Zoom, swoosh, and BLAST OFF into space! This rhyming children’s book shows and tells rocket lovers everywhere how the great machines work. Follow the US Space Shuttle from construction through BLAST OFF and landing!
Want to see inside? Here are three random pages from the book. There are 24 pages total.
I was re-reading my notes from attending the Hawaii Leadership Practicum back in 2012, and I stumbled upon a powerful reminder for leaders. The leader of the practicum, Wayne Cordeiro, told us
A mind can reach a mind, but only a heart can reach a heart – Wayne Cordeiro
Another way to say this is that people matter.
This concept can be seen in action in 1 Corinthians 8. Paul is writing to the Corinthians about eating food sacrificed to idols (a big no-no for Jews). But Jesus’ life and death and resurrection changed the purpose and direction of many of the Jewish laws, especially those related to food. Here’s where it gets interesting. Let me list v1 and then skip to v7:
1Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
7 It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8 “Food will not bring us close to God.” We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. 9 But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? 11 So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. 12 But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.
To quickly summarize, Paul is arguing that the person who knows that the food laws have a new meaning as a result of Jesus has a higher responsibility than the one who does not know. Indeed it is the one with knowledge (the one who is “right”) who is supposed to choose the course of action that is most beneficial to the one without knowledge (the one who is “wrong”). The person and their faith walk are more important than being “right.”
I was anticipating an upcoming one-on-one meeting with a certain bit of apprehension. I was going to tell a leader that his ministry was causing harm rather than benefit. Moreover, I knew this leader would attack me for saying it.
I took a course at the International Institute for Restorative Practices, and they gave me a helpful tool called the Compass of Shame (link to summary). This tool helped me realize that the attacks would be automatic rather than rational. In other words, my character was going to be attacked and the reasons wouldn’t make sense. But this tool also helped me realize that eventually the automatic response would subside and we could then have a fruitful discussion.
And so, even though I was “right” in my mind, I absorbed the character attacks without defending myself. When he was calmed down enough, though, we had a real conversation. In a “happily ever after” moment we actually managed to find a role where he would be very helpful and he is still doing great work there. My mind couldn’t reach his mind at first, but my heart could reach his heart. People matter.
Contrary to popular belief, Paul was not denigrating learning in 1 Corinthians 8:1. Instead, he is placing the burden of acting in a loving way on the one who has greater knowledge. If you are “right” but you behave in a way that belittles or attacks or ignores others, your knowledge is puffing up rather than love building up.
I have a two-year-old boy. Following directions is not high on his list of life goals at the moment. I’m sure just about every parent can relate.
So my ears figuratively perked up when I read this NPR article (link to article) titled, To Get Help From A Little Kid, Ask The Right Way. From the article:
If you say something like, “Please help me,” the kids are more likely to keep playing with their Legos. But ask them, “Please be a helper,” and they’ll be more responsive, researchers report Wednesday in the journal Child Development.
They found that using a label (ex: “please be a helper” or “you don’t want to be a cheater”) was 20% more likely to get the desired response than using a verb (ex: “please help me” or “don’t cheat”). Interestingly, this same approach worked on adults (ex: “how important is it to be a voter” vs “don’t forget to vote”), too.
But of course there’s a downside. There’s always a downside. Kids who were told they were good drawers were far more negative about their drawings than kids who were told they put a lot of effort into it. For behaviors that arise from a skill (ex: drawing, playing a sport, etc), labeling a child can create expectations and a fear of failure.
God does a lot of labeling in Scripture. Here are some of my favorites:
Jeremiah 1:4-10 (NIV) – The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
“Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”
But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord. Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”Matthew 19:14 – Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
Mark 3:35 – Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
Genesis 1:31 – God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning–the sixth day.
John 15:15 – I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
God calls you his creation, so you are very good. Jesus calls you family. God formed you in your mother’s womb. God is with you. Jesus says his kingdom belongs to children of God like you. God has a purpose for you. Jesus calls you friend.
I have the privilege of interacting with a lot of families. I have noticed that labels tend to persist. If someone has a well-behaved baby, people assume that child turns into a well-behaved toddler. If someone has a colicky baby, that problem child is going to be trouble. If someone has a big kid, they’re big in people’s minds even when they’re not anymore. The same goes for a sick kid.
I suppose my challenge from reading this article is to be cautious how I think and speak about children (mine and others’).
Labels are powerful things. I am reminded of James 3:5 – “Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.” Fire can create fertile ground for growth. But it can also burn down the forest. And as a wise bear once said, “Only YOU can prevent forest fires.”
I was recently invited to the ATX Hackerspace in Austin, TX for an event, and I happened to be in town for it. If you consider “geek” a term of endearment, head to your local hackerspace or makerspace posthaste! You will feel warm and fuzzy inside.
While I was touring the space and meeting the locals, I found myself in a wonderful discussion on the theology of invention with a fellow Christian geek and maker. He raised the question, “Is invention idolatry?”
Here are two Biblical texts that give you the highlights of idolatry.
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” – Exodus 20:2-3 (NIV)
“But you did not listen to me,” declares the Lord, “and you have aroused my anger with what your hands have made, and you have brought harm to yourselves. Therefore the Lord Almighty says this: “Because you have not listened to my words…” – Jeremiah 25:7-8 (NIV)
To give you the quick summary, these verses suggest that we can anger God when we take matters into our own hands. We can cross the line when we believe our own solutions and our own inventions are better than God’s Creation. We can get into hot water when we take the place of the Creator.
That’s a bit scary for me, because I know that when trouble comes I often look for a way I can solve it and only later ask for God’s guidance. That sounds eerily similar to trusting “what your hands have made” rather than “listening to [God’s] words.”
But this fellow maker also raised an interesting point about the nature of invention. The word “invent” comes from a Latin root that actually means “to discover.” When we talk about inventing, we usually mean creating something from scratch. But so many of our “creations” are actually discovering what God has already done.
Did we create calculus, or did we discover an aspect of mathematics created by God? Did we create the Bessemer process for making steel, or did we discover a characteristic of iron that God baked into Creation already? Are we “creators” or “discoverers?”
We landed our discussion by considering that we are discovering the echoes of what God has already done. When we see ourselves partnering with God rather than replacing God with the works of our hands, we are probably in good standing with the Creator.
Similarly, when trouble comes and I want to manufacture a way through or around it, I can switch my mindset and try to discover the echoes of God’s already-laid plan.
What echoes of God’s plans are reverberating in your soul right now? Whatever you’re hearing, if it’s from God it’s better than the works of your hands.
I recently heard an NPR interview (link to article) about the economics of streaming music services like Pandora and Spotify. These services have been screaming from the roof tops that they aren’t making money, so they need to pay lower royalties. The trouble is, they actually pay about the same percent of their income in royalties as Walmart pays for its inventory. In other words, the cost of the music isn’t the problem.
In fact, economist Jeff Eisenach points out:
companies like Pandora and Spotify are making a lot of money — they’re just using it to target new audiences rather than putting it in the bank and calling it a profit
Now let’s add in this nice little infographic (link to original) from ChurchMag. This is a summary of a TED talk by Dan Pallotta, and it points out that for-profit companies often have more flexibility to invest in their future, build for growth, and even lose money for longer periods of time than a non-profit. So the non-profit world can suffer from the lemonade stand syndrome. A lemonade stand has almost no overhead, but also has very little reach or earning potential. The requirement for razor-thin overhead can limit the reach, effectiveness, and scale of non-profit services and fundraising.
But let’s be honest: non-profits do have their advantages. They have tax advantages. They have perception advantages (have you ever donated money to a for-profit business because it made you feel good?). The key point, though, is that “overhead” can be both good and bad for a non-profit. If an administrator is getting overpaid to do very little work, it’s bad. If the organization is expanding to serve new people groups in new locations in new ways, that’s good and it’s going to take money. If the organization is serving in a corrupt part of the world, it’s going to take money to hire trustworthy staff to oversee the project.
I am a huge fan of Kiva.org (link to website). For the uninitiated, Kiva partners with micro lending organizations around the world to help small businesses, co-ops, and individuals get ahead. People like me lend money online through Kiva and through their partner lenders, and then the loan gets repaid. For example, I recently lent $25 to a man in Lebanon to expand his furniture business. I also lent $25 to a group of women in Peru to help them expand their various businesses. Here’s a link to my Kiva portfolio. Here’s the kicker: because the loans have a very high repayment rate, I have spent $110 to loan out $400. And that’s even with donating 10% to Kiva to help them cover their costs (which is optional).
Kiva isn’t perfect. The micro lenders they partner with charge high interest rates because of the risk. But since it’s a non-profit (Kiva) working with for-profit partners (micro lenders), my donation dollars have stretched almost four times further than a straight-up gift.
There are other ways of using for-profit businesses to do good in the world. Some companies like Tom’s Shoes (link to website) and One Laptop Per Child (link to website) donate one of their products to a place in need for every one they sell in the developed world. LSTN Headphones (link to website) helps restore one person’s hearing for every pair of headphones they sell. Or how about Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles (link to website), which helps current gang members become former gang members? They believe that “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.”
If you are thinking about using your workday to serve someone in the name of Christ, expand your possibilities. You can be a non-profit, with all the benefits and obligations that entails. But you can also be a profit-to-serve company, with all the benefits and obligations that entails. Neither approach will work in every circumstance.
If you are already in the non-profit world, can you have the audacity to propose expanding your reach even if it increases overhead? You’ll face an uphill climb, but tell the story and see what happens.
Remember the story of the Israelites after leaving Egypt. They were about to build the Tabernacle to house the Arc of the Covenant, and so they needed skilled tradesmen. They needed people who had been successful in their trade. And so…
He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them skilled workers and designers. (Exodus 35:35 – NIV)
Profit isn’t always evil. God can put profit to use. Overhead isn’t always evil. God can put overhead (especially investment in growth) to use. God has filled you with skill to do all kinds of work. Wield it well.
In my role as discipleship pastor, I am tasked with overseeing, guiding, and evaluating the performance of other ministry workers. I have also performed this role as a computer programmer overseeing other computer programmers. This gets a little interesting around evaluation time.
I once read a great book titled First Break All The Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently. In this book, the authors claim that employees don’t generally leave companies. They leave managers. Have you ever had a great manager who inspired you and went to bat for you? Have you ever had a terrible manager who disrespected you or undermined you? Where does your current manager fall on the scale?
And so, when it comes time for evaluations, the biggest question of all is this: “who do you work for?” Who determines whether or not you did a good job? Who determines what your goals are over the next year? Who determines whether you get a raise or a thank you note?
But the answer to this question is often bigger than it seems. For instance, who wins when work and family demand the same segment of time from you? What wins when you have doubts about what your company is doing? Is there a bigger answer to the question?
This reminds me of the scene from the movie Miracle that depicts the 1980 US men’s hockey team’s unlikely march to the gold medal. The coach, Herb Brooks, wants the players to get a new boss. He doesn’t want them to play for their school. He doesn’t want them to play for him. He wants them to play for The United States of America.
Herb Brooks knows that, unless they see the bigger picture, his team is toast.
So, getting beyond your direct manager, who do you work for? At the end of your day, at the end of your week, at the end of your year, at the end of your life…who will be on the other end of your evaluation meeting?
Here are four scriptures that outline what it means to work for God:
Colossians 3:23 – Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. (NLT)
Ephesians 6:7 – Work with enthusiasm, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. (NLT)
Ecclesiastes 9:10 – Whatever you do, do well. For when you go to the grave, there will be no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom. (NLT)
Matthew 6:24 – No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. (NIV)
Basically, this is asking you to see God as your manager…as your boss. We will work differently for a manager we like or respect than for a manager we dislike or disrespect. In the same way, can you work differently for God since he has shown you what pleases him in the Bible?
How can you honor God with your work? What would it look like to have good marks on your annual evaluation meeting with God? What kinds of things would God place on your annual objectives?
Those who work with me have undoubtedly heard me say that prayer is one of my lowest spiritual gifts. I am 100% sure about this, but I regularly get surprised reactions from people when I tell them.
To me, a spiritual gift is something you do that brings you and other people closer to God without requiring much discipline from you. The amount of conscious effort you expend distinguishes between a gifting and a discipline.
In other words, you have the gift of helps if you just naturally notice opportunities to serve other people and regularly choose to do so. If you are constantly having to remind yourself to look out for ways to help people, or if you struggle inside every time you are faced with the choice of stopping and helping or going on your merry way, you’re using discipline instead of gifting.
Leadership is one of my spiritual gifts. If we need to get from A to B, I will naturally start organizing people, casting the vision, and generally trying to get us there. I have to remind myself to NOT lead sometimes. That’s a gifting.
Prayer, on the other hand, is always a choice for me. I don’t pine away in my office for the next chance to pray. When I’m running meetings, I almost always start lining out our objectives before remembering to “open” in prayer. I have to CHOOSE to pray. That’s a discipline.
Do you know your spiritual giftings?
The short answer is “yes.” But I’ll let Jesus do the talking on this one:
Matthew 6:6 (NIV) – But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Mark 11:24-25 (NIV) – Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”
Luke 5:16 (NIV) – But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
Long story short: Jesus assumes we will pray, just as he often prayed. Just because I’m not “gifted” in prayer doesn’t get me off the hook. Some people revel in prayer and others (like me) choose to pray. We might pray differently, and we might pray for different amounts of time, but we are expected to pray.
Another way to look at this is to ask, “Why did Jesus pray?” If anyone in the history of humanity had a reason to NOT pray, it was Jesus. He’s basically praying to himself (nuances of the Trinity notwithstanding). But he prayed often.
While I have to choose to have a dialogue with God in the classic head-bowed kind of prayer, Wayne Cordeiro taught me a different definition of prayer that is useful for me:
Prayer is thinking about something God has asked you to do in the presence of the Lord.
I might not sit down and pray, but I routinely check in with God about things he has asked me to do. That’s a form of prayer, and I don’t have to make myself do that one.
Maybe I have a mustard seed’s worth of gifting in prayer after all.
I was meeting with a dear friend recently, and I end our times together by asking what I should pray for him over the next few months. He told me the first thing that came to mind, I gave him a look he knows all too well, and he replied, “Yeah, that’s not specific enough, is it?”
Like Pavlov’s dogs, I have apparently trained him to think about very specific prayers when he’s around me. I almost always ask, “Can we make that more specific?” Or, “What are you really hoping for out of that?” Or, “How will you know when God is blessing you in this or showing you a different path?” Now that I think about it, that might be a little annoying…
I was chatting with my brother (Chris) recently, and he was getting ready for his gig as a humorous speaker at a Christian men’s conference (shameless cross-promotion by linking to his site). So I asked him how I could pray for his upcoming speaking engagement:
Chris: Any prayer that has the phrase “hit it out of the park” will be fine.
Cody: Ah, but how will you know if you hit it out of the park or not?
Chris: Hmm…I guess if tons of people come up to me the next day and tell me something they got out of my talk.
Cody: What’s “tons of people?”
Chris: If I’m being honest, I’d take one.
Cody: All right! I will pray for at least one guy to come up to you the next day and tell you something they got out of your talk.
Chris: Can I add in a request that they get their church to book me for speaking gig, too?!?!
Did you notice how digging deeper honed his prayer request and also revealed one of his values: that people find his talk useful, not just funny? Would your prayer requests benefit from getting more specific?
I like to run the SMART test on my prayers just as I do with all my goals. A prayer is SMART (link to article) if it is…
And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for. – 1 John 5:14-15 (NLT)
If you read this passage carefully, you’ll notice that it makes a distinction between asking for what pleases God and what doesn’t. That’s Relevant. It also acknowledges that God always hears our requests and often answers them – God is listening so it might be Attainable.
The best SMART prayer in all the Bible, however, is found in Joshua 10:12-14:
On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel! (NIV)
Notice he didn’t pray just for God to make them victorious. He wanted victory that day, he needed light to do it, so he just made a small request for the Lord of the Universe to pause the sun. Unfortunately, it looks like God was only willing to do that once and Joshua already called dibs.
Late one weekday evening, almost everyone I knew found themselves at the same viewing before a very hard funeral. The line stretched outside. As I approached the dearly departed, I felt an all-too-familiar nudge. It’s something different every time, but this time the nudge said:
“Tell that man that this is his chance to be a spiritual leader for his family.”
The nudge and I go back a long ways, so we have a rather formulaic dialogue by now:
Me: “And who’s going to make me tell him that?”
Nudge: “I Am.”
Me: “You and what army?”
Nudge: “Will the Heavenly Hosts suffice?”
Me: “Oh, that army. Sir, yes, sir!”
It was a little awkward (as it almost always is), but I did it!
While that exchange may be a little stylized, it highlights my 3 strike rule for whenever God speaks through the nudge. If I think God wants me to do something a little crazy (or just plain uncomfortable), I have to say yes if I hear the same thing 3 times. That means I can only ask, “Really, God?” twice after the initial nudge before I have to say, “OK!”
I picked three strikes basically at random, but Moses demonstrates that there is an upper limit on how many times you can ask God if he really meant what he said to you. Here are some selections from Exodus 3 and 4:
Exodus 3:4 When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
“Here I am!” Moses replied.Exodus 3:11 But Moses protested to God, “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt?”
Exodus 3:13 But Moses protested, “If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?”
Exodus 4:1 But Moses protested again, “What if they won’t believe me or listen to me? What if they say, ‘The Lord never appeared to you’?”
Exodus 4:10 But Moses pleaded with the Lord, “O Lord, I’m not very good with words. I never have been, and I’m not now, even though you have spoken to me. I get tongue-tied, and my words get tangled.”
Exodus 4:13 But Moses again pleaded, “Lord, please! Send anyone else.”
Exodus 4:14 Then the Lord became angry with Moses.
Moses starts off well. He recognizes the nudge and says, “Here I am!” But enthusiasm that God is speaking to him quickly becomes protesting and pleading. Five times. And after the fifth time, when Moses really has no more excuses but is just asking to be let off the hook…God becomes angry with Moses.
I figure if Moses gets 5 strikes, surely I can get 3, right? And by my logic if Moses only got 5 strikes, I probably shouldn’t test if I get that many. So 3 is a pretty good number. For another example of this, see the scripture about Samuel in my summary at the top of the page. Samuel had to hear God multiple times, too.
A while back I read an article (link to article) about a Christian using his business to live out Biblical justice. He intentionally employs refugees at his Richmond Chick-fil-A.
“I remember [hearing from] a pastor whose congregation was made almost entirely of refugees from various African nations. I was humbled that the stranger and alien talked about in Deuteronomy were literally in my neighborhood and I didn’t know.” – Eric DeVriendt
My philosophy of Christian business is based around a simple phrase: “Maximize God’s profit without minimizing yours.” I believe DeVriendt is living into this philosophy. Let’s break it down.
Jesus tells a parable in Luke 12 that ends with this:
“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” – Luke 12:20-21
The key phrase for me is right at the end: “rich toward God.” Whose profit will you try to maximize? God’s or yours?
I’m going to guess that refugees aren’t in the business plan packet from Chick-fil-A’s corporate headquarters. It’s not easy work to identify, hire, train, and supervise refugees – even though many of them are educated and motivated. There are still major cultural differences and sometimes language barriers to work through. That’s time that could be spent growing the business in other ways. There might be some side benefits for the business, but DeVriendt’s primary motivation is to use his employment power to help people that the Bible says need helping.
When you’re willing to maximize God’s profit with your business, you’re willing to use your capacity to do God’s work. Notice that he didn’t change his core business – he just hired and invested in people who otherwise are forgotten.
Out of 67 employees, 13 are refugees. That’s a large number, but it’s not an unmanageable number. He didn’t hire 67 refugees.
Christian businesses are still businesses. If the Chick-fil-A doesn’t make a profit, those 13 refugees won’t be employed. Notice in the passage from Luke that Jesus talks about those who “store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” He could have ended the sentence after “themselves.” I think Jesus is showing that it’s OK to profit in your business as long as you are maximizing God’s profit first.
Malachi 3:10 puts it like this:
Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.
In other words, if you are willing to let God use your business to bless others, he won’t forget about you.
Now a word of caution here. I’m not saying that hiring refugees will prevent this Chick-fil-A from closing down. What I am saying is that God notices faithfulness. We can’t guarantee how he will notice this particular faithfulness, but he does notice.
So remember: “Maximize God’s profit without minimizing yours.”