Where Is That Star Pointing?

Where Is That Star Pointing?

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem village, Judah territory—this was during Herod’s kingship—a band of scholars arrived in Jerusalem from the East. They asked around, “Where can we find and pay homage to the newborn King of the Jews? We observed a star in the eastern sky that signaled his birth. We’re on pilgrimage to worship him.” (Matthew 2:1-3)

Provoked by an unmistakable indicator in the sky, a discerning band of scholars were determined to worship the new King. God’s incarnation, our redemption intervention, was promoted by a star. The star, that point of light, was pointing to the Light of the world, Jesus.

God is with us, and within us. The Spirit sends us into the world to demonstrate —to incarnate— the incredible life-changing, transformational possibilities of God-with-us living through Jesus Christ. The event of incarnation is inextricably bound up with the whole salvation story of the Good News.

As it did in that first Christmas, the Star continues to point to where God meets people —incarnationally— with intentionality, humility, and authenticity. The Star points to places where a restorative community, family, or fellowship creates a future of emerging opportunities. From isolation to engagement, retribution to restoration, from fault-finding to gift-bearing, from timidity to courage, from self-interest to generosity, the Star points the way. As those scholars of old discovered, the Star points to where God’s presence transforms life.

Look around. Where do you see that Star pointing today in your home, church, community, or world? I am grateful for your acts of grace and kindness. Let's both do more of that! As the proclamation of the Word and the worship of God are experienced this Christmas week, I hope that you are bathed in the Star’s glow of forgiveness, hope, and joy.

How will you change so that your community sees the Star today?

Merry Christmas,

Kevin

If Not For Profit, What Are We For?

The community has gathered today. We are a community! I look forward to every meeting. We all do. The presbytery has gathered today, but what for?

We identify social agencies and institutions that serve the public good as “not for profits.” The “not for profit” label seems to suggest that all we need to know about “not for profits” is just knowing what it isn’t.
Can you imagine introducing yourself by a name you are not? “Hello, my name is not Alice.” “Friends, I would like you to meet my friend, not Roger.” Or referring to your church as, “Welcome to not First Church,” or even, “Thank you for gathering at, “not Peace Lutheran Church.” There is insufficient information conveyed by describing what something is not. Identifying what you do —by what you don’t do— is an essentially purposeless effort. Recently there has been some national conversation referring to “not for profits” as the “public benefit” sector. Maybe its a good idea.

Thankfully, Jesus asserted ideas and purpose with much more clarity.

In the Luke 19 story (below), a relationship of expectation is established between a ruler and servants. This led to a conversation of possibilities. What would these servants do with the investments while the owner was gone? Some of the citizens focused more on trying to change the relationship than on investing the money.
Citizens have the capacity to change the community story, to reclaim the power to name what is worth talking about, to bring a new context into being. Instead of problems (the past), citizens can invest in possibilities (the future).

Those of us who help create the current dominant context for the community conversation drive the conditions that nurture either a retributive or a restorative community context. If we do not choose to change this context and the strategies that follow from it, we will produce few new outcomes for our institutions, neighborhoods, and towns; nor for our churches or presbytery.

Not for profits are for the public good, right?

Take one example I recently read in USAToday: A Christian-founder who created a not for profit to distribute anti-Muslim information, collects hundreds of thousands of dollars. His same “not for profit” group, formed a separate “for profit” that pays the founders (him) to produce the anti-Muslim information. Who is that founder “For” ? It appears he is “not for profit” but in actuality his organization is for inciting misinformation about Muslims.
The marketing of fear is not just “for profit.” It also holds a political agenda. Fear justifies a retributive agenda, fundamentalist in the extreme have been on the rise for some time.

The retributive agenda’s focus is a civil, just society that gives priority to restraints, consequences, and control, and underlines the importance of rules.

The communities our churches are in, and the faith-community in our congregations, each require a context shift. Fear, fault finding, and retribution fragments our lives and diminishes our social capital, (what we have that we choose to intentionally and authentically offer as a gift to others in a spirit of generosity and joy).
Citizens of civil societies, and citizens of presbyteries, can give voice to an inclusive community and restore a healthy listening context for unconditional mutual positive regard, collaboration, dissent, possibilities, and hope.
What is the presbytery for? As a restorative community we can create a hopeful future together, without retribution. Take a look at the chart derived from Peter Block’s, Community: The Structure of Belonging (2009).
What can we create together as a presbytery?

Newark Presbytery is, and can be, for many things. We are for every congregation living into their unique mission. We are “for” 800,000 neighbor-citizens that live within our bounds. We are “for” the city of Newark and all people in its adjacent urban centers, and “for” the ring communities, suburbs, and towns. We are “for” the poor, disenfranchised, abused, and suffering, and for peace, justice, and wellness. We try to become a healthier context where each citizen (member) chooses to be accountable rather than entitled.

Accountability means that each of us can be “possibilities” of willingness to care for the whole. (Entitlement is a conversation about what others can or need to do to create the future for us.) We can create the kind of conversations about the new story we want to take our identity from, and build our future upon.

You have been gifts to me. I am grateful for each of you; every minister, congregation, session, committee, and team. I am honored to listen and help co-create and initiate possibilities of an alternate future with you. We are gifts to each other. I know you try to do the same as you serve your congregations.
“What, then, shall we say in response to this? Since God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8.31). This Good News of Jesus Christ will drive and sustain our transformation as we gather.

What possibilities do you offer your team or community today?

Kevin

What's a saddle for?

When Henry Ford’s car’s started appearing on the dusty roads of America, a lot of people wondered, “Where do you put the saddle?,” thinking the car was just a faster horse.

The car was way more than a faster horse. Besides not needing a saddle, this sublime transportation technology not only helped us get from here to there, it changed the way people regarded geographic boundaries and interacted with each other.

Just as the car is not a faster horse, email is not a faster fax. And, as Seth Godin adds, online project management is not a bigger whiteboard. And Facebook is not an electronic rolodex. Get it?

When we do not embrace or internalize implications of change, we close ourselves off from the world. Technology, for example, is not just a way to do things faster. If it were, then we could better understand some people’s reluctance to embrace what’s new; they simply decide fast is fast enough.

Chinese printer Pi Sheng invented movable type in 1041 A.D. It was similar to the technology that German printer Johann Gutenberg used four hundred years later to produce his famous editions of the Bible. The technology promoted the sharing of ideas and the Reformation itself could hardly have occurred without the writings of Erasmus and Luther being widely distributed. This promoted an accessible faith, the development of schools, resulting in more people reading, who in turn learned new ideas. Attitudes and behaviors changed, resulting in repeated cycles of inspiration, invention, and innovation. The printing press was not just a faster way of producing books.

Similarly, thinking the iPod is just an easier way to listen to music, or that the iPad is just a bigger iPhone misses the game-changing reality that millions and millions of people are using these new tools to profoundly interact with and change the world.

Putting a big screen in front of a congregation, instead of holding hymn books, is not just a faster or easier way to sing. It is an incredible sociological and liturgical game-changer. Exploring how social media intersects faith and church is an emerging ecclesiastical challenge. Some consider the recent phenomena of social media to be just about faster communications, merely having an impact on those who use the services. Facebook and Twitter offer a magnitude of influence on the world that could rival that of Gutenberg’s printing press. Imagine that.

In what ways are you becoming more humble, intentional, and authentic as a human being? What, or who, will you pay more attention to today?

So, we don’t need saddles to drive a car. What game-changing tools are you mastering to make a better world? I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Sincerely,

Kevin

PS -For my friends in the Presbyterian Church…one more thing:

When it comes to middle governing bodies in the church, we get stuck because we do not internalize the change we all agree we need, and think we are just doing things faster or better with each iteration of meetings and projects. In reality, everything’s changed around us and new tools are revolutionizing the way the people think about themselves and their communities. When we resist internalized change, we diminish our precious spiritual and emotional energy. When it comes to the Presbyterian Church middle governing bodies, we may not have enough time to catch up to the world we wake up to each day. We seem to be speaking to one another in rooms where no one else is gathered to listen.

For more than forty years, our mantra has bellowed about the possibility of change, the challenge of change, the need for change, even sometimes trying to promote a readiness for change. Yet, we have not changed our position in order to fully present and better connected to the physical and virtual world.

We are acutely aware of unintended and un-welcomed change all around our churches, presbyteries, and synods. Yet we keep looking for a faster way to do more of what, sadly, is not working.

We fumble at integration, rarely grasping the game-changing implications of a world that passed the church by long ago on its way to the future.

Instead of leading a helpful and timely conversation in the public square down the road or online, our best intentions seem sabotaged by those of us who are paralyzed by fear, impaired in mind or spirit, or simply unconscious.

If our mission is to avoid risk. We have achieved it. No Special Commission of the GAMC will help, even if summoned. Our consolation is that a few determined presbyteries can collaboratively realign their mission and their assets to produce healthier, more effective, outwardly directed congregations, irrespective of how the synods stumble forward, as if resurrected like Lazarus, but still holding tightly to their grave clothes.

We need more than the nineties’ deep change analysis and form of government upgrade. We need a spiritual and mental reboot. Let’s agree that we don’t need a “faster” church, but a more humble, intentional, and authentic church (and by church I don’t mean a building on the corner). We must be transformed from within to look more like the one we follow as disciples, namely Jesus. That’s the change that matters. Living inside—out, mastering game-changing tools to be fully present (incarnate) in the physical and virtual world.

What is your church doing today to make your community a better place in which to live? What is one thing you will do this week that humbly, intentionally, and authentically shows your community you care and that God loves them?

Singer/Songwriter david m. bailey died. Music Keeps Us Walking

david m bailey, a singer/songwriter who moved audiences as much with his story of personal courage in the face of terminal cancer as with his music, succumbed to Glioblastoma on Oct. 2 in hospice care near his home in Charlottesville, Va. He was 44. See a thoughtful press release at: http://www.pcusa.org/news/2010/10/4/david-m-bailey-succumbs-brain-cancer/

I am very sad to learn of David's death. I personally came to know David and his music about six years ago. Our presbytery's transformation event design team invited him to be our musical keynoter. Shuttling him from the hotel to the venues, never-ending stops at Starbucks, and watching him capture the hearts of the audience were experiences I'll fondly remember for a long time.

David took real life seriously, authentically, and loved his family he joyfully lived with and loved those who enjoyed his music. He emailed me one day and said he added a link to my website on his site and this news made my day. Joking he said, not many pastors make it to his list. I laughed. One of David's signature bandanas (which he proudly offered to remind others to pray for those stricken with cancer) is still a treasured keepsake.

His music will always be in my playlist and his family in my prayers. Keep On Walking... that's what he practiced, now perfected in Christ, as we all in our own way try to do the same. Now, David's learned to fly, and he will be deeply missed.

Kevin Yoho
General Presbyter, Newark Presbytery PC(USA)

www.twitter.com/kevinyoho

What Do You Truly Stand For?

(Whatever it is, that’s what people will remember about you.)

My Post-It® note starred right back at me. I’ve seen it a hundred times before. The ubiquitous sticky note was the marvelous invention of a church choir member named Arthur Fry who needed something to mark pages in his hymnal. Happily for the world, he was a scientist at 3M and in 1970, they turned his adhesive invention into what was to become a billion-dollar business. Nice work, Art. Thank you!

My Post-It note has a digital counterpart on my computer that pops-up on my calendar, but last Friday, it was different. My Post-It note read, Why do you do this every, single, day?

Last Friday, I travelled to Canton, New York. I knew I was in a small town because I would have had to drive to Canada, only 90 minutes away, to find the nearest Starbucks. It turns out that my visit there was the ideal place to ponder my day’s Post-It note message without the ordinary distractions. Canton is the “Mayberry-RFD” of the Northeast. Last weekend’s quaint Hope Festival welcomed people of every age with music, cider, and tables brimming with handmade crafts and home-grown produce, cakes, and honey.

Canton was where my friend, the Rev. Clinton A. McCoy Jr., made his home and it was the place where he would have his final home-going. Clint, 62, died suddenly on Sunday, September 12, 2010.

Clint was known and loved by many in Newark Presbytery and across the church as the Synod of the Northeast’s Executive for Partnerships. In that role, Clint effectively helped guide and resource the Synod and its twenty-three presbyteries. To many presbytery leaders like me, he was a listening leader, a wise coach, and I regarded him as my pastor. He will be deeply missed.

I arrived early enough in Canton to personally offer love and support to Clint’s family, to his wife Barbara and his grown children. I also had the honor of extending gratitude for Clint’s ministry on behalf of Newark Presbytery, the New Jersey presbytery leaders, and the Synod’s executive collegium. I enjoyed the stories, (mostly fishing stories, Clint’s signature activity), as I listened to them being tearfully recounted, shared photos were passed around in tribute to a man who added so much joy to so many people.

Walking from Clint’s home, past the Hope Festival, on the way to the funeral home for services, my Post-It note message replayed in my mind: Why do you do this every, single, day?

I thought about how Clint would have responded to that message’s question. Why do you do the things that you do? The family stories I had just heard hinted at the answer, but I could’t quite decipher it.

Clint got up every day, I imagined, as I did, right? Gratefully embracing the gift of life from a gracious God who, in Jesus Christ, sends us out into the world to be a blessing. Check-in with family and with God. Read the news. Write and pray. Review the calendar, tasks, and priorities. Miles to go before I sleep. Get moving! (Repeat daily.) Why do you do this every, single, day?

Arriving at the funeral home early, I thoughtfully gazed in solitude at the myriad photos of Clint on easels and images dissolving into one another up on the big screen. Why do you do this every, single, day?

I was with Clint less than a week before at the New Jersey Presbytery Partnership Group meeting at our West Orange Presbyterian Center. He looked great and more rested than he appeared at July's Minneapolis General Assembly. We spoke about the fading summer and calendared several meetings ahead for African-American ministry, college chaplaincy, and middle governing body challenges to be discussed soon in Louisville. Clint offered the same great insight and nurturing guidance we all expected of him. Why do you do this every, single, day?

As I stood there alone in the funeral parlor just ahead of the hundreds of others that would soon be arriving, I looked again at the photos and the “recreation” of the McCoy refrigerator-door gallery. Finally, as if I solved a riddle, it became glaringly obvious to me; There were no photos depicting Clint’s work. No photos from his long pastoral ministry, no photos of his Synod connections, no photos from the scores of Presbyterian meetings he attended. None at all. Why do you do this every, single, day?

Well, one thing’s for sure— “work” as I typically regarded it, was not what got Clint up in the morning. Clint was real. He stood for something that matters.

What you truly stand for is what people will remember about you if you were to move away. What did people remember about Clint? Whether at home, on the lake, online, or in worship and work, Clint expressed his “gift” of life rooted in family and expressed with intentionality, humility, and authenticity. Christ-in-Clint was visible in abundant faith and love, perfectly captured by the gathered stories and photos.

Now that I have thought more about it, that’s what Clint made me feel like— his family. The work he did was important because others were important to Clint. His life’s work was fundamentally about family, the family of faith, and the world.

What does your church stand for? What you truly stand for will be how people will remember you. What would the neighbor’s say? What would they remember about your ministry? What would the “refrigerator-door gallery” look like?

“The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere (1Thessalonians 1.8 MSG).”

To effectively contribute to the change we want to see in this Presbytery, the community and in the world, we need to begin by understanding and appreciating each other, and those around us.

You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you have to make choices. Clint made his choices. We were all blessed. Hopefully, our choices and those of our churches will come from a deep sense of who we really are.

It’s never too late to begin living our lives with intentionality, humility, and authenticity. Christ-in-us is visible in abundant faith and love and through tangible and coherent actions. We know what photo’s are on Clint’s refrigerator door. What’s on your refrigerator door?

Kevin

Loss of a Listening Leader and Friend- Clint McCoy Died

I just blogged about carefully choosing who you model your life on. I loss my listening leader and friend when Clint McCoy died Sunday. I am now abruptly staring into a future absent a special model who was taken by the Model Maker. I am sad. I feel badly for his wife and children, his neighbors and co-workers, and countless colleagues in the Synod of the Northeast and across the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
 
As much as I'd like to think its true, and in spite of my improvement, I am no listening leader like Clint was. The Rev. Clint McCoy served as the Co-Executive for Partnerships for the Synod of the Northeast and in that role he helped me grow and change. My wife Melissa and I enjoyed every conversation we had together and both affirm the debt I owed Clint for his contribution to my work of helping 8,000 Presbyterians in Newark Presbytery make different the lives of its 800,000 neighbors.

Clint has been a good friend and colleague to me for many years, helping me be my best in countless ways. He understood me. He believed in me and welcomed my gifts. He was committed to a transforming Presbyterian Church as we courageously followed where the Spirit led us. He somehow evoked the best in others and with the skill and patience of a fisherman, he always served up a feast of joy using the simplest of tools.

I was with Clint on Saturday at the New Jersey Presbytery Partnership Group meeting. He looked great and more rested than he appeared at July's Minneapolis Assembly. We spoke about the fading Summer and calendared several meetings ahead from African American ministry, to college chaplaincy, to middle governing body challenges; all of which he fully welcomed. Clint offered the same great insight and nurturing guidance we all counted on.
 
Returning to his home expecting one last Summer day on the lake with his wife, Clint died. In the sure and certain hope of the resurrection, please keep his wife, Barb, and their entire family in your prayers as they grieve this unforeseen and devastating loss. I spoke personally with the McCoy family and synod staff, trying to encourage them by reminding them of God's love and the support and prayers of Newark Presbytery and the Synod Executive Collegium,

Its painful to loose someone you admired, someone whose traits you sought to emulate. My Listening Leader now listens from a different vantage point. Clint is not sitting next to me at a presbytery meeting in the same manner. We are not on conference calls any more. He is no longer encouraging me to figure out how to release the health and vitality of churches and their leaders in a stressed but changing system. The hopeful counsel I sought must now come less from Clint and more from what I learned of Clint, as he followed Jesus.

Life is not a dress rehearsal. I hope I paid attention. I will be forever grateful knowing Clint did.

Kevin

Doing Your Creative Best

Who impresses you? Hopefully lots of people do. People who model the very best actions and deliver value in whatever sphere of influence or discipline they engage in often serve as actual or distant mentors and help us achieve our creative best.

In order to determine who impresses us, we must make a judgement. Sometimes our judgement is sound, other times it is deficient. When our judgement is a bit off when looking at others, it can be disappointing, but when looking at ourselves with deficient judgment, it can be disastrous.

We all need to improve our skills in making accurate evaluations or judgements about events, ourselves, others, and the world. In stressful situations, our ability to make accurate judgements is diminished. When functioning in a less than optimal way, or when impaired by internal or external factors, we often substitute our biases, preconceived notions, and false assumptions as a way to cope. Rather than becoming self-aware of deficient judgements so we can take responsibility for what we actually see and have evidence for, we settle for misjudgment in making an evaluation about the situation or person.

Planning to participate in a meeting? How we make sense of the world is a critical skill worth improving because it affects more than just ourselves. Since our judgements are not always right or helpful, we can repeatedly assess our internal resources and choose more positive and constructive attitudes so we are open to new data, receptive to new perspectives, and responsive to God's preferred future of hope and growth.

Sometimes we settle for believing we know what's going to happen in the future. Am I thinking that I can predict the future? How likely is it that that might really happen? Becoming aware of our own needs for approval or our misjudgment about others can impair the preferred outcomes for a meeting even before the meeting starts. Gaining clarity with reliable data can set the stage for true engagement and mutual growth.

Our history and experience affects our emotional reasoning, sometimes in adverse ways. We conclude that since I feel bad, it must be bad! I feel anxious, so I must be in danger. Just because it feels bad, doesn't necessarily mean it is bad. My feelings are just a reaction to my thoughts and thoughts are just automatic brain reflexes. Differentiating between real and imagined danger is essential to healthy living. Being more aware of our history and experience, dealing with it in a constructive manner, can free ourselves to being more invested in the moment and respect the situation or person in a more authentic way.

As you work you plan this September by planning your work, consider the advice of the Apostle Paul: "Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life" Galatians 6:4-5 (MSG).

What's your creative best? You are more likely to experience your creative best when you are fully aware of your own judgements and open to the preferred future God is impressing on you.

Changing Your Mental Filter

What are you thinking about? Whatever it is, pay attention to it because what we think about affects our actions.

Psychologists, pastors, and educators all know that our thinking is influenced by our actions and attitudes. Visualization coaches and trainers recognize that realizing high achievement requires mastery over our thoughts. Take a minute and consider your thinking habits.

Getting control over our thinking begins by changing unhelpful thinking habits into more productive ones. Once you can identify your unhelpful thinking styles, you may become aware they often occur just before and during distressing situations. If this is your experience, you can try different techniques to refocus your mental frame of reference and choose alternate thoughts empowering yourself to see the situation in a different and more helpful way.

The Mental Filter- Some thought habits can function like filters allowing us to notice only what the filter allows or wants us to notice, and we dismiss anything that doesn't. Like looking through dark lenses or paying attention to only the negative stuff, anything more positive or realistic is dismissed. Ask yourself, Do I only notice the bad stuff? Am I filtering out the positives? Am I wearing those dark glasses that cloud my thinking? What would be more productive and realistic?

"Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse" Philippians 4:8 (MSG).

What thoughts help you grow and change?

Good Enough

Good Enough?
I love technology and gadgets (I know you're surprised, right?). Just after high school, I worked for the Naval Surface Weapons Center in White Oak, Maryland as an electronics apprentice. It was great. Secret security clearance, cool technology gadgets, and I learned about design, production, PERT charts, and saltwater specs for electronics. (Most of what we built went on really big ships.)

Many times during the day I would submit my apprentice-level project for inspection and the senior engineer would say, "That's good enough for government work," and pat me on the back. I soon learned that Good Enough was the best you could do given the circumstances of skills, resources, and the timeframe for completion.

Good Enough has nothing to do with mediocrity. It has to do with rational choices, as opposed to compulsive behavior, or making decisions with ourselves at the center of attention, (like, that's good enough so I can go do something I'd rather be doing.) Good Enough is not low-balling or just getting by. Good Enough for a team or office could express itself as opportunities to:
Learn on the job,
Learn from failure,
Cope with complexity,
Cope with humanity,
Continuously improve on delivering your mission more effectively.

Good Enough thinking encourages smart skepticism and helps you get to the key deliverable of your work or ministry quickly. It helps us realize that benefits always come with problems. We have to be really smart to be Good Enough. Our task is not to blindly eliminate all problems. (Can't be done in the real world.) What can be achieved is to understand well enough a projects's problems and benefits to:
Eliminate (or prevent) the right problems;
Deliver the right benefits.

By focusing on how your clients/customers/members/community interacts with your product/service/ministry/deliverable you will begin to wisely evaluate what the "right" problems to eliminate are and what "right" benefits must be experienced.

Experiment with Good Enough where you work. I'd like to know what Good Enough means to you. To get started, at your next team meeting, or one-on-one with your directs, prepare to discuss the "Top 5 Right Problems I Will Eliminate (or prevent)" list, and a separate list of what you think are the "Top 5 Right Benefits I Will Deliver." See what happens.

Where could Good Enough take our mission? If it's Good Enough for government work, is it Good Enough for you?

Top 10 “Working Properly” Tips

Top 10 “Working Properly” Tips for Commissioners and Presbyters

What will you make better? I just think things should work properly.

“So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit” (Galatians 6:9).

I really enjoy inventor stories. Inventors are people who are crazy enough to imagine that something can work even better. An inventor sees something that could work more effectively. The vision is to clearly focus on what could be. As the vision takes shape, the inventor fails miserably a million times trying to bring about change that works. The solo inventor's passion and vision can catch on. A team of inventors collaborate. The cycle of trial and testing, measuring and assessing, continues. Learning occurs. Its really hard work to invent something of value. Then, the progressive spirit of inventing finally yields results, often with surprising aspects that cascade into new challenges. An adaptive process emerges from a collaboration driven by the spirit of inventing. Hope, passion, mutual respect, and competency are the inventor 's mantra.

Take vacuum cleaner man James Dyson, for example. Recall the Dyson ad? At the end you hear the voiceover by Dyson himself, “I just think things should work properly.” That’s just awesome to me. “I just think things should work properly.” Dyson epitomizes hope, passion, respect, and competency. He is a true inventor. His company exudes that inventor's spirit in its culture, employment practices, and environmental responsibility. (Take a look at the Dyson story for some needed inspiration. Here’s a link to a summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_(company))

“Working properly” is a great objective that applies to more than just vacuum cleaners. Most of us know when things work properly. When things are working properly, expected outcomes are realized. When they’re not, we are not satisfied.

The church we grew up with is severely stressed, and has been for decades. A lot of people we care about have experienced pain because the things that we thought would work, don’t. Every day, I speak with ministers and elders who give, and have so much more to give, but have been wearied, distracted, blamed, bullied, or frightened enough to hold it back. They have difficulties managing the stress of ministry. They try to add needed competencies and skills. And they are severely challenged in trying to fund church infrastructure that, even in the best of year’s, is nearly impossible to sustain. These dear colleagues have become victims, or have victimized themselves, desperately looking for that joyfulness they once knew in serving and participating in church. Sadly, ministries suffer and the promise of Christ’s redemptive love having an impact on the world often falls short of its potential.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2Corinthians 5.17). Though sometimes painful to hear and difficult to act on, the old has gone and we need to let it go. The new is coming. It’s time to find a way to move forward.

There is good news. We have a choice. We can choose to stop settling for what’s good enough, or whatever seems to get us though another week, or through to retirement. We must realize that there is a great deal a stake, and we can choose a different future. If not for us, then for our children, and for the communities we live in.

We often say our ministry is about God’s reconciling work in the world, and we’re right! Since it is God’s world, and it is God who sends the church out to bless it, I think we can leave all that with God. What we can do is turn investing in the old into inventing what’s next. Turn what doesn't work so well anymore into ways of being the church that works in more authentic, vital, and effective ways.

We can choose to move forward beyond our well-worn maps. There is no map for what’s coming. We move where the Spirit empowers us to go! Let’s stop asking what’s in it for us and start giving gifts that change people. We can choose to be those gifts that help others grow. Only then will we realize our true God-potential.

Thank you for being a key part of Newark Presbytery. Each of us possess that inventor’s spirit. It just needs some cultivating and practice. Christ “in you” is the hope of glory. You have an incredible contribution to make. Its about hope, passion, mutual respect, and competency becoming more internalized within ourselves and within our culture as a church. Nothing will promote the forward movement of your church, or the forward movement of the entire presbytery, more than hope, passion, mutual respect, and competency. The whole church will be blessed. Our 800,000 neighbors will be blessed, too. You will be blessed. We can choose to change and grow as Presbyterians…as human beings, to love the world in even greater ways in Jesus’ name.

The Apostle Paul urges us to keep focusing on what works. Be attentive to what’s working properly within the presbytery. As you look to the 219th General Assembly, pray with and for the commissioners. Contemplate how you, like an inventor, will contribute value to our denomination’s health and effectiveness through your own lifestyle and ministry.

Your time and attention, along with your unique contributions, are core gifts. Thank you for sharing them so generously.

It is also important for us to practice ongoing self-compassion and self-forgiveness. While aiming for our best, working properly means we must recognize our limitations personally and professionally. We can let go of what cannot change and instead, focus on what we can make better. We can rejuvenate our sense of life and hope with simple practices including spiritual disciplines, enjoyable social activities, moments of exercise, healthy eating habits, journaling, and restful sleep, which all contribute to our working properly on the inside.

I offer you my Top 10 “Working Properly” Tips for Commissioners and Presbyters. I recently shared them with our 219th General Assembly commissioners, General Assembly staff, presbytery leaders, and I hope you find them useful. I look forward to your comments.

Trust. God loves you and the whole world. 

Be mindful of your physical, emotional, and spiritual path.

Maintain intentional rhythms of active engagement and disengagement.

Keep your spiritual nourishment and support system fresh.

Clarify your personal boundaries. What works for you? Know what doesn't.

Invent something. Reinvent yourself. Be open to God's preferred future.

Make meaningful promises and keep them.

Deliver more than expected and be proud of it.

Remember, we are all connected. Treat others with respect.

Enjoy life in hopefulness.

(Note: When in doubt, see #1)

We do not gather to make a better vacuum cleaner; we gather to glorify God and make a better world for everyone. I just think things should work properly. How about you? What will you choose to make better?

Sincerely,

Kevin

Kevin Yoho

General Presbyter

Newark Presbytery

Presbyterians are ready for a change. GA219 is the opportunity.

I think Linda Valentine, Executive Director, and the General Assembly Mission Council (GAMC) are leading the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) toward the right path. They are inviting all of us, at every ministry and governing body level, to courageously embrace God's preferable future with hope. We talk about changing how we faithfully internalize being sent into the world, yet we do not move. We agree we must change the approach to and delivery of ministry, yet rarely evidence growth. We have difficult decisions to make in the years to come, not unlike the recent releasing of long-term staffers in Louisville. We need to courageously act to realign our ministry to achieve the objectives God has called us to.

I believe Presbyterians must again be empowered to be the salt and light in more pervasive and effective ways on the street, across the nation, and around the world. The 219th General Assembly meeting in Minneapolis in July offers a unique opportunity to gain a better understanding of what’s important, to internalize it, and initiate responsible action. If not now, the opportunities that present themselves will be gone in two years, when we hold the next national gathering. So if not now, never. A spirit of prayerful urgency and courage must be divinely inspired and evoked from this assembly. I believe we are ready for a change. How ready are you for change? What do you need to move forward in hope?

Presbyteries and their Customers

A presbytery evidences effectiveness when its congregations are vitally and effectively fulfilling their own unique purpose as sent by God into the world.

If a congregation's session is not locating expected and necessary resources for its own unique mission from its presbytery, synod, and General Assembly, then it should, and no doubt will, find resources elsewhere. It’s well past time for presbytery leaders to learn and embrace to new opportunities. We can do a better job of collaborating with our congregations and other community assets to build the capacity of our mission. Sessions constitute a presbytery’s number one customer, therefore presbyteries have a strategic responsibility to ensure a session’s continuous ministry improvement, vitality, and sustainable change. We have often acquiesced to the status quo, or mistakenly believed that we have time for incremental steps. Our persistence of decline experience will continue to impair our capacity to grow and change unless a remedy is implemented.

According to change theorists, decline is the label we give to an organization’s trajectory when neither adaptation nor learning takes place in the face of massive membership dissatisfaction. Under these circumstances we ought to expect the demise of the organization. Though the PC(U.S.A.) membership is restless, we are also increasingly disappointed with our direction. We display symptoms of increased institutional trauma and decreased institutional intelligence.

We are not bereft of information, we are bereft of the right information that helps us learn. By raising our institutional and emotional intelligence we gain insight of mind and spirit. This will fuel our courage to act differently, to act better, to act authentically in our communities and in the world. Without relevant and reliable data we remain subject to tyranny and guesses about ministry direction.

Change in Practice

All across the country, many governing bodies are taking a new approach. In the Synod of the Northeast, presbyteries and their leaders have been learning together and initiating ministry adaptation within their own structures and congregations. In Newark Presbytery, where I have the privilege to serve as General Presbyter, we have begun to internalize a commitment to redirect our energy outward, away from a flatline of self-destructive congregational survival and deficit-defined ministry to a baseline model of “everyone can choose to grow.” By authentically reconnecting out of our abundance to the 800,000 people that live within our bounds, and beyond, the world can be different.

New Jersey’s Presbytery Partnership Group’s (NJPPG) eight presbyteries have also begun to chart a new course. In March, our presbyteries were offered a learning strategy called the Listening Project to help them assess their own presbytery’s mission clarity, vitality and effectiveness. This is huge. Every presbytery in New Jersey, in its unique historical and geographic setting and phase of organizational life, can come to its own place of readiness and take responsibility for itself to grow and change. Now needed assessment tools and funds have been provided to provoke that change. Are our presbyteries ready? I believe they are. Without courage to choose God's preferred future, however, our will lead to our demise. Clarity from the NJPPG Listening Project promises to provide the catalyst. Time will tell, but time is short.

A Remedy for Forty-Years of Decline

Recently we learned that in 2009, our denomination’s membership declined 3.3%, representing in the aggregate a net loss of 1,800 people every week, a higher rate of decline year over year. This information increases our knowledge. I think this decline rate is not only unacceptable but preventable, yet the GAMC and few other church leaders have even mentioned it. The point is that this information alone does not increase our intelligence to act differently.

We need insight that derives from intelligence. Realize that the PC(U.S.A.), along with all other major denominations, are continuing a 40-year decline. A wilderness experience of a vast scale. But there's more: Our church appears unaware that every major volunteer association in North America has experienced the identical decline in membership during the same 40-year period. In our denomination's peak membership years, few knew in 1970 that the preceding years’ rising growth rate were about to become a slippery slope of decline, and even fewer knew that the decline of all churches, and all other volunteer associations from PTA’s to bowling leagues, could be attributed to the same cause. The cause for the decline? Member’s disconnecting from an increasingly fragmented community life in America. We can do something with this information. It adds to our institutional intelligence as a church. Reconnecting to our communities can reverse the cause for this decline. This is a remedy that fits our missional and social context, empowered by God's Spirit.

I humbly point you to my presentation on SlideShare, http://www.slideshare.net/kryoho, entitled The Reciprocal Church. It offers a correlation between the 40-year decline of volunteer associations to the decline of the PC(U.S.A.), and offers guidance and remedies that every congregation regardless of its capacity or location, and even the GAMC itself, can put into practice this week.

Incarnational, missional behavior transcends every current challenge and obstacle we face as a denomination and members of communities. Let’s get our heart around the world and our head out of the church long enough to not just make a difference in the world, but make the world different.

The executive team in Louisville deserve our support and prayers as they lead us as God sends us to love the world more than we love the church. When our heart is for the world, we will choose to act differently as disciples of Jesus Christ in the church. Pray for our world, our leaders, and our 219th General Assembly and its commissioners. I think Presbyterians are ready for a change. GA219 is the opportunity. Do you think we are ready? Are you?

Sincerely,

Kevin

.............................................................

Dr. Kevin Yoho,

General Presbyter

Newark Presbytery

192 Broad St., Bloomfield, NJ 07003

973-429-2500 (phone)

kevin@newarkpresbytery.org

http://www.newarkpresbytery.org

http://www.twitter.com/kevinyoho

The Readiness Factor for Growth

Readiness to Change The Future

“Start walking” never looked so good.

The Readiness Factor for Growth

People, organizations, even complex organizations like churches, change when they are ready to change. There has to be a readiness to change. In the John 5 story (see below), the paralyzed man by the pool was not ready to change until that day he met Jesus. Not ready? Nope.

Instead of taking responsibility for his situation, he made excuses. Remember he offered the excuse, “Someone always gets to angel-troubled waters before me!” (when you hear an excuse, somebody’s not yet ready to take responsibility.)

So Jesus does a little intelligence gathering and then walks over to the paralyzed man who was likely readying another excuse when he must have heard himself. Ta Da! In that moment, he saw what Jesus saw, what everybody else saw, too; a man with thirty-eight years of excuses, avoiding responsibility. He recognized that in thirty-eight years, he was no better off. He was only more miserable, still alone by the pool, and oh yeah, older too.

Jesus did not argue with the man about the past, about the angels, about the others who got in first, about his waiting such a terribly long time. Jesus essentially asked, “How’s that working for you?” Jesus said don’t jump into the pool, but into the future. He had to take responsibility for himself and take the first step he alone could make. Jesus said, “Get up, take your bedroll, start walking.”

Organizations are like people.

They are alike and they are different. Not every church is at the same place developmentally, spiritually, organizationally, or operationally. These are the psychological and sociological implications of the metaphor of the Body of Christ.

It is characteristic of island cultures to believe that the people on the island are substantially different from those on continents even to the point that the same medicines that are effective in other places will lose their efficacy when applied locally. Crazy, right?

But followers of Jesus are the Body of Christ. If we focus too heavily on our differences, we cannot learn from one another, cannot collaborate, and cannot commune. We loose the potential of a united witness to the world.

If we focus too heavily on the sameness, we stifle individualization and creativity and our unique sent-ness into the world by the Holy Spirit. So the question is not whether all a presbytery’s congregations are large or small; new or old; urban, suburban, ex-urban; predominately mono-cultural or multi-cultural; theologically diverse or unified, well financed or lacking resources; racially and/or ethnically diverse or not.

We need clarity about what is common and what is distinctive.

Common to all the people, “Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem,” by the pool was they were all in need of a hopeful future.

Distinctive to all was their individual readiness to change.

Each person, team, organization, group, or church will vary widely in their readiness to change, and what that change should look like for them. Some may be essentially decided and determined to change. The leaders can explore the depth of such apparent motivation, and begin consolidating commitment.

Others will be reluctant or even hostile at the outset. At the extreme, some groups may feel coerced by finances, context, or history to change, or remain unchanged. I respect that position. It is important to recognize, however, that remaining in that pre-contemplation stage of change is unsustainable in the longterm.

For churches, most congregations, however, have already entertained some change initiatives and perhaps even created history to express the process somewhere in the contemplation stage. They may already be dabbling with taking action, but still need consolidation of motivation for change, or clarity for their vision. This may be thought of as the tipping point of a motivational balance. If your congregation is at this stage it is critical that you move away from a seesaw that favors status quo versus the other that favors change.

There are perceived benefits of changing, and feared consequences of continuing unchanged. The man by the pool had to decide if the hopeful, promised future captured in the words, “Start walking” was more compelling than the compromise endured by of the hundreds remaining as they were; life passing them by, counting the wasted years.

Our task together, in a presbytery and session partnership, as members of a team, is to shift the balance of weight in favor of change and growth. The man by the pool learned the consequences of a lack of readiness. We can move toward God’s preferred future of hope. Let’s get up and start walking.

Intelligence Break: The readiness for growth is uniquely determined by the person or group contemplating change.

• What is the biggest downside to not growing, to the status quo winning?
• How do you know when you’re ready to take a step in a new direction?
• What is something you will change?
• How will you know it has changed?
• How will you know you have grown?

Tell someone you trust you are ready for growth. Get up, start walking!

See previous blog: The Process of Growth

John 5:1-8 Soon another Feast came around and Jesus was back in Jerusalem. Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda, with five alcoves. Hundreds of sick people; blind, crippled, paralyzed—were in these alcoves. One man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, “Do you want to get well?”

The sick man said, “Sir, when the water is stirred, I don’t have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in.”

Jesus said, “Get up, take your bedroll, start walking.” The man was healed on the spot. He picked up his bedroll and walked off.

The Process of Growth

Readiness to Change The Future

“Start walking” never looked so good.

The Process of Growth

The Gospel of John tells the story of God’s love for the changing world. The passage from John 5 (below) tells a story of “one man” healed among “hundreds” sick by the pool and conveys both the promise and the compromise of hope.

Thirty-eight (38) years could be considered a long time. Thirty-eight years ago I was a recent graduate from Parkdale High School, Class of 1972. Go Panthers! Yeah, thirty-eight years is a long time. Happily, I changed. I grew.

We all can change. We all can grow.

Sometimes getting ready to change takes time.

Thirty-eight years ago your house cost $25,000, the White House broke into the Watergate, the Dow-Jones hit 1020 while Hotel California hit #1, people landed on the moon, the HP-35 calculator landed in your hand, HBO handed you the first cable program, and IBM’s supercomputer filled a room. Amazing.

Thirty-eight years ago the Presbyterian Church (USA) counted 4,000,000 members. Newark Presbytery had 18,000 members in 52 churches with more than 900,000 neighbors within its bounds. Few knew in1972 that growth was on the slippery slope of decline, and even fewer knew that the decline of all churches, and all other volunteer associations from PTA’s to the bowling leagues could be attributed to the same cause; organizational disconnect from an increasingly fragmented community life.

This is huge.

Back to the story from John 5. What about that “one man” at the pool? The scope of change during thirty-eight years he experienced in real time would be as if that man settled down by the pool paralyzed with Nixon in office, and (thirty-eight years passing) ended up meeting Jesus when Obama was in office. He laid down by that pool expecting somehow or another to get better. (He was there for his health, right?) In the same way, the time it took The PC(USA) to go from 4M to 2M members; that man waited, and waited, and waited for something to change. We should not be surprised at the Master’s question upon learning how long the “one man” had been lying there when he asked: “Do you want to get well?”

Intelligence Break: The process of growth is a process, not an event.

• Do you want to get “well,” change something?
• How to you experience the process of change?
• What is something you wish to change?
• Why does growth matter to you?
• Are you ready for change?

See next blog: The Readiness Factor for Growth

John 5:1-8 Soon another Feast came around and Jesus was back in Jerusalem. Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda, with five alcoves. Hundreds of sick people; blind, crippled, paralyzed—were in these alcoves. One man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, “Do you want to get well?”

The sick man said, “Sir, when the water is stirred, I don’t have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in.”

Jesus said, “Get up, take your bedroll, start walking.” The man was healed on the spot. He picked up his bedroll and walked off.

Readiness to Change the Future

Readiness to Change The Future

“Start walking” never looked so good.

The Process of Growth

Our task together, as a neighborhood community, or a denomination, presbytery and congregation partnership, is to shift the balance of weight in favor of change and growth.

The Gospel of John tells the story of God’s love for the changing world. The passage from John 5: 1-8 (text below) tells a story of “one man” healed among “hundreds” sick by the pool and conveys both the promise and the compromise of hope.

Thirty-eight (38) years could be considered a long time. Thirty-eight years ago I was a recent graduate from Parkdale High School, Class of 1972. Go Panthers! Yeah, thirty-eight years is a long time.

Happily, I changed. I grew. We all can change. We all can grow.

Thirty-eight years ago your house cost $25,000, the White House broke into the Watergate, the Dow-Jones hit 1020 while Hotel California hit #1, people landed on the moon, the HP-35 calculator landed in your hand, HBO handed you the first cable program, and IBM’s supercomputer filled a room. Amazing.

Thirty-eight years ago the Presbyterian Church counted 4,000,000 members. Newark Presbytery had 18,000 members in 52 churches with more than 900,000 neighbors within its bounds. Few knew in1972 that growth was on a slippery slope of decline, and even fewer knew that the decline of all churches, and all other volunteer associations from PTA’s to the bowling leagues could be attributed to the same cause; organizational disconnect from an increasingly fragmented community life. This is huge.

What about that “one man” at the pool? The scope of change during thirty-eight years, would be as if that man settled down by the pool, paralyzed, with Nixon in office, and ended up meeting Jesus when Obama was president. He laid down by that pool expecting somehow or another to get better. (He was there for his health.) In the same way, the time it took to go from 4M to 2M members; that man waited, and waited, and waited for something to change. We should not be surprised at the Master’s question upon learning how long the “one man” had been lying there, “Do you want to get well?”

The Readiness Factor of Growth

People, organizations, even complex organizations like churches, change when they are ready to change. There has to be a readiness to change. The paralyzed man by the pool was not ready to change until that day he met Jesus. Instead of taking responsibility for his situation, he made excuses. Remember he offered, “Someone always gets to angel-troubled waters before me!”

In that moment, he must have finally heard himself. He recognized that in thirty-eight years, he was no better off. He was only more miserable, still alone by the pool, and sadly, older too.

Jesus did not argue with the man about the past, about the angels, about the others who got in first, about his waiting such a terribly long time. Jesus essentially asked, “How’s that working for you?,” and invited the man into the future. He had to take responsibility for himself and take the first step he alone could make. Jesus said, “Get up, take your bedroll, start walking.”

Organizations are like people.

They are alike and they are different. Not every church is at the same place developmentally, spiritually, organizationally, or operationally. These are the psychological and sociological implications of the metaphor of the Body of Christ.

It is characteristic of island cultures to believe that the people on the island are substantially different from those on continents even to the point that the same medicines that are effective in other places will lose their efficacy when applied locally.

But we are the Body of Christ. If we focus too heavily on our differences, we cannot learn from one another, cannot collaborate, and cannot commune.

If we focus too heavily on the sameness, we stifle individualization and creativity and our unique sent-ness into the world by the Holy Spirit. So the question is not whether all forty-one congregations in Newark Presbytery are large or small; new or old; urban, suburban, ex-urban; predominately mono-cultural or multi-cultural; well financed or lacking in resources; racially and/or ethnically diverse or not.

The question to ask is: What is common to all of us and what is distinctive.

What was common to all the people, “Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem,” by the pool was they were all in need of a hopeful future.

What was distinctive to all the people was their individual readiness to change.

Meeting With Sessions

As I have the privilege to meet with our sessions (introduced in January), I understand that each church will vary widely in their readiness to change, and what that change should look like for them. Some congregations may be largely decided and determined to change. The session can explore the depth of such apparent motivation in their congregation, and begin consolidating commitment.

Others will be reluctant or even hostile at the outset. At the extreme, some sessions and/or congregations may feel coerced by finances, context, or history to change, or remain unchanged. I respect that position. Remaining in that pre-contemplation stage of change is unsustainable in the longterm.

Most congregations, however, have already entertained some change initiatives and perhaps even created history to express the process somewhere in the contemplation stage. They may already be dabbling with taking action, but still need consolidation of motivation for change. Or clarity for their vision. This may be thought of as the tipping point of a motivational balance. If your congregation is at this stage it is critical that you move away from a seesaw that favors status quo versus the other that favors change.

There are perceived benefits of changing, and feared consequences of continuing unchanged. The “one man” by the pool had to decide if the hopeful, promised future captured in the words, “Start walking!” was more compelling than the compromise endured by of the “hundreds” remaining as they were; life passing them by, counting the wasted years.

Our task together, in a presbytery and congregation partnership, is to shift the balance of weight in favor of change and growth. I look forward to listening, and helping your session listen, and move toward God’s preferred future of hope. Let’s get up and start walking.

Sincerely,

Kevin

Dr. Kevin Yoho
General Presbyter

John 5:1-8 Soon another Feast came around and Jesus was back in Jerusalem. Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda, with five alcoves. Hundreds of sick people; blind, crippled, paralyzed—were in these alcoves. One man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, “Do you want to get well?”

The sick man said, “Sir, when the water is stirred, I don’t have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in.”

Jesus said, “Get up, take your bedroll, start walking.” The man was healed on the spot. He picked up his bedroll and walked off.