Old Friends

I like Guy Clark. You've probably figured that out by now.

He has a way of saying things that express my thoughts and feelings.

I have heard him and his "dear friend, Verlon Thompson" (as he always introduces him) sing this song several times. On one of those occasions, Verlon reflected on when he first started working with Guy:

"I met Guy when we working on his album, Old Friends ... and now we are."

The chorus of the song is:

Old Friends - they shine like diamonds
Old Friends - you can always call
Old Friends - Lord you can't buy 'em
You know - it's Old Friends after all

That pretty well sums it up doesn't it?

I am blessed to have several "old friends." As I count the blessings of these friendships, I have come to realize these qualities actually have little to do with chronological age, or the tenure of our relationship. You see "Old Friends" - regardless of age or how long we've known each other - are characterized by the qualities described in this song.

In another song - Stuff That Works - Guy describes another dimension of these friendships:

"I got a pretty good friend who’s seen me at my worst.
He can’t tell if I’m a blessing or a curse.
But he always shows up when the chips are down.
That’s the kind of stuff I like to be around."

The chorus of that song tells the vital truth about these kind of friends:

"Stuff that works, stuff that holds up
The kind of stuff you don’t hang on the wall
Stuff that’s real, stuff you feel
The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall."

Old friends, Lord you can't by them. That's the kind of stuff I like to be around.

That Stuff Will Stunt Your Growth

I have a confession to make: I LOVE COFFEE.

But not only do I love coffee…I NEED coffee. My entire family has learned that until I have had my two cups of coffee in the morning, don’t even try to talk to me. The fog is too thick and you will never get through.

Last summer Laura and I had the opportunity to take our granddaughters to Disneyland. While we were there they found an ideal birthday present for me. This cup…

You know, sometimes you wished the sayings they put on stuff like this wasn’t true. But, this one couldn’t be any more accurate of me: “MORNINGS AREN’T PRETTY.”

You also need to understand that my love…OK, addiction, to coffee is not a recent development. My mother tells a story about hearing my dad and I giggling in the kitchen early one morning. She came in to see what was going on, and there I was sitting in my dad’s lap. He was dipping my pacifier in his coffee and then letting me taste the coffee.

That’s where it all began, and for as far back as I can remember I have started each and every morning with a cup of coffee.

I remember going to my dad’s warehouse several times as a child and drinking coffee with the men that worked there. They would see me drinking coffee and they would always say: “don’t you know that stuff will stunt your growth?” Well, if that stuff stunted my growth, can you imagine how big I would be if I hadn’t been drinking coffee?...

As leaders we need to be aware of things that will stunt our growth. I have the opportunity to coach and observe lots of leaders in a variety of contexts. Over the years I have identified several factors that will stunt a leader's growth. In fact, not only will these stunt your growth - they could completely derail you.

Growth stunter # 1: Lack of trust. Often people in leadership arrived in a position because they were highly technical individual contributors. They were the "Go To" people who could always be counted on to get things done. But the skills required of individual contributors, are not the skills that will make a successful leader. Not trusting others will keep you from letting go of things that should be delegated to others.

Which leads to

Growth stunter # 2: Inability to delegate. As leaders we must see that one of our most important tasks is the development of others. Therefore, we must see delegation as a developmental tool. However, that requires letting go and accepting the fact that the task might not be done exactly like we would have done it. But that is the price to be paid for letting people grow and develop.

Too often leaders hold on to tasks they should release. This is often due to lack of trust; but, it may also be a subtle form of work avoidance. The leader stays busy on these tasks so that they can avoid taking on other tasks that they should be attending to.

Growth stunter # 3: Insecurity. I have seen some people who are so insecure in their position that they feel threatened by others, including their subordinates. The thinking goes like this: "If they learn what I know, they might be able to replace me. So, I need to keep them in the dark so that they will not threaten my status or position."

The other side of this coin is

Growth stunter # 4: Ego-centric leading. Actually, I'm not sure its appropriate to call this leading. Too many people in formal positions are more coincerned about advancing their own agendas rather than working for the good of the organization or seeking to use their position to serve others by creating an environmnet where they can flourish and thrive. These egotistic people use their position and its inherent power bases to take care of themselves instead of building people and organizational capacity.

There are probably some more, but this is a good start. So, let me ask:

What's stunting your growth as a leader?

Jabez 2.0

"Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother named him Jabez saying, 'Because I bore him with pain.'

Now Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my border, and that Your hand might be with me, and that You would keep me from harm that it may not pain me!

And God granted him what he requested. " 1 Chronicles 4:9-10

I have prayed the Prayer of Jabez on a regular - not daily, but regular - basis for several years now. Until this year, I always wanted God to answer my prayer in terms of new consulting opportunities that would provide additional income. Additional income was a tangible blessing that we could then use to bless others - buying dinners, buying lunches, giving beyond the tithe and offering commitments we had made. And God answered those versions of my Jabez Prayer.

When this year began, I intentionally shifted the focus of my Jabez Prayer: I asked God to "enlarge my border" by expanding my sphere of influence. I asked Him to expand my border relationally.

God has extended His favor on me and answered that prayer. We have met so many new people this year, primarily through the Marriage That Lasts class and the Influence Groups at Fellowship Church.

My territory has been expanded. My sphere of influence has been expanded. And God has kept His hand upon me. He has kept me from harm and the expanded territory has not pained me.

So, I am going to keep on praying:

"Oh that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my border, and that Your hand might be with me, and that You would keep me from harm that it may not pain me!"

A New Job Description

A frequent prayer: "Lord show me the good works you have prepared beforehand for me to walk in during this season of my life."

I am not sure I fully know all of the good works He has prepared for me, but I am beginning to sense some clarity.

He has blessed me with a tremendous "margin of time" that allows me to be available to create and cultivate relationships. My "new normal" is actually God's strategic alignment of my schedule with my heart's desire to invest myself in others.


Several months ago I had a discussion with a couple of people who wanted to explore the possibility of me working with them. I left the discussion with a weird feeling. It wasn't a good fit. They wanted to build a business. I wasn't interested in that. I was interested in building people.


I had forgotten that feeling until a few weeks ago when I was re-reading yet another Gordon MacDonald book, A Resilient Life. I was particularly drawn to his discussion of one of his mentors, Vernon Grounds.

Listen to his description:


"... he was the quintessential resilient man because he always thought about his life and those around him with a big picture in mind. He has always known the center of his strength and his call. And he wasted little time out on the edges of activity where he is less competent.


... Somewhere in his earliest years it became plain to him the he was a builder of people more then anything else. People simply grew under his influence, even when he was unaware that he was exerting it.


... But even though he bore the burden of a seminary presidency for twenty-five-plus years, as I see it, he was first and foremost a builder of people.


... He understood that life was lived out of call and conviction, and his call was to build people according to God's design for them."


As I read that passage I underlined, asterisked, and marked it. The description resonated with me because I too have known people like that.

And the best way for me to thank those who helped build me, is to pay it forward and build others!


That's it!


That's my job description: A builder of people: Building people according to God's design for them.

This is the "good work that God has prepared beforehand for me to walk in" during this season of my life.

The New Normal

The nightly news has been running a series called the new normal. The series focuses on how people are coping with the economic crisis and the lack of abundance that many had grown accustomed to.

I have been reflecting on that phrase - the new normal - for a while now. As I have mentioned before, I was blessed to have have been gainfully overemployed for 25 years. I always had more than one gig going at a time. Looking back I am not sure how I managed to juggle it all - but we made it.

I now realize that one result of being gainfully overemployed is I became addicted to action - addicted to busy-ness - and found down time difficult to handle.

And now I am having to adjust to a new normal. The new normal for me is only one job. There aren't multiple roles to juggle, and right now there are no consulting projects to work on.

Without a discipline forced on me from from the outside by an overloaded schedule, I am struggling to develop and maintain a self-imposed discipline. But I am trying. So, here is the schedule of the new normal:

Teach: Saturday morning; Monday night; Tuesday night.

Mondays are devoted to grading papers and prepping for the week's classes.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are set aside for writing projects (yes, blogging counts as a writing activity).

Thursdays and Fridays are intentionally left open for relationships - developing, cultivating, mentoring, people-building.

Saturday: Teaching Power, Influence and Leadership

Sunday: Sabbath rest. This may be the most difficult day of the schedule. I am hard-wired to work, and my default behavior is to grab something to work on. The idea of "Cease striving - or Be Still - and know that I am God" collides hard with the habitual busy-ness developed over the last 25 years.

Its a new normal.

But its a good new normal.

Fuel Level is Low

I have often thought that one way to describe the seasons of our family's life is to think about the cars we drove at that time. When we were first married we had a 280Z; then we had a 280Z 2+2; then we moved through a series of sedans, and even a station wagon - a Volvo with the rear-facing seat in the very back.

From there we evolved into a series of suburbans, then we began downsizing into Jeep Cherokees as the children were no longer needing our taxi services. The cars we drive now only have room for grand-daughter's infants seats.

One of the cars we had in the earlier days had a voice warning system. The voice was an extremely annoying female voice - almost, but not quite, as annoying as the automated female voice that announced flight number boardings in the Sao Paulo airport (yes, in Brazil).

I can still hear that voice saying "Fuel Level is Low."

Our vehicles have elaborate warning signs built into the dashboard. They tell us when the engine needs to be serviced or when our fuel level is low. Usually, but not always, we pay attention to those warnings and attempt to address the issue before it becomes a crisis situation on the side of the road.

We need to develop and pay attention to the dashboard warnings in our lives as well.

One of my warning signs is my emotional state. When I am depleted, my emotions are at the surface, ready to spill over. Another sign is a deep sense of fatigue - a level of fatigue that one good night of sleep doesn't cure.

Over the years, I have learned to recognize these signs. But merely recognizing the signs isn't enough. I usually continued to keep driving (perhaps because I was driven) long after the voice had said "Fuel level is low."

A few weeks ago, Laura looked at the books on my nightstand and noticed a new one, Leading on Empty.

She said, "You needed that a year ago; you don't need it now."

She was right - as usual! - I don't need it now. But, because I survived (many times), I am acutely aware of these issues.

My primary goal for this season of my life is to invest myself in the lives of younger men and couples. I am extremely sensitive to the warning signs I see in their lives. I find myself being the voice saying "Fuel Level is Low" with the sincere desire to prevent them from experiencing a break down on the side of the road.

What are your warning signs?

When does "the voice" tell you that your fuel level is low?

The Other Books in June

Of course, The Help wasn't the only book I read in June.

In fact, June may have been one of the best reading months in a while. There were several recommnedation-worthy reads in June. The best of the June list are bolded and italicized:

The Principle of the Path, Andy Stanley

Certain Trumpets, Garry Wills

Elijah: A Man of Heroism and Humility, Charles R. Swindoll

The Help, Kathryn Stockett

Excellence in Leadership, John White

Leading on Empty, Wayne Cordeiro

Sabbath, Dan B. Allender

A Resilient Life, Gordon MacDonald

Savor This Book

I know...


Usually we think about savoring a good meal - like Justin's birthday dinner or that Father's Day feast on steroids - or maybe even an ice cold Dublin Dr. Pepper, but you must read ... and savor this book: The Help by Kathryn Stockett.


It's been a while since I was so captivated by a book. I read this one slowly, I didn't want it to end, and I was sorry when it was over.


The setting is early-sixties Mississippi and the story centers around an aspiring writer who solicits the assistance of the town's African-American maids to tell their story about what it's like working for the wealthy white families.


"Working for" is really not the best way to describe these arrangements - the Help actually ran the household and did more to raise the children than the children's parents did. The bond between the Help and the children was so special and so strong - you could feel the love they had for one another.


The characters were so well developed I felt like I knew them personally. I became so emotionally involved I wanted to punch some of those junior-league, sorority exes for their snobby, elitist attitudes. (In fact, if that describes you, you should probably lay low for a while!)


Well, enough preview... go read this book!

'Tis the Season

July has arrived and brought with it the second birthday season at our house.

Today is Justin's birthday; Tuesday is Janelle's birthday. Later this month is Lamar's birthday, and then my mother's.

We have a similar season in March each year when we celebrate Jennifer and Jordan's birthdays.

And we do celebrate ... and celebrations around here are always centered around food. That's because we have the ultimate hostess in residence - Lolly. She has the gift of hospitality on steroids!

We actually had Justin's birthday feast last night (because the maids are coming today!).

It was a feast that rivaled the Father's Day Feast: Rib-eye steaks (seasoned by Lolly to a level of perfection that the famous steak houses have yet to approach), Lolly's special "stuffed" cheese potatoes, Caesar salad with Lolly's homemade croutons, and Sister Schubert's rolls. The steaks were accompanied by the steak sauce Lolly created.

Now most people would focus on the main entree (in this case the rib-eyes) as the feature of the meal. But all of that was just the warm-up act. The real focus of the meal is the dessert. And last night we had two "Specialties of the House" - Strawberry Cake and PTA Pie.

This Sunday we will celebrate Janelle's Birthday with another feast. But, we're going to let the fine folks at Babe's do the work on Sunday.

Are you hungry yet?