Press "Enter" to skip to content

Month: February 2012

Unmotivated to change

Last week Michael Hyatt posted a blog entry, “The Primary Difference Between the Wise and the Foolish,” in which he recounts a conversation he had with a business acquaintance. The acquaintance was asking for advice about a difficulty he or she was having at work, but was unwilling to change what they were doing. They spoke as if seeking a solution to the problem, but were more comfortable just complaining. “Ten minutes into the discussion,” Hyatt writes, “I realized I was dealing with a fool. There was no point in continuing the conversation. More talk would not change anything.” It reminded me of a quote attributed to Edwin Friedman, “The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change” (Friedman, ix).

Leave a Comment

Why don’t you stay?

In one of the routines from his television show, Jerry Seinfeld talks about how men and women differ in our ways of watching television. He says, “Men flip around the television more than women, I think. Men get that remote control in their hands, they don’t even know what … they’re watching. You know, we just keep going… Women don’t do this. See now, women will stop and go, “Well, let me see what the show is before I change the channel.” … Men just fly. Because women nest and men hunt. That’s why we watch TV differently.”

Though not gender specific, those two archetypes apply to associate pastors. Some of us are hunters. We have barely unpacked the boxes of books from our last move before we are surfing churchstaffing.com, or calling our denomination supervisor, looking for the next opportunity. Others of us are nesters. We think every job is the last one we will have until retirement.

Leave a Comment

MVP – Most Valuable Pastor?

Congrats to Eli Manning - MVP Super Bowl XLVI

We all knew before it even started that the Most Valuable Player of the big game (am I allowed to call it the Super Bowl without paying the NFL?) would be the one who made a big play worthy of celebrating. Quarterbacks have won more than half of them, that number increasing with Eli’s naming last night, with running backs and wide receivers taking most of the rest.

But could the MVP have won the game without the 53rd man on the roster? There are a lot of players on a championship team that seem far from the spotlight. We know the Bradys and the Mannings that do amazing the things with the ball, but what about the right guard that protects their blindside when they drop back to pass? Without that guy doing his job, they wouldn’t have time or space to do the things they do.

2 Comments