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.

Twitter Teaches Church How To Bless the World

By definition, the word Twitter refers to drivel amounting to little more than blah, blah, blah. Even in the animal kingdom Twittering can refer to a sparrow's blah, blah, blah in bird-talk. It was Blah, Blah, Blah, that is, until 2006 when Jack Dorsey created, expanded and with friends, developed the free Internet social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read messages called tweets.

Twitter.com initially posed a simple question to the Twitter user, What are you doing? This launched a million 140-character or less messages with pretty much what you'd expect, pointless blah, blah, blah. Eventually, the blah, blah blah majority of tweet content expanded with news, spam, self-promotion, conversations, and value-content messages. In November 2009, Twitter chose to focus on their news and information network strategy by changing the question it asks users for status updates from "What are you doing?" to "What's happening?" From doing-reporting to happening-reporting. From action to results.

Twitter teaches the church how to bless the world by taking responsibility for results.

How much are you willing to change your behaviors to achieve your goals? If your goals matter to you, if your goals are meaningful and important and return value to the world, it will require deep-change to achieve. The only way to know if your doing is working is to pay attention to what is actually happening. This is what Twitter's question-change helped me realize; fixating on what we are doing must give way to focusing on what is actually happening.

What’s Happening? (Together, our response could transform our future.)

In the church, we spend an enormous amount of time talking about what we are doing. Dare I describe it as blah, blah, blah twittering? (Yes.) It is often meaningless twitter. OK. Some of the doing is pretty cool stuff. (But only some.) The tragedy is we don't know the good-doing from the bad-doing. We just do what we do. We keep drinking from the once living, now-stagnate, stream. We are drunk on ourselves. We think the world owes us respect and response even as we furtively replicate, celebrate, and propagate the blah, blah, blah. We keep doing everything except reciprocate. (When is the last time your religious institution had to pay a property tax bill, or your spiritual leader had to pay taxes on housing? And you think your church owes nothing to its community? Don't get me started.)

We know better. We don't do better.

That's why the church could answer the earlier incarnation of Twitter's invitation (if it knew what Twitter.com was, that is), What are you doing? with up to 140 characters. Sure, we're doing. See, we proudly still do what we did when we learned how to do it from those that did it like we do.

The medical profession aspires to an (even higher?) oath beyond that of many clerics (I'm talking to my Presbyterian tribe, so don't take offense). They promise to Do No Harm. We don't even know most of the time what we are doing. Our church reality distortion field has taken over. We have been so busy doing (something, anything), we forgot (refused) to consider the outcomes of our do-do.

How much are you willing to change your behaviors to reach your community with the Good News empowered by your faith? (You got good news, right? If not, quiet please.)

The Apostle Paul had the same question posed to him from the moment he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Rigid, legalistic, controlling Paul was empowered to change his behaviors to become a resilient and adaptive change agent. Paul became increasingly authentic as he centered his life on the Risen Christ, a continual spiritual transformation connected his call to his context. He became real and realized that people he met did not have to have the same spiritual encounter that he did. As lead ambassador, he did not expect a Pentecost Experience to be normative in the life of the burgeoning church. In fact, the menu at church suppers were totally changed when Paul got into the kitchen. Paul surmised, like Twitter, that his doing could not be detached from outcomes of what he did. He noticed what was really happening. He observed his world. He paid attention to people from the rock stars to the starving. He connected to the web of life in the public square and took responsibility for his behaviors as he understood the consequences of his actions. Paul set goals. He changed. He correlated his doing with happening and with great personal sacrifice and by setting aside his personal preferences, he learned and loved; and the world changed.

The implications of this are huge.

Whatever our unique context, our opportunity is to become a servant of all so that everyone has an opportunity to experience God's love where they are, their way. Laying aside our preferences and expectations empowers us to more effectively connect to our changing context. We have to pay attention. We have to take responsibility for our behaviors as pastors, elders, deacons, and every other connected person in congregational life. It matters.

We must choose to reciprocate. We do not live in a vacuum.

Our congregations are not in a dress rehearsal. There are no stand-ins to do the ministry for us.

We cannot lease space in our buildings pretending to serve the world by proxy.

Our doing matters when we take responsibility for what happens when we do what we do. By God's grace, we ought to be practicing patterns of forgiveness, restitution, restoration, transformation, generosity, and hope which turn our do-do into blessings.

We want to make a difference in the world. God wants to make a different world through is. We can increase the capacity of our communities to raise the level of hope. The church can become volunteers who know that a growing and vital church results when it empowers a growing and vital community.

Can we, like Twitter, grow and develop to report less on what we do and more on what is really happening? Without reliable and valid data we are subject to tyranny and guesses. What’s Happening? Your response can transform your future.

Follow me on Twitter and see what's happening: twitter.com/kevinyoho

(Scripture reference: 1 Corinthians 9:19-25 (Message) "Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!")