Spending this morning here on the 7th floor of one of our local law firms (Barnes & Thornburg, LLP) at a simulcast event that they do on the first Friday of every month (open to public). The event is called TechPoint, and B&T does it in conjunction with such players as Purdue, Indiana University, Ball State University, a variety of buisiness partners, and often other guests such as Notre Dame. I came to one of these a couple of months ago when the subject was Nanotechnology and the $51 million investment going in right here in South Bend (see my last post for greater explanation), but liked it so much, and was so impressed with B&T and their committment to be a clearing house of cutting edge information for anyone who would like to attend, that i decided to be a regular attendee. Plus, they have free coffee and danishes from Panera...so... you know... that's a plus too.

The topic for this morning is "New Economy, New Rules", and covered the following topics:

* Speakers included Mike Simmons (CEO of T2 Systems, a business that specializes in traffic and parking software), DJ Muller (President of Chamber Weblink, a company that builds software for social networks like Chambers of Commerce, etc.), and Ron Ernst (Leadership Horizons).

Mike Simmons' concepts to think about:

• You have to run with a team. If your business rests only on you as a leader/entrepreneur, then you can't and won't grow. He actually said, "I'm kind of a B or B+ kind of guy who has hired a lot of A's and A+ people... that's the way to run."
• In a new economy, staff seem to have a higher value for excitement and the ability to contribute meaningfully than "just the money".

DJ Muller's concepts to think about:

• Agreed with Mike in saying that one of the biggest keys to anything entrepreneurial or "new leadership" is to hire/partner with people who are "smarter than you".
• "There's no problem that you'll be confronted with that someone most likely hasn't already solved... so entrepreneurialism is just as much about knowing where to look for answers as it is knowing how to 'create' answers."

Ron Ernst's concepts to think about:

• There are 3 phases to business: start-up (you get a customer, get a check, cash it... you're happy), growth (you have a growth curve and repeat business), and conscious growth/success (your organization is thriving, and you're not necessarily the person who has to regulate, run or operate it).
  
• 10 Things you ought to let go of...

1. Let go of your dysfunctional sense of urgency. Not everything is now, now, now!!!
   
2. Let go of your ego. Too often, entrepreneurs view their business as an extension of "them".
3. Let go of your past. Too often, the "stopper" for entrepreneurs is "nothing to grow toward". Nothing beyond the business.
4. Let go of self-sufficiency. Build a team. Build a Board. Get outside advisers.
   
5. Let go of "doing". You may start a business by "doing", but you have to shift to "equipping" as you build staff, team and vision. Hold people accountable for results, not activities.
6. Let go of safety. You can't know "everything going on in your business".
7. Let go of your adrenaline addiction. Building your organization is a different "drug" than starting your organization.
8. Let go of some of your people. Some of the people who "got you where you are", can't take you to "where you want to go".
   
9. Let go of your role. You're going to shift roles often, and that's going to create a consistent sense of "disorientation" at your role as the leader of the organization, but you'll get used to it.
10. Let go of managing and start leading.
    

Funny how much of this stuff "sounds familiar", isn't it? We get so much exposure to Leadership Summits, staff education, etc. at GCC that while it was cool to hear other people say the things above, it was also comforting to think, "yup, heard that, seen that or get exposure to that on a regular basis."

In addition, Dan Blacketor and i will have the privilege of meeting with B&T associates later today as well to talk about what they are doing in the community here in South Bend, and whether there is potential overlap with what we're doing at GCC.

What's On My Braaaiiiin...

I spoke at Waypoint Community Church this past weekend in a fun, dialogue/interview style format with my friend Blair Carlstrom (formerly on staff here at GCC, now Exec Pastor at Waypoint). We meet about once a month anyway at a local restaurant to talk about...well... all kinds of stuff, and decided to carry that simulated format into the teaching time of the worship service so that the congregation could "listen in" on one of our conversations.

The topic of conversation for the day was how impending technology will radically re-shape the nature of the issues that churches will be looking to have to engage in the next two to four decades. In most instances, i don't think that most people in ministry are aware that these issues even exist, much less the seizmic ramifications of how they will affect our worlds. There are more than just these four, but for starters, the convergence of the following (termed GNRC in current literature) are outlined here:

Genetics - The ability to engineer the "building blocks" of our own makeup have farther reaching potential effects than just "designer babies" (i.e. "I want my daughter to be 6' tall, an amazing athlete, have an IQ of 210, be blond and blue eyed, and have genetic resistance to acne and an allergic reaction to stupid males"), and we're already considering the implications of such things as cloning, stem-cell enhanced cures for critical diseases, and even organ fabrication. What if, through such technology, the length of a human life literally begins to push 150 years or geometrically higher over the next few decades until "death" by conventional means or causes is something that happens with relative infrequency.

Nanotechnology - Working with microscopic structures that are smaller than even cells, nanotechnology engineers shapes (and eventually even possibly more complicated mechanisms) that are smaller than 100 nanometers in length. Imagine if some day, small "robots" can be programmed with DNA-based computers to enter your bloodstream and seek/destroy cancer cells in your liver, thus omitting the need for invasive surgery. When they've done their job, they just dissolve into your bloodstream and then exit your body through waste. Did you know that there's a $51 million investment in our own back yard here in South Bend (in conjunction with Notre Dame, Purdue and some major city and community investors) to build a Nanotech R&D facility at the old "South Bend Lathe" facility? This will be only 1 of 4 in the nation, and could literally do to South Bend what Microsoft did to Redmond, Washington in terms of jobs and visibility.

Robotics - We're still a long way from "doomsday" scenarios like those featured in the Terminator movies, the Matrix movies, or even iRobot, but suffice to say that the conventional robotics industry has been making massive leaps and bounds in terms of not only anthropomorphization ("making robots seem more human"), but in terms of function. Think about how many automated functions you don't even think about any more. I drove down the toll road the other day and a machine handed me my ticket. Or you can use iZoom and do away with toll-booths completely. But even more astounding is the idea that according to ideas posited by Moore's Law, by 2040 or so, for $1,000, you should be able to buy a computer with roughly the equivalent computing power of a human being (in calculations per second), and by 2060, for the same price, a computer with the computing power of the entire human race!

Cybernetics - At what point is it actually "more advantageous" to have something prosthetically enhanced than to have "normal" parts? Recently, a South African runner named Oscar Pistorius (named "The Blade Runner") has been the focus of public debate because, as a double-amputee, he's actually faster with his prosthetic legs than many "normal" humans he competes against. Cybernetics, then, attempts to blend both the science of robotics with those of biology to augment the human experience by actually incorporating synthetic, robotic or digital systems into or with a human being in order to enhance, heighten or equalize those experiences. It is entirely within realm to say that in just a few years, we may very well be "merging" in very real and practical ways with the technology we are creating. Goodness knows, i'd certainly love a 50 gig hard drive to supplement my brain... wouldn't have worry about forgetting people's phone numbers any more! Imagine!

At the end of the day, the real issue at stake is simply this: "How will we begin to engage the issue of 'Identity' over 'Function'"? You see, so much of theology, praxis and what we say and do in ministry is geared at defining ourselves as individuals and even as a race by "what we do". Certain things you "do" are "sin". Certain things you "do" are "not". But there is something "core" at the soul/spirit level that drives those actions, and far too often, we target the former and not the latter for true transformation. It's been that way for thousands of years. "Hi, I'm Jack... i'm a Missions Guy at a local church." "Hi, Jack, I'm Bill, i'm a doctor/lawyer/whatever." Function. But how do you define "who you are"? If i ask you to introduce yourself, chances are, you'll tell me your roles and functions as a cue to telling me about "who you are", but your roles and functions do not define your essence (that immaterial part of you that does not change with "what you do"). What do you say to someone if they ask you to define the "immaterial part of you that makes you what and who you are?"

How much more so will this be true as machines outside and inside of us begin to blur the lines of what it means to be "really human". Further, how much of "you" can be modified, augmented, taken away, replaced or enhanced before you cease to be "you" and become something (or someone) else entirely? We used to say, "no machine can (fill in whatever blank you want)..." but every time statements like that are made, they inevitably, as John Von Neuman said in 1949, "... sound pretty silly in about three to five years." So when we enter a rapidly approaching world where we have the ability to manipulate (or mutilate) our bodies to make them become what we want them to be, start living (potentially) for decades or centuries beyond what our "normal" lifespan currently looks like, and begin to merge seamlessly with the technology we create, how will a theology based on line-item verse pointing hold up?