What causes people to repel against the most natural thing in life – to grow and develop? What causes people to surrender the very thing that makes them uniquely human – their ability to adapt, change and invent?
I believe this article provides a compelling reason
One of the reasons so many surrender to the multiple lures of stagnation, is its familiarity. Former Executive and President of Hewlett-Packard Co. Carly Fiorina succinctly outlined the seductive danger of comfort zones in the following illustration about “querencia”.
“In bullfighting” she writes, “there is a term called querencia. The querencia is the spot in the ring to which the bull returns. Each bull has a different querencia, but as the bullfight continues, and the animal becomes more threatened, it returns more and more often to his spot. As he returns to his querencia, he becomes more predictable. And so, in the end, the matador is able to kill the bull because instead of trying something new, the bull returns to what is familiar, his comfort zone”.
Where do you or I return when we feel threatened? Where is our “querencia”? Chances are wherever that place may be is the same place that holds the greatest threat to our growth and development. Querencia’s are not built to advance us but to comfort us. They are not constructed to make us think, dream, dare and change, but they are places of retirement, familiarity and predictability. Tragically like the bull, the more predictable and comfortable we become the easier it is for the matador’s of life to kill us.
To kill every dream, dismantle every vision and terminate every aspiration we possess to become more than we are. When that happens LIFE , real LIFE as it was always intended to be lived, becomes extinct. We each need an element of chaos in our lives, an element that leaves us in anticipation of a surprise.!
July 27, 2007
Causes of stagnation
July 20, 2007
Understanding People Part 2
John Maxwell wrote these thoughts on the things every person needs to understand about people. See Part 1
Everybody Needs Somebody.
Contrary to popular belief, there are no such things as self-made men and women. Everybody needs somebody to come alongside and help. If you understand that, are willing to give to others and help them, and maintain the right motives, their lives and yours will change.
Everybody Can Be Somebody When Somebody Understands and Believes in Him or Her.
Once you understand people and believe in them, they really can become somebody. And it doesn't take much effort to help other people feel important. Little things, done deliberately at the right time, can make a big difference. When was the last time you went out of your way to make people feel special, as if they were somebody? The investment required on your part is totally overshadowed by the impact it makes on them.
Anybody Who Helps Somebody Influences a Lot of Bodies.
The final thing you need to understand about people is that when you help one person, you're really impacting a lot of other people. What you give to one person overflows into the lives of all the people that person impacts. It even impacts you because when you help others and your motives are good, you always receive more than you can ever give.
July 19, 2007
Lonely,Lonely People
Man gets 5,000 calls for YouTube postingApril 22, 2007
SOUTHBRIDGE, Mass. –Ryan Fitzgerald is unemployed, lives with his father and has a little bit of time on his hands.
So, he decided to offer his ear, to anyone who wants to call. After posting a video with his cell phone number on YouTube on Friday, the 20-year-old told The Boston Globe he has received more than 5,000 calls and text messages.
Fitzgerald said he wanted to “be there,” for anyone who needed to talk. “I never met you, but I do care,” a spiky-haired Fitzgerald said into the camera on his YouTube posting.
He planned to take and return as many calls he could, but on Monday at 5 a.m., his T-Mobile cell phone payment will begin charging him for his generosity when he is no longer eligible for free weekend minutes.
“I haven’t quite figured out what I’m going to do about it,” he said. “Come Monday, no way I’m going to just hang up on people and say, ‘I don’t have the minutes.’”
Fitzgerald, who said people consider him “easy to talk to,” was inspired by Juan Mann. YouTube video clips of Mann offering “Free Hugs” to strangers became wildly popular on the user-controlled Internet site.
“Some people’s own mothers won’t take the time to sit down and talk with them and have a conversation,” Fitzgerald said. “But some stranger on YouTube will. After six seconds, you’re not a stranger anymore, you’re a new kid I just met.”
Article from Boston.com national news.
Isn’t it amazing what just one person who cares about others can do?
What a motivator to show Christ’s love more.
Understanding People Part 1
Knowing what people need and want is the key to understanding them. And if you can understand them, you can influence them and impact their lives in a positive way. Listed are five things about understanding people:
Everybody Wants to Be Somebody.
There isn't a person in the world who doesn't have the desire to be someone, to have significance. Even the least ambitious and unassuming person wants to be regarded highly by others. Once that piece of information becomes a part of your everyday thinking, you'll gain incredible insight into why people do the things they do. And if you treat every person you meet as if he or she was the most important person in the world, you'll communicate that he or she is somebody - to you.
Nobody Cares How Much You Know Until He Knows How Much You Care.
To be an influencer, you have to love people before you try to lead them. The moment that people know that you care for and about them, the way they feel about you changes. If you want to help others and become a person of influence, keep smiling, sharing, giving, and turning the other cheek.
July 18, 2007
Identity crime
I am doing a talk on this in a few weeks-We so need to hear this
Identity crime is the crime of the new millennium
In fact world wide its the fastest growing act of Crime
7% of fraud is committed using a false name
10% is committed using a false ID
14% of fraud committed by an individual within the company
25% is made up of other
And a staggering 44% of fraud is committed through identity crime
It got me thinking how as Christians many have a mistaken identity ,this comes from two sources
Firstly how we see Christ and secondly how we believe Christ sees us
I believe the two greatest discoveries you can ever make in life is to discover your condition before the cross and discover your position through the cross
People who really know who they are, both as a person and as a Believer, live their lives to the full and make the greatest impact on others
Jesus asked his own disciples in Matthew 16:15: ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’
What are your thoughts?
July 13, 2007
Prayer
One person has said the
The Self-sufficient do not pray; they merely talk to themselves
The self-satisfied will not pray;they have no knowledge of their need
The self righteous cannot pray;they have no basis on which to come to God
July 10, 2007
Prayer and Fasting
Fasting, prayers turn son’s life around by John McNeil
Andrew Shepherd, children’s pastor at Crossway Baptist Church in Melbourne, said that although his son, Luke, had been brought up in a Christian home, he had gone away from God, and become immersed in the death metal music culture. Luke’s life was causing torment in the family, to the point where he had to ask him to leave unless he brought his life into line within the family home.
In the middle of last year, Mr Shepherd was challenged about fasting after reading a book by Jensen Franklin. “At that time, Luke, aged 18, was as backslidden as you could be. It was causing incredible grief in the family. So we decided on a fast for 40 days. But I was so desperate for a breakthrough in my son’s life that I decided to go for 45 days,” he said.Luke – who attended the conference with his father – said he had decided when he hit high school he was going to live for himself. “I got into death metal music, which is satanic.
It was more than music to me – it became my life. My life turned into hatred of anything to do with the Church, everything I had grown up believing. I loved mocking my parents and the things of God.” Luke said that one Friday night last September, he went as usual to a friend’s place to party. While there, he started having visions, and an encounter with God. “God began to soften my heart, and speak to me about everything I was doing.” At 2am he called his father to come to pick him up. From that time, he had a total turnaround and his life has been changed.
“The next day in everything I did I began living for God. I burned all my music, all my clothes, all that had to do with my old life. I ran into a church to rededicate my life. I am now doing an internship at Planetshakers Church in Melbourne.” Mr Shepherd told the conference that leading up to that night nothing appeared to have changed. A week before it was as bad as it had ever been. The day after the encounter, everything had undergone a radical change. People did not recognise him.
“If last March you had told me that I would be bringing my son to this conference, two months into a remarkable internship, spending two hours a day reading his Bible, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
He reminded the leaders of a saying by John Wesley, that God is limited by only two things: unbelief and a lack of prayer.
As he considered this, he went on another 40-day fast, and read four books on prayer. He noticed a common thread in the life of every person who shifted the world – they all had a lifestyle of extraordinary prayer. “I felt God challenge me to pray a couple of hours a day for a year. He was calling for a radical shift in lifestyle around him.“Our prayer life is the only thing that will change things. God is looking for people who will take on the dare of being extraordinary.”
Wow great story, I am so challenged
What could God do through my life if I applied the principles in this real life story?
What could he do in your life ? "
Prayer is not overcoming Gods reluctance but laying hold of his highest willingness"
July 6, 2007
Do You Have Hidden Talents
Do You Have Hidden Talents?
Watch this inspiring video.
It’s an awesome demonstration of authenticity and passion. It will give you goosebumps.
Think about what talents you have inside you that you may not be sharing.
You may not be able to do what this man does, but you have something unique, something special—
There are many good people, nice people with potential service for God. The only thing is they never move from potential to productive..
In the parable of the talents Matthew 25 14-30
The 3rd servant in the parable is the same way. He looks at the master and says I did not do anything. I hid the one talent and never put it to use, never allowed you to gain any glory.He had the talent, he had the blessing of the master, he had the opportunity, he had the potential but never moved over to productive.
To many lack the great passion for God to become a Productive servant for God.
A man once went in search for God. He went o a wise old saga and ask if he could help him find God. The Old man told the young man to follow him. The old man led him down to a river and out until hey were neck deep. The old man turned grabbed the young man and held his head under the water. The young man twisted turned and thrashed about finally the old man let go of the young man and said, “ when you have the passion to find God as you did to find air then you will find Him.
Never under estimate passion guys. They say effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know
What is it that excites you; that causes your heart to pound; your blood to race; your spirit to soar?-
Nothing will move you from potential to productive until you are moved from passive to passionate·
Jeremiah’s Passion
Jeremiah 20:9 Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.·
Nehemiah’s Passion
Nehemiah 6:3 And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?
Paul’s Passion
Philippians 3:10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death
I had this sudden thought -Our potential is God’s gift to us. What we do with it is our gift to Him.
Zig Ziglar has said, “You are the only person on earth who can use your ability.” Are you investing what you’ve been given, regardless of how much it is? Or, have you buried your blessing and kept it hidden from others?
Get your Complaint on ,Get your passion going and watch yourself soar
What is your Complaint?
What is your Complaint?
What’s your problem? What’s your issue? What can’t you stand? What won’t you put up with?
What do you have an attitude about? What bothers you about the church? What keeps you awake at night?
What drives you crazy and gets you up on your ‘soap box’ thumping the table in protest?
Here you will find your life’s cause and calling. Your irritation is your ministry. What you can’t stand is what you were put here to stand up for.
Celebrity TV chef called Jamie Oliver recently took on the Government about the poor nutritional quality of school meals. His complaint was that our children are being fed junk food at the most formative time of their physical and intellectual development. His outrage exposed the disgrace on national TV and the public protest he provoked resulted in a change in the level of government funding for school meals in a matter of weeks.
Many before him had expressed a concern about school meals, but a concern is not a complaint. A complaint fuels a vision to bring change and the consistent voice it becomes makes real change possible.
When people have no complaint they become compliant; accept the status quo, and sign up to long established traditions. They do what they do because everyone else does; together they comply because compliance is comfortable and comfort has never been the mother of complaint passion holds that birth right!
People have complaints about training, music, kids church, youth, security, visitor experience, tidiness, catering and hospitality, media, marriage, money management, transport, the poor, the homeless, prostitution, drug addiction, solvent abuse, housing, care of the elderly, those in prison – and so on.
The people leading these ministries are doing so because they have a ‘bee in their bonnet’ about it. Their vision of what they can do is coming from their complaint about what was once done poorly or, worse than that, never done at all.
If something bothers you, if you feel something should be done, someone should say something, someone should stand up and stand out, then don’t tell your leaders. You’re noticing it for a reason, you feel strongly about it for a reason.
And the reason is, it’s your complaint, which is the beginning of your vision.
In the same place that you find your life’s complaint you will find your life’s call.
So lets not whinge and complain about the things that we tolerate but be someone with a genuine complaint, willing to become a force for change
July 4, 2007
Your complaint fuels your vision
I asked a question on the last post and want to explore this over the next few blogs .
How do we take hold of a cause to give our life to ?.Or perhaps better put how does the cause take hold of us ?
This is taken from Pastor Paul Scanlons book "Crossing Over".
Your complaint fuels your vision
Write down the vision and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.'Habakkuk2:2
This is probably one of the best known and most quoted verses in the Bible on the subject of vision. However, what is usually less known is the context within which it was spoken. These words from God to Habakkuk were part of a reply to some specific issues Habakkuk had been asking God about. Chapter one of the book records these. Basically they consist of two complaints which had become the focus of Habakkuk’s anger and frustration. His complaints were about injustice, lawlessness, the oppression of the poor and how the wicked seemed to be getting away with murder - often literally.
Habakkuk had a table thumping, finger wagging, voice raising complaint that he would not leave alone until he heard from God. He was in good company. His contemporary, Jeremiah had a similar complaint as did Nehemiah, Moses and Gideon. More recent history records that Abraham Lincoln had a complaint about slavery, Martin Luther King had a complaint about racism and human rights, Nelson Mandela had a complaint about apartheid and Mother Theresa a complaint about hunger and poverty – the list goes on. Each was so motivated by their complaint that they gave their lives to doing something about it, and this became their vision.
The principle I am therefore establishing is this: At the core of every visionary leader’s life is a deep dissatisfaction with how things are; at the root of every history maker’s calling is a complaint. That complaint is their cause, it is their fuel, drive and motivation to press through and accomplish their dream, however tough it gets along the way.
I want you to understand this important principle because in Christian teaching and preaching, our emphasis is usually on the vision, not the complaint it sprang from. We study vision, are keen to ask what a person’s vision is and work hard to ‘communicate the vision’ of our church, ministry or organisation.
However, unless that vision springs from a fundamental dissatisfaction with how things are, it lacks a cause. And without a cause, vision lacks a ‘Why?’ It lacks a reason.
People need a reason for being asked to sacrifice for the vision you are presenting, and that reason must be real, known and felt by all involved. They must feel the strength of the complaint which fuels the vision. And here lies the point of my title for this article: The vision you have will perish and die unless you stay in vital touch with the deep complaint that first motivated you to develop a vision of a better future and then go and do something about it.
Without a vision your people will perish
Without a complaint your vision will perish.
Be interested in your comments
What fuels your vision?
What steps do you take to keep you commited to your vision?
In looking back ,has the fulfilment of the vision grown in momentum or is there a continual pattern of stopping and starting ?
Next time -How do we know what our complaint is ,How is this found ,What is my complaint ?
Jeremy