Entries Tagged 'Change' ↓

We’ve been thinking a lot lately about the effects of growing our family from three to four. Bringing home a child is a tremendous joy, of course, but because it also brings change, there is always some loss which results in grief.

It’s sorta strange to use the word “grief” to talk about the joy of growing a family. But, again, grief is experienced whenever there is a loss, and a loss is experienced whenever there is change. And adding a new baby into a family is a major change!

For the three of us, one loss is time devoted to just the three of us. This is especially noticeable to Ethan, of course, who for the last 20 months has had us all to himself.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, in her classic book, On Death and Dying, outlines five stages of dealing with grief and loss. Of course, everyone goes through the stages in different ways and may even bounce back and forth between different stages before reaching the final stage of acceptance. But we can see examples of Ethan experiencing the first four stages, so far.

Denial
While we’re pretty sure Ethan knew that the pictures of Sarah were his baby sister’s, he would often say “Ethan” when asked who’s in the picture. Sometimes he would acknowledge that he was getting a sister, other times, he wouldn’t. Once, shortly before we went to Korea, I asked him if he was going to play with his sister. He said, “No!”

Anger
Ethan’s been in the anger stage most of the time since we’ve been home. On Sunday, he refused to be in a photo with me and Sarah. Last night, before trick-or-treating, he refused to be in a photo with Mommy and Sarah. In the last week, we pulled toys or books away from Sarah and has thrown a couple toys. That’s unusual for Ethan. This is the stage we’re most concerned about because it’s the area that is so unlike Ethan.

Bargaining
This is the toughest stage to see, but I think some of Ethan’s regression (e.g., drinking a lot of extra milk and less solid food, wanting to be carried more, etc.) are ways of saying, “If I do this, you’ll do that.”

Depression
We think Ethan hit the depression stage this morning (unless he was fighting off whatever virus I had a couple days ago). But it was especially noticeable because Ethan is *never* depressed or down! Ethan is usually happy when he gets up but this morning, but when he got up this morning, he came down stairs and laid down on the floor with his head buried in his blanket among the rest of us (Sarah got up at 6:00 p.m.). When I asked him if he was sad, he said, “Yeah.” But it looks like it was pretty short-lived. We did have a good evening, carving a pumpkin, baking cookies, and even Ethan’s bath time was as cooperative as possible. We’re hoping the final stage in this process is just around the corner.

Acceptance
Well, this is the stage we’re waiting for!

I think these stages are important not only for our fluid situation, but for any family and/or church/organizational situation involving change. Perhaps you can see examples of these stages in your home as you’ve experienced various changes over the years (and we all are *always* experiencing change!).

Of course, the joys of growing a family far outweigh the grief experienced in the process. But the joys become more obvious when all the family members experience acceptance.

I have been thinking about “transformational leadership” in terms of three keywords: Character, Culture, and Perseverance.

(1) Character
Our character is our foundation. It involves our spiritual/devotional life, our connection to God. This is who we are, and who we are is foundational to what we do. Transformational leaders seek to build strong Christ-like character both in their own lives and in the lives of others (i.e., discipleship).

(2) Culture
Developing character impacts the culture of the organization. Transformational leadership involves shaping/re-shaping the culture of the organization, not just making surface-level changes. Change must ultimately take place in the hear or it won’t be real/lasting change!

(3) Perseverance
Developing character and shaping culture takes a lot longer than simply enacting and implementing changes. Because lasting change does not happen overnight, transformational leaders must be committed to the task for the long haul.

My challenge as a Christ-following leader has always been timing. If it were up to me, I’d like for transformation to happen quickly, but I realize that’s not wise to move too quickly. We work with people who are at different stages in the transformational process. I want to go fast enough to not lose early adopters (people who are ready to move forward) but slow enough to not lose the late-adopters (people who need more time before moving forward.

Not included here are never-adopters, that small percentage of people who, outside of a Damascus Road experience, will never go along with any change. We simply can’t allow God’s mission to be held captive by people who will never move forward.

Transformational leadership requires transformed Christ-like character, a focus on shaping church culture, as well as the perseverance/endurance needed for the long journey ahead!

I recently read a piece written by the President-elect of Asbury Theological Seminary in which Dr. Timothy C. Tennent reflected on the cultural changes that are impacting seminary education.

Tennent writes (emphasis and paragraph breaks added for readability) …

Jerusalem and Athens are symbolic of one of the key shifts in theological education today. Like Tertullian, many of us would prefer to proclaim the gospel – symbolically speaking – from the security and stability of the Temple Mount of Jerusalem. Many of us yearn for a time to return to when God’s word was more-widely acknowledged and respected. We remember a day when our culture enjoyed far greater stability.

However, most all of us realize that we can no longer prepare ministers with this as our primary paradigm. Instead, we are called to be faithful to the gospel in the midst of the raucous, pluralistic, experimental, skeptical environment of “Mars Hill of Athens.” The Apostle Paul proclaimed the gospel not from the Temple Mount of Jerusalem, but from Mars Hill of Athens.

Traditionally, seminary education prepared men and women to occupy places of cultural and religious stability. Graduates were sent to communities where a large percentage of the people either attended church or gave assent to the broad contours of the Christian world-view. Many of the ethical parameters of the Judeo-Christian world-view were widely embraced.

Today, this kind of Christendom arrangement has collapsed. We are no longer in Jerusalem. We are in Athens. We are no longer on the Temple Mount, but on Mars Hill. This means that we must prepare men and women for a different kind of engagement in the Western World.

Our society represents a more profoundly-missional context than anything we have previously imagined. Seminaries which have specialized in preparing pastors and teachers need to also prepare evangelists and church planters. We need a more robust theological and missional training for our students than ever before.

Tennent is addressing theological education for pastors, but the point is, our (Western) world has changed before our eyes. We must be prepared to communicate the message of Jesus Christ in a culture that is less receptive than ever. We must be prepared to preach in Athens!

John Wesley wrote a document (a letter) called A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists, written in 1748. In part of it, Wesley addresses various objections he faced at the time.

One of the objections Wesley addresses relates to the classes he had recently developed. Wesley quotes the objector:

There were no such meetings when I came into the society first: And why should there now? I do not understand these things, and this changing one thing after another continually.

Wesley’s response included some great statements about change …

That … we are continually changing one thing after another, is not a weakness or fault, as you imagine, but a peculiar advantage which we enjoy.

And Wesley closes with this statement …

We are always open to instruction; willing to be wiser everyday than we were before, and to change whatever we can change for the better.

Are we willing to change whatever we can change for the better?

Back in July 2008 I wrote about my task management journey, my search for systems to help me be more and more productive. I stated my believe that “there’s always a better way!”

I also discussed my latest attempt at using an online application, Remember the Milk. While I like the (free) service, I have concluded that I still need to see everything at a glance and be able to take it with me wherever I go. It’s was the same thing with a PDA several years ago. While I could take it with me, I couldn’t see everything, easily, at a glance, or or record notes on the fly.

So, what’s next?

Believe it or not, I may be coming full circle, where I started two decades ago. I am seriously considering going back to a paper planner (like Franklin Covey).

The thing I miss about a paper planner is having a central location to record notes, thoughts, and action items. And, with adding a child to the mix in our lives, having an effective centralized system becomes that much more important!

Franklin planners start on the quarters so I have till January (the next quarter) to decide if this is indeed the direction I want to go, so stay tuned for 3.0 somewhere down the road.

On the surface, this might sound contradictory to what I recently wrote about change. Often, when we think about routine, we think of monotony and things that stay the same.

But really, routines are simply habits or systems for getting things done. and to be most effective, the habits/systems/routines must change from time to time.

I like to change or tweak my routines, periodically. My recent post on task management is an example that. In order to keep growing, you must have routines, but you must also keep changing them.

I first learned about the importance of shaking things up from weight lifting. Weightlifters make their greatest gains (strength, endurance, muscle growth) when they first start out because the new routines are a shock to their bodies/muscles. However, muscles become resistant to the routine after a few short months. In order to keep growing, weightlifters must change up their routines every few months. It’s called the “confusion principle.”

Our routines have been thrown into a whirlwind in 2008 (a good whirlwind, but a whirlwind nonetheless), but we have still tried to have routines in our lives. Some of our daily, weekly, and monthly routines include …

• Daily/weekly planning
• Sermon prep (which I’m planning to write about in the future)
• Regular day off (on Fridays, a change from Mondays which we’ve always done before!)
• Tracking personal income and expenses (using spreadsheets) including a number of ministry and/or tax-related documents/spreadsheets.

But the newest routines we’ve developed this year have been related to Ethan — an evening routine that includes getting Ethan ready for bed, reading a Bible story, prayer, and taking turns each night giving him his milk in a sippy cup (formerly, formula in a bottle); whoever puts Ethan to bed, gets him dressed the next morning and prepares his breakfast, etc.

However, it’s some of our before-Ethan routines that we’re in the process of reestablishing and redeveloping. Having been a family of two for 14 years, our rhythms were fairly well set. Ethan has dramatically changed how we do life and we’re still finding our new rhythms. Adding a move to new ministries to the mix, needless to say we’re still discovering and settling into the new rhythms, including …

• Morning TWG (“time with God”) — works best when we rise earlier than Ethan, who is an early riser himself!
• We want to get back to practicing the weekly Wesley Fast (see my post on fasting from last year).
• Reading — after a 4.5 year degree program, we have to redevelop our own reading habits — choosing our own reading material and reading it on our timetable. But we have plenty to choose from as can be seen in our previous post, Reading Pile; BTW, the pile has grown since that post!).
• Exercise — before hitting crunch time with our dissertations at the beginning of the year, followed by becoming parents in February, we had an exercise routine that involved lifting weights and/or walking most days of the week; now, we try to walk as often as we can by taking Ethan in the stroller. But as we get settled into the new life, we hope to redevelop some better exercise habits.

What are your routines? Which are most helpful? Which are in need of a shakeup?

How do you manage and keep track of your tasks? Do you scribble notes on a piece of scrap paper or write a daily/weekly To-Do list? Do you use a daily planner, a PDA, or use an application on your computer or on the Internet?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about my own journey of managing tasks. Since one of my core beliefs is …

There’s always a better way!

I’ve spent nearly two decades looking for a better way to manage tasks.

When I was a junior in college, I bought a Franklin Day Planner after hearing a pastor teaching other pastors / future pastors how to use the Franklin Day Planner in their ministries. I used the day planner for 6 years.

In 1995, I stopped buying the refill pages from Franklin and started printing out my own sheets, adapted from Franklin’s. Around 2000 or 2001, I bought an electronic PDA and used that for a while. I didn’t like using the tasks program on the PDA, mainly because I couldn’t see all of my tasks at a glance. The PDA was good for contacts (as well as Solitaire and Scrabble ).

For the next few years, I went back to printing out my own master task list. But in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been feeling the there’s-gotta-be-a-better-way itch. I’m sure it’s partly due to the new life of having a child and beginning new ministries.

This time, I’m doing a couple things. Joleen and I have set up 4 different Google Calendars, each with a difference color (each of us can view any or all of them on one calendar): Randy’s Work, Joleen’s Work, Our Work, and Personal & Family. We’re hoping the calendars will provide a central location for planning work and family activities.

The other thing I’m doing is checking out some of the latest online task management applications. After a little research, I decided to try out a free service called, Remember the Milk (RTM). Using RTM, I have created personal and ministry-related lists.

But it’s more than simply putting task items on a list. Last year, I read Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. I especially like the subtitle!

There seems to be quite a movement devoted to “Getting Things Done” (GTD) and there are a number of resources online, including: David Allen’s Web site, 43 Folders, LifeHacker, Wired.com, and Wikipedia. And to help incorporate GTD with RTM, I followed some of the advice in this article: Advanced GTD with Remember The Milk.

It’s too early to tell if I will like using RTM, or any other an online task management system. But even if I don’t like it/them, I still expect to learn some things from the experience that will help me with my next system.

I often say (somewhat cautiously) that I like change. For one thing, I’m in the business of change — is there any greater change than the kind of life transformation (i.e., change!) people experience through Christ?

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (2 Corinthians 5.17, NLT)

Leaders are change agents. Christ-following leaders are called to bring about change in people’s lives. Often that involves being an agent of change in the way the church operates so that it can be more effective, and thus, bear more fruit for God’s kingdom.

I say “somewhat cautiously” (that I like change) because it’s easy for leaders to say they like change, especially if the change is their idea! The real test of their commitment to change comes when the change is someone else’s idea.

But I think I’m safe saying I like change. I get bored when things stay the same too long. Not only is it boring; worse, it produces ruts which keep us from being effective!

Now that Ethan has been with us for a while, he is teaching us some things about change. Not only have we had to change the way we do life, we’ve also paid attention to the changes he experiences through his daily growth and development. Much of that is positive. It’s exciting to watch him learn new things and develop new skills (watch for more on that in an upcoming post).

But (and this is why many people do not like change!) with change also comes loss. To begin doing new things involves letting go of other things. To do something a different way means not doing it the old way anymore.

After two weeks of taking a step here and there, all of a sudden one day, Ethan changed his preference from crawling to walking. He gave up crawling (which was working just fine, thank you very much) for walking (even though it meant having to relearn his whole concept of getting around; it also meant falling a lot, in the process).

Some of the things Ethan used to do or say, he doesn’t do or say anymore (including some of the things we listed earlier in Some of Our Favorite Things).

While we miss some of those things, we realize that change comes with the territory. It’s all part of growing up! (and I’m not just talking about the getting older kind of growing up ).