I picked up this book at David’s suggestion.  I’m glad I did.  I’ve read a lot of business/leadership books in the last 15 years.  Many, if not most, were written by successful CEO’s of major corporations/churches or by academics.  Some were good.  Many are just so-so.  Rework is the first business book that I’ve read that is written in “my language,” the language of a 30-something Gen-Xer/Millenial/whatever I am, who is distrustful of the “organization” and “policies” and “corporate cultures.”  Of course, some of the content doesn’t cross over from the organization & business practice of a software company to a church, but much of it does.  Below the jump are some of my highlights.

• “Interruptions break your work day into a series of work moments…you should get in the alone zone.  Long stretches of alone time are when you’re most productive.”   – BTW… I’m terrible at interrupting myself.  This was a great reminder that I need to isolate myself from distraction.

• “Go to Sleep” – “Creativity is one of the first things to go when you lose sleep.”    ”…some people still develop a masochistic sense of honor about sleep deprivation.  They even brag about how tired they are.  Don’t be impressed.  It’ll come back to bit them in the ass.”    GUILTY.

• “Welcome Obscurity”  -   “Use this time to make mistakes without the whole world hearing about them…obscurity helps protect your ego and preserves your confidence.”     HEAR! HEAR!  I’ve enjoyed the obscurity of our church for the last 2+ years.  It’s a gift, for sure.

• “Decisions are temporary”  - “the decisions you make today don’t need to last forever….at this stage it’s silly to worry about whether or not your concept will scale from five to five thousand people.”    FREEING!

• “They’re not 13″  - “When you treat people like children, you get children’s work.”    - A quick story.  In my first pastorate, I was trusted with the spiritual lives of around 75 students, but I had to ask permission to get the church credit card or access my ministry checkbook.  I felt like I was a little kid asking for allowance.  I sure didn’t feel like an adult hired and trusted to do a great job.

• “Send People Home at Five” – “When people have something to do at home, they get down to business.  They get their work done because they have somewhere else to be…you want busy people.  People who have a life outside of work.”  YES!

(ht: 22 Words, from the aptly-named post, “Rattlesnakes, Religion and Rockabilly“)

I gotta say, nothing gets me more excited as a speaker than to know that what was said on Sunday morning is being talked about, argued about and thought through later in the week!  (And not because I was trying to be provocative, but because the text itself is thought provoking!)

• No news is good news.  I get nervous whenever politics comes up, and feel like I’m walking on egg shells.  Nobody complained, so that’s good.  I guess?  I hope I was fair, and talked at a “meta” level to everyone in the conversation and not just those with a particular political philosophy.
• 2nd Service affect.  In my opinion, the 2nd service was better.  I felt more in command of the material.  That’s not always the case.. sometimes, the first service is better — but most weeks, I can tell you which flowed better.
• On the fly.  Between services, two people on the teaching team suggested minor “fixes.”  This is part of the reason that the second service was better.  I am richer for those two men, who love me, and love truth – and know how to speak with generosity, wisdom, tact and grace.
• Too late.  A friend sent me a link today about the connection between Sponge Bob Squarepants and The Seven Deadly Sins.  It’s a little strange, and amusing.

I get up while it’s still dark and immediately take a shower.  I lay my clothes out the night before, so my “thought time” in the shower is given to my talk.  I come downstairs to my office, and play through the slides, talking them out.  Then, I go out, get the paper and eat breakfast while I read the front page.   About 6:45 or 7:00, I’m out the door and headed to Dunkin Donuts for coffee.

I’ll pray with the worship team about 20 minutes before the service, and the prayer team usually has two people pray with me before service as well.

Mostly, on Sunday mornings, I doubt everything I’ve done.  I’m sure that I’ve missed something, or left something incomplete.  I always think, “I should have given more time to ______.”  In general, I don’t feel very confident until 1st service is over.  But that’s all just nerves.

Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back — in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.             Frederick Buechner

Friday is my day off.  I try to treat as something of a Sabbatical.  I try not to check email.  I don’t tend to return calls.  I may do some work around the house, but mostly I just try to refresh & refuel – hang out with family, sometimes hang out with friends, whatever.  So, whenever I think about my message on Friday, I try to put it out of my head, so that when I look at it Saturday, I can see it with “fresh eyes.”

My goal during the week, is to get things about 80% done, which leaves me with about 20% more prep today.  It’s not a procrastination thing.  If I didn’t spend 2-3 hours prepping on Saturday, the material wouldn’t be as fresh to me, so I leave some things undone.  I usually get some time in during the morning or early afternoon, but occasionally, it’s left until Saturday night.  Today is the day that I usually feel pretty good about the material (I’ll post about what I feel tomorrow morning…. it’s generally not pretty.)

I’ve already tweaked out the slides, they’re good to go, unless something hits me at the last minute.  Today, I’ll be going over some of my research, getting it fresh in my mind.  I think this week will be sans notes, but I’ll still write out an outline, for a quick glance tomorrow morning.

I won’t say anything more about content… I need to leave something for tomorrow, eh?  But I will give this little teaser… I blew up in anger and made one of my kids cry this something over a really pathetic “injustice.”  I guess it’s God’s way of keeping me humble, and reminding me that I really have no business getting up in front of people and wagging my finger at them.

Thanks for your comments & emails… good stuff.

Here are 2 things on my mind this morning:

1. I have to stay away from politics.  It really just frustrates me to no end and feeds an unhealthy streak of cynicism that lives in me – it’s the same reason I shouldn’t watch television preachers – it just gets me angry.  But I don’t stick my head in the sand either, so over the last couple of days I’ve watched a little bit of the coverage of the health care debates.  As I’ve been thinking about Jesus’ definition of sinful anger (calling someone a “fool,”), it seems to me that we have a long way to go.  I think it would be very cool to see a group of politically-conservative Christians come up with something like a “manifesto for Christian disagreement,” that would condemn ad hominem arguments, character assaults, violent speech and the like — something that would encourage Christians to passionately give voice to their disagreements, but in a way that is expressly Christian.
2. This afternoon, I think I have some time, and I’m going to send some time with a book that someone on our teaching team gave to me.  It’s thick, and so I’ve been afraid to start reading it – because I know myself, and that I might get sucked in and feel like I have to finish it!  Anyway, I’m intrigued by the title: The Enigma of Anger: Essays on a Sometimes Deadly Sin. As I’ve been thinking about it, anger may be the only deadly sin that isn’t always a sin – it seems to be more about what one does with anger.
   

Dante ties anger, which entails caring too much about the wrong things, to acedia, which is caring too little about the right ones… when unexpressed anger builds up inside, people perform even legitimate duties carelessly and resentfully often focusing on others as the source of their troubles.  Instead of looking inward to find the true reason for their sadness…they direct it outward, barreling through the world, impatient and even brutal with those they encounter, especially those who are closest to them.”

This quotation makes me think of the kind of people who are so obviously angry – at least obvious to the people around them – but they are so oblivious.

So, for now, here’s where I’m at.

After brainstorming, reading, and thinking this morning, I have four PARTS of the message.  Here’s a brief description of each, and the likely order they will fall in on Sunday.  (this is usually about the point where I send David a brief overview and outline for the notes – which I just did a few minutes ago.)

• Stuff Happens – I’ll talk about life happening, and anger as a normal, human reaction to perceived injustice.  We’ll look at anatomical responses to anger, some pictures of angry people.  We may look at the song from Rage Against the Machine (you can listen to it here, with lyrics), we may look at a quotation from Elie Wiesel. I’ll probably pull out a definition here, and use that as a transition to the second part.
• Injustice Perverted – I’ll explore my own issues here.  (I heard someone once say that good writing is like opening up a vein and bleeding for other people.  I think of teaching as the same thing…I put my own weaknesses and failures on display, so other people can say “me too.”)  What I’m after in this section is to help us all come to this realization that we have crazy ideas about injustice – and that we often major on the minor and minor on the major.  Because I think I’m OWED, I think I DESERVE, and when I don’t get what I’m owed or deserve, I get angry.
• Unhealthy Responses – So, what do I do when I get angry? (b/c it’s always “when,” not “if”)  We’ll look 2 kinds of anger here: passive-aggressive and aggressive-aggressive.  And then we’ll back up the line further by looking at Matthew 5: 21, where Jesus suggest that even harboring angry thoughts is the same as murder. (ouch!)
• Patience & The 3rd Way – This is the virtue.  When we practice patience it gives space for us to ask some critical questions of ourselves, such as:  “what am I really angry about?”  “should I even be angry at all, about this?”  Then we’ll explore Matthew 5:38-42 and talk about resisting evil creatively, with non-violence.