Barnabas Piper's Blog, page 88

Episode #82 – Bro Code, Gender Reveal Parties, and Silly Sermon Titles

In this episode of the Happy Rant podcast Ted Kluck, Ronnie Martin, and Barnabas Piper rant about the following:

D’Angelo Russell, a Los Angeles Lakers rookie, has been blasted in the media for breaking “bro code” by recording a video of a teammate admitting to cheating on his fiancee. But which is the real brach of code – filming, cheating, or both?
In recent years pregnancy announcements and gender reveal parties have become a cottage industry. What is this insanity?
Why do churches – especially mega churches – feel the need to come up with pithy sermon titles and clever promotional plans?

Like every week, we want to offer a big thank you to Resonate Recordings, the fine folks who make us sound

listenable. If you are looking for great people to help your church put out recorded sermon audio or help you with a podcast they’re your people.

Feel free to hit us up on Twitter at @HappyRantPod or on Facebook or via email at HappyRantPodcast@Gmail.com with any topic suggestions or feedback. We love hearing from listeners!

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #82

Top Quotes on Leadership Pipeline

In early March the 5 Leadership Questions Podcast, which I co-host with Todd Adkins as part of our work with LifeWay Leadership, did a five episode series on leadership pipeline. We were joined by Eric Geiger and introduced the concept of pipeline and walked through the four main components – systems, structure, people, and content.

While it might sound a bit dry or heady, this content is a profoundly important resource for churches. It sets up a means that churches of any size can put in place a culture and system of developing leaders at every level. It looks at the scriptural mandate that church leaders equip and train people and offers a helpful means to do that. It recognizes that every person in the church is both uniquely gifted and called to serve and provides a means for them to do that. Leadership pipeline isn’t a silver bullet or quick fix or magic growth strategy. It’s a method and system that churches of various sizes and polities and implement to help both the leaders and the congregants for the sake of the ministry.

Here are some of the key quotes from those podcasts.

“A leadership pipeline is a simple tool that shows how an organization develops its own leaders.”

“The role of a pastor is to equip. You have one job – to equip the people for the work of the ministry.”

“It’s important to have a map for people, not just a menu.”

“Without a pipeline you’re going to have a hard time scaling leadership and maintaining your culture.”

“Systems help create culture.”

“Often times when people say they have an organic approach it means they have no approach.”

“When you think about ‘organic’ remember that nature is full of systems.”

“It’s hard to do anything excellently without a system.”

“Pilot new things with the highly competent and energetic people.”

“Structures are the kinds of things that don’t get anybody excited, but if you don’t have them everything falls apart.”

“We’re called not just to be disciples, but to make disciples. Systems and structures are how we can do that.”

“Leadership Pipeline is simply creating a system so that the organic, Spirit-led, Bible-driven kinds of things can happen in a healthy way.”

“If you want to keep up with leadership development you need to get ahead of it.”

“Leadership development and leadership placement are two very different things.”

“By the simple act of volunteering and serving in the church people are leading.”

“Developing leaders in a pipeline is developing them for all arenas of life.”

“Don’t think that you’re recruiting volunteers. Think that you’re recruiting leaders.”

“The reason churches have leadership deficiencies today is that they never built a leadership development culture before.”

“Every organization needs a pipeline. Every person needs a pathway.”

“Training content must contain knowledge, experience, and coaching.”

“Competency is having a displayed proficiency in something.”

You can listen to the podcasts here:

Introduction to Leadership Pipeline

Leadership Pipeline: The Systems

Leadership Pipeline: The Structures

Leadership Pipeline: The People

Leadership Pipeline: The Content

Other Leadership Pipeline Resources

If leadership pipeline is something you’d like to learn more about or team at LifeWay Leadership is putting on a conference in October called Pipeline: Developing Leaders at Every Level. It won’t be like typical pastors conferences because Pipeline is centered around training so that attendees, ideally church leadership teams, can walk out with a plan to implement at their churches. It won;t just be a series of sermons that leave you inspired but relatively directionless (like so many conferences). You can find out more at MyLeadershipPipeline.com. Be sure to take advantage of their early bird discount which runs through July and is especially good if you are bringing a group.

Be sure to download our free app (available on all mobile platforms) and this free ebooklet called Developing Your Leadership Pipeline by Todd Adkins too.

6 Lessons I learned From Writing Weekly Columns for Four Years

I wrote my first article for WorldMag.com in January of 2012. I had been blogging for about six months at that time, and they took a flyer on me. It worked out pretty well. Every week since then with only three or four exceptions they have published a 500-word sports commentary piece of mine. Last week I turned in my final article for World. I am grateful for the chance to write for them and for the opportunities it afforded. But I am especially thankful for the writing lessons I learned over four years and two hundred and twenty articles.

Lesson 1 – How to Hit a Deadline

Every week I had a deadline. Every week I needed to write something that was better than terrible by the end of Wednesday. The consistency and constancy could be oppressive, but they were precisely what a procrastinator like myself needed. It provided the structure I needed to be productive. I learned that I always need deadlines to complete projects so if one is not assigned to me I must assign it to myself.

Lesson 2 – How to Find a Story

Some weeks not much happens in sports. Or something happened that is a thing I wrote about just a few weeks earlier. Sometimes there isn’t a new controversy or mega-event. I was a commentator, not a reporter, so I had to find a message and a perspective – not just tell stuff that happened. I had to learn to keep my eyes and ears open, to listen to broadcasters and commentators keenly, to read columnists with a curious eye, and to examine even the mundane from as many perspectives as I could think of. Over time I learned to see and hear connections between seemingly disparate or mundane events and meaningful ideas.

Lesson 3 – How to Write Within a Structure

Five hundred words – that was my word count. Make a point to help people think or live differently. That was my aim. So every week I had to structure a story with enough details for the uninformed and enough thought to make it meaningful into a five hundred word bucket. More often than not I had to go back and cut what seemed like pertinent details or ideas in order to tighten the piece. Sometimes I resented the word count; I wanted to rant or explicate or explore ideas. In the end I came to appreciate it. Five hundred words – how to ebb and flow an idea, how it looked on a page – became almost instinctive. As a young writer having that limit was a boon for me.

Lesson 4 – How to Write for An Audience

World reaches a relatively defined demographic. I am not in that demographic, though I am familiar with it, so I learned how to write in such a way as to connect with the audience (I think. I hope?) but also stretch them. My inclination as a writer is to pay little attention to audience and simply write the idea, the story, the concept. So to have a proto-reader in mind challenged and improved me.

Lesson 5 – How to Trust the Process

Some weeks I would sit down on a Wednesday evening, my allotted writing time, and have no ideas, no outline, no story, and no energy. Those were panic moments, at least for a couple years. What would I write? How would I finish? Would it be terrible? Inevitably, though, I would find an idea and grind it out. Over time the panic instances diminished. Then the worry diminished. I realized I had found a process I could trust. No matter how empty my brain or my page, I knew I could find five hundred words worth writing on sports and faith. Week in and week out I followed the same steps, developed and worked the same mental muscles, and practiced the same skills. The process worked.

Lesson 6 – How to Gauge My Own Work

Nobody gets a hit in every at bat. The trick, as a writer, is to recognize your swings and misses and your foul balls. It took me a long time to start getting the hang of this, to realize that some pieces weren’t my best work. I used to get offended and defensive when my editor would send a piece back with questions or suggestions. (I still do too often.) But I began to recognize, even predict, when this would happen. I began to respond a little better with a little more humility. This is a big step for a writer – a big step toward getting better.

The Right Kind of Code for Men to Live By

From my 4/1 article at WorldMag.com:

The locker room is a haven, a safe place for athletes. It’s an exclusive, members-only club of sorts, and what happens there between teammates generally stays locked away. For the most part this is fine, and it’s definitely necessary for athletes in an age when every publication, website, and TV network wants to know their personal business.

Sometimes, though, this code of secrecy goes off the rails. This week, a video taken by D’Angelo Russell of the Los Angeles Lakers was released publicly, showing his teammate Nick Young talking about various flings he’s had with different women. Young is engaged to pop star Iggy Azalea, and the video release was the first she’d heard about his infidelity.

A man cheating on his fiancée is bad enough, but what followed has taken a horrible situation and made it exponentially worse. Russell claims the video was released without his consent, and he’s not sure how. It has caused significant tension among the Lakers. Russell broke the “bro code” and brought the world into the locker room, and it will be no small feat to undo that damage.

. . .

If we could assume the “code” was to protect the privacy of a broken relationship it would be respectable, but that’s not what it is. When expressions of friendship and manhood mean covering up the misdeeds of another, especially from the one being wronged, it is neither friendship nor manhood—it is twisted cowardice.

This isn’t simply a matter of upholding a code; it’s a matter of a twisted sexual ethic, one that grants men the right to do whatever they want with whomever they want, regardless of the collateral damage.

. . .

A real man—a brother, not a “bro”—wouldn’t air someone else’s dirty laundry, especially not through the tabloids. But a friend would say, “Tell her, or I will.” A friend would risk the friendship for the sake of what is right and out of respect to the woman. A friend would be willing to go face the uncomfortable and push for things to be made right, to uphold the real code to which all men should hold themselves.

Read the full article HERE.

New Happy Rant: Egg Hunts and Helicopter Drops and Did Driscoll lead to Trump?

In this episode of the Happy Rant Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas rant about the following life-altering topics.

What’s the deal with church doing huge, expensive “helicopter drops” and Easter egg hunts in celebration of Easter? Do they actually work for getting people to attend?
DRISKY BUSINESS – John MacArthur claimed that Mark Driscoll paved the way for Donald Trump? Is this crazy or crazy like a fox?
Can Christian comedians really be funny or does the need to be edgy and controversial rule them out?

Like every week, we want to offer a big thank you to Resonate Recordings, the fine folks who make us sound

listenable. If you are looking for great people to help your church put out recorded sermon audio or help you with a podcast they’re your people.

Feel free to hit us up on Twitter at @HappyRantPod or on Facebook or via email at HappyRantPodcast@Gmail.com with any topic suggestions or feedback. We love hearing from listeners!

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #81

6 Things New Parents Need to Hear

These aren’t really good news, but at least they’ll set the bar a little more accurately. Most of us spend a lot of time comparing ourselves to other parents, seeing what everyone else posts on social media, and thinking we’re doing a pretty awful job. New parents want to grab the world by the tail and avoid all the mistakes their parents made and all their friends are making. Hopefully these six words of “wisdom” will offer some perspective and maybe a little boost. If they don’t now file them away.

1) You will feel like a failure every day

Just buckle up and get ready for it. If you do not feel like a failure you probably don’t care enough. If you care you will disappoint yourself. You will fear that you’re screwing your kids up. You will beat yourself up for not being patient enough or listening well enough or reading enough stories or kicking enough soccer balls. You will wonder if you’re pointing your kids the right way. You will be exhausted and that will compound everything else.

Just remember – parenting is not a formula so your mistakes will not irreparably damage your children or your relationship with them. If you want to know why and get a bit of a boost skip to #s 4 and 5.

2) Kids are dumb

Puppies can be trained in a matter of weeks. Kids can’t. Kids take 18 years and then you release them into the world without a fully formed frontal lobe and with a hope and a prayer they won’t botch things. They do not listen (but they hear everything). They do not think before acting (but they can argue their case like Jake Brigance to get out of trouble or get cookies). They pay no attention to anything around them (and yet they somehow notice everything). They will frustrate the fire out of you with the sheer amount of stupid they produce on a given day. You will find yourself asking them “why did you do that?” so often the words lose all meaning. SO just don’t ask. The reason is this: they are kids and they are dumb.

3) Because of #2 you will repeat yourself endlessly making #1 even more of a certainty

Given the lack of listening and the overall dumbness you will say the same flipping things over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And then it will be lunch time. After a while you will enter a different dimension from which you will observe a haggard parent saying for the 274th time that day “put that down, clean that up, stop making that noise” and you will wonder why they don’t quit. And then you will realize it is you and you will feel, once again, like a parenting dunce.

4) Kids are freakishly resilient

Some good news. All your failures, or perceived failures, as a parent will not ruin your child. Maybe it’s a positive side effect of being kind of dumb, but kids forget and move on from a parent’s blow-ups and collapses in mere minutes. It takes a truly poisonous atmosphere to ruin a child, and if you love them and try they will be just fine. Kids were designed by God to charge ahead, leaving behind the crap you’re wallowing in. They fall and get up literally and figuratively. If they know you have their back and some regular hugs nothing keeps a kid down. And you should take your cues from them. If they bounce back, so should you.

5) Kids have capacity for love and trust that outdoes any adult

Despite your many failures your child will always have a hug for you. They will always be happy when you come home from work or a trip. They will practically break their face grinning when you come to get them out of the crib in the morning. They will run right to you when they are hurt or excited. A parent’s kiss is magic medicine for a bruise or scrape of both knee and spirit. Even a reserved child is a fountain of affection for dad and mom. They will assume that your judgment is correct, your word is true, and your presence is faithful. All dumbness you feel about yourself will never, ever cross their minds (before adolescence).

Aside: The only time this isn’t true is if parents are truly awful. Awfully distant. Awfully abusive. Awfully absent. Awfully dishonest. Your child can forgive you and trust you for all your human failings. But if you choose to live a life that actively hurts them you will find their limits. And that is the saddest thing.

6) Say you’re sorry every time

Never be ashamed or afraid to say you’re sorry. Many of the times your children may look at you like you’re talking French because they didn’t think anything of your forgetfulness or outburst. But every time you apologize and ask for forgiveness you reinforce their love and trust. You model how to handle mistakes and poor judgment – which they will exhibit in abundance. You show them humility and reinforce the course you hope to set them on. A parent who doesn’t apologize sets her kids up to distance themselves as they grow in awareness and sensitivity. A parent who does apologize creates realistic expectations and an environment for her kids to always be close.

Seeing the Business Side of Sports for What it Is

From my 3/25 article at WorldMag.com:

Adam LaRoche was a solid major league first baseman for more than a decade. After a rough time with the Chicago White Sox last year he hoped to bounce back this season. But a couple weeks ago LaRoche abruptly retired for personal reasons. A few days later we discovered that team management asked him to stop bringing his teenage son to the clubhouse, which he previously had permission to do. LaRoche decided he had to choose between baseball and family, so he chose family.

Stephen Curry is basketball’s most popular player right now. He is an exceptional shooter with a winning personality. That’s what everyone sees. This week, ESPN’s Ethan Sherwood Strauss reportedthat Curry had signed an endorsement deal with Under Armor instead of Nike. It was a fascinating, detailed look at the shadowy and lucrative business dimension of sports that most fans aren’t privy to.

What do these two stories have in common? Very little on the surface: different sports, different kinds of players, different cities, different issues. But as I read them I saw a common theme: Sports is just a job for professional athletes.

. . .

We see the uniform of our favorite team, and those colors are full of nostalgia and commitment and pain and celebration. We are fiercely loyal to that laundry. But players are loyal to their own personal needs: a paycheck, family commitments, professional fit, growth opportunities.

Our perception of sports leads to certain unrealistic expectations, especially that players would feel the same way we do. We want them to be as loyal and passionate and committed, but they aren’t. Nor should they be. We have romanticized professional sports to such a degree that we’ve lost perspective. We’ve forgotten or ignored the daily realities of being a pro athlete.

If you are employed, you are a professional. You work. You have a routine. You make decisions. Management moves affect you positively or negatively. You have good days and bad days, motivated times and times you drag. You leave one employer for another for a multitude of reasons. So do pro athletes.

. . .

The best sports fan is a fair sports fan. Be one of those. Have reasonable expectations.

. . .

Read the full post HERE.

Where Writers Find Ideas

How do writers find our material? This is different than asking where we get our material. Where is a matter of interest, walk of life, or even working a beat – politics, sports, theology, current events. How is a question of observation, interest, and connection.

Writers find their material everywhere. At least good ones do.

Anne LaMott describes in her book Bird by Bird how she carries note cards around with her to record . . . stuff. She records phrases and scenes and ideas. She jots down a few words or a quote or an observation so that she has record of something that sparked. That’s how writers find their material – something sparks.

But even that doesn’t really answer the question because then it becomes “well, how does something spark?” The answer to that lies somewhere between “you just have what it takes” and “you work your tail off to make it happen.”

Good writers are good thinkers and good thinkers are good noticers. They see things others miss or they see the same things in different ways. Is noticing a natural talent or a nurtured ability? Yes it is!

If you find yourself drawn to write it’s likely something drew you – something you just have to say, the sense that you see things others miss. It’s certainly not the money and fame. (If it is, get into the “platform” business. You can repackage and regurgitate others’ ideas ad nauseam, take credit for them, and make some decent coin.) That sense is likely an indication that you are a noticer, one who see what others don’t. Either that or it’s an indication of a ravenous ego. Time will tell.

So then the question turns to what you will do with that ability. Anne Lamott doesn’t need my affirmation, but I think her method is spot on. You soak up life around you. You jot it down in a notebook or on your phone or on a napkin. Then you see what connections your brain makes when you look at it. Sometimes the connections aren’t there, and that’s when you take a leap. Take an idea, run with it, and jump. Sometimes you land on a connection. Sometimes you fall flat. That’s ok because every fall is a lesson for next time and so is every connection.

Noticing and connecting is a mental muscular function. Just like there are natural athletes there are natural writers, so some people will simply be better at this than others. But natural or not, it takes consistent training to build that muscle. Look everywhere. Watch strangers walk by and imagine their stories. Listen to conversations at bars and coffee shops and see what they tell you. (Eavesdropping is another tool in a writer’s tool box.) Listen for a phrase that strikes you as beautiful or stupid or profound. Turn up the radio and listen to DJs and news and music. Watch children play and adults flirt. It all has the potential to spark something, but unless you write it down it will be gone by the time you sit down at your computer.

The good news is that there is no limit or lane for a writer. The bad news is that there is no limit or lane for a writer. Our subjects surround us all the time. All we need to do is pay attention, figure what matters out of what we saw, and communicate it in a way that matters to people who missed it the first time. No big deal, right?

New Happy Rant: Multi-level Marketing in the Church, Hate-Watching Shows, & Books that Influenced Our Writing

In this episode of the Happy Rant, Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas discuss the following:

Have all the multi-level marketing schemes and sales messed up church? What would a women’s Bible study be without someone selling essential oils?
Why do people hate-watch shows? Do the hosts?
What books most made the hosts want to write and influenced their writing?

We haveNav Press as a sponsor for this episode  and they bring you The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions About God by Dan Allender and Tremper Longman. The Cry of the Soul shows how our negative emotions are not problems to be managed but actually reveal something in our hearts – something of what we believe about God and what we yearn for. In an age of rising anxiety and a desire to kill off negativity, this book explores the Psalms to show a powerful paradigm to help people not just handle their emotions but draw closer to God through them.

Like every week, we want to offer a big thank you to Resonate Recordings, the fine folks who make us sound

listenable. If you are looking for great people to help your church put out recorded sermon audio or help you with a podcast they’re your people.

Feel free to hit us up on Twitter at @HappyRantPod or on Facebook or via email at HappyRantPodcast@Gmail.com with any topic suggestions or feedback. We love hearing from listeners!

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #79

The Most Curious Question: Who Are You?

Who am I?

If you can’t answer this question it’s a good starting place for applying curiosity. Do you know your strengths and weaknesses? Do you know what you love and what you hate? Do you know where you draw energy and what enervates you? These are important questions for understanding how God designed you uniquely and what trajectory might be best for you.

Such questions can’t be answered in isolation very easily. We judge ourselves both too harshly and too graciously. We have more blind spots about our own lives than anything else, so we need help. We need help from peers and mentors, so ask them what they see in you. What stands out? What is strong? What is weak? We need help from experts, so take two or three evaluations like Strengths Finder and Myers-Briggs. Take a spiritual gifts test such as the one in Discover Your Spiritual Gifts by C. Peter Wagner. None of these will define you, but they will help you understand you. Each provides a piece of the puzzle as to why you are the way you, where you will thrive, and what you should do next.

While you’re exploring the basics of who you are take inventory of two things, what you enjoy and who you know. Make a list of the things you would do if you had free time, what books you would read, places you’d visit, movies you’d watch, activities you’d participate in, foods you love and foods you’d like to try. Write down the things from your past that leave the fondest memories and that you’d like to do again. Then start writing down friends and family. Write down interesting people you’ve met. Write down people you notice, even if they’re strangers or who have caught your attention through their work.

Each of these is a potential connection point for you and each tells you something about yourself. You enjoy those things for a reason. Those people are in your life or your mind for a reason. As you take these inventories different ones will rise to the top. Take note! They may be your starting place.

Finally consider how you work and learn. Take what you know of yourself and/or what those evaluations revealed and think about how you do your best work. How do you absorb information? How do your process it? Is it through hearing, seeing, reading, or hands-on experience? Do you work best with others or in isolation? Do you enjoy bouncing from thing to thing or honing in on one project or subject and seeing it through?

Some of you will have little difficulty with these questions and tasks. You already know your Myers-Briggs personality type and could describe the perfect work environment. Others will feel like I just assigned a capstone project for graduating from college. It’s all so much. This says something about your respective personalities, and that’s something to note too. I’m not trying to give an assignment but rather to give a list of steps to take to help you understand yourself well enough to know what direct your curiosity should be pointed.

Choose Your Curiosity Wisely

All these questions and inventories aren’t some sort of algorithm. They will not offer some curiosity horoscope telling you what you can expect. They simply help you understand what you’re good at and what you enjoy, and that is enough to shape your sense of curiosity. In fact, by inventorying what you love and who you know you have a treasure trove of material at hand already. You do not need to be an expert in everything, and even if you wanted to be you couldn’t. Nobody can.

I loved the show Justified when it was on. It centers around a brash, gun slinging U.S. Marshall assigned to the state his youth, Kentucky. Along with a number of fantastic characters and plot lines, one of the sneaky antagonists of the story is the locale – specifically the coal mines of eastern Kentucky. They are hideouts for outlaws, stashes for stolen goods, booby traps for unsuspecting suckers, and access points to bank vaults (mild spoiler alert). Throughout the show the mines are spoken of with fear and respect because of the shafts that run hundreds of feet into the ground. They are narrow, just three or four feet wide, and have no visible bottom.

An expert is a lot like that, minus the threat of death and the proximity to outlaws. Expertise is a deep, narrow look into one subject. It drills way down into the depths and mines all it can. It doesn’t diverge from its subject and it rarely intersects with another area of interest or learning. Make no mistake, this is a kind of curiosity because it is constantly asking “what else?” and “what’s next?” And we need experts. We need those who know all that’s humanly possible about different topics.

This kind of curiosity suits some people just fine, but most of us, I think, are not so focused. For most of us we will find our curiosity aroused by the things that cross our paths on a daily basis. We simply need to be attentive, to notice. Noticing is hard work. It means listening well for what is interesting or what strikes a funny note or informs us of something new. It means watching for the beauty, the funny, the odd, the new, the surprising, or the interesting. It means wondering as we watch and listen. Why did that happen? What’s her story? Where did that come from? How did that happen? Noticing is a muscle and the more we do it the stronger it gets. Flex it, notice, and then latch on to whatever grabs your attention and be curious about it.

All of us, expert and notice alike, must be thinkers. Curiosity has a reputation as a childish trait because we stopped using our minds. We stopped looking at life, the mundane and normal, as something worth our brain waves. We react to it. We absorb it. We walk through it as if it’s not there. But we don’t think about it. That thinking is curiosity. It’s what we looked at last chapter in all those areas of life. Nothing is out of bounds so long as our curiosity honors God and loves others.

For all of us this thinking, this intentional curiosity, is that which connects us to ideas and those ideas to real people. It’s what connects person to person as we ask questions and hear each other’s stories and learn from one another. Curiosity is that which finds God’s truth in all created things and beings and figures out how it fits in lie and the greater world. It rejects the premise of “mindless entertainment” and actively rebels against passively walking through life. Whether we are inclined to be the expert or the notice, we take to life actively, full of questions, seeking to find and show truth and beauty.

This is an excerpt from the book I am currently writing, The Curious Christian (working title) that is due to be released in early 2017.