Failed Leadership Fill in the Blanks Story

Here's a fun little game using major excerpts from a current story which can readily be applied to a local church or to a denomination. You fill in the blanks and create the rest of the story. It's about a leader who has been axed and the reasons why his company has declined due to his leadership.

"He apparently was a nice guy who got along well with everyone else in the old-boy network."

"_____ _____ showed how much he and his whole insular, inbred industry hadn't learned when ________"

"...he demonstrated that he still hadn't learned very much, as he dragged his feet on doing the necessary and drastic things needed to give his company a chance to survive."

"What's wrong, in a nutshell, is that it is a narrow, insular culture. Those who make it to the top of the heap, like _____ , tend to be white Anglo-Saxon males who have worked at the same company their entire career, and have come up with the same set of buddies."

"It is very hard to fire your old pals or even do things to make them uncomfortable."

"They gave ___ ____ some time to fix it, but guess what?"

"Sadly, in the end, he seems to have been a smart guy with no vision beyond whatever pieces of paper lay in front of him."

" Three years ago, he actually conceded that his worst mistake was killing the _______ program and 'not putting the right resources into ________.'"

"Unfortunately, he was too dull to comprehend why. 'It didn't affect profitability, but it did affect image,' he said."

"Talk about not planning for the future! Wacky old Henry Ford I once said that if he had asked consumers before starting out, they wouldn't have said they wanted an automobile at all. 'They would have said they wanted a faster horse.'"

"Now, ___________ has a little less than two months to try to invent a future, in a corporate culture where vision has mostly been punished. For all of our sakes, good luck with that."

What does this exercise teach you about your organization? about your leadership?

Full Story

United Methodist Constitutional Amendments

Find here all the energy and angst, pros and cons, and mix of blogs and official information related to the UM constitutional amendments which each annual conference will be voting on this year.

United Methodist Constitutional Amendments

Seminary Grads Working in the Church

“Students don’t want to serve in the local church when they graduate; they want to do something more exciting.” seminary grads

That's a quote from a Southern Baptist seminary administrator about their graduates. I wonder if that is true for other denominations and seminaries?

Thankfully Curtis Freeman at Duke offers a different view.

"When I ask soon to be graduates in exit interviews how they’ve changed during their theological study, one of the answers I am consistently amazed by is that they have learned to love the church. When I ask where and how they learned this, they indicate it’s systemic: from the faculty, to the curriculum, to spiritual formation groups, to field education. And it’s not just the church as a sort of platonic ideal. It’s the church on the corner." Cyprian's View

What's your perspective?

Not Necessary to Stage the Conversation as Science vs. Religion

It's funny how someone can share a thought that helps you put into words that which you sensed, but hadn't vocalized in some time. I've always disliked a simplistic argument that too quickly or easily pits religion against science.

Dan Dick offers an extremely helpful continuum that gives 10 different options of "where someone might be" in their thought on science and religion. In this scheme not only can one get a personal sense of where you might be, but you can also get an idea of where others might be in their thinking. This approach is helpful in that it will advance dialogue as both science and religion need each other and need to be in some level of conversation and relationship. Or, perhaps you find you are so far removed from the other person that it will take significant work and multiple steps to ever find each other!



"This allows a whole lot more people to find a place that is comfortable for them to stand. By allowing for varying degrees of acceptance and rejection, we open the conversation in significantly fairer, more beneficial ways. Here is a brief overview of the ten positions on the relationship of science and religion." Science and Religion

Chik-Fil-A & SafeHomes

Chick-Fil-A & Safe Homes
Are Teaming up to Sponsor a Spirit Night

When placing your order PLEASE say you’d like to
help SafeHomes and a portion of the proceeds will directly benefit
the women and children SafeHomes serves.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009
5:00 pm - 8:00 pm

At the following locations:
Augusta Exchange
202 Robert C Daniel Jr Pkwy
Augusta, GA 30909
(706) 738-9163
Mullins Crossing
3066 Washington Road
Augusta, GA 30907
(706) 860-7140

SafeHomes is the only Department of Human Resources certified domestic violence intervention center in the CSRA. SafeHomes provides services to the following counties: Richmond, Columbia, Burke, Jefferson, Wilkes, Tailiaferro, McDuffie, Warren, Glascock, and Lincoln. To find out more information about services provided by SafeHomes or to find out how you can help SafeHomes serve our community, please call 706-736-2499.

& remember to…Eat Mor Chikin

India Christian Persecution

An incredible ongoing story is found in India

Missions Cookbook Needs Recipes

I got a note about a group collecting favorite recipes from national and international mission settings. I hope you have (and will share!) some great recipes you might share as it'll help raise money for mission, gather people at the table, and could also be fun.

I'd LOVE to learn about your favorite recipes. It could be what you were served growing up or while on a mission team, or maybe something that you fixed for a mission group that was a favorite. Share the recipe/s with me as I might "double dip" and keep a version and also send it on to these colleagues. Be sure to include your name, your home church, and if it's an international recipe the country of origin. And if you want to do something similar in your church I'll even share my collection with you!

Here's the original note:
Recipes are needed for an upcoming Missions Cookbook. In addition to the regular categories, the cookbook committee is including "Recipes from Mission Trips" and "Cooking for the Multitudes". The group plans to donate 10% of the profits to UMVIM, SEJ, 10% to SCVIM and 10% to Anderson District VIM.

Send to me through Facebook or at sparrish@trinityonthehill.net

Thanks for sharing your great food,
Scott

Scott Returns After His Run in March Madness

Sorry to be MIA, but March has been an incredible ride at about 90 mph!

The first of the month had our annual Spring Children's Consignment Sale at the church. I confess I was not trained at such things in seminary or through most of my church career. The fact is it's a huge event with 40% of the proceeds going to church mission projects and partners. So, I've come to love this hectic week which involves over 200 volunteers, finds 60-70,000 items in our fellowship hall, and brings in a tremendous number of the community into the church. It's well worth the effort as the church gains about $30,000 for mission!

Then I enjoyed a few days of "regular" church work. This included re-reading all the material I was to have covered for the North Georgia United Methodist Conference Board of Ordained Ministry. That's the group that is charged with oversight of everyone desiring to become clergy members of the conference. The candidate has typically completed (or almost completed) seminary, submits reams of material including background check, psychological exam, reference letters, as well as submitting information in theology and doctrine, called and disciplined life, and practice of ministry. This 2 1/1 day "retreat" saw around 50 candidates come before the BOM. It's an exhausting, exhilarating, emotional time for everyone involved as some are accepted and some are deferred (we didn't have anyone denied this time though that complete "no" is also an option).

I arrived back at church on Wednesday in time to prepare for this past weekend's Trinity Outreach Celebration. That is our annual event with emphasis on mission in worship, in study, and in service. It's also a time we receive pledges for the coming year for service participation and mission funding. Of course, we anticipated with the current economy that the funding might be down. Many of my colleagues who use this approach reported funding down, one saying she'd seen her pledges drop in half from last year. I can honestly say I have NEVER had so many obstacles thrown at an event as we experienced in the past 2 months at this highlight of my work year:
*We lost our main speaker 2 weeks before TOC due to health problems,
*my laptop crashed twice and I completely lost videos and photo folders of our last year in mission and the 5 year photo story of outreach
*my committee chair for the event had some significant family issues which seriously distracted her
*& in this last week my son was diagnosed with mono.

But the clergy and laity of the church pulled together. My clergy friend at Roswell UMC shared the name of a missionary they'd experienced in their celebration and he made himself available to us. Jamie Winship did an incredible job for us, and I'll tell you more about him in a later blog. Danny Key, our music minister, did his usual superb work with the band and with the youth choir for the weekend. And, all in all, many people seem to be energized in expressing their faith in practical ways. While our funding is down a little, the energy and enthusiasm for mission by ALL ages, and the level of participation in mission and ministry will take an upswing.

So, this week I do some cleanup. I eat, and rest, and find a normal rhythm again in life and ministry. And then this weekend I go to a conference for campus ministry at Daytona Beach!!

My 5 Year Old Asked Me to Explain the Time Change

What do you say?!

Recycle and Reuse

Another news item from Sunday night, and a man after my own heart. He salvages what others have thrown away.

Dumpster Diving