Daniel Im's Blog, page 14

Why You Should Hire Your Next Boss (according to Mark Zuckerberg)

Only hire someone that you’d be okay working for.

In one of the podcasts I listen to frequently (Masters of Scale), Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook was interviewed on his hiring best practices. This is what he said,

So the single most important thing is to get the best people you can around you. When I look at my friends who were running other good companies, the single biggest difference that I see in whether the companies end up becoming really great and reaching their potential, or just pretty good, is whether they’re comfortable and really self-confident enough to have people who are stronger than them around them. I’ve adopted this hiring rule, which is that you should never hire someone to work for you, unless you would work for them in an alternate universe.

“Never hire someone to work for you, unless you would work for them.” – Mark Zuckerberg
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Which doesn’t mean that you should give them your job, but just if the tables were turned and you were looking for a job, would you be comfortable working for this person? I basically think that if the answer to that is “no,” then you’re doing something expedient by hiring them, but you’re not doing as well as you can on that.

There are all these things that Sheryl, for example, is just much stronger than me at, and that makes me better and makes Facebook better. And I am not afraid or threatened by that—I value that. That’s what makes Facebook good.[1]

“You should never hire someone to work for you, unless you would work for them in an alternate universe.”

Wow.

When’s the last time you hired someone with that perspective in mind?

And if you’ve never interviewed someone who could be your boss, perhaps there’s something wrong with your job posting or the way you’re going about recruiting.

Unqualified, Qualified, and Overqualified

In all the positions I’ve hired, I’ve come across a lot of unqualified candidates. These don’t phase me. In fact, I often throw the résumés away because responding to every one of them would take too much time.

If the candidate is qualified, I then do some digging on social media to see what I can glean. If they’re legit, I’ll schedule an initial Skype/FaceTime/Zoom interview to get a feel for the type of person behind the cover letter and résumé.

If the candidate is overqualified, that’s when I get a bit nervous. Not flattered, but nervous. The following questions run through my mind:

Do they not know that they’re overqualified?
With all their experience, why do they want this job?
What’s their ulterior motive?
Why did they leave their previous job? What happened?

Yes, I can be pretty pessimistic, but the exponentially negative consequences of hiring the wrong person are worth it.

Having said that, I’ll still schedule the initial Skype/FaceTime/Zoom, but it’s less of an interview, and more like investigative journalism.

Interview with your organization’s growth track in mind.
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If they’re overqualified, I’m interviewing with other potential positions in mind (even if the positions are filled) to determine whether or not there is a growth track at the church or organization. If there isn’t, then I’m less likely to pursue the candidate because their engagement levels are going to be pretty low, which will inevitably lead to a short tenure in the position.

In other words, don’t just hire someone to fill a position. Only hire them if you see the potential that they can grow with you.

Don’t just hire to fill a position. Hire them if they can grow with you.
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But the question that I haven’t asked is whether or not I’d be okay working for them.

That’s a game changer and will increase the level of excellence, talent, and growth in your church or organization because, “if the answer to that is “no,” then you’re doing something expedient by hiring them, but you’re not doing as well as you can on that.”[2]

In addition, if you are willing to hire someone you’d be okay working for (some day), then this will prevent you from hiring people who are just like you, or not as good as you. As a result, it will increase the diversity of talent, strengths, and giftedness in the church or organization.

What do you think?

 

Endnotes:

[1] https://mastersofscale.com/tim-ferris...

[2] Ibid.

Measuring Discipleship and Maturity

How do you know when someone is mature in Christ?

It was fun hanging out with Greg Ford, the Lead Pastor of One Church in Columbus, Ohio, and the Church Multiplication Network crew. In this CMN Less Than Ten video, I discuss how to measure discipleship and maturity in under 10 minutes.

Check it out and I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Interruptions and the Cross

This past week was supposed to go a certain way, and that way it certainly did not go…

I was supposed to fly to Denver on Wednesday to train a group of church planters, but that didn’t happen
On Thursday, Christina and I were supposed to interview our first guest together for our podcast, but that didn’t happen either
And this week, I was supposed to get back to the gym after finally fighting off the stomach bug, but as you might’ve guessed already, that didn’t happen either

That last point, I didn’t mind too much though.

I guess you could say that I was interrupted…

Tuesday morning, while I was getting ready for work, I gave my son, Makarios, a great big hug and squeezed his head close to me, while encouraging him and calling him a big boy. He then immediately pushed himself away from me, while beginning to cry and shout out, “I am not a big boy! I am not a big boy!”

Whoa, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed…

Later on, while I was at work, Christina noticed a big bump behind his left ear, so she asked whether or not he had fallen or hit his head somewhere.

Not that I knew of…

So she brought him to the doctor when the girls came back from school. While there, the doctor basically told her that she had to bring him to the hospital because he needed a CT scan.

Yep. That was our week.

UPDATE: It ended up being an infected lymph-node, rather than what the doctor initially thought, so he’s now at home on heavy antibiotics after a two-night stay at the hospital.)

When’s the last time you were interrupted?

Perhaps it was at the grocery store when you ran into an old friend, or your arch nemesis and you had to turn on your southern charm.

Or maybe, it was a car issue and you were stranded on the side of the road.

Or perhaps, it was an unexpected hospital visit.

How did you feel about the interruption? How did you react? How did you get through it?

Were you annoyed that you were going to have to change your plans?

Did you blame yourself? Were you angry or frustrated that you didn’t do enough to possibly prevent it somehow?

Or, did you blame someone else?

Interruptions are the stuff of life, aren’t they?

Here’s the thing though, the only reason interruptions feel like interruptions is because we already have a set way of doing something.

And it’s when things change on us, that this is when it feels like an interruption.

Interruptions are the stuff of life.
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Just imagine how all of Israel must’ve felt when Jesus began his public ministry?

When Jesus met his disciples, and asked them to follow him, their lives were forever interrupted.

When Jesus turned the water into wine at a wedding, he not only prevented the party from being interrupted due to the wine running out, but he forever interrupted the lives of the servants who saw what happened firsthand.

When Jesus met the Samaritan woman, not only was her life interrupted, but also her village, and the relationship between the Jews and Samaritans.

When Jesus healed the sick, the lame, the blind, and the deaf, their lives and those around them were forever interrupted.

Jesus’ interruption in their life caused them to have to literally learn how to live differently.

The formerly blind, could now see, the formerly deaf, could now hear, and the formerly lame, could now walk. They literally had to change the way they lived because of Jesus’ interruption in their lives.

You’d think that when a man who was born blind experienced sight, everyone would rejoice, right? Apparently this was not the case for the religious leaders of Jesus’ day (read John 9:13-41 to see what I’m talking about).

The religious leaders were so obsessed with not having their ways interrupted, that they found themselves on the other side of the God who they claimed to know and worship.

When you think about it, Jesus literally interrupted the entire religious system, priesthood, and way of life for the Israelites and for all of humanity.

Just think about the time when Jesus went to the temple and saw that it had become a religious place to exchange goods and services. What did he do? He threw everyone and everything out, interrupting the religious system of the day.

And the religious leaders hated him for it.

Jesus replaced “what was” for “something better.”
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They hated him for it because he was disrupting the status quo. He was replacing “what was” with “something better.” He was replacing religious rituals that might earn you acceptance before God, for a relationship with God that said, “you are accepted, now live freely and abundantly.”

He was basically saying, “religious leaders, we don’t need you anymore if all you’re doing is necessitating your own existence by pointing people to you…what you need to be doing is pointing people to God instead!”

Friends, there are two sides to interruptions.

We view them one way, but God views them another.

We view them as unplanned, but God views them as planned.

To us, interruptions are unplanned. To God, they’re planned.
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God interrupted society and humanity by sending his son Jesus to die on the cross and be raised from the dead, so that he could interrupt your life and lead you in a new direction today.

And the good news is that what the priests once had to do for us, we can now approach God ourselves for.

Instead of relying on another person to hopefully reconcile us to God with a scapegoat, Jesus has reconciled us completely through his death and resurrection, as long as we confess our sins and draw near to him.

Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

– James 4:7-8 CSB

So stop fighting the interruptions in your life.

While they might seem unplanned, perhaps God is trying to get your attention…

Why Isolation, Boredom, and Pride are as Dangerous as Dynamite

“Wow, I’m a natural. This is it. I was born to do this,” were the very thoughts I had moments before I was disqualified.

After running the 100m dash at a track meet in elementary school, our coach asked the team if anyone wanted to enter the speed walking event.

“Speed walking? Like…walking with speed?” I thought to myself.

————- Don’t forget to enter the giveaway at the bottom of this article to win one of three copies of Eric Geiger’s new book, How To Ruin Your Life and Starting Over When You Do ————-

This was my first official track meet and everything was new to me. The sights, the sounds, the smells, and especially speed walking.

Though I had never heard of the event—let alone see it take place—I volunteered for it. After all, how hard could it be? It’s just walking fast, isn’t it? Anything was better than just waiting around until the track meet was over.

After the coach showed me the proper form and let me in on the rules, I was off.

Seconds into the race, I was leading the pack. Minutes in, the distance between me and the next contestant was unfathomable.

“Wow, I’m a natural,” I thought to myself. “This is it. I was born to do this.”

And that’s when it happened. I was pulled out of the race for breaking the rules.

Disqualified. No second chances. No restarts. It was over. My rising Olympic career was over.

Have you ever been disqualified?

Okay, maybe not for bending your knees while speed walking, but for something else? For over embellishing your resume? Or, maybe for looking over at your friend’s answers during an exam?

There’s a disturbing—dare I say—trend that I’ve noticed over the past several years. It seems like an increasing number of public figures are falling from grace and disqualifying themselves from leadership.

An increasing number of public figures are falling from grace and disqualifying themselves.
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Eric Geiger words it well in his new book, How to Ruin Your Life and Starting Over When You Do,

I could easily write about a recent story of a well-known leader, coach, college professor, or ministry leader who was removed from a position of influence because of disqualifying behavior, because of issues of character and integrity. However, the story would be old news by the time you read these words because there are always new stories as these implosions continually come to light. Competent and effective leaders in a variety of fields and disciplines forfeit their roles over deficiencies in their character. They were able to lead others but not themselves, able to grow an organization while their hearts grew cold. When a lack of integrity comes to light, leaders can be disqualified. [1]

When a lack of integrity comes to light, leaders can be disqualified.
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A couple months back, I saw a building implode for the very first time—and it was amazing.

This wasn’t just any old building though, this was the very building that I used to work in—it was the old LifeWay before we moved to our new headquarters down the street. Take a look at the video I posted on Twitter.

Goodbye old @LifeWay Draper tower! Crazy crazy IMPLOSION. #Nashville pic.twitter.com/itIn1FEad5

— Daniel Im (@danielsangi) January 6, 2018

I know there’s quite a subculture around the implosion of buildings (you can spend hours on YouTube watching it), but when I was watching the LifeWay building go down, I honestly had no idea what to expect.

I didn’t realize the weeks and months of preparation that went into setting up the explosives inside the building. I didn’t realize that each of the explosives were carefully timed and had to go off in sequence. And most of all, I didn’t realize that after the implosion began, that everything would look normal from the outside, until suddenly, everything would come crashing down on itself.

Eric puts it well, “Though the fall may seem fast to onlookers, ruining your life does not happen overnight.”[2]

When you do an autopsy on leaders who have ruined their lives, they seem to be imploding by:

Allowing their integrity to erode
Shrugging at the explosives beneath the surface
Letting their competence and gifting outpace their integrity
Accepting more responsibility than their character can handle [3]

Though the fall may seem fast to onlookers, ruining your life does not happen overnight.
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By looking at King David’s implosion from the Scriptures, Eric identifies three explosives on the foundation of his life that led to his implosion: isolation, boredom, and pride.

Here’s how he puts it,

Just as demolition experts place explosives inside of buildings so they will weaken and implode, there were three explosives on the foundation of David’s life that led to his implosion. These three explosives can lead to your ruin as well. They are easily hidden from those who watch us from a distance, but they threaten to destroy the foundation of our lives.

The three explosives are isolation, boredom, and pride.

First, David was alone. He was isolated. It was the time that kings go off to war, and David remained in Jerusalem. He sent his community away. Friends who would have held him accountable were gone. Friends who would have stopped him from pursuing Bathsheba were nowhere around.

Second, David was bored. He got up from his bed in the middle of the night looking for something, anything. The Lord, on that night, was not enough for Him. He wanted something else, something else to look at, something else to conquer, something else to pursue.

Third, David was filled with pride. When he was told that Bathsheba was Uriah’s wife, David instructed the servant to get her anyway. “I am the king and I get what I want.” In his mind, David deserved whatever he desired. Pride corrupted his heart.

Isolation. Boredom. Pride. They must not be taken lightly. They will ruin a life. [4]

Isolation. Boredom. Pride. They must not be taken lightly. They will ruin a life. – @EricGeiger
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If you want to dig yourself out of an implosion that has happened in your life, or make sure that it doesn’t happen to you, enter this month’s draw to win one of three copies of Eric Geiger’s new book, How to Ruin Your Life and Starting Over When You Do.

Enter to Win

Next Steps:

Enter the giveaway to win one of three copies of How to Ruin Your Life and Starting Over When You Do.
Learn more about the book and download free resources on it.
Follow Eric on Twitter.
Read more from Eric on his website.

End Notes:

[1] Eric Geiger, How to Ruin Your Life and Starting Over When You Do (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2018), 8.

[2] Ibid., 14.

[3] Ibid., 3.

[4] Ibid., 45-46.

To Grow, Rest, or Die? The Olympics, Farming, and Church Leadership

The Quad King.

Do you know who I’m talking about?

In the recent 2018 Winter Olympics, U.S. Olympic figure skater, Nathan Chen performed the impossible. He became the first figure skater to perform six quads in one program.

Six quads!!

I still remember when Elvis Stojko landed the first quad combination!

Despite Chen’s heroics and the fact that he set an olympic record, he didn’t end up medaling.

In fact, according to the Washington Post, after his devastating short program where he placed 17th place, he “retreated to his room in the athletes’ village Friday and, for once, didn’t dissect his shortcomings in clinical detail. Nor did he torture himself for falling so terribly short and blowing any chance at an Olympic medal…

…Chen put his head on a pillow and fell asleep.”

Have you ever wondered what olympic athletes do after their competitions and what this has to do with leadership in the church?

After training and competing tirelessly to reach the pinnacle of their careers, what comes next? Do they start training for the next olympics? Do they set stretch goals to ensure a gold medal in four years? Do they consider retirement? Or do they take a day off? A couple weeks off?

What’s best for them?

For church leaders and pastors, Easter Sunday is like the Olympics.

It’s one of the few Sundays that both the unchurched and dechurched are open to coming on the arm of a friend or family member. And it’s through what happens on Easter Sunday that you hope a love for God will be developed, a relationship with Him will be formed, and a life will be transformed…

…and if the church grows as a result…hey, no one’s going to complain, right?

The olympics are to athletes, as Easter Sunday is to pastors and church leaders.
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Growing your church is not a bad thing, per se.

If your church grows, isn’t that a sign that you’re doing something right? That you’re reaching new people for Christ? And that you’re making an impact in your community?

After all, isn’t it better to desire growth than stagnation? Or the status quo?

The problem comes when your desire for growth becomes an obsession or idol.

And the tricky thing about this sort of spiritual ambition is that it’s really easy for your motives to be mixed as I articulate in this collection of articles.

Is your desire for growth an obsession or an idol in your life?
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Here’s my point: just like olympic athletes need to rest after the biggest event of their careers, shouldn’t church leaders and pastors do so as well?

What if, after this year’s Easter Sunday service, you didn’t push your team to start another service, a new church, or a new campus.

What if you rested?

And you put a moratorium on starting anything new?

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that you should let your newcomers and guests go unnoticed.

And I’m not saying that every pastor and church leader should be released from their responsibilities and go on a year-long sabbatical.

Just listen to this 5LQ podcast episode where Todd Adkins and I interviewed Danny Franks, the Connections Pastor at the Summit Church, about leading a guest services team. You’ll quickly notice how much I actually believe in the importance of inviting and welcoming newcomers and guests! (Check out these two books on this very topic: People Are the Mission: How Churches Can Welcome Guests Without Compromising the Gospel by Danny Franks and Becoming a Welcoming Church by Thom Rainer)

As church leaders and pastors, we are so obsessed with growth that we don’t realize that growth without rest is a short-term solution.

Isn’t that why farmers let their ground rest in the winter? Or why they plant a cover crop? Or why they rotate their crops? Or why they let their fields lay fallow for longer than a year?

Or at least…why they should be doing such things?

Growth without rest is a short-term solution.
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Recent research shows that our soil today has less vitamins and minerals than soil from decades ago because many farmers aren’t resting the ground like they used to.

Yikes…

Have you ever considered the long-term effects of going, going, going without resting? For farming? For athletes? And for church leaders and pastors?

Our obsession for growth has led to a depletion of nutrients in our vegetables, emotional breakdowns for athletes, and burnout/fall out for church leaders and pastors.

So what can we do?

What if, after this year’s Easter service, instead of starting something new, you focused on follow up for the next month? Instead of a men’s breakfast, putting on a church conference, a women’s event, or anything extra, you just put a moratorium on all things new?

And with the extra time that would’ve been devoted to such events, you spent it connecting with your newcomers from Easter Sunday? And training up others to do the same?

Would a change in rhythm possibly set the stage to even greater growth?

Maybe? Maybe not?

In either case, I say we leave the growth up to God (1 Cor 3) and instead focus on doing the things that we are able to do: planting, watering, and resting.

Who’s with me?

Let’s leave the growth up to God and instead focus on doing what we can do.
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P.S. If you want to audit the current state of your church, and learn what you need to do today in order to take your next step, check out my book, No Silver Bullets: Five Small Shifts that will Transform Your Ministry.

Discipling Stay-at-Home Moms

Are you discipling the stay-at-home moms in your church?

We often assume that a women’s ministry or a vibrant small group culture is sufficient, but is that enough? Are we missing an opportunity and a need? Is there something unique about the stay-at-home mom experience that requires or necessitates some careful thought? And ministry planning?

Having your first child (or second, third, fourth, etc.), is not only a gift from God and one of the most exciting privileges on this side of eternity, but it is also an occasion for change.

Nothing stays the same.

Date nights, sleeping in (or getting any sleep at all), car choices, impromptu road-trips, seeing family, holidays, meals, friends, and work are just some of the things that change when you have children.

Here’s the thing, when you have children, everything changes…but for stay-at-home moms, the change is greater than most of us might realize.

Here are a few ideas to help you disciple stay-at-home moms:

1. Before the baby comes

For expecting moms and dads, consider hosting or putting on a prep class or workshop at your church entitled something like, “What To Do When You’re Expecting,” “How Everything Will Change,” or “How Nothing Stays the Same.”

Don’t just focus on your church members; instead, use this as an opportunity to engage and minister broadly to your community. After all, every expecting parent is trying to prep as much as they can, so the unchurched and dechurched will likely be open to visiting your church and hanging out with Christians over a timely and helpful topic like this—especially if they are coming on the arm of a friend.

At the workshop, have a seasoned married couple from your church share out of their wisdom and experience. They don’t need to cover breathing exercises, since there are classes designed for that. Instead, use this as an opportunity to talk about keeping the romance alive, what to expect in the coming months, and anything else that would be helpful for new parents. Be sure to invite them to your Sunday service, into a group, or back for parenting classes to get them plugged into the life of the church.

2. After the baby comes

While parenting classes might help, most moms and dads don’t have time for this, since life with a newborn is just.plain.hazy. Parenting classes might be helpful for parents of older children, but when the newborn comes, it’s survival mode.

So after the baby comes, make sure that you have systems of support to care for new parents:

Are your small group leaders prepared to organize meals for new parents?
If the new parents aren’t in a small group, what systems do you have setup to care for them?
Do you have volunteers and leaders looking out for uber-pregnant women? (So that you can help them when the baby comes?)

What better way to show the love of Christ than to practically support and provide for parents in this way?

Do you have volunteers and leaders looking out for uber-pregnant women?
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3. When the dust settles

In a recent research study, I read that stay-at-home moms and dads are heavily biased against when they try to re-enter the workforce:

“15.3% of the employed mothers, 9.7% of the unemployed mothers, and 4.9% of the stay-at-home mothers received a callback.”
“The results were similar for fathers. While 14.6% of the employed fathers and 8.8% of unemployed fathers received a callback, only 5.4% of stay-at-home fathers did.”

The research puts it like this, “stay-at-home parents were about half as likely to get a callback as unemployed parents and only one-third as likely as employed parents.”

Stay-at-home parents were about half as likely to get a callback as unemployed parents.
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So if you’re a stay-at-home parent (dads, I didn’t forget you) getting ready to re-enter the workforce, what if you started by reconsidering your calling instead of going straight to LinkedIn? (Check out the article I wrote on What Is My Calling as a Christian?)

Who knows? Maybe you’ll go back to what you went to school for? Or maybe you’ll do something completely different?

But whatever you do, don’t make the decision alone:

Ask your spouse to pray with you
Be discipled or mentored by spiritually mature individuals
Ask your small group to pray with you

And in the mean time? In the months and years leading up to re-entering the workforce, what if you volunteered more actively at your church? At your children’s school? Drove Uber? Picked up a job on TaskRabbit? Crafted and sold something on Etsy? Audited a class? Went back to school?

In light of the research, doing one or more of these things will increase your likelihood of re-entering the workforce.

Here’s my last piece of advice:

While you’re waiting, do what you love doing (even if you don’t get paid for it), and do it with excellence. Who knows, God might open up a door!

If you’re looking for more reflections along these lines, be sure to check out the podcast that my wife and I started to encourage couples and parents! It’s called the IMbetween Podcast. Here are links to our first six episodes:

Episode 6: The New Rules For Dating and Why It Matters
Episode 5: Money Saving Hacks
Episode 4: Why Slowing Down Life Matters
Episode 3: How to Not Hate Your In-laws
Episode 2: The Awkward Side of Gift Giving
Episode 1: Double Chins and Getting Older

You can also subscribe by clicking here. I hope you can tune in!

While you’re waiting, do what you love doing, and do it with excellence.
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Want to Multiply Your Church? Focus on Leadership Development

Churches that multiply do not see their volunteers as hirelings to carry out grunt work so that the pastors can do the real work of ministry.

Churches that multiply live out Ephesians 4:11–13 and believe that every member is a minister.

This is because leadership development is not just about teaching people leadership principles, or giving church members a place to serve. Leadership development is about helping every member discover their God giving calling, grow in their skills, and develop their competencies so that they can continue to grow in their kingdom impact.

Churches that multiply do not see their volunteers as hirelings to carry out grunt work.
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For example, while some churches may just be glad to find nursery workers to fill an empty spot, churches that multiply place each nursery worker on a development path, where that volunteer is not only serving, but also growing in their character and competencies.

In other words, being a nursery worker is not the end; it’s rather the means to maturity in Christ and the development of one’s leadership skills.

In Multiplication Today, Movements Tomorrow: Practices, Barriers, and an Ecosystem, Ed Stetzer and I outline the practices of churches that multiply based on our State of Church Planting Research with NewChurches.com and LifeWay Research.

A commitment to leadership development was one of the six practices that multiplying churches lived out and embodied.

According to our research, churches that focus on leadership development are not only being biblically faithful in living out Ephesians 4:11–13, but they are fruitfully experiencing more commitments to Christ, reaching financial self-sufficiency faster, and more than likely multiplying within their first five years of existence.

In addition, our research on leadership development revealed the following:

Church planters that mentored leaders of other new churches had a higher average worship attendance
Church planters who participated in, at least, a month-long leadership training course on church planting also experienced a higher average worship attendance
Church plants who had a leadership development plan for their membership saw a higher number of decisions made for Christ
Church plants who had a leadership development plan for their membership also became financially self-sufficient at a quicker rate

Multiplying churches are committed to leadership development.
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There’s nothing in our research here that surprises us, given that we believe maturity generally leads to depth, width, reproduction, and multiplication. But maturity doesn’t happen haphazardly—it requires intentionality. While I don’t think anyone will deny that leadership matters, what we are trying to point out is that developing a plan to develop leaders matters greatly!

It’s the difference between addition and multiplication.

So don’t wait until you get larger or more complex to focus on developing leaders. Make this a part of your DNA and culture from day one.

Top Quotes on Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller

As many of you know, this year I’ve committed to reading/listening to as much of Timothy J. Keller as possible (click here to learn more about the books I’m reading/listening to and why).

I likely won’t do this for every Keller book I read/listen to, but Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters was so incredibly rich, that for personal learning purposes, I wanted to revisit the book and pull out the quotes that punched me in the face. On a few of them, I’ll add some commentary.

Caveat: Since I listened to the book; instead of reading it, the following quotes might not match the exact wording, punctuation, and phrasing in the book.

“The incomplete joys of this world will never satisfy the human heart.”
“An idol is something we cannot live without. We must have it. Therefore it drives us to break rules we once honored to harm others, even ourselves, in order to get it.”
“Anything in life can serve as an idol, or a counterfeit god.”
“Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life.”
“An idol is anything more important to you than God. Anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God. Anything you seek to give you what only God can give. Anything that is so central and essential to your life, that should lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living.”

“An idol is anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God.”
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“If I have that, then I will feel like my life has meaning. Then I’ll know I have value. And I’ll feel significant and secure.”

The “that,” which he is referring to are the idols in our lives


“The Bible uses three basic metaphors to talk about how people relate to the idols of their hearts: they love idols, trust idols, and obey idols.”
“God should be our true spouse, but when we desire and delight in other things other than God, we commit spiritual adultery.”
“Idols give us a sense of being in control and we can locate them by looking at our nightmares: What do we fear the most? What if we lost it would make life not worth living?”
“Idols control us since we feel like we must have them or life is meaningless.”

“Idols control us since we feel like we must have them or life is meaningless.”
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“Whatever controls us is our Lord. The person who seeks power is controlled by power. The person who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people he or she wants to please. We do not control ourselves, we are controlled by the lord of our lives.”
“The only way to free ourselves from the destructive influence of counterfeit gods is to turn back to the true one, the living God….he’s the only one who if you find him, can truly fulfill you, and if you fail him, can truly forgive you.”
“The most painful times in our lives are times in which our Isaacs, or idols, are being threatened or removed.”
“You don’t realize Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.”
“No person, not even the best one can give your soul all it needs…this cosmic disappointment and disillusionment is there in all of life, but we especially feel it in the things in which we set our hopes. When you finally realize this, there are four things you can do: You can blame the things that are disappointing you and try to move on to better ones (that’s the way of continued idolatry and spiritual addiction), you can blame yourself and beat yourself (that’s the way of self loathing and shame), you can blame the world (that’s how you get hard, cynical, and empty), or you can reorient the entire focus of your life on God.

“No person, not even the best one can give your soul all it needs.”
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“Jesus warns people far more often about greed than about sex, yet almost no one thinks they’re guilty of it. Therefore, we should all begin with the working hypothesis that this could easily be a problem for me. If greed hides itself so deeply, no one should be confident that it’s not a problem for them.”
“Have we received more of God’s revelation, truth, and grace than the Old Testament believers, or less? Are we more debtors to grace than they were, or less? Did Jesus tithe his life and blood to save us, or did he give it all? Tithing is a minimum standard for Christian believers. We certainly wouldn’t want to be in a position of giving less of our income than those who had so much less of an understanding of what God did to save them.”

Wow…what reasoning regarding giving and tithing.




“Counterfeit gods come in structures…sin in our hearts affects our basic motivational drives. Some people are strongly motivated by influence and power, while others are motivated by approval or appreciation. Some want emotional and physical comfort than anything else. Others want security and the control of their environment. People with the deep idol of power, do not mind being unpopular to gain influence. People who are most motivated by approval are the opposite. They’ll gladly lose power and control as long as everyone thinks well of them. Each deep idol, power, approval, comfort or control generates a different set of fears and hopes. Surface idols are things like money, spouse, children, through which our deep idols seek fulfillment. We’re often superficial in the analysis of our idol structures, for example money can be a surface idol that serves to satisfy more foundational influences. Some people want lots of money as a way to control their world and life, and such people usually don’t spend much money and they live very modestly. They keep it all safely saved and invested so that they can feel completely save in the world. Others want money for access to social circles and to make themselves beautiful and attractive. These people do spend their money on themselves in lavish ways. Other people want money because it gives them so much power over others. In every case, money functions as an idol, and yet because of various deep idols it results in very different patterns of behavior. The person using money to serve a deep idol of control will often feel superior to others and use money to obtain power or social approval. In every case however, money idolatry slaves and distorts lives.”

Wow…just wow…the insight in this paragraph is killer.

“Surface idols are things through which our deep idols seek fulfillment.”
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“There’s only one way to change at the heart level…and that’s through the gospel.”
“Achievement is the alcohol of our time. These days, the best people don’t abuse alcohol…they abuse their lives.” – Mary Bell (a counselor of high performing executives)
“One sign that you’ve made success an idol is the false sense of security it brings. The poor and the marginalized expect suffering. They know that life on this earth is nasty, brutish, and short. Successful people are much more shocked and overwhelmed by troubles.”
I’ve often heard people from the upper echelon say, “Life isn’t supposed to be this way” when they face tragedy. I have never heard this language among the working class and poor. This false sense of security comes from deifying our achievement and expecting it to keep us safe from the troubles of life when only god can.
If your success is more than just success to you, if it’s the measure of your value and worth, then accomplishment in one limited area of your life will make you believe that you have expertise in all others. This of course, leads to all kinds of bad choices and decisions. This distorted view of yourself is part of the blindness to reality that the Bible says always accompanies idolatry (Psalm 135:15-18; Ezek 36:22-36).
“The main sign that we are into success idolatry is that we find that we cannot maintain our self confidence in life unless we remain at the top of our chosen field.”
“I don’t believe the economic motive and the erotic motive account for everything that goes on in the world. It’s a lust…a longing to be inside, [which] takes many forms…You want…the delicious knowledge that just we four or five—we are the people who (really) know…As long as you are governed by that desire you will never be satisfied. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain…” – C.S. Lewis

“I don’t believe the economic motive and the erotic motive account for everything that goes on in…
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“Success can’t deliver the satisfaction we’re looking for.”
“The secret to change is to identify and dismantle the counterfeit gods of your heart. It is impossible to understand a culture without discerning its idols.”
“If you ask for something that you don’t get…you may become sad and disappointed, then you go on. Those are not your functional masters. But when you pray and hope for something and you don’t get it and you respond with explosive anger or deep despair, then you may have found your real god.”
“What are you looking to in order to justify yourself? Whatever it is, is a counterfeit god. And to make a change in your life, you must identify it and reject it as such.”
“You may know about the love of Christ with your head, but not your heart. How can that be remedied? This takes spiritual disciplines.”
“Spiritual disciplines are forms of worship. And it is worship that is the final way to replace the idols of your heart. You can’t just get relief by figuring out your idols intellectually. You have to actually get the peace that Jesus gives…and that only comes when you worship. analysis can help you discover truths, but then you have to pray them into your heart. That takes time.”

“It is worship that is the final way to replace the idols of your heart.”
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Pick up a copy of Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters today. Seriously. You won’t regret it. It’s that good.

The Lost Art of People Watching…and Why it Still Matters

I used to be good at people watching.

Now I never called it that because it was never a thing that people did intentionally.

Before smart phones, if you were going to get together with your friends or family, you would just set a time and a place and expect people to be there. If you got there before everyone else, you wouldn’t take your phone out and check Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, since that didn’t exist (I know, it is hard to remember that there was even such a time).

Instead, you just looked around.

If someone were doing something out of the ordinary, you would notice. If a mother were scolding her child for throwing a fit in public, you would look in that direction or slightly to the side, so as to not give the impression that you were eavesdropping. If a couple were on a date, you would try to guess where they were going, the status of their relationship, and if they were a good fit.

With the advent of smart phones and social media, you might have thought that people watching has turned into a lost art. Not so! People watching has merely moved from the physical sphere to the digital space.

People watching has merely moved from the physical sphere to the digital space.
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It has become incredibly easy to watch what others are doing by creeping on their social media profiles. Let alone the fact that there are some apps that will tell you where someone is—moment by moment!

With the increasing digitization of people watching, there are many that are advocating that we go back to the ways-of-old.

Believe it or not, you can even download a nine-step guide to learn how to people watch.

Pathetic? Perhaps.

Fascinating? Most definitely.

There are even websites where you can submit conversations you overheard while people watching!

A couple years ago, my wife and I celebrated our tenth year anniversary by taking a trip to New York.

We’ve lived in big cities like this before, but for some reason, New York just seemed more congested than we last recollected. It was fascinating to meet and pass by the different kinds of people who called New York home.

When we were walking through China town in Queens, a Chinese lady with a scarf over her head scattered bowlfuls of seed on the ground—at which dozens of pigeons descended, just like children do when a piñata bursts open. My wife and I began asking one another questions like:

“Why would she do that?”
“I wonder if it’s because of her religion?”
“Or, perhaps it’s good luck if a bird poops on her?”

Later on, when walking through Times Square during broad daylight, we noticed that there were several people in character costumes, like princesses and superheroes, wanting to have their picture taken with others for a few dollars. Our people watching continued with questions and comments like:

“I wonder who is in those costumes?”
“They must be sweating in there!”
“I wonder how much they actually make in a day?”

One evening when it was raining lightly, we walked by the Port Authority bus terminal and noticed many Middle Eastern families with small children, European couples, homeless panhandlers, and teenagers eating pizza by the slice. You can guess the conversation that ensued as we continued walking toward the Broadway show that we had tickets for…

The fact is, no one is the same. And though we all have unique stories, we all share the same need—a need for the gospel.

Everyone needs the gospel…no matter who they are, what they’ve done, or what they look like.
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Though everyone is loved by God, we don’t all live in light of this truth. Instead of putting our hope in the only one who will never let us down, and who gave up everything so that we would experience true life as he intended it and designed it, many of us put our hope and redemption in something else…in something less…

For some, it’s family values. For others, it’s work, wealth, or fame. And still for some it’s religion that’s all about doing, works, and self-righteousness.

In light of that, can you name one or two friends, neighbors, or co-workers who are far from God? What do they put their hope in? What do they see as their redemption and purpose in life?

What do you think would happen if you stopped people watching and instead began people engaging?

Creating margin in your life so that you can spend time with them? So that God can work in and through you?

To learn more, check out these two articles:

5 Ways to Find Your Way Back to God
How to Create a Missional Culture at Your Church (BLESS Pocket Guide)

A New Chapter and Season

Once Christina and I had Victoria, our first child, the way we went about life and ministry changed dramatically.

Instead of being on the front lines doing ministry together, Christina took a back seat. Not a back seat in regards to importance, but a back seat in regards to visibility and role.

So over the last year, a regular conversation that we would have while praying and Sabbathing together had been, “What are you going to do when the kids all go to school?”

“Are you going to go back to social work? To counseling? Back to school? Or start something new?”

While we still don’t have that fully figured out (and I think that’s okay), there is one thing that we’ve decided to do…and do together.

Start a podcast!!

We’re not moving, we’re not having another baby, and I don’t have a new job. But we are entering into a new chapter and season of our lives, marriage, and ministry.

Over the past 11 years of marriage, our home and dinner table have been a consistent place of encouragement and fun with other couples and families.

Even before we were married, we dreamed about our future home being a place where others would feel loved, appreciated, and comfortable to be themselves—flaws and all. This desire was rooted in our love for God and is actually summed up in the scripture passage engraved on the inside of our wedding bands, Romans 12:9-21!

So we’ve decided to start a podcast for couples and parents where we would take topics and break them down into practical and implementable principles for your life, marriage, and family. It’s called the IMbetween Podcast.

Topics include:

Double chins and getting older
Money saving hacks
How to not hate your in-laws
Extra curricular activities and slowing down
Keeping the romance alive
The new rules of dating and why it matters
…and more!

So we’d be honored if you would subscribe and listen to our weekly podcast (maybe even with your spouse). And if you don’t mind, sharing this podcast with others and an honest rating and review on Apple Podcasts would help A TON in getting the word out.

Here are four easy links to get started:

Apple Podcasts
Stitcher
Google Play
You can learn more about the podcast here