Author: JR. Forasteros

For My Birthday, I Want You to Change the World

I’m giving my 30th Birthday to HOPE International. My goal is to raise $3,000 for HOPE’s war on poverty. This post is my story: who HOPE is, what they do and why they deserve your money. Please give to HOPE. They’re changing the world. And they need your help!

What’s the poorest you’ve ever been? I think for me it was college – I lived paycheck-to-paycheck and definitely paid a few bills late. But I never missed a meal (even if it was Ramen or an oven-pizza) And I never feared I was going to be evicted.

I felt poor, but I didn’t know how much I really had. That changed when I visited the Dominican Republic with HOPE International.

HOPE International is a microfinance organization, and one of their bases of operation is the DR. They took a small group of us (about 10) down to show us exactly what they do, exactly how microfinance works. Which was good because I had no idea what microfinance was.

The DR is quite a paradox; on one hand it hosts some of the world’s most beautiful resorts. Even the hotel in which we stayed in the capitol of Santo Domingo was relatively nice. The city was typical of large cities in the developing world – somewhat dirty and crowded, but you can find anything you need, even if you don’t speak Spanish. On the other hand…

The second day of our (very short) trip found us climbing into a van early in the morning and heading out of Santo Domingo, towards the surrounding villages. The change was nearly instantaneous – the buildings got more decrepit, the crowds thicker, the smells stronger. The roads got worse and worse.

I was entering into poverty. Real poverty. For the first time in my life.

By the time we stopped, we were driving on dirt roads. Through the middle of town. Following our HOPE contact, we began weaving our way through the homes, following some indiscernible path only he knew. Every step we took was over rubble and trash. Dogs and chickens ran through our legs and children chased each other in and out of shacks made of brick and trash. I saw no running water. I saw no electricity. The floors of the ‘houses’ were made of dirt. This was an entire city of people living in pre-modern conditions, a way of life more primitive than an Amish community, far less quality and clearly not by choice.

We finally reached our destination (which I only knew because we stopped). Our host greeted the resident of a house made of corrugated tin, and they began setting up plastic chairs in a circle. Our host (the very awesome Clay Dudley) began to explain to us what was about to happen, and I began to grasp the miracle of microfinance:

HOPE (and their local partner Esperanza) go into an impoverished community and invite a group of persons to participate in their microlending program. The group is then assigned a leader (our guide), who works with them throughout the whole process. He or she teaches them the basics of personal finance and helps them to choose a business to start. Then, based on the type of business, the group leader arranges their loans, which range anywhere from $50-$200.

We met a man who builds wheelbarrows, a woman who walks to the larger, neighboring city and buys towels in bulk to sell to her town, and a man who does the same with used clothes.

Once they’ve started their business, the group meets weekly to track their finances, put some of their earnings into a savings account and make payments on the loans. Each member of the group cosigns on every other member’s loans, so they have a high degree of accountability. The loans are paid back in 4-6 months, and at that point each entrepreneur may decide to take out a larger loan to expand his or her business. Nearly every person does this – for instance, the man who built wheelbarrows now supplies three of the largest construction companies in the DR and has several employees.

HOPE’s system works. Microfinance builds community and teaches people in the developing world to lift themselves out of poverty.

So much charitable giving simply creates dependence. It teaches those who receive only to do that… receive. But HOPE’s system teaches its participants to become wage-earners. And it’s no surprise that nearly every person who starts a business through HOPE chooses to give back to HOPE. And whereas many microfinance organizations actually pay you back when you loan a person money, HOPE keeps it and gives it again and again and again. So if you give $50, it gets loaned out. 6 months from now, it’s paid back and loaned out again. 6 months later, it happens again. And again… and again.

That’s why I’m giving them my birthday, and why they deserve your money. I’m already 10% of the way there… if you want to help, please click here to give to HOPE and help me get to $3,000. Think about it… $3,000 is 30 loans (on average). That means that this year you and I can help 60 people climb out of poverty. And another 60 next year. And another 60 the year after that.

By the time I’m 40, you and I will have helped 600 people change their lives forever in a way we can’t even begin to understand.

You can give right here. HOPE is an amazing organization, and their system works. Thanks to HOPE, poverty is actually being eliminated, not just managed.

Please give and please spread the word!

Will you help me?

And help them…

A hand up, not a hand out. – HOPE International’s motto

THANK YOU!

The Sixth Church

This is the another installment of my reimagining of the Revelation to John. These short pieces draw from Revelation 2-3, and I’ll post once for each of the 7 churches. These installments really helped me to see how provocative John’s letter would’ve been in its original context. I’d love to know what you think.

To the angel of the Hispanic churches write: “These are the words of the Holy One. The True Immigrant. He has the key of David and what he opens, no one can shut (and if he shuts it, no one can open it either!):

I know what you’re doing. Look: I have opened the borders in front of you and no one can close them. I know you don’t have much power, but even still you have kept my word and haven’t denied my name. I will make those of the nation of Satan – who say they are God’s people but are not (they’re lying!) – I’m going to make them stand up and salute you and they will learn that I have loved you all along. Because you have been patiently listening to me, I’m going to protect you from the great tests that the whole world is going to take. I’m coming soon, so keep holding on tightly to what you have – you don’t want anyone to take your gold medal from you! If you conquer, I will make you a load-bearing wall in the Church of my God – you’ll never leave it! And I’ll sign my name on your forehead – my name, God’s name and the name of the New Utopia from God. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

Culture Enculturation Eschatology Revelation

Andy Stanley (pt. 2)

These are my summary reflections from the Catalyst East Conference in Atlanta, GA. The theme this year was “The Tension is Good”, so the speakers mostly used their talks to explore various tensions we all feel in Leadership. I don’t summarize every speaker.

Andy always speaks twice at Catalyst – opening and closing. His closing talk is always hardcore, nuts-and-bolts leadership, and is always among my favorite of the conference. This year proved no exception (though I was disappointed to learn that he’d already given this talk at Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit).

Andy used the opposable thumb to great effect: because we have an opposable thumb, we can leverage tension to create and progress far beyond the rest of the animal kingdom. Tension is actually necessary for any organization that wants to make progress.

Every organization has problems that shouldn’t be solved and tensions that shouldn’t be resolved.

If you “resolve” any of these tensions, you only create new tensions elsewhere, and you’ll create barriers to progress. Progress depends not on the resolution of the tensions, but on the successful management of those tensions.

Examples: Evangelism vs. Discipleship. Building vs. Giving. Music vs. Sermons

To distinguish between problems to solve and tensions to manage ask the following:

Does this problem/tension keep resurfacing?
Do both sides have mature advocates?
Are the two sides actually interdependent?

The role of leadership is to leverage the tension for the benefit of the organization. How?

Identify the tensions to be managed.
Create new terminology. Vocabularize what you’re doing so everyone can be on board.
Inform your core team. Make sure everyone is in on the conversation.
Continually give value to both sides.
Don’t weigh in too heavily based on your personal biases.
Don’t allow strong personalities to win the day. It’s not a win when somebody wins.
Don’t think in terms of balance. Think in terms of rhythm.

My job is to make sure the important, progress-critical tension never drop out of sight.

We need passionate people who will champion their side and mature people who understand tension.

As a leader, on e of the most valuable things you can do for your organization is differentiate between tensions you organization will always need to manage and problems that need to be solved.

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T. D. Jakes

The Bishop T. D. Jakes leads the famous Potter’s House down in Texas, and is well-known as a preacher and author. He’s wild and energetic, and embodies the best of the black preaching tradition. So I knew whatever he was going to say, it was going to be a lot of fun.

Leadership is foresight and vision. It’s not about catching up or keeping up. It’s about being ahead of the curve.

Jakes remembered his childhood; his older brothers would go hang out ‘on the corner’ where shady things went down. Jakes wouldn’t elaborate so as not to offend our ‘delicate sensibilities’. When he turned 16, his mother forbade him from going down to the corner. When he argued that he was old enough, she replied that she ‘didn’t raise him to live on the corner.’

People who hang on the corner think the whole world is the corner.

Our responsibility is to speak to all people, and you can’t change the world from the corner. This is hard, and it’s dangerous, because we’ll have to step out of the crowd and do something different.

If you get out front, you’ll get shot at; they can’t pick you off if you stay in the crowd.

It’s dangerous to step out, but people who play it safe aren’t leaders.

Jakes then encouraged us all to pursue diversity.

When you write the books you read, your truth is distorted.

He reminded us that secular industries spend billions of dollars to figure out what people think and how to talk to them. Only the Church doesn’t take the time to learn the language of the masses.

Are we armed with the message that reaches the masses… or only the corner?

Jakes concluded by telling us that fish grow to the size of their tanks, and challenged us to provide our people with unbounded space.*

God doesn’t allow sameness to procreate. Differences bring fruit.

*It turns out that the fish tank thing probably isn’t true. Fish that are kept in tanks too small for them become deformed. So the metaphor may actually work even better. Are you responsible for creating environments that deform your people?

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Craig Groschel

Craig Groschel is the pastor of the innovative LifeChurch.tv and spoke at Catalyst for the first time a few years ago and has since been a Catalyst favorite. His style is blunt and in-your-face tempered with a large helping of humility and confession. This year, he told us that he’d been asked to speak about generational tension, and since he’s right at 40 years old, felt he could speak to both the older and younger.

To the Older generation:

Don’t resist, fear or judge the next generation. Instead, believe and invest in them. The older generation feels insecure far too often. Remember: you don’t have to be cool; you just have to be real. Don’t give up. If you’re not dead, you’re not done.

To the Younger generation:

Our challenge is that we feel entitled. We want the giant ministries and fame instantly. We typically overestimate what God wants to do through us in the short-term, which leads us to underestimate what God wants to do through us over the course of 15, 20 or 50 years.

If we want to lead up, we need to learn to honor the persons God has put in authority over us. There’s a difference between respect and honor. Respect is earned; honor is given.

Honor publicly leads to influence privately. – Andy Stanley

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Gabe Lyons

Gabe Lyons helped to start the Catalyst Conference, but left several years ago to pursue Q. He co-authored the excellent book unChristian and released just last week his equally excellent follow-up The Next Christians, which fleshes out many of the ideas he presented at Catalyst.

The next Christians are engaging cultural tensions in a whole new way.

Our world is changing. But what is it changing into?

Post-Modern – a skepticism towards certainty
Post-Christian – the Church has moved from the center of culture to the margins.
Pluralistic – the Judeo-Christian worldview is no longer exclusive.

When engaging culture, Christians fall somewhere along a spectrum between two poles:

Separate
Enculturate

Those who have captured the heart of the Gospel do neither. They take a third path. The Next Christians seek to restore.

What is a restorer? How is s/he different from the poles of the spectrum? Consider this as the outline of the Gospel story:

Creation –> Fall -> Redemption –> Restoration

Separatists tend to focus on the Fall/Redemption aspects of the story, ignoring that creation and culture are good, and that it’s all going somewhere.

Encultureists tend to focus on the Creation/Restoration pieces without taking Sin seriously enough.

A Restorer listens to the whole story. S/he is provoked by brokenness to step-up and get involved.

Gabe has elsewhere categorized culture in seven different spheres, and pointed out that the Church (the religion sphere) is the only sphere that regularly gathers the other spheres. Every person in your church already works in the world, in the other spheres. This means that your church is an unmobilized army already on mission.

What are you doing to train and equip them to become restorers?

Our job isn’t just to show up and state the Good News; it’s to embody the Gospel so people might catch a glimpse of what the Gospel looks like.

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The Fifth Church

To the angel of the Baptist churches write: These are the words of the one who has the seven flaming doves and the seven stars:

I know what you’re doing. You have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what’s left and is at death’s door, because I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember everything you’ve been given, and everything you’ve learned. Obey it and repent! If you don’t wake up, I will come like a thief and you won’t know when I’ll strike. There are a few of you Baptists who haven’t gotten caught up in all the mud-slinging and are still clean. They’re going to walk with me, dressed in white graduation robes, because they’re worthy. If the rest of you conquer, you will also be dressed in white graduation robes, and I won’t erase your names form the book of life. In fact, quite the opposite, I’ll read it loud and proud in front of my Father and all the angels. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

Culture Enculturation Eschatology Revelation

Seth Godin

Seth Godin first spoke at Catalyst two years ago and really impressed everyone with his Tribes concept. This year he was back and blew us out of the proverbial with some thoughts from his newest offering, Linchpin. Get ready…

The Economy always drives our culture (and our religion). When our society was hunter/gatherer, our religion was a lot more portable (think Tabernacle). When we had monarchies, we had a strong, hierarchical church. And now that we’re all capitalists, our church is strongly consumer.

The interesting thing is, however, that our system (of organizing and maximizing) is just that, a temporary system (that’s only about 200 years old). And in this current (but failing) system, if you have something you want to sell, you advertise (which is basically just trying to yell louder than everyone around you, which ought to make you think of tract or bullhorn evangelists).

Modernism created the Factory system, which requires people to be interchangeable.

So the system created schools that train us to be identical, interchangeable people who obey the system. No one teaches us how to solve interesting problems or to be creative. The Factory wants you to conform so it can ignore you. But in the world of Google, competence isn’t a scarce commodity. It’s easy to find someone else to do your job better than you can.

Because we’re all more connected than ever before, all that’s left is to matter.

Are you doing work people will miss when you’re gone?
Todays ‘win’ is being more connected.
Failure isn’t scary; in fact, it’s necessary to succeed!

No one joins a boring tribe. You create a movement by doing something people are talking about.

In a world without bosses, who is setting my agenda? Art is a human act that changes someone; it’s a generous gift. Untamed generosity is the heart of genuine relationships. So in your teams and organizations, ask What are we rewarding?

BUT

There’s a small part of our brain that’s afraid of risk-taking, afraid to step out and embrace new opportunities. Seth calls it the Lizard Brain. It’s the enemy of progress and growth as our culture shifts because staying where it’s safe creates deniability. If I don’t step out, if I don’t risk, then it’s not my fault.

If I stay where it’s safe and don’t grow, then it’s the company’s fault, not mine.

Seth ended by encouraging us not to be afraid to step out and do something radical and different. He closed with this idea:

As the community gets more orthodox, the outliers will always outnumber the insiders.

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Dan Pink

Session two featured Dan Pink, author of the very excellent Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us. His talk was sort of an executive summary of the findings he presents in Drive.

Every leader has a motivating tension that emerges from one of three spheres:

Biological drives (Andy’s appetites)
Rewards/punishments
Contribution to the larger world

What’s surprising is that the second drive is only effective in a small range of circumstances.

The best way to motivate someone is to make him/her feel as though s/he is contributing to the world at large.

Caveat: Money is a motivator. If you don’t pay someone enough, you won’t get quality work. But more isn’t more. Once someone is earning ‘enough’ (whatever that looks like), a higher salary isn’t an effective motivator. So pay your people enough to take money off the table.

So what does motivate people?

1. Autonomy

We think management is a force of nature, but it’s not. Management is a technology from the 1850s. How many other technologies from the 1850s are we still using?

Imagine that you had the best, most functional telegraph (built in the 1940s) in history. You still wouldn’t use it because an outdated technology you refine is still outdated.

Management achieves compliance. But we want engagement, not compliance.

We want autonomy over our time, tasks, teams and techniques. How can we create systems that encourage autonomy in our people?

Examples: Google, Dell, Best Buy (corporate)

2. Mastery

Being able to see that we’re making progress is what motivates us, and feedback is the best way to chart mastery. The younger generations live in a feedback rich world – everything we do from turning on the TV to sending a text gives us immediate feedback.

Even so, our work environments are feedback deserts. What the older generations often perceive as a deep-seated insecurity is actually a hunger for feedback in one of the places it matters the most: our work.

Annual performance reviews are a joke, and almost completely ineffective. Consider the DIY Performance Evaluation. At the beginning of each month, create clear, measurable goals for yourself and then at the end of each month, evaluate yourself.

3. Purpose

A great person has one simple sentence that states his/her purpose, not a convoluted paragraph.

Examples: “Abraham Lincoln preserved the Union and freed the slaves.”
“FDR led us out of a depression and helped us win a world war.”

So ask, “Am I better today than I was yesterday?”

Carrots & Sticks are so last century. For the 21st century, we need to upgrade to autonomy, mastery and purpose.

BONUS! Here’s a sweet video of a similar talk:

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Andy Stanley (pt. 1)

These are my summary reflections from the Catalyst East Conference in Atlanta, GA. The theme this year was “The Tension is Good”, so the speakers mostly used their talks to explore various tensions we all feel in Leadership. I don’t summarize every speaker.

Andy’s first talk was brilliant, as always. He explored the tension we feel because of our appetites – drives for food, fame, sex, etc. He gave us this framework for understanding appetites:

Our appetites create tension in our lives because they always want more.

God created appetites. Sin distorted them.
Appetites are never fully satisfied. We live as though there’s something or someone out there who can, so we always experience tension.
Appetites always whisper ‘Now’, never ‘Later’.

He then took us into the story of Jacob and Esau in Genesis 25. Esau, the older brother, trades his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew. Andy asks, “Who would trade his birthright for a bowl of stew?”

Actually, most of us would, thanks to how our brains manage our appetites.

Andy cited two psychological phenomena that make it hard to say NO to our appetites:

Impact Bias – When we want something, our brains magnify that simple appetite out of porportion. Essentially, our brains tell us that the object of our desire will satisfy said desire to a far greater degree than it actually will.
Focalism – When we want something, our brains focus our attentions on the object of our desire to the exclusion of everything else.

So given that the temptation we all have to give into our appetites, how bad is that really? Andy asked us to consider how history could’ve changed if Esau had reframed his desire for a bowl of stew in the larger context of his birthright. Eventually, God would’ve introduced himself to Moses like this:

I AM the god of Abraham, Isaac and Esau.

But since Esau took the bowl of stew, it all changed. No one was there for Esau to reframe his appetites. And no one will be there for us either.

So ask yourself, Where do I want to be in 10 years? And what’s my bowl of stew?

We have no idea what God wants to do with our lives. So when it comes to our appetites, we have to reframe and refrain.

Knowing the bigger picture is a cure for our appetites. What a way to start the conference!

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