Romans 15 Life Coaching - LIFE Coach Yost

Unapologetic

2012-01-03T17:49:00.000-05:00

Sometimes in your Christian walk you are going to do things or say things that people, even your Christian brethren, don't understand, misinterpret, or judge your motives because of where their heart is at... but when your heart's in the right place and God is at the center of it, He will make something glorious from it, no matter how sloppily you got there. I just love that about God. That's all.

GIVING in to Addiction

2011-12-30T15:29:00.001-05:00

Accordingto an article in Psychology Today by Stephen Mason, Ph.D., only 10 – 15% of thepopulation have an “addictive personality” disorder resulting in out-of-controlhabits without the simple judgment of knowing when to stop. For the other 85% -90% of the population who do not have addictive personality disorder, they canhave one drink without having 10. They can play one or two hands of black jackat a casino and (weather they are up or down) walk away. They can come homefrom the hospital and take the two Vicodin per day as prescribed and not getaddicted to prescription pain killers.

I’venever thought of myself as having an addictive personality. I have a fairamount of self-discipline so it’s not that hard for me to break a habit (orjust not start one) if I put my mind to it. But sometimes there are compulsionsyou aren’t terribly motivated to “put your mind to” to stop because it makesyou feel good to do it. If you couldstop and you choose not to, is thataddiction?

Anexample might be people who are addicted to exercise (I wish this were myproblem). Often a companion symptom of Anorexia, people can get addicted toworking out because of the endorphin rush they get and with addictivepersonality, they just want more and more of that endorphin infusion, so theyexercise to excess (and even good things, in excess, can be harmful).

Thereis one area in my life where I can relate to the addictive personalityexperience, getting excessive pleasure out of that endorphin rush of doingsomething over and over again that makes you feel good and 85% of the population just doesn’t get it andmay never experience the pleasure the way you do…

Accordingto an article in the NY Sun, universities and independent research groups havestudied the psychology of GIVING and concluded that people who give (time,money, items, blood) are 3 times more likely to consider their lives “veryhappy” as compared to those who do not give as a part of their lifestyle.

“A number ofstudies have researched exactly why charity leads to happiness. The surprisingconclusion is that giving affects our brain chemistry. For example, people whogive often report feelings of euphoria, which psychologists have referred to asthe "Helper's High." They believe that charitable activity inducesendorphins that produce a very mild version of the sensations people get fromdrugs like morphine and heroin.”

Ihave to admit, by those descriptions, I qualify. I get an endorphin high fromgiving (volunteering) my time to others and adrenaline rush from seeing thatbi-weekly contribution come out of my bank account to Fair Oaks Church which supportsthe cause of Christ and the work of the Kingdom of God. Perhaps it’s the naturalcompetitive nature if the “NT” temperament, but I really do get a jolt out ofgetting my year-end contribution statements and seeing that I gave more thisyear than last year. It’s a goal – a competition with myself – to find newefficiencies (budget and schedule) that enable me to give more.

Inthat context, you’ll have to mark me in the 10-15% group – addicted to giving.

There’sanother percentage you often hear related to charitable giving – it’s the 80/20rule… that 20% of the people are doing 80% of the total giving. I don’t knowthat to be specifically true at Fair Oaks Church, but I’d be willing to bet it’sclose… and it’s heartbreaking.

Thereso much more we could be doing for the Kingdom of God, if more people weregiving. How many more of the lost could we reach for the cause of Christ? Howabout Biblical obedience? How about God’s promise and the blessing that comesfrom putting Him first in your finances? And I’m not just talking about theendorphin blessing of feeling good about what you’re doing, but a real,tangible, measurable blessing from trusting God with your money.

Everyso often Pastor Stokes will put out his Malachi 3:10-12 challenge - that if youcommit to faithfully tithe 10% of your gross income to Fair Oaks Church for oneyear and you do not see God’s tangible blessing in your life, Fair Oaks Church willwrite you a check back to refund that tithe. As someone who has been faithfultithing for years, I can honestly say that there is not one time where I feltthat 10% would have been better in my hands than in God’s. My faithfulnessreturned to me 10 fold and I give God all the glory. God can do more with 10%than you can do with the remaining 90% - guaranteed.

Notready for that big of a leap of faith? How about something more relevant to thecalendar… many people will celebrate the New Year with a bottle of Champagne.Why not take that same amount of money that you might have spent on that bubblyand consider making a one-time gift to Fair Oaks Church for the same amount? Ifresearch proves to be true, you could get that same warm endorphin rush fromGIVING that you might get from the glass of champagne. I can’t offer you arefund policy, but I can offer you a nice convenient way to give online byCLICKING HERE and, of course, if you do it before midnight on New Year’s Eve,you could claim it as a deduction on your 2011 taxes.

Just asyou excel in everything-- in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in completeearnestness and in your love for us-- see that you also excel in this grace ofgiving. - 2 Cor8:7

Faster than the Speed of Growing Up

2011-12-28T00:18:00.002-05:00

Nothingwill point out how fast time is flying than the annual influx of photo Christmascards from family and friends. I confess that I do love photo Christmas cardsand tend to keep them up on the fridge year round. This makes it even moreobvious how quickly everyone’s kids are growing up when I take down last year’scards to put up this year’s cards.

Asa young parent, I remember it feeling like my baby went from nursing to ricecereal and from crawling to cruising at the speed of light. But nothing made mybaby grow up faster in the shortest period of time than bringing home my secondbaby. When I left for the hospital to deliver his brother, he was my baby. WhenI came home after spending 3 days away with my new 5 ½ pounder, my 21-month-oldwas a GIANT and he just kept getting bigger and bigger, faster and faster eachyear after that.

Adecade and a half has passed since my baby started “growing up” at anexponentially rapid pace and I’ll tell you (parents of young ones) you thinktime’s flying now? Just wait until they’re teenagers! From middle school todriving was a blink of an eye and it really gives you perspective on theinsignificance of this life against the magnitude of eternity.

Afew months ago, Pastor Christian Gaffney reflected on this very phenomenon ofmy oldest son’s growing up in a three-part series of blog posts called “Tears of Maturity.” You see, Pastor Christian has seen quite a bit of Derek’s “growingup” too as he’s been with him in youth group for the past four and a halfyears. But Pastor Christian is more than just Derek’s youth group preacher, he’sbeen a mentor (formally and informally) and brother in Christ, a trusted adviser, a fierce debate opponent and most of all, a model of what Derek wouldlike to be someday: a youth Pastor.

InPastor Christian’s blog series, he talks about three of the times that hewitnessed Derek cry. As Derek matured, those tears were shed for very differentreasons that revealed his personal and spiritual growth. The series was funny,disturbing (for mom) and moving – if you haven’t read them, I encourage you to check them out.

Oneof the things that revealed Derek’s greatest maturity to me was when PastorChristian announced he would be leaving Virginia to launch a church-plant inFlorida called Exponential Church. For many years (perhaps before Christianrealized it himself) I knew that God had something bigger planned for Christianthan leading our youth group. When the Dowdy family left Virginia to plant a church in Canada, I began planting seeds with Derek about Christian notalways being his youth pastor at Fair Oaks Church. This conversation was alwaysmet with great resistance if not obstinance. No one could be our youth pastor but Christian, he’d never leave.When Derek first felt the call to be a youth pastor himself, it almostdepressed him because he could imagine being a youth pastor anywhere but Fair Oaks Church and Fair Oaks already had a youth pastor who would never leave.

Alwaysplanting seeds, I would make suggestions like… what if Pastor Christian were tobe called to lead a church of his own, that could enable someone like Derek (ifhe were old enough at the time) to apply for that job OR if Pastor Christianwere a Senior Pastor of his own church, perhaps Christian would have a job forhim as his youth pastor. All of these notions were firmly rejected becauseDerek just could not bear the idea Christian would not always be the youthpastor at Fair Oaks Church.

Then,this Spring, when the church plant in Florida was announced, I was very concernedabout how Derek would react. Much to my utter shock, he responded withmaturity, support and enthusiasm for God’s new calling for Christian. I must sayI was floored and I saw my boy through new eyes that day - saw him for the manof God with spiritual maturity that he was becoming right before my eyes.

I’llblink again and he’ll be in college, getting married, being ordained, havingchildren, serving the Lord through ministry, celebrating his 25^thyear as a pastor and wondering how time could have flown by so fast and stillmarveling at how this little boy of mine could have become this wise gray-hairedgrown-up in what seemed like the speed of light – the speed of growing up.

Mentoring and Modeling a Money Mentality

2011-12-26T23:24:00.002-05:00

We’vealways talked openly with our kids about money – specifically about how to beBiblically responsible with money. From earning it and spending it to tithingit and saving it, we have not just told our kids what they need to do but wehave made sure we have modeled that behavior in everything we do.

Earning it – our kidswitnessed their dad walk away from a job (with nothing else in the pipeline)because the employer’s practices violated the law and he refused to smile andgo along with it. A paycheck is nevermore important that your integrity. That decision was followed by a 2 ½ yearstint of unemployment where several opportunities were passed on because thecompanies had questionable histories or practices and the message wasreinforced with the kids that moneydoesn’t trump your morals. We prayed as a family for God’s wisdom,direction and protection and he had out back on all accounts. The kids sawthis.

Spending it – Much like thestock market fluctuations, our “disposal” income has had its ups and downs overthe years. Especially down when we were down to one income, but fortunately, wehad already established responsible spending habits that helped the kids adjustquickly when we didn’t have ability to buy like we used to. Just because you can spend it, doesn’t mean you shouldspend it. This is a mantra the kids heard in good times and in bad from us.Especially when the 7-year-old neighbor kid (whose parents’ income was afraction of ours) got the newest $700 gaming system for Christmas and our kidsare opening clothes we bought at the thrift store or consignment shop and $20toys from Wal-Mart. Our kids saw their parents do without things we really wanted,and could afford, but knew that indulgingour worldly desires would not be honoring God with our money so theylearned this lesson by example, not just enforcement.

Saving it – I havealways been a saver, but it was important for my kids to not just practice it butsee the importance as well. In first grade the kids started earning an allowancethey were taught to put aside 10% for Tithing, 10% for Savings and 10% fortaxes. Proverbs 21:20 says “The wise mansaves for the future but the foolish man spends whatever he gets” so I wantedthe kids to have a concept of what “saving for the future” meant. We would set savings goals that had purpose. Forthe kids, saving might be for a new video game or toy that they wanted; for momand dad, saving might be for retirement, a down payment on a house… or a 2 ½ yeargap in employment during the country’s biggest recession since the 1930’s. Butsaving money doesn’t just protect you on rainy days, but also teaches somethingmost of our current generation has never been required to learn – delayed gratification.

Tithing it – If you’veread much of my blog, you know that tithing is a passionate topic for me and it’sa passion that we’ve passed on to the kids. Whether it’s allowance, found moneyon the street or their first real jobs this summer, the first thing my kids do iscalculate the 10% that goes to thechurch. But true giving is more than just giving 10% - Deuteronomy 16:17says “Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORDyour God which He has given you.” So ifGod has blessed you with more, you should be giving more. It does not equally mean, however, if you haveless, you should be giving less. Even when my family was facing financialhardship, we continued to faithfully tithe on what we did have and God providedfor us in ways we could not imagine possible. This example taught our kids morethan we could have ever imagined without having to preach a word about it.

Thisbrings me to my youngest son. This summer, he had his first real job and,although it was just minimum wage, it was a lot more than his allowance. Taxestook care of themselves, but with each paycheck, he would calculate his tithe(and always generously round up) and then put the majority of his check (like80% of the net) in his saving account. He didn’t need it for anything specific,so he was going to save it. (Good boy!) It feels great, as a parent, to knowthat the lessons you preach and the life you model is being absorbed, betteryet, reflected in your child’s choices, but that’s not even the best part…

Itwasn’t long before my son decided he wanted to use this savings to support Exponential Church, the church plant in Port St. Lucy led by Pastor Christian Gaffney (I knowhow he felt, I wanted to give to Expo Church as soon as I heard about it too)but, to paraphrase Pastor Christian, since Fair Oaks Church is not going tohave a “special fund” for Expo Church, the best way to support the churchplant, it to support Fair Oaks Church.

Inthese last few weeks of the year Fair Oaks Church has been making a plea to membersfor a year-end gift as the church is more than $100k short in their annualbudget. This shortfall is a real burden on church staff and it has placed aspecial burden on my son’s heart so he reminded me of his savings. He asked tokeep just a minimum amount in there to keep the account open and to give therest to Fair Oaks Church to help them meet budget. Wow! I can’t even put intowords how it makes me feel that this kid (who only opened two boxes from hisparents on Christmas Day) wants to give his life saving to the church.

So,if my son were writing here, I think he’d want to ask, has his burden hasbecome your burden? No matter what you history with earning or spending orsaving or tithing, there’s nothing stopping you from taking this moment, rightnow, to make a decision for a year-end gift. Maybe for you, it’s a small amount. Maybeyou’re capable of giving a large amount. Either way, by supporting thischurch, you are supporting the cause of Christ and the work of the Kingdom ofGod.

Click here to make a one-time year-end gift to Fair Oaks Church.

PTSD the INTJ way

2011-12-22T09:14:00.000-05:00

I became familiar with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder when I was a teenager. After my parents divorced, my mother fell in love with a man who would fill the role of step-dad in my life and it was through his experiences in Vietnam that I saw firsthand the long term effects of traumatic events on the human psyche.

The U.S. National Library of Medicine defines it like this:

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a type of anxiety disorder. It can occur after you've seen or experienced a traumatic event that involved the threat of injury or death.

Causes, incidence, and risk factors PTSD can occur at any age. It can follow a natural disaster such as a flood or fire, or events such as assault, domestic abuse, a prison stay, rape, terrorism and war.... Veterans returning home from a war often have PTSD.

There are more unknowns about PTSD than there are knowns: why two people could experience the same traumatic event and only one develops the PTSD symptoms; whether genetics, psychology or social conditions play a role - there are no "medical" tests for PTSD. It's entirely behavioral - having an abnormal response to a seemingly normal environment or event.

The effects of PTSD are nonetheless very real - it changes the body's response to stress. It physically alters the stress hormones and chemicals that carry information between the nerves.

The symptoms of PTSD tend to fall into three main categories (USNLM):

1. "Reliving" the event, which disturbs day-to-day activity (flashbacks, nightmares, strong uncomfortable reactions to situations that remind you of the event)

2. Avoidance (emotional "numbing", feeling detached, memory loss about the trauma, lack of interest in normal activities, moodlessness, avoiding things that remind you of the event, feeling like you have no future)

3. Arousal (difficulty concentrating, startling easily, having an exaggerated response to things that startle you, hypervigilance, irritability, outbursts of anger or emotion, trouble falling or staying asleep)

For my step-dad, his PTSD experience would have been of the "Reliving" variety. He had flashbacks and nightmares... I distinctly remember one night that he must have been sleep walking and talking but I didn't realize that right away. It was the middle of the night and I'd gone into the kitchen for something to drink. When I opened the refrigerator door, the light revealed that he was standing there. I was startled, but he shushed me and motioned for me to get down. I remember he said a handful of things that didn't make sense (and not all of them were in English) and then I caught on that he was sleep walking and reliving something from one of his 7 tours in Vietnam (Air Force, EOD). I called his name and, although I don't think it woke him up, he turned, looked me dead in the eye and said, "and you are not going to see that new Jane Fonda movie!" and went back to bed.

Flash-forward 11 years and I had a new context for PTSD when I became the victim of a violent crime. As an INTJ, my reaction to the event could have been described with the PTSD symptoms listed under the "Avoidance" variety… or was that just an INTJ being and INTJ? To this day, I don't talk about it (and no, I won't be writing about it here) I have so effectively disconnected from it that when I stumbled upon some old court documents and news articles a few months ago, it was like I was reading about a stranger - it was completely foreign to me. I had no emotional reaction to it (then or now). No anger, no sadness, no breakdown, no resentment, no vengeance - a sense of protectiveness, yes, but not vengeance. I would definitely use the word hypervigilance (from "Arousal" PTSD symptoms) to describe how protective I became of my boys to ensure no further harm would come to our family. I definitely looked over my shoulder a lot in the beginning, even post-conviction, sure I'd see that face in the crowd, but even that gave way to either logic (that I can't be harmed by someone behind bars) or INTJ-disconnectedness and I just didn't think about it anymore.

Two years ago this month, I was diagnosed with cervical cancer (that could qualify as something traumatic, right?) and in classic INTJ style, I went with disconnectedness (and humor, of course). So was that "Avoidance" PTSD or is that just my standard coping mechanism as an INTJ? Did God wire me as an INTJ knowing that my life would have traumatic experiences and that my gift/flaw of INTJ disconnectedness would enable me to cope most effectively? I was cancer-free within 40 days so I hardly had time to process it... or did I just process it in an INTJ way?

So here's the more interesting, and perhaps more revealing, puzzle piece of Avoidance PTSD or INTJ disconnectedness...

Last week, I went for my annual checkup and cancer screenings and my doctor thought she felt a lump. "I doubt it's anything, but if it is, your mammogram will catch it. I wouldn't worry." Okay, I'll roll with that - don't worry. Well, within 24 hours of my mammogram, I'm getting the urgent call from radiology that I need to make an appointment right away with this specialist to have a more intensive mammogram and ultrasound where the doctor will interpret it while I wait so we can immediately address next steps. Yeah, I'd gotten that kind of call before and I definitely had a flashback.

What happened next (and for the next 24 hours) would definitely fit the description of "Arousal" PTSD which would not be characteristic of an INTJ. Although in typical INTJ fashion, I'm sure no one around me knew it, but there were at least 10 to 15 occasions where I nearly burst into tears in the middle of any of the six business meetings I had that day. It was everything I could do to keep my emotions in check and I absolutely felt like I was reliving the emotions (not actually experienced) of two years ago. Then, I disconnected from an actual diagnosis, whereas here, we're just talking about more tests - yet I was losing it (by INTJ standards). By the end of that 24 hours, my INTJ kicked in to get me through the next three days before the specialist could see me and as it turned out, my regular doctor was right. It was nothing. PRAISE GOD!

I read an article this week (the catalyst for me writing about this) that was talking about how multiple traumatic events increase the likelihood that someone will develop PTSD symptoms. So maybe that's explains my previous reactions and most recent reaction. INTJ coping mechanism, INTJ coping mechanism, Arousal PTSD.... maybe. Technically, with PTSD the symptoms are present for at least 30 days. When similar symptoms are experienced for a shorter period, it's characterized as ASD or Acute Stress Disorder. My "INTJ-ness" is a life-long condition so definitely more than 30 days, but 24-hour-freak-out over my additional tests, more like ASD.

One other related article caught my attention this week that really got my blood boiling about the US Preventative Services Taskforce issuing new guidelines that women should begin annual mammogram screenings at the age of 50, rather than the previous recommendations of beginning at age 40, to reduce the number of false positives that are reported. WHAT?!??!?! After we get past the mathematical "Duh" factor, how about this... instead of having kids going to the dentist at 3 years old, we'll push that recommendation 10 years and have them start seeing the dentist at 13 years old to reduce the number of cavities on baby teeth reported each year. Heck, I think we could cure diabetes all together if we just stopped testing for it. Seems logical right?

Now the argument for needing to reduce the number of false positives is the emotional trauma that women experience as a result of the false positive, balanced against the statistical probability of a woman under 40 having an accurate positive. Seriously? We are still talking about hundreds of thousands of women under the age of 50 whose breast cancer was caught by a mammogram and live today because it was. As freaked out as I was, I don't think it's worth those women's lives just so I don't have to have a little anxiety attack over a false positive. Wow. How incredibly selfish would you have to be to think that's the right course. “Hey, You few hundred thousand women there, you can die from undiagnosed cancer so I don't have to feel anxious for a few days.” That seems fair.

Perhaps I'm devaluing and minimizing the true level of emotional damage that most women would experience with a false positive - that would be very INTJ of me - but seriously, I just can't wrap my head around that one. Despite the recommendations, ladies over 40, get your mammogram!

Passion

2011-12-17T07:00:00.000-05:00

Over the past 3 weeks, my “passion” has beena topic of discussion by unrelated people or groups in my life. It’s like aTwitter #trendingtopic or something. Under normal circumstances people callingyou passionate would be a good thing, right? I would have loved to take it allas a compliment but because the first remark had an undertone of negativity, itmade me hypercritical of the ones that followed even though they were likelymeant as a compliment.

How could being passionate be a bad thing?Well, okay, if it’s misguided or misdirected that would be bad (I’m sure Hitlerwas considered passionate), but that’s not what we were talking about. I was planningto roll out an upgraded benefit for staff that would be better than what theyhave and it would be cheaper because the employer is kicking in a significantamount of money over the other benefits. A no-brainer, right? The kicker wasthat the employees have to elect it. They can stick with what they have ifthey’d like – most people don’t like change and it was a bit more complex - butI wanted to show them the real value so they could make an informed decisionand save themselves some money if it was the right plan for them.

As I prepared to hold three meetings withgroups of staff to explain this new and improved benefit, I walked through itwith our CEO and some colleagues. When all was said and done, everyone agreedit was a great value, but the comment was made that I may want to have one ofmy staff give the presentations because I’m too passionate about it. I musthave had a confused look on my face because the clarifying comment came next“Lauren, you could sell ice cubes to Eskimos.”

Okay, I get that you want people to choose itbecause they were well informed rather than persuaded, but I know thedifference. I really believed that I was being thoroughly informative …passionately committed to providing them cost effective options that haveadvantages over the existing alternatives… not persuading or “selling.”

A couple of days later I was at churchtalking with someone about the Life Coaching ministry and they said, “it soclear how passionate you are about helping people.” Now that’s a good thing,right? I know it was meant as a compliment yet on the inside I cringed a bit,still stinging from the dig at work. There were three or four other instancesthat week where I was talking about something – work, church, life coaching,MBTI, making peanut butter fudge, something – and a comment was made about mypassion.

Yes, I’m passionate about the things I do. I’m just not one of thosepeople who could plod along doing something day in and day out that I didn’tcare about. I’m just not wired that way. If you aren’t passionate about it, whyare you doing it? Maybe it’s my INTJ personality, but for me, if I can’t dosomething with excellence, give it my all, I really see no point in doing it.So if that makes me seem oddly passionate about all the diverse things I do, sobe it. Sure there are all things we have to do that not too many are going toget passionate about – laundry, getting an oil change – but for the things inlife that are important, don’t be lukewarm about them (Revelation 3:15-17). Be hot, be cold,be invested, be passionate.

Gardening for God

2011-12-16T12:14:00.000-05:00

My mother has this amazing in-door/out-door gardenthat’s almost tour-worthy. It looks like one big seamless botanical design that’sjust slightly interrupted by the mesh that separates the screened-in porch andthe backyard. She puts a lot of work into nurturing and refreshing that gardenand it gives her great pleasure and a sense of accomplishment to do it – it’s apassion.

I’m afraid her green thumb skipped ageneration with me. I never found any enjoyment in planting trees and flowers –even my bridal bouquet was silk and linen – but planting churches… that’ssomething I could get passionate about.

I’ve been crossing paths with church plantingsince I was a kid. My parents were instrumental in a church plant that met in aschool gym for a while and then eventually bought land and build a church buildingthat my father actually designed and drafted the blueprints for. Later, justafter my husband and I got married we had the opportunity to be a part ofanother church plant in the CMA church.

My husband had grown up in (and introduced meto) the Christian Missionary Alliance (CMA) church when we were dating. The CMAhas been focused on fulfilling the Great Commission through church plantingsince the 1880s and it was a core value that immediately resonated with me.

Flash-forward to January 10, 2009 and ourchurch (Fair Oaks Church) held a mini-conference called “PIVOT” where the LOUDON PURPOSE vision was launched and it was announced that Fair Oaks Churchwould be planting a church in Toronto, Canada with plans to plant 9 more as apart of a “decavision.”

Church-planting! How exciting! Since church-plantingwas already something in our spiritual DNA, when my husband and I heard FairOaks Church was going to be planting a churches we totally “got it” and knewthat at some point over the course of the 10 churches to be planted we would becalled to be a part of it in one way or another.

Yes, church planting can be bitter-sweet whenfamilies who are an integral part of church’s ministries leave the home church,but God’s call to be the seeds of a church-planting is awesome – awesome forthe families God has called, awesome for Fair Oaks Church, awesome for theGreat Commission and awesome for the kingdom of God!

If people within a church have never beenexposed to the church-planting model, there’s an unfortunate opportunity formisunderstandings or misinterpreting the church’s expansion of its reach aspeople “leaving” their home church. I’m sure there was a small element of thatwhen it was announced, it would be natural. But this is a God-led Fair Oaks Churchinitiative that everyone should be supporting – spiritually, logistically,financially and relationally. These special families with this important callare not really leaving – not spiritually, just physically. It’s an opportunityto pull together, not pull away.

The CMA website has a great articleidentifying the biblical perspective of church planting. In a look at the Actsof the Apostles from the perspective of the multiplying church, here are the TenBehaviors of Church-Multipliers:

1.   Wait for the Holy Spirit’s Power - Acts 1:4,1:14, 15, 16-26 & 2:1, 19:13-16 - Don’t miss the activity surrounding theword WAIT. WAIT did not, and does not mean be idle!
2.   T rust God to Provide - Acts 1:8-8:1, 16:6,19:10, 5:1-11 - Today more than ever we need to hear from God and receive Hisdirection.
3.   Anticipate Victories Emerging from God’sControl - Acts 8:1-8, 12:1-19 - Multiplication attracts opposition and Godleverages all of this for His purposes.
4.   Expect and Discern Divine Appointments - Acts5:16-39, 8:26-40 - The church multiplier properly aligned with God is nowconfident to observe and go with what God is doing.
5.   Observe and Join what God is Doing - Acts9:1-31, 17:16-17 - The best multipliers don’t get so lost in activity that theymiss the circumstance. They have good timing. They are moving.
6.   Stand Strong Even in the Face of Opposition -Acts 5:40-6:1, 7:59-60 - Church multipliers are more influenced by the eternalthan preoccupied by the temporal.
7.   Praise First - In and Out of Adversity - Acts3:6-10, 16:22-30 - Church multipliers recognize that praise is potent. Godreceives it and deserves it. He lives in this praise! He multiplies in theenvironment of praise.
8.   Build Bridges to the People - Acts 10:1-29,11:18 - Being immovably certain of how we should minister will blind us toincredible opportunities.
9.   Empower and Release Your Best People - Acts6:5-7:60, Acts 13:1-3, Acts 13:5 - Multiplying churches are the residual ofmultiplying leaders.
10. Relentlessly Focus on Bringing People toChrist and His Kingdom - Acts 20:24 - This is why we multiply leaders. This iswhy we multiply churches. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in allJudea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. – Jesus

Although my family has not felt God’s call tobe a part of these first two church plants by moving with the teams, we haveabsolutely been called to support those church plants in different ways andstand ready to answer God’s call whenever it comes and for whatever He wants usto do. I may not have my mother’s green thumb with trees and flowers, but if Iwere Gardening for God by helping to plant a church, I’m certain each seedwould sprout and flourish for His glory.

Exponentially ENFP

2011-12-15T13:00:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week I had the honor andpleasure of conducting a special MBTI workshop for the Exponential Church team.Their dynamic leader and Senior Pastor-to-be, Christian Gaffney and his wifeStephanie went through my MBTI workshop at Fair Oaks Church back in August andthought it would be a great tool for this newly forming church planting team tohave as they get to learn each other’s communication and work styles.

MBTI and personality “Type” awareness can be ofgreat value in understanding team dynamics, why we and others behave a certainway, give us a greater appreciation for each other’s differences and helps usleverage those differences as an advantage rather than causing friction when wedon’t understand them.

It’s always fun for me to work with intactteams and to do a “group” MBTI analysis based on what this team’s function is.The theory behind group-typing is that when an intact work group are working togetheron something, they tend to take on the characteristics of their group type, despitewhat their individual types are – they adapt to the group dynamic and cultureand tend to gain energy, collect information, make decisions and interact with theworld (when acting as a group) in a way that reflects the group type ratherthan their own.

Determining the group type is rather simple.It’s just a matter of adding up the number of Es or Is, Ss or Ns, etc. andcalculating which preferences have higher representation. It’s alwaysfascinating to me when I have a group that, when all is added up, they end upwith a group type that not one individual in that group actually has that type,but yet when they are together, they take on those characteristics.

In 2008, I did a group MBTI for a Board ofDirectors for a national association and, although not one of the individualshas this particular combination of preferences, the group type was an ENTJ.Now, for Board of Directors, you couldn’t have asked for or manufactured abetter group type. ENTJs are known as “Life’s Natural Leaders.” And since theBoard had been through a lot of transition recently and many of the memberswere new, it was very empowering and comforting for them to feel like they hasa leg up on the work that was ahead of them top lead the organization through change.

It doesn’t always work out that way. I’ve hadplenty of groups whose group-type was counter-intuitive to the kind of workthey do in that team. That does not mean they won’t be successful, it simplymeans that have to approach success differently and often be more deliberateand intentional about things that, for another group-type, might have comenaturally. Sometimes that can be better – the stretch factor: doing thingsoutside your preference areas that cause you to grow muscles in areas that mayhave otherwise been neglected. There is as much risk in having a “perfect”group type for the work at hand - when everyone is too easily in their comfort-zone, some muscles never get the opportunity to stretch and begin to atrophy… rightup to that moment when you need them most and then boy-oh-boy do they hurt thenext day.

As I began to do the group type for theExponential Church team, it was very exciting to identify the group as an ENFP(even though only one individual was an ENFP). Why so exciting? If I were topick any of the sixteen types to lead the great undertaking of a church plant,I would have chosen the ENFP. Why? ENFPs are energetic, dynamic visionariesthat are charismatic magnets of people seeking a direction. They are catalystsfor change and inspire others to follow them.

David Keirsey, author of Please Understand Meand father of the personality Temperament theory described the ENFP this way:

You are a warm, inspirational, enthusiasticidealist with diverse interests. You tend to be inventive, innovative,ingenious and imaginative as you turn your creative attention to facilitatingpeople. You are a truth-seeker, authentic, and self-disclosing. You are acollector of people focusing on leading, supporting and encouraging theirpersonal growth.

Sandra Krebs Hirsh, author of Looking at Typeand Spirituality described them like this:

ENFPs tend to be enthusiastic, inspiring andcharismatic initiators of change who value exploring future possibilities forpeople’s growth and development. Resourceful, energetic and perceptive, ENFPsoften anticipate what people will want in the future. They enjoy variety,newness and flexibility – the spark that ignites the fire” type. Just readingthat, couldn’t you see yourself following that group?

Personally, I work for an ENFP CEO so I knowfirsthand the great inspirational leadership potential that lies within theENFP when they are at their best. When I think about how that vision andenthusiasm will be serving the cause of Christ, reaching out to the lost andleading people to salvation, well it’s like being in the front car of theroller coaster at the top of the first hill. As you come to the top, all yousee is sky, no tracks ahead of you for a moment until the car starts to tiltdown but you don’t roll screaming down yet- not yet. In the first car there’sthis delay – a hang-time where you stare at the track below as the weight ofthe cars behind you keep you from plummeting down just yet. Then you feel it –enough of the weight has shifted and the speed is about to hit you like acyclone. FREEZE THERE - that moment. Your heart is beating, there’s a lump inyour throat and you can hardly contain the scream that you know is coming whenthe purpose of this journey is actually realized when the cars will goscreaming down the track. That’s what ENFP leadership feels like.

Spend just a half an hour with the 8 amazingpeople that are a part of Exponential Church planting team (Christian Gaffney,Stephanie Gaffney, Mike Zizolfo, Brenda Zizolfo, Lucas Johnson, Amber Johnson,Rob Martin and Kat Martin) when they are together and you’ll feel it. That kindof enthusiasm is contagious and the people in Port St. Lucy will want to be apart of it… but not just because of their ENFP style, but these people have anamazing heart for God and have laid down their own purposes for His. Theyfollow with surrender and conviction and there is no doubt that God will usethem for His Glory. I look forward to seeing their amazing impact on thekingdom of God in the months and years to come.

It’s also worth noting that Fair Oaks Church’sfirst church plant in Toronto Canada last year was also lead by an ENFP, SeniorPastor Roy Dowdy. As an INTJ myself, I see an interesting research study aheadabout the connection between ENFPs and church planting.

I want to be a BIGGEST LOSER

2011-10-15T17:18:00.000-04:00

Not generally a fan of reality TV, I must admit I’m hooked on the show The Biggest Loser. I didn’t catch this show until the 4th season when somehow, because my hands were busy with dirty dishes, I couldn’t make it over to the remote as the season opener of Season 4 came on and 15 minutes later, I was a fan.

What I love about the show is not just watching the physical transformation people make as they lose pounds, but the mental and emotional transformation they make as they lose life-long obstacles and misguided self-perceptions that have kept them from being the person they were meant to be – outside AND inside.

Although I can’t say I would ever be a candidate for the show – I already eat fairly healthy and maintain a decent weight – but there have been several times where I’ve sat there watching the show like a sloth, munching away on something I don’t need, just a few feet away from a dust-laden piece of workout equipment that’s been doubling for a clothing rack and thought to myself, “wow, I should probably get up and workout a bit instead of snacking this late” …but I don’t. Despite the fact that I am not content with my fitness level (thin and fit are not the same thing) and intellectually I know it wouldn’t take much effort to set down the Cheddar Cheese Combos, and emotionally I do have the desire to get up and workout … still, I sit watching others do what I wish had the initiative and motivation to do.

Do you have those moments? There’s something you want to do, it’s something you know how to do, it’s a fairly simple thing, yet you still don’t do it. The only thing stopping you is YOU … and a few of your life-long obstacles and misguided self-perceptions holding you back from the transformation you yearn for.

Maybe that something isn’t exercise or eating right. Maybe that something is reading the Bible. Maybe that something is praying. Maybe that something is serving in church. Or maybe that something is simply making it to church. It’s something you want to do, it’s something you know how to do, it’s a fairly simple thing, yet you still don’t do it. The only thing stopping you is YOU.

So what are the life-long obstacles and misguided self-perceptions holding you back? Perhaps it’s time to LOSE them. I know I want to lose mine. I think of John 3:30, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Or in other words, I must LOSE, so He can WIN.

I want to be a loser – the BIGGEST LOSER. I want to lose the obstacles that keep me from knowing the intimacy God wants with me. I want to lose the misguided self-perceptions that convince me I’m not worthy of it. I want to lose as much of myself as I possible so that I might gain all that God would be in me and through me.

My prayer for you is that you would be a Biggest Loser too -that you would lose your obstacles, your barriers, your fears and your excuses for not doing the things that you want to do and you know how to do so that you may have the physical, emotional or spiritual transformation you yearn for.

What is Life Coaching?

2011-09-25T15:53:00.000-04:00

I am very honored to be a part of a new ministry at Fair Oaks Church that was just launched today - LIFE COACHING! I have been involved in coaching, in one way or another for a couple of decades now, but never have I been more excited than right now for how God will be using me through this ministry.

People have asked me before "so, what is life coaching?" but, as a naturally long-winded person, never has my response been so concise as when I was asked to keep it under 2 minutes for the video promo. That was a great incentive to get very clear about what life coaching is all about.

Life Coaching is all about helping people move forward. Unlike counseling which often focuses on analyzing the past as an explanation for current obstacles, Life Coaching starts with where you’re at – kind of like how Christ meets us where we’re at – and moves forward from there. Forget the past, let’s wipe it clean, start right here and move forward. Life Coaching focuses on setting goals, identifying the steps to achieve those goals and developing a method of accountability to take those steps. Your Life Coach partners with you in that accountability. They’re someone who is going to challenge you and push you but not do it for you. And when you work with a Christian Life Coach, every goal, every step, every method is going to be Christ-centered. If it isn’t honoring God, we’re on the wrong track. An objective sounding-board, an accountability partner, a trusted confidant, your Life Coach is going to empower you to move forward quickly and to “own” your results and successes.

To learn more about this new ministry at Fair Oak Church, click on the Romans 15 Life Coaching Ministry page on this blog or visit www.loudonpurpose.com/lifecoaching for more information or to make an appointment.

Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, "How can I help?" - Romans 15:1-2 The Message

Random Acts of Kindness

2011-09-05T22:12:00.003-04:00

I struggled a bit with whether or not to post this, but for those who prayed with me, I wanted you to share in joy of God’s answered prayers….

A couple of weeks ago I put this post out on Facebook:

Planning a major random act of kindness tomorrow morning. Pray with me that God will give us courage and help us find the two special people we are supposed to bless!

The group of us attending the Women of Faith Conference Friday and 12 other online prayer warriors prayed that morning and those prayers were heard and answered in such an amazing way.

You see a year before, my mother and I had purchased a block of tickets for the Woman of Faith Conference in hopes of getting a group of ladies to go with us. Neither of us are woman of great means but we both agreed that if there were any tickets that went unspoken for, we would pray for God to help us find people to give the remaining tickets to.

The morning of the conference, we still had two tickets left so we all began to pray for God to help us find the two people who really needed to hear the message being brought that weekend but didn’t have the means to buys tickets.

We knew this was going to be a bit of a stretch. Anyone milling around in front of the Verizon Center probably already had tickets and if they didn’t, they came prepared to buy them. Standing out by the ticket lines, there were lots of people who had extra tickets who were stalking people in the ticket lines and selling their left over tickets for a fraction of the price (and I’m sure I could have done that too) but that’s not what I felt we were being led to do… so the prayers continued.

With just 10 minutes to go, the rest of our gang already inside and mom and I getting ready to give up, God did one of his miracle things and our 1st recipient was revealed.

Standing about 30 feet away from the now emptied out ticketing area was a frail, five-foot nothing woman who was easily in her 70’s. She was wearing a shirt and pants that looked like she’d been wearing them for a several days unwashed and on her back was a backpack that may have contained all she owned. She had an odd straw hat strung around her neck and had freshly applied bright red lipstick that looked quite out of place with no other makeup on and her grey hair slicked back in tight little bun.

As she stood there just staring at the ticket sign I walked up to her and said. “excuse me… did you need a ticket?” she looked at me, almost shaking, and said, “I want to go, but I can’t buy a ticket.” I pulled out one of my spare tickets and put one in her hand and said, “now you have a ticket.” Her mouth opened, her eyes welled and as she realized what just happened a big smile came over her face and she gave me the biggest hug. She looked at the ticket in her hand and asked where the seats were – she was afraid of heights. I told her the ticket was in the preferred section in the 100s so she would be pretty close to the ground and she hugged me again and told me she had been specifically praying that God would bring her a ticket on the first floor and here it was.

Wow.

That was one of the most amazing experiences of my life! As blessed as that woman felt getting a free ticket, it pales in comparison to the blessing I got from it.

With the 5 minute countdown beginning, mom and I decided to head to our seats and planned to try and give the other ticket away before the evening session started since a lot of women who work skip the first afternoon session and don’t come until after work on Friday.

At 6:30 pm on Friday, mom and I went back down to the ticketing area. Feeling like a total stalker (putting those 1st-time connector skills to work) I followed a couple of women who were going from window to window. When I got close enough to hear what they were discussing with the ticket agents, they were asking if anyone turned in their extra tickets might that they might have for free. I interrupted.

One of the ladies explained that she bought two tickets for her and her daughter to come but her daughter kept pushing off the suggestion so she gave her extra ticket away. That morning her daughter actually asked about going, but she’d already given the ticket to a friend and was hoping she could find a free ticket for her daughter since she’d already paid for her daughter’s ticket once. Ta Da! Ticket for the daughter. They were so appreciative for the ticket and I was so appreciative that God used me and blessed me all at the same time.

That evening, Henry Cloud was speaking on the keys to happiness and said that secular psychological research on the “cause” of happiness yielded a top 5 list that looked like it came right out of a church sermon – number one on the list for things that cause happiness was GIVING, number two was CONNECTEDNESS. Seems that I got a two-for-one on my random act of kindness and, yes, the result was abundant happiness.

:-D

Waffles and Spaghetti - A growth group for couples

2011-09-04T03:00:00.000-04:00

This Fall, my husband and I will be leading agrowth group at Fair Oaks Church based on the book “Men Are Like Waffles-WomenAre Like Spaghetti.” This interactive study designed by Christian authors Billand Pam Farrel is a humorous look at God’s design in the differences betweenmen and women which should keep participants laughing and engaged with videomessages from the authors each week, workbook exercises and what promises to belively discussion!

Men and women know they are different, butwhat can they do about it? In this interactive study, Bill & Pam Farrelexplain why men are like waffles and women are like spaghetti. Men order eachelement of their lives into a separate box, women weave details of their livestogether so everything touches everything else.

This study will help couples use theirdifferences to better communicate and relate to each other as partners andparents. The material in this study is designed to help couples love and supporteach other in seven key areas:

· Acceptance

· Service

· Encouragement

· Forgiveness

· Devotion

· Motivation

· Edification

And each of the seven lessons are sprinkledwith the secret to all successful relationships – the Word of God. Check outthis sneak preview…

If you are interested in registering for thisstudy, click here: Fall Growth Groups at Fair Oaks Church

We will be meeting in the Floyd White Chapelat Fair Oaks Church from 6:00pm – 8:00pm on select Sundays (9/18, 9/25, 10/2,10/16, 10/23, 11/6, 11/20). Each couple should purchase 2 Waffles &Spaghetti workbooks at the cost of $15 for the pair and are available for purchaseat Connection Central at Fair Oaks Church. Check out this promo:

For anyone who has participated in any of myother workshops or growth groups, this is NOT an MBTI study. Although thereare certainly some places where descriptions overlap in the functions (S/N andT/F) there are other areas where they are clearly not in sync. A welcomesidebar for anyone interested in discussing it.

Hope to see you there!

Heavenly Lemonade

2011-09-03T14:10:00.000-04:00

From time to time, I’ll be witnessing to someone by telling them how God had worked something great in my life through a trial I was going through. Invariably the listener will say something like “if God’s all powerful, why didn’t He just cure the cancer?” or “if God’s plan is the perfect plan why did He write cancer into the plan?” or “if God’s all loving, why did He to give you the cancer to begin with?”

There are lots of ways to answer those questions in a straightforward biblical way (you have to be in tune with what they’re ready to hear), but recently this metaphor came to me – not of my own intellect but the Holy spirit working through me, I wanted to jot it down before I forgot it.

You see, I don’t believe it was a part of God’s divine plan for me to get cancer, nor to I believe God gave me cancer. What I do believe is that it was through God’s perfect love and a part of His plan to make lemonade with my lemons. Where did the lemons come from? Well God didn’t give them to me, they came out of the sinful world as a byproduct of our free will.

You see, the devil is out there growing orchards and orchards of lemons that he ships to our grocery stores of free will. They’re such a pretty yellow, shiny, smell refreshing … we don’t want the bitterness that comes with them but somehow they ended up in our shopping cart anyway. Sometimes they come as a free-gift-with-purchase. You put a carton of cigarettes on the checkout counter and the cashier says, “here, you get a free lemon with that.” And you say “oh, okay” and you take it home. Or perhaps it’s a bottle of alcohol or “day after” pill or a pornographic magazine – over time you’re building up quite a bitter collection of lemons. And sometimes, you make a deliberate choice to put the lemons in your cart, thinking, “well they won’t be bitter for me, not this time.” Other times, the devil slips them in your cart while you weren’t looking. You did everything right, you stuck to your shopping list but somehow you got home, unpacked and there they were. You checked the receipt and, yep, you even paid for them. How’d that happen?

Well it happened because we live in a fallen world as a result of our own sin. We all have these big bitter piles of lemons we accumulate from shopping at the Free-Will-Mart and the acid has the potential to erode at our relationships, our potential, our spirituality. But only God has the perfect lemonade recipe. Others may try to give you suggestions and ideas of what to do with those lemons but they will only lead to more lemons. Only God can turn those lemons into a lemonade that refreshes and restores the damage done by the sins of this world. That lemonade is Jesus Christ. If you want recipe, all you have to ask.

What are you doing with your lemons? Is the acid eating away at your successes or have you turned them over to God to make the most divine refreshment you will ever experience?

“You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons.” – 1 Cor 10:21 (NIV)

“I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD.” Psalm 116:13

Trading Your Jeremiah 10:21 Day For a 1 Timothy 2 Discipline

2011-08-21T21:29:00.001-04:00

The other day, while looking for an entirely different verse, I stumbled upon this little gem in Jeremiah.

“It's because our leaders are stupid.
   They never asked God for counsel,
And so nothing worked right.
   The people are scattered all over.”
                  – Jeremiah 10:21, The Message

Now I’ll confess, I laughed out loud … and read that first line over and over just for the pleasure of it. Let’s face it, sometimes our leaders are just stupid. They say stupid things, they do stupid things and, well, you just can’t figure out how they ever got elected as Chairman, Mayor, Grand Poobah, Whatever and you just shake your head because clearly they are not seeking God’s counsel which is why nothing is working right and no one is loyal to them.

But …

Perhaps if we took a regular dose of 1 Timothy 2:1-4, our perspective would be different – the outcome would be different.

“The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live. He wants not only us but everyone saved, you know, everyone to get to know the truth”

– 1 Timothy 2:1-4, The Message

Maybe, just maybe, if we put more effort, frequency and sincerity behind praying for our leadership, their hearts would be changed and they wouldn’t be so … well, stupid. Maybe if we lifted them up to God, they would begin to seek God’s counsel and things would start to work out right giving us a reason to be loyal to them.

We don’t have control over what are leaders do or what they say, just about the only thing we do have control over (besides voting them in or out) is praying for them – and that’s more powerful for the vote itself if you think about it.

So get on it!

Do Your Job!

2011-08-16T22:37:00.003-04:00

*** Warning: the following message may be offensive to the weak, lazy, unengaged or entitled ***

I grew up in an era where, if you came to work and did your job, your reward was that you didn’t get fired. These days, if someone does what’s asked of them, they expect an extra reward for it – a bonus, a trophy, a promotion. As disappointing as that is in the workplace, that same sense of entitlement seems to have infiltrated the church.

When did we lower the integrity standards? The commitment standards? When did it become so easy to just walk away from things because they weren’t perfect anymore? – jobs, marriages, churches…. even our bodies are disposable. Don’t like that nose? Ditch it – buy a new one.

When did we become entitled to perfect, easy and glory for just doing what’s expected of us?

Recently my husband and I were paid a compliment that left is scratching our heads is disappointment. Not that the compliment wasn’t positive and sincere – it was. And who doesn’t appreciate a compliment – we did. But both of us were immediately struck by how disappointing it is that we were being recognized and praised for doing what we perceived as just … well, what’s expected, what’s right, what everyone should be doing.

One of my favorite Stokes-isms is “there’s no such thing as a perfect church… and if you found one, YOU’d mess it up.” People get disenchanted with a church because this isn’t the way they’d do it, that isn’t how they want it. They can’t do the things they want. They don’t offer the programs they want. They changed the music, the pastor, the carpet and they’re out of there. I don’t get that.

We are the body of Christ, people! If your hand stopped working, would your knee just say “I’m outta here”? If something is not quite right in one area, we abandon another? When I think about the idea of a “church family” there are going to things you don’t agree with, there are going to be sisters or brothers you don’t like as well as others, there will be hard feelings at one time or another and sometimes it’s your problem and sometimes it’s theirs, but we share the same blood – the blood of Christ in this case – and we are commanded to love one another and so that’s what we do. Not because we’re going to get a trophy for it but because it’s what’s right.

SO DO YOUR JOB! Love your brother, commit to your church - even when it isn’t perfect … or, ESPECIALLY when it isn’t perfect – serve the body of Christ, and don’t be one of the weak who run a way or the entitled who want a trophy or unengaged who don’t care or the lazy who don’t work as the part of the body of Christ they are expected to be.

Planned Spontaneity

2011-05-15T19:40:00.000-04:00

Anyone who knows my mom might think this blog post is going to be about her. Kind of an inside family joke, my mother – a text book “J” who must have a plan for everything – adopted “planned spontaneity” as her calling card. People who, upon meeting my mom quickly get invited to one of her “impromptu” open-house parties, think she’s a fun-loving free spirit, full of spontaneity. My mom is fun and spirited, but a lot of hard work and planning goes into her apparent spontaneity. Knowing that people respond to spontaneity in an magnetic way, my mom puts great energy into the plans that lead other people to experience the organic momentum of spontaneity through her structured efforts.

This morning at Fair Oaks Church, members and attendees experienced some of that organic momentum through the planned spontaneity of an impromptu mass-baptism. Great work and effort and all-hands-on-deck for the church staff throughout the week, all was kept top secret to the very last moments. Just 24 hours before, a very small team of volunteers were enlisted and trained to help and rallied together to pray for this momentous event. I was privileged to be a part of that volunteer team and I prayed (more than any other single thing I’d prayed for in a very long time) that people would open their hearts, lower their walls and that God would use Fair Oaks in great ways through this spontaneous call for people to receive Christ and be baptized on the spot.

We all prayed for God to move in BIG ways and for BIG numbers to come forward to be baptized but I think everyone probably had a number in their heads of what they expected. Not to put limits on God’s awesome power to move 200 or 2000 people to stand up to be baptized without forethought or planning but it’s our earthly tendency to put limits on the expectations of our OWN efforts.

No matter what the number, I knew it would glorify God, but yes, I had a number in my head. I was praying for a number for the first service and a number for the second service that was about double the first. But more important than numbers, I prayed for lives to be transformed – whether by participating or by witnessing – and THEY WERE! Not to minimize the transformation of those who came forward to be baptized, but I believe there was an equal transformation for every witness in that room who watch 25 people between the two services come forward, without planning, without preparation, to be fully immersed in a tank of water in front of a large congregation of people they may or may not know with lights flashing, cameras rolling and crowds cheering. That moment taught everyone in that room something about themselves and their own faith.

For me, it was a mustard seed moment. In Matthew 17:20, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible." Compared to the number of people the Holy Spirit actually moved in those services to come forward, my expectations and prayers were literally doubled. It’s not that my faith was small, but when I saw what God did with it, it sure felt like he moved a mountain with my mustard-seed of faith. My prayers were not returned void, but doubled. Amen!

More than numbers, more than the infectious energy that moved a congregation of witnesses, there were some amazing individual stories from those 25 people, some that were near and dear to my heart and affirmed for me why God had put me where I am and used me in the ways he does. I feel so blessed to a part of a church that has big and bold ideas and isn’t afraid to act on them, all for the glory of God and the expansion of His kingdom. I’ve got a colleague who often says, “no earthly realities will dim the lights of our vision for this project.” I think we could all use a little more of that approach in life, for when God is in it, how could it fail?

If Jesus Were a Hockey Fan: a Lesson in Sportsmanship

2011-04-27T18:23:00.001-04:00

Being a Pittsburg Penguins fan and living in the Washington, D.C. area has given me some interesting opportunities to teach my boys lessons in good sportsmanship. After a long day of being verbally assaulted by Caps fans at school for wearing his Penguins jersey, my son came home and said, “you know Mom, I don’t understand why Caps fans are so hateful about the Penguins. As a Penguins fan, I don’t have problem with the Caps … it’s the Caps FANS that I have a problem with. No sense of sportsmanship there!”

I thought that was an interesting observation and distinction from a 15-year-old.

Sportsmanship. When I looked for a quick definition on Wikipedia it started with the obvious “Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake, with proper consideration for fairness, ethics, respect, and a sense of fellowship with one's competitors. Being a "good sport" involves being a ‘good winner’ as well as being a ‘good loser’.”

But I was more intrigued by the sentences that followed.

“In general, sportsmanship refers to virtues such as fairness, self-control, courage and persistence and has been associated with interpersonal concepts of treating others and being treated fairly, maintaining self-control in dealing with others, and respect for both authority and opponents.” Wow – rings a bit of Matthew 7:12, doesn’t it? Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

Then there was a section headed “Relationship to Morality.”

Morality … on Wikipedia? Morality is a Biblical concept… so does that make good sportsmanship a Biblical concept?

It read, “Sportsmanship typically is regarded as a component of morality in sport … acting toward others in an honest, straightforward, and a firm and dignified manner even when others do not play fairly. It includes respect for others including team members, opponents, and officials.”

I don’t think this is exclusive to the players, either. Let’s talk about the fans for a minute. Now I certainly get that “trash talk” is part of the whole sport-fan thing and even though I generally stay out of that kind of exchange, there’s no harm in a little banter between friends. But I think there is a line that is crossed when hateful words are shouted out at complete strangers or the physical harm of a particular player is celebrated or, even worse, overtly wished for. If hate in our hearts and thoughts is the same as murder (1 John 3:15) what is the implication of trash-talk that clearly comes from a place of hate and is intended to disrespect “others including team members, opponents, and officials.”

Now if Jesus were walking the Earth today, I don’t know that he’d be a hockey fan (certainly not for New Jersey, anyway). But if I brought him to a game with me, would it change my behavior in the stands? It shouldn’t. Would it change what I say to an opposing fan? It better not. Do you think He’d be screaming from behind the glass, “TAKE HIS HEAD OFF!” I don’t think so. If a player from the opposing team was laying on the ice with blood dripping from his eye socket, would Jesus say, “yeah! That’ll take him out for the rest of the week!” or do you think he might utter a quick prayer for the poor guy that he’s okay. Can we show a little concern for the human being before we move on to celebrating that this injury could play in our favor?

I’m not trying to be trite in boiling it all down to WWJD. It’s natural to appreciate the strategic advantage to your team when a player from an opposing team is out for a game of for several due to injury, but to celebrate the injury itself, to wish injury upon others? I don’t think Jesus would do that and I don’t think that would make Him any less of a fan or would diminish His (or my) ability to enjoy the game. If Jesus and I are demonstrating sportsmanship (which is Biblical, apparently) “the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake” even if my team loses.

I have several dear friends who are Red Wings fans and Black Hawks fans who have been up against my Penguins and we can enjoy watching the game together without any bloodshed. And if my Penguins don’t make it through the playoffs, I will support my friends by cheering for their team. But if my Penguins make it and your team doesn’t, will you cheer with me? I think Jesus would.

“P” stands for ….

2011-04-20T15:23:00.001-04:00

My husband and I are very clear Js (he is an ISFJ and I am an INTJ) and we have two sons that are both Ps (ISFP and ENTP). With two Js trying to raise two Ps, I’ll say it can get pretty interesting … and yes, interesting is French for frustrating. But, as an INTJ, I’m always up for a good challenge and constantly looking for a better way to do something so rather than being frustrated that the boys are not naturally compliant, obedient and submissive to parental authority (like my ISFJ husband was when growing up – yes, his mother would affirm that he was the perfect child) I redirect the frustration to myself that I have not figured out the right combination of communication techniques and motivations to incent my P children to develop their non-preferences (particularly the J behaviors) on their own and for their own benefit, not mine.

Earlier in the week, my husband and I had scheduled a day off from work to spend with the boys while they were on Spring Break and had bantered around several ideas of things to do, weather permitting. The night before our day off, he says to me “have you decided what we’re doing yet?” I respond, “hey, why don’t we put on our ‘P’ hats and just figure it out when we get there?” He responds “I don’t own a ‘P’ hat … well I do, but it stands for ‘Pittsburgh Pirates’ not ‘Procrastinating Perceiver’.”

Procrastinating Perceiver – yes Perceivers (Ps) can be known to procrastinate. We all can, regardless of type, but Ps have elevated procrastination to an art form or perhaps we’ll call it a “spiritual gift.” I also think it's important to distinguish between procrastination and laziness (my husband will often complain about the boys’ laziness and attribute it to their Type). Laziness is the desire to NOT DO the task at all and respond to that lack of desire through avoidance and a clear lack of ownership or accountability that it is their task to complete. With procrastination, there is a sense of ownership (I know I have to do this) and a recognition that it benefits them to complete it, but there is a misguided self-delusion that if they put the task off long enough it will get easier or (because Ps are options-focused) that a better task will come along that they could swap it out for with someone (or perhaps if I put it off long enough, the J-fairies will come by and do it while I’m sleeping).

Js are closure-focused. They draw satisfaction from completed-tasks, from checking the box. Ps do not draw satisfaction from checking the box, they don’t understand the box we’re checking, the words next to the box are in a foreign language. Ps are options-focused, so they will draw satisfaction from generating alternatives to the thing they know they must do, but don’t really want to do. Thus it plays out like procrastination because while they are generating alternatives to doing the thing they would rather not do, it’s still not getting done. My P-boys will put more time and energy into figuring out creative ways to not do something, that it would have actually taken to complete the task!

Unfortunately, because Ps are master procrastinators BUT will often produce their best work under the pressure of a looming deadline, that procrastinating behavior gets reinforced and rewarded by the great successes that were achieved at the last minute.

So … I haven’t figured out the magic formula to make Ps embrace J behaviors yet, but here are a few things that I have figured out. Ps don’t like to be given Js’ closure-focused conclusions (otherwise interpreted as orders – clean your room, do the dishes), they prefer to hear information (remember, options-focused) that lead them to draw their own conclusions and they like questions better than statements. So “clean your room” would roll off the J’s tongue as easily as breathing (and a J child might accept that and say “okay”), but what will resonate more with the P might be “So, what’s on your chore-list today?” or "Wow, this room's not at all what I expected. What do you think I'm noticing about it?" He'll rattle off things like clothes on floor, trash overflowing, etc. Then I'll say, "So what do you think I'm going to say next?" He'll say "that I should clean my room?" Me: "Bingo! You're so smart. I knew you didn't need me to figure that out. You always know how to make me happy."

It may not be perfect and (if you’re a J) you may be thinking I just wasted a lot of words and time to essentially say “clean your room” but think about the number of times you’ve said “clean your room” that fell of the deaf ears of your P-child. I’d argue we’ve spent/wasted the same amount of time/words and in the end, accomplished the same goal, but with questions/options approach, mom didn’t come off like a nagging harpy thereby building greater relationship skills between us.

Consider Colossians 3:21 - Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart (NAS); do not be hard on your children, so that their spirit may not be broken (BIBE); do not make your children resentful. Otherwise, they'll become discouraged (ISV). Good advice for all of us, really: fathers, mothers, teachers. And of course "above all, have fervent love for one another: for love shall cover the multitude of sins." - Peter 4.8

You, Me & God

2011-04-17T16:46:00.001-04:00

How Personality Type Influences How We “Do Relationships”

For The Spring Growth Group season at Fair Oaks Church, I will be leading a study group on how our personality Type influences how we “do relationships.” This group study is a follow up to the Family Relationships/MBTI Workshops that I’ve conducted at Fair Oaks Church and will build on the foundation of personality Type to explore our relationships with God and each other. Key topics in our discussions will be marriage, family dynamics and spiritual growth.

Because this study is a continuation of the material taught in the MBTI workshops, the participants who sign up must already have a foundation and knowledge of MBTI and Type. It’s not necessary to have gone through one of my workshops, but they need to have gone through the MBTI with a qualified administrator (not just one of those free online tests), they need to know their 4-letter type and have validated that type (meaning they know enough about it to have affirmed it is a true and accurate type for them) and be hungry to learn more and be stretched in their spiritual and relationship journeys.

It will not be necessary to purchase a book for this Growth Group - although you’ll probably feel compelled to before we get to the end of it. I will be supplying the participants with books-on-loan from my personal library for the duration of the Growth Group. The idea is that each participant has something different that they want to get out of this deeper study – perhaps it’s about marriage, parenting, work, spiritual growth, or just more about self – so the participants will be able to choose a book from one of those many topics that will speak to their individual angle of Type as we go through a dichotomy-by-dichotomy discussion at each of our sessions.

So here’s what it will look like (for all you “J” types who need a list and schedule):

When: Every other Wednesday 6:45 to 8 p.m.

Where: Fair Oaks Church Chapel

Session 1: Wednesday, May 4th – Group introductions and discussion of our own type. Selecting the book(s) we each want to use throughout the study.

Session 2: Wednesday, May 18th – Group discusses the Introversion/Extroversion dichotomy.

Session 3: Wednesday, June 1st – Group discusses the Sensing/iNuition dichotomy.

Session 4: Wednesday, June 15th – Group discusses the Thinking/Feeling dichotomy.

Session 5: Wednesday, June 29th – Group discusses the Judging/Perceiving dichotomy and wrap up the study.

Growth Group Resources – The MBTI Lending Library

The following books will be made available to the group participants throughout the study. Participants are welcome to take the books home, highlight in yellow or underline in pencil, switch books out from week-to-week if the one they picked isn’t hitting the mark, whatever helps make the most of the study.

16 Ways to Love Your Lover, Kroeger, Otto & Thuesen, Janet M., New York, NY: Delacorte Press, 1994, ISBN 0-385-31031-5

Differing Gifts: Understanding Personality Type, Myers, Isabel B. & Myers, Peter B., Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press, 1980, ISBN 0-89106-064-2

How We Belong, Fight and Pray: The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as a Key to Congregational Dynamics, Edwards, Lloyd, New York, NY: Alban Institute, 1993, ISBN 1-56699-114-5

Just Your Type: Create the Relationship You’ve Always Wanted Using the Secrets of Personality Type, Tieger, Paul D. & Barron-Tieger, Barbara, New York, NY: Little, Brown & Co., 2000, ISBN 0-316-84569-8

Knowing Me, Knowing God, Exploring Your Spirituality with Myers-Briggs, Goldsmith, Malcolm, Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1997, ISBN 0-687-01705-X
Life Types, Hirsh, Sandra& Kummerow, Jean., New York, NY: Warner Books, 1989, ISBN 0-446-38823-8

Looking at Type and Spirituality, Hirsh, Sandra Krebs & Kise, Jane A.G., Gainesville, FL: Center for Applications of Psychological Type, 1997, ISBN 0-935652-30-2

MotherStyles: Using Personality Type to Discover Your Parenting Strengths, Janet P. Penley, Diane Eble, 2006 Distributed Product, ISBN 0738210455

Nurture by Nature: Understanding Your child's Personality Type And Become a Better Parent, Tieger, Paul D. & Barron-Tieger, Barbara, Toronto, ON: Little Brown, 1997, ISBN: 0-316-84513-2

Personality Type and Religious Leadership, Oswald, Roy M. & Kroeger, Otto, Washington, D.C., Alban Institute, 1988, ISBN - None, Lib. Of Congress - 88-70758

Personality Type in Congregations: How to Work with Others More Effectively, Baab, Lynne M., New York, NY: Alban Inst., 1998, ISBN1-56699-193-5

Please Understand Me: Character & Temperament Types, Keirsey, David, & Bates, Marilyn, Del Mar, CA: Prometheus Nemesis, 1978, ISBN 0-9606954-0-0

SoulTypes: Finding the Spiritual Path That Is Right for You, Hirsh, Sandra Krebs & Kise, Jane A.G., New York, NY: Hyperion, 1998, ISBN 0-7869-8289-1

The Art of Speedreading People, Tieger, Paul D. & Barron-Tieger, Barbara, New York, NY: Little, Brown & Co., 1998, ISBN 0-316-84525-6

Type Talk at Work: How the 16 Personality Types Determine Your Success on the Job, Kroeger, Otto & Thuesen, Janet M., New York, NY: Delta, 1993, ISBN 0-440-50928-9

Who We Are Is How We Pray: Matching Personality and Spirituality, Keating, Charles J., Myrtle, CT: Twenty-third Publications, 1987, ISBN 0-89622-321-3

Your Personality and the Spiritual Life: Understanding Who You Are Can Deepen Your Relationship with God, Johnson, Reginald, Gainesville, FL: Center for Applications of Psychological Type, 1999, ISBN 0-935652-47-7

Typological Shortcuts – A Cautionary Tale

2011-03-30T23:16:00.006-04:00

On line tests, emailed results and other MBTI fails

In my workshop travels, I’ve encountered a lot of people who tell me they’ve “done the MBTI” before.

80% of the time that means:

• they’ve taken a free online test that gave instant results with no explanation or application (other than to tell them that Harry Potter is their Type too!)
• they took the test in college in the placement office and the administrator just handed them the results with no explanation (other than to tell them what major they should choose)
• they took it with their employer who just handed them their results with no explanation (other than to tell them what career track they should be on)

Most of the time these experiences were unmemorable … or memorably bad because they felt pigeonholed into something or someone that they didn’t feel fit quite right.

For the other 20%, they had a decent experience with an appropriate delivery method (meaning a coach, counselor or trainer actually walked them through a self-discovery/self-assessment processes) and they actually remembered their 4-letter type, knew what it meant and how it related to them and felt the explanations were right on.

I wish more people had that kind of experience … I believe the people who experience one of my sessions or workshops would tell you it’s the only way for the MBTI to have meaning and impact. Otherwise, what’s the point of doing it at all? What’s the value of knowing you’re an ENFP or ISFJ or WXYZ if you don’t know what that means, why it matters, how it impacts those around you and how you can use it to grow… grow professionally, grow spiritually, grow academically?

So what’s wrong with the free online test?
From the time the MBTI went public in 1942 after Katharine Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, spent more than a decade vetting and perfecting the precise language used in the questions to indentify preferences in an unbiased way, professional psychometricians have continued to revise and perfect it to improve the accuracy and validity of the tool. Today the Center for Applications of Psychological Type (CAPT) owns the proprietary rights to the questions.

That means that the questions you see on the free online “MBTI” tests are not the actual MBTI questions. They can’t be. That means whoever wrote the questions had to come up with their own questions which don’t have a professional team of psychometricians and nearly 70 years of refining to ensure unbiased results. Even if a seasoned and trained type practitioner like myself took the original MBTI questions and changed them just enough not to get sued by CPP or CAPT, I would destroy the integrity of what makes the questions work as a whole and in combination with each other.

Additionally, my own preferences as an INTJ would certainly influence how I go about changing those questions and could bias them either toward or (in over compensation) away from INTJ answers and end up with an unusual number of INTJ or ESFP results. Of course only I would notice that. The unsuspecting taker of the test only knows they tested as an INTJ and will probably blow off the validity of the “whole MBTI thing” because the description doesn’t seem to fit them.

Okay, so give me the real MBTI and just email me the results.
I get this request at least once for every workshop I run. I understand that not everyone has time to sit through a 4-hour workshop or a 1-hour personal session with me, but the MBTI preference inventory (or “test”) isn’t really the determinant of what someone’s Type is. The self-identification process that an MBTI practitioner walks someone through is what determines the most accurate assessment of preferences and 4-letter type. The test is just a validation tool to affirm what a person has already decided without it.

And here’s the bigger secret… the tests aren’t always accurate. Okay, that’s not really a secret. CPP reports that their most current version of the MBTI inventory has a 90% reliability. That’s actually 10 – 20 points higher than any other personality inventory out there, but it does leave room for error. There are additional factors that could influence an even greater disconnect between the self-determined results and the test results but in my experience at least half of the participants in any given workshop or session I conduct have at least one letter different if not two. If a person doesn’t have the context and information from the workshop, how will they recognize if or which letters might be wrong and identify which one(s) make more sense?

For someone looking for a quicker yet reliable way to explore their Type without actually interacting with another human being, there is a self-driven on-line “test”/workshop combo that is an authentic MBTI (endorsed by CPP and the Myers & Briggs Foundation) but it is $60.00 per test and it still takes an hour to go through the whole module.

Whenever possible, I personally try to offer the MBTI at no cost to the participant. A company might hire me to come in and do a workshop for their employees so the company will pay the fee but the participants get the experience at no cost. If I use it in a counseling situation, I’m usually already compensated for my time so the MBTI is just an added tool I can “throw in” without charging extra for it. If you ever have the chance to do the MBTI with a Certified Practitioner and it’s FREE…? DO IT! It’s going to cost a minimum of $60 to do the MBTI with a legitimate online tool and a company who hires me to come out and do a half-day workshop is going to pay anywhere from $800 - $2000 (depending on the size) so free is always better than that.

One last note… when I went through my certification process, it was drilled into us that we could not just hand someone their results (because that’s not the true determination of their type) we have to walk them through the discovery process for self-determination to reach their conclusion about their 4-letter Type. It’s actually written into our agreement with CPP that authorizes us to purchase and administer the test. If anyone does administer an MBTI and does just hand over the results, they do so in violation of their covenant with CPP which would make me question their ethics. Do you really want someone with questionable ethics analyzing and determining YOUR personality preferences?

Do the workshop!

.

A Journey’s Intermission

2011-03-18T22:00:00.002-04:00

Two and a half years, 60 credit hours, a 32 page petition, 3 character references and a 4 week review/ waiting period and it’s finally official! I’m adding a few new letters after my name: MCLC – Master Christian Life Coach!

When I finally put the postage on that 32 page packet, the last step in my process after completing the course work, and put it in the mail box, there was a great sense of accomplishment. In a way, it felt like a journey’s end, a finished work. But the whole purpose of the accomplishment was to pave the way for a new journey, a future journey.

Certainly, I do a lot of coaching in my current occupation – the skills these classes have given me will (and have) come in handy – but having formal credentials are for a calling of another sort. God has blessed me with many gifts in this area and he seems to keep putting people in my path who need someone with these particular gifts. I believe He’s been trying nudge me in this direction for quite a while.

So I do a lot of coaching (much of it pro bono) on the side. I do have a really good “day job” that I love – good people I work with, a non-profit with a mission I believe in – but in my spare time, I take a client or two as God leads me. This fulfills my purpose in a way a job just can’t.

About six years ago when I began my journey to earn my BCBC credintial (Board Certified Biblical Counselor) I seriously entertained the idea of going into Christian counseling full time, but that wasn’t God’s plan for me at the time. Working in the “real” world in a secular environment gives me so much more opportunity to witness that I might not have otherwise and I have seen God’s hand in my placement there.

But at some point, when I retire from the business world, I’ll be well equipped to pursue my passion of helping people. In the meantime I know I can count on God to keep putting people in my path who need my help and it brings me great joy to oblige.

You’re Going To Touch Me Where?

2011-03-10T20:06:00.005-05:00

Okay, lesson learned. I’ll not be wearing my hair up to travel by air ever again. Flying out of Dulles to Atlanta, standing in line for security, I get pulled for the new-fangled full-body scan. No big deal. Stand sideways between two 7-foot x-ray panels, put your hands over your head and hold your breath for 10 seconds. Then, step out and wait for screening personnel in a remote location to give the all-clear so you can put your shoes, belt, watch, jacket and other assorted apparel back on.

BUT WAIT! No “all-clear” for me. The EZ Hair Comb ® that’s holding my hair into a twist is apparently a terrorist threat. I had to wait while someone put on gloves to come inspect my hair to ensure I was not hiding any weapons in there. “Excuse me, Ma’am, but is that a gun in your bun?”

This did not bother me. Frankly, I wondered as I put my hair up this morning if it would it would set off the metal detectors … and I still didn’t know that because I went straight to the full body scan.

Lucky for me, on the way back from Atlanta this evening, my concerns were affirmed – YES the EZ Hair Comb ® does set off the airport security metal detectors! (Oh, did I mention the part where my boss is standing on the other side waiting for me to come out and we had been trying to rush through the airport to see if we could get on an earlier flight since our meeting ended early.) So I’m thinking they are going to just wave one of those wands over my head to confirm that’s where the beeping is coming from and let me move on. (Oh please don’t make me take the combs out. I’ll never get them back in without a mirror.)

Again, lucky me. I won the full body security molestation – I mean, pat-down. Now, as soon as I fail the metal detector, the lock me in a clear “stand-by” box and call for a female security officer. And she did ask me if I wanted to do it right there or if I wanted to go to a private area. I look over at my boss who is just shaking her head and looking at her watch and say, “let’s just do it.” I mean seriously – there may be two thousand people watching this woman touch EVERY part of my body, but I don’t know any of them and I’m never going to see them again – what the heck. By the way, did you know they put their hands in and under your shirt and into the waistband of your pants and feel between your toes? My mammogram was less invasive. Then they take the gloves they were wearing when they fondled you and run them through a scanner to ensure they didn’t pick up any toxins or explosives you were trying to sneak on the plane sprinkled across your clothing.

Remarkably, the earlier flight that my boss and I were trying to catch was delayed so we just made it. All of that excitement and I still got home earlier than I expected. God is good – he’s got a serious sense of humor, but He’s good!

So an ENTP and an INTJ walk into a funeral …

2011-02-23T21:30:00.003-05:00

One of the things I find most enjoyable about my ENTP son is the random out-of-nowhere questions or conversations he comes up with that, as an INTJ, I might have the thought, but it would never make it out of my mouth. These are the same conversations that would make my ISFJ husband want to drive a fork through his left eye because he doesn’t understand why the question is even asked and even less why I engage and prolong the agony.

ENTP: Mom, if I died right now, how many people would people would come to my funeral?
INTJ: I don’t know, 200 – 300 maybe?
ENTP: Really?
INTJ: More than would come to mine, that’s for sure.
ENTP: Nuh uh. Why would you think that?
INTJ: You’re a classic Extrovert, Dear. In half the years, you’ve made 3 times the friends.
ENTP: Ehh, all those people at my funeral are only showing up for the goodie bags.
INTJ: Goodie bags? What kind of funeral have you been to that has goodie bags?
ENTP: You know, goodie bags! Something to bring home to remember it by.
INTJ: Well you better remember tell your future wife, ‘cause I won’t be there to plan it.
ENTP: Why not?
INTJ: Well, I hope to be long dead by the time you die.
ENTP: No, no, no. You can’t die before me. I can’t deal with that.
INTJ: Honey, I have to die first, otherwise that means you’ll die young, and that’s not cool.
ENTP: No, you can live to be 102 and I’ll still live into my 80’s.
INTJ: Oh honey, I have no desire to live to be 102. My financial advisor says my retirement money’s going to run out at 92, so I better croak before I see 93 or I’ll be on your doorstep.
ENTP: Oh, Mom. You can come live with me when you’re 93. You can run around my house telling my kids that when you grew up teachers still used paddles.
INTJ: Honey, if you’re kids are still living at home when you’re 85, you’ve got bigger problems than your mom running out of retirement money.
ENTP: You know, my kindergarten teacher had a paddle too. She never used it, but she made sure we knew she had it.
INTJ: Yeah, clearly you were permanently traumatized… Did you get a goodie bag to remember it by?

Real conversation we had on the way to church tonight.

Personality Type & Family Relationships Seminar

2011-02-20T14:36:00.005-05:00

MBTI Workshop Offered at Fair Oaks Church

At the end of a terrible day, you need a quiet evening with a book to shake it off, but your spouse needs an evening out with friends to unwind from a bad day. You need a check list to get things done, but your teenager needs the TV and the iPod going to get their homework finished. These simple differences can create havoc in the home if you don't understand them. The MBTI is a great tool for gaining insight into your spouse or... children to improve communication and understanding while reducing conflict.

2 million people a year take the MBTI, usually through their employer, to help them make constructive use of their differences and promote understanding and effective cooperation. Those same basic MBTI principles applied to couples and families can improve communication and interpersonal relationships, promoting positive attitudes towards different styles, and facilitate understanding, appreciation and respect between husband and wife and parents and children.

I have been working with the MBTI for years as a business and coaching tool, but in the summer of 2010, I was privileged to have the opportunity to bring the MBTI concept together with personal-life applications in a marriage and parenting workshop at Fair Oaks Church (see dails here).

It was a great joy to be able to share the tool with other married couples and parents and have already seen fruits of success from the MBTI seeds planted during that workshop!

This relationships workshop is being offered again at Fair Oaks Church on Saturday, March 5, 2011 from 8:00am to 12:15pm - free of charge, child care included! If you think you may be interested, you can sign up at LoudOnPurpose.com or click here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/loudonpurpose.com/viewform?hl=en&ndplr=1&formkey=dG5WYy11QlBGOUlyNzhtZGlIV0YtWmc6MQ#gid=0.

To participate in the workshop, you will need to complete the MBTI questionnaire in advance. Stop by the Chapel on February 27th before, between or after services - it will only take you 15 to 20 minutes. If you are unable to take the questionnaire on the 27th, please contact me to see if we can arrange another time.

If you are going to need child care, please make sure you register here so we can plan for enough child care providers.

For more information on the MBTI, visit the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) Resource Central.

Happy 50th Birthday Fair Oaks Church!

2011-01-30T15:33:00.006-05:00

This weekend, Fair Oaks Church celebrated its 50th birthday with a double celebration complete with great memories, inspired music, special guest speakers and moving testimonies from members young and old. Over the last month, Fair Oaks Church have been asking folks to “Share Your Story” by completing a questionnaire. Here a peek at what I submitted….

What Sermon or Sermon Series has impacted you the most over the years and why?

It’s hard to pick a single Sermon Series that impacted me the most because every Sermon Series has had at least one (if not many) places where it spoke to me directly or served up a perfect dialog for me to witness with. But last year when I wrote a recap of all the Stokes-isms written in the margins of my sermon notes, the top 3 series that I took “extra” notes on were “The Flip Side”, “Faith” and “Wasted.” My favorite Stokes-ism from Wasted was “Can’t afford to tithe? Do the math… you’ve spent more than 10% of your income on bad choices and what did it get you?” I’ve used that several time when talking to people about tithing.

What song, video or creative element used in a service has touched you in a special way and why?

The creative element that was most special to me was the privilege to be a part of introducing Joel Slater’s Hallelujah (Sing It Over Again) to the church as a choir special. I loved singing that song with the Fair Oaks choir and after it came out on Joel’s CD Scattered, he was kind enough to let us sing is as a worship song in the Wednesday night services.

The edgy “live art” elements that have been woven into the services also have a special place in my heart… from painting Mike Z while he sang a special song, Amber shaping clay or painting an outstretched hand to enhance the message of the music, to Don Hensley performing a powerful monologue for a “first Wednesday” service, our Arts team really knows how to punctuate a message with creativity.

I also love the videos the Fair Oaks Arts team put together. My favorites have been the Mother’s Day and Father’s Day videos that Christian and Mike made (the always make me think of my own boys) and the whole series of videos that were a take-off of the Mac/PC commercials – especially iGive.

And last, but never least – Ken & Mimi, Ken & Mimi, Ken & Mimi, Ken & Mimi, Ken & Mimi!

Has a particular person in the church (staff, volunteer, fellow growth grouper, etc.,) made a difference in your life? Who? And How?

So many people at Fair Oaks have had an impact on my life… from Roy Dowdy who was the first person to walk up to us as new comers to the church and welcome us, Debby White for getting me involved in Christmas Coffee House, Choir and the Connectors ministry, Brian Bosler for making the choir more than just a rehearsal of voices but a ministry to the heart of worshipers, Joel Slater as a musical inspiration and gentle encourager getting me involved with the Wednesday worship team, Christian Gaffney being sent down straight from heaven speak directly into the hearts of my boys and being a godly partner to every youth-group-parent and for coming to the hospital to pray over my surgery when I was diagnosed with cancer, Tracey Dowdy for the touching or funny but always pregnant with meaning dramas she used to write for the services, Scott Maurer for supporting me in putting together my first MBTI small group, Philip Bassham for bringing an infectious energy to everything he does from his years with Kidz Inc to the Media ministry and finally to Pastor Stokes for always preaching the Word, never compromising the Truth and for leading the church and his staff with creativity.

What is your favorite all time Fair Oaks memory? Why?

My favorite all-time Fair Oaks Memory was when my two boys and I were Baptized together.
I'd grown up in the church (baptized and confirmed Catholic) but I didn't come to know the Lord, have a relationship with Him, surrender my life to Christ until I got engaged to my husband who brought me to his church and for the first time I prayed the prayer inviting Christ into my heart and to take over my life. But the church we were at didn’t emphasize baptism so I had never made that public profession of my faith.

The summer before we moved to Northern Virgina, our boys excepted Christ as their savior and wanted to be baptized but we didn't get to it before we moved and would have to wait until we found a new home church.

In October of 2005 we found Fair Oaks Church. The house of God we call home, the church we each serve in our own callings and the place where I and our two boys were baptized together in a very special "Amazing Grace" service - a song that has always served as a personal anthem. So very special and appropriate that it worked out for the three of us to be baptized together on that particular Sunday at Fair Oaks Church.

Overall, please describe what this church means to you:

Home.

I can't wait to be a part of the next 50 years of memories at Fair Oaks Church! So what is your Fair Oaks story?

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Uncle Sam’s 0% Savings Account – Just Say No!

2011-01-24T21:45:00.003-05:00

Welcome to tax season! Over the next several days millions of Americans will be waiting at their mail boxes for their final forms and receipts to come in and racing to get their returns completed so they can wait for their big fat check from their Uncle Sam.

But wait, that makes it sound like some surprise inheritance that didn’t work over 2000 hours to earn, but rather like it was some benevolent gift. Hey – you know that’s YOUR money, right? They’ve kept it for a year, paid you no interest on it and then gave it back to you ONLY after you filled out 15 pages of paperwork and waited for several weeks for the check to come slowly through the mail or for the wire to hit your bank account.

I know a lot of people who intentionally pay more payroll tax than they need to so that they can get the big fat tax return in the Spring, but wouldn’t make more sense to pay less tax out of each paycheck, take the difference and put it in a savings account and earn a little interest on it? You can still withdraw it all and give it to yourself in the Spring, but now there will be more of it.

Now I realize that some people just aren’t that disciplined and if they got the extra money in their net pay every other week, they’d just spend it rather than save or invest it – I get that. But how about a direct deposit from your pay directly into that savings account so you never see it? Just a thought.

Self-discipline has never been a big problem for me when it comes to money (chocolate – yes, cash – no). I’m a saver. And I never did fancy giving the IRS money that they may change a rule mid-stream and cleverly arrange for me not to get it back.

Having spent a lot of years running payroll departments, I used to have the formula down to a science. I had my return down to no more than a hundred dollars or two… that is, until we moved to Northern Virginia. New economy, different tax bracket, state and property taxes we weren’t accustomed to and both of our Florida employers that we left taxed our vacation cash-outs wrong and the first tax returns we filed in Virginia came with a $9,000 tax bill! Ouch!

Because I’m a saver, we had the means to cover it, but it left us with little room for other financial surprises. Over the next several years I tried to find that greenback groove, but kept hitting roadblocks to a consistent pattern to the tax levels (including a half year of unemployment, a full year of unemployment, and another half year of unemployment) so we had another year with a 4-digit payment followed by 3 years of 4-digit returns… which are nice, but not what I was shooting for.

This year, quite by accident, we hit the right formula: $101.00 return! Now, it IS what we were shooting for, but I have to tell you, after 3 years of healthy returns, it was hard to celebrate my perfectly calculated $101 tax refund … especially when I’m only getting 1.1% interest on my savings account that the difference went into.

The bright side is we didn’t have to PAY. Those two years we had to write big checks were horrible. For me, I was almost as angry at myself that I blew the calculation as I was that I had to write a check that big… but that just me and my INTJ Type.

So do you loan Uncle Sam your money interest free for a year, do you shoot for the low refund or do you end up paying each year? If you had a little extra money in each paycheck, would you be disciplined enough to save it?

Debt-Free in 2011

2011-01-18T22:53:00.002-05:00

This week at Fair Oaks Church we will begin a 6-session growth group based on Joe Sangl’s “I Was Broke. Now I’m Not” that teaches people how to win with their money in a way that honors God. As I’ve been preparing to help lead this growth group I started thinking about my own “money story.”

My sister tells people that I still have the first dollar I ever earned. I don’t - although that would be neat if I did – I did eventually spend that dollar and the others I’d been saving up from my paper route. I’ve always been a saver. Starting with elementary-aged allowance, then to the middle-school paper route and teenaged afterschool jobs, what excited me about working was the security of the pile of money in my sock drawer, not the plans and dreams of what I was going to spend it on.

Although some may find that enviable, you have to be careful you don’t become the third servant who buries his talents (Mathew 25:14-30). I’m good at saving and it’s served me well through the financial ups and downs I’ve had, but while Joe Sangl was at Fair Oaks Church last weekend for the Financial Learning Event (and I heard him back in 2008 too), I realized that with all that I may have been doing right, I was still missing something.

He and I were talking between services and I was telling him how we are only a few months away from being 100% debt free using his snow-ball method and he asked me the simplest of questions which was followed by my dumbfounded silence. He asked, “so once you’re debt-free, what dream vacation are you going to put all that extra money toward?”

Now that question shouldn’t have been so challenging (and I think I dumbfounded Joe when I told him I had no such plans) but I haven’t saved up for a planned vacation since our honeymoon. Joe is all about using your dreams (and funding those dreams) as a financial motive for sticking to the debt-free plan. I agree it’s important but I really didn’t need that kind of motive to stick to the plan – I was born to stick to the plan – but that doesn’t mean I don’t have dreams and goals worth saving for.

My most immediate financial goal (which is what I told Joe I’d be putting my freed up money toward instead of a vacation) is my kids’ college fund. It took my husband and I so long to get out from under our college debt that here we are in our 40’s, about to be debt free for the third time (woo hoo) but have never owned a home. We were actually on track to be funding the kids’ 529 plans at the correct pace to cover their tuition fully and have a down payment for our first home when my husband unexpectedly joined the 14.5 million unemployed in the US.

For two and a half years the money we had planned on putting toward college was used for living expenses. There was a little start on both the 529s and the home down payment but they didn’t experience the rapid growth that was planned for them. Now that we’re back to 2 incomes, we have a lot of ground to make up and it’s hard to see past that to some dream vacation.

But it did get me thinking … what are those dreams (after college, a house and retirement are covered) that I need to be working to fund? The family café my husband and I always joke about opening some day? an Alaskan cruise? the ability to work for God full time and man part time rather than the reverse?

What are the dreams you would fund if you were debt free and financially secure?

ISFP/INTJ Conversational Classic

2010-12-31T13:23:00.003-05:00

ISFP teenager: Mom, is _ _ _ _ _ a word?

INTJ mother: No… how are you trying to use it? Maybe I can help you find the word you’re looking for.

ISFP: I’m not trying to use it. It just came to me…. Can YOU use it in a sentence so I can figure it out?

INTJ: If it’s not a real word - has no actual meaning – there’s no way to use it in a sentence.

ISFP: But if it WERE a word, how would you use it?

INTJ: There’s no way for me to answer that. Without a meaning – because it ISN’T a real word – I can’t use it in a sentence.

ISFP: Okay… what would its meaning be, if it were a word?

INTJ: But it’s not a word. So how would I know its meaning?

ISFP: Well, if you’d just use it in a sentence, we could figure out its meaning.

INTJ: Are those lights flickering? I think you’ve induced a brain aneurysm.

I wish I were creative or funny enough to have made that up, but that was an absolute real conversation I had with my ISFP teenage son the other day (although there were just a few more “Who’s on First” loops before I escaped the exchange).

Now I’m sure an I/E NFP parent would have handled the conversation differently – perhaps played along and played “create a definition out of thin air” but as an INTJ that was not an instinctual direction for me to go.

How would you have responded? (Include your “Type” if you know it.)

Paul's Sunset

2010-12-27T15:25:00.005-05:00

Music was one of my earliest memories and most enduring connections between me and my Dad. One of my favorite pictures is of me at about 8-months old sitting on Dad’s lap between him and his guitar, me peaking over the top to watch his fingers. There was always music in the house growing up. Sometimes we would just sit around in the living room with one of Dad’s favorite song books and play and sing together.

Music is an emotional vehicle for me. It’s a way for me to interpret and process my life so it meant a great deal to me to be able to sing at his funeral. Although I felt my voice shaking as I sang the songs I chose, the lyrics of each would steward the story well and I believe Dad would have been pleased.

Thanks to the talents, generosity and help of my friend Joel Slater I was able to record the songs as a Christmas gift as a permanent memory of Dad. Each of the 4 songs I recorded reflect a different part of my relationship with Dad and although I’m no great vocalist, it gave me great closure to put it all together.

Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) - by Chris Tomlin (listen here)

Amazing Grace is my all-time favorite hymn. When I asked if my dad had a favorite hymn I could sing at his funeral, I didn’t expect that we would share this classic as our favorite. My father’s funeral was actually the forth that I’ve sung Amazing Grace at, but each time has been an entirely different rendition or version. It’s remarkable how this song can be so timeless and consistent yet so different from arrangement to arrangement, unique for each person and situation.

When I Get Where I'm Going - Brad Paisley (listen here)

When I first heard this song two years ago, I immediately knew this would be the anthem of my dad’s passing when that time came. In my mind, though, that time would not come for another 15 or more years, so I expected to have plenty of time to teach the song to my son to play and sing at the funeral, and I would merely accompany and harmonize. Though I enjoyed singing it, I regret not only that Dad’s time was cut way too short for my young musician to have prepared it, but that the boys never got the chance to know him well enough to know how appropriate this song was for him.

Finally Home – MercyMe (listen here)

This song is a truer reflection of my own heart in dad’s passing and is more my personal anthem for him. It took many rehearsals to get through the second line without getting choked up as I think every child wonders and hopes they have made their parents proud in whatever the path they’ve chosen in life, but it also reflects the security I have in an eternity with our Lord.

Better Than A Hallelujah - Amy Grant (listen here)

This song is for the hurting who remain – the survivors, if you will – those left behind in their grief. It came out this summer and it immediately spoke to me about the trials and suffering my family had endured in the last year – my own cancer, my husband’s health challenges, the financial struggles of one income - and how so very blessed I was by the prayers of others and how much closer I was drawn to God through those trials. Psalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

I want to say thank you, again, to Joel Slater who recorded and edited these songs and made me sound pretty good. A worship leader and Christian recording artist, check out some of Joel’s original music and buy his CD “Scattered” at http://www.joelslater.com/.

ISFP-INFP-INTJ: a comment on the creative process

2010-12-16T17:58:00.004-05:00

INTJ’s are not necessary known for being creative. Visionaries, yes, but not creative in an abstract or artistic way, so I’m always surprised when people say “oh, you’re so creative.” Of course usually it’s the outcome or product they are assessing as creative, but the process that birthed that outcome or product, if witnessed, might have been quickly characterized as “oh, you are such an INTJ” or “you just suck the fun out of everything, don’t you?”

Nothing will humble what little creativity an INTJ may have than to spend 30 minutes in a room with a couple of UBER-creative, talented, soulful, remarkable and gifted ISFP and INFP musicians.

You see, recently I begged the help of my ISFP friend to help me record the songs I sang at my father’s funeral onto a CD. Besides having a heart of gold, this ISFP is one of the most talented people I know – a worship leader at prominent church in the DC area, has opened for major Christian artists, released his first album last year, in the process of cutting another – which is very daunting for a corporate executive INTJ square like me to sit down and sing my little songs into a microphone.

As an INTJ, of course, I am a perfectionist, highly critical of self, always seeking improvement so I’m never completely satisfied with anything I do. But knowing this about myself (and how annoying it can be for others to be around) I have learned to let go a bit and if someone I recognize as an authority says it’s good, I move on (well, physically anyway – mentally, I’m still in constant review.) So when my dear ISFP said a take was good, I accepted it as good. When he wanted me to repeat a section, I resisted the urge to repeat the entire thing 80 more times and just repeated that section identified.

The part I found typologically remarkable was the ISFPs joking comment of jealousy that each time I sang a particular song or section that it was almost identical to the time before. The consistency from take to take was apparently enviable (which, of course, if I’m repeatedly and identically singing a section poorly, I’m not sure why consistency would be an enviable trait) and in the back of my head I’m seeing one of those INTJ posters that have a picture of a robot and some comment about precision.

In the rehearsal after rehearsal that were a part of this INTJ’s process long before I showed up at the ISFP studio, my goal was precision so of course the outcome was precisely the same each time. I wish I knew a different way, could experience it a different way, feel it through an I*FP beat and taste the freedom of a true creative process that is counter intuitive for an INTJ.

The typological icing on this creativity cake was made by the kind, uber-talented INFP musician who composes, orchestrates new sheet music weekly and plays 173 different instruments at the church. As the ISFP is repeating his remark of jealousy at the INTJ consistency, the INFP says, “Well, of course. Lauren is always a consummate professional.” And then turns to me directly and says “and I mean that in the best possible way.”

Now wait – INTJ brain is going to have an aneurysm. How could “consummate professional” ever be a bad thing that it needs to be clarified as “meant in the best possible way?” Is that an “I*FP” thing? Do I need to “loosen up” fellas?

Relax. No offence taken. You can’t be an MBTI practitioner and see 3 dozen posters depicting the INTJ as a robot and not realize you come off as a bit stiff to others. I get it. The comment, though, was classic, and it would have been an MBTI loss not to share it.

So does NOT being a consummate professional equal more authentic creativity? Hmmmm... processing.... processing ... processing....

365

2010-12-14T12:30:00.004-05:00

One year ago today, at almost this exact time, I was home in bed, having called in sick with the flu. I answered a phone call from my doctor (whom I’d seen for my annual check-up just 6 days prior) and she dropped the “C” bomb followed by a flurry of long words, doctors’ names, referrals, phone numbers and urgent instructions and additional appointments.

So much has happened in the year that followed, it’s hard to believe it’s only been a year. Most importantly, I’m cancer free – PRAISE GOD! I’ve kept up with all of my follow up appointments – very uncharacteristic for me – and I have a new respect for “routine” checkups actually being a part of your routine.

So let’s put YOU on the spot. Have you kept up with your annual physicals and tests? Why should I, you say? I feel perfectly fine. So did I – so did my Dad. Both of us were blindsided by our cancer diagnoses – in good physical health otherwise – but only one of us is wearing the badge “survivor”. The other basks in the light of Christ, living out eternity with our Lord. Not a bad trade-off either way, I know, but is your family ready for that? Who will you be leaving behind or burdening with your illness if you don’t take care of yourself?

Have I gotten through yet? Not sure what you should be doing when ?

Here are a few words from http://www.lifeorganizeit.com/routine-physical-exam.html about routine exams:

What You Need to Know for Your Routine Physical Exam - Organize yourself and get ready for your routine physical exam by knowing your health history along with your family’s.

During the routine physical exam you’ll fill out a detailed medical health questionnaire that lists your health along with your family’s health history.

It’s important to fill this out as completely as possible for your doctor to review and see your health history along with your family’s. They'll be able to spot trends in your family's history and can use this info along with any symptoms you may be experiencing to diagnose and treat you.

You’ll want to bring along a list of any health questions or concerns you have to address with your doctor.

In our 20’s and 30’s - Routine physical exams are needed every few years since they help determine if there is any heart disease, hypertension, or cancer.

In our 40’s -A routine physical exam every couple of years is recommended to maintain health.

And, yearly in our 40’s the following tests are recommended:

Breast cancer test. Women should continue monthly self breast exams with a yearly breast exam performed by their doctor. They should begin to receive yearly mammograms too.

Both men and women should begin to have their cholesterol checked on a yearly basis.

Men should start having their prostate checked on a yearly basis.

And, to be on the safe side, a yearly routine electrocardiogram for both men and women along with a stress test should be performed.

In our 50's - A routine physical exam should be completed yearly to look for arthritis, arteriosclerosis, cancer, emphysema, diabetes, and signs of dementia with the following tests starting:

A colon cancer test beginning at age 50 which doesn’t need to be repeated until age 60 unless it comes back positive and or there’s a family history of colon cancer. Prostate cancer screening beginning at age 50. Men should receive a PSA blood test every year.

In our 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 100's.... - A routine physical exam should be completed every year to continue to look for arthritis, arteriosclerosis, cancer, emphysema, diabetes, and check for early signs of dementia. Women should receive a bone-density test to check for osteoporosis too.

Knowledge is power and if you have your family’s routine health care organized and scheduled, you have the power to head of disease and illness and live a long, happy, and functional life.

A Tale of Two Citiots

2010-12-14T12:20:00.005-05:00

I’m a city girl … who enjoys the country. Although I was born and raised in the Detroit area and later moved to the D.C. area, somehow I managed to get my share of the great outdoors growing up and developed a love for horseback riding. I’ve done a lot of riding for a city girl – horse camp every summer, friends and family with horses, the occasional ride through the Gettysburg battlefield – but I may have had just a bit too much confidence for someone who hasn’t been on horse for over 3 years.

On our Thanksgiving trip to Arizona, the boys and I wanted to take my dad and step-mom’s horses out for a quick ride around the property. The most skilled rider in the group, I was elected to ride the most obnoxious horse, fondly nicknamed "Stupid." Now Stupid did his best to buck me off, but after 4 tries and 20 minutes, I was sure he’d given up. Thinking it was safe, my youngest got on the back with me and off we went to hit the trails. Not seven minutes down the road, Stupid lived up to his namesake and began bucking again. I managed to hold on (earned my rodeo hat on that one) but my young rider of 115 lbs and 13 years went flying straight up and landed square on his feet. Clearly, he has a future as a rodeo clown.

About 30 minutes later, 200 feet from the finish line of our ride, I let my guard down just as the horse got spooked by the ATV my 13-year-old had chosen as alternate transportation and Stupid bucked me right over his head, 20 feet into a cactus and a few rocks. No broken bones, some nasty bruises and many, many hair fine cactus needles that took two weeks to pick out of my hands and backside, I have keen recognition that I don’t bounce back like I did when I was 13 but I still look forward to my next ride.

Tis The Season To Be Tithing, Fala Lalala Laaa La Laa Laa Laaa

2010-11-17T20:32:00.005-05:00

This was one of those odd “trending topics” days where several things seemingly unrelated keep bringing you back to the same topic... tithing!

As I was driving the kids to church tonight, my youngest was doing his civics/economics homework in the front seat. They are working on the economy and household budgets and there was a big pie chart on one page that he started telling me about. X% of your income should go to rent, X% should go to medical (I told him they should have printed an addendum for those percentages in the DC area) and so on, but when he got to charitable giving, it said 1 – 3%. What?!? It lead to a great conversation about tithing and that charitable giving was in addition to tithing not a replacement of it (of course there was not “tithing” slice on the pie) and what other percentages might be shifted around to “fix” the text book’s pie chart. Can’t wait to see the teacher’s reaction to that rabbit trail in his homework!

Then when I came home and opened the mail today, there were two letters from my church. One was a letter from the Pastor to the congregation and one was the 3rd quarter summary statement of our family’s annual tithing. I have to say, I really like this 3rd quarter summary because it always makes me feel so blessed to have had the financial means to be faithful in my giving. It also helps me see the big picture and is often a catalyst for a reevaluation for “what more could I be doing?”

I had an unexpected reaction when I opened it today though…. I saw the number at the bottom and said to myself “What?!?! That’s all I gave this year?!?!” Now, there were two quickly forgotten things at play in my knee-jerk reaction… one was that I forgot there were still two more months of giving left in the year; the other was that I forgot my family had only had a single income for the first 6 months of the year. I knew what our current household income was so when I did the simple math of 10% I was coming up seriously short. I felt much better after I figured out my mental error and that I was ahead of the game, but that still begs the original question “what more could I be doing?”

The second letter was from Pastor Stokes to the members of the congregation about our annual giving to date and a budget shortfall of about $85,000. In an economy like this, I know that we are very lucky that this is the extent of our year-to-date shortfall but I can’t help but be disappointed in a shortfall of any kind. Our church staff work very hard to put together an amazing time of worship, fellowship and Biblical message each week and I feel like we’ve let them down that they should have to worry about $85,000 in the last two months of the year. I know we have the collective capacity to make this up – almost effortlessly – if we all commit to it. If every single person who walked through Fair Oaks Church’s doors gave an extra $7 a week for the remaining 6 weeks we’d make up the difference in no time – for the cost of a 2 Venti Lattes a week. You didn’t need all those calories anyway (500 in the seasonal favorite Pumpkin Spice Crème, by the way).

Fair Oaks Church does not typically “pass the plate” but this Sunday we’re going old-school so be prepared and reach deep my friends. And don’t forget you can always give on line by clicking HERE.

Heavenly Homecoming

2010-11-16T10:08:00.005-05:00

On October 20, 2010, my father went Home to be with his Heavenly Father. He was a young and vibrant man of 68 years in the prime of his active retirement. His rapid decline in a matter of weeks from diagnosis to dust was shocking, but to be hiking and ranching and playing senior softball right up to the month and a half before he died is a blessing of sorts. I’ve had several friends and family suffer long physical and mental ailments for years and years before they passed away and my dad would NOT have wanted to go like that.

My dad hated funerals… hated everything about them – the premise, the process, the pomp and circumstance – all of it. He would have hated the idea of a bunch of people sitting around sadly and somberly eulogizing him, paining over his death rather than embracing their own life and celebrating his. Growing up, I’d heard him make disgruntled remarks about eulogies specifically that if people had nice things to say about you, they should tell you while you’re alive so you can appreciate it, not wait until your dead and you never hear how they felt about you. (Of course, I might argue that you don’t always know how people feel about you).

Having had a little taste of my own mortality last year when I was diagnosed with cervical cancer, I had a renewed appreciation for Dad’s sentiment. My eulogistic urge, though, was less about telling people how I feel before they die and more about making sure I said things in case I die. Although my battle with cancer was quick and I was cancer free by February, the following June I took the opportunity to share with my dad some of the moments in our relationship that were important to me and posted it here on my blog as a Father’s Day tribute.

Although it became even more important after he passed away so quickly with little time to squeeze in those kinds of conversations, but it also meant a lot to me at the time that the tribute meant so much to him to receive it for Father’s Day. He wrote me, “Every time I read it I get choked up. It is beautiful. Some of the things you talked about took me some time to remember but other things were as clear as yesterday. I still wonder why you would come to me and throw up, oh well.”  (I guess you’ll have to read it to know what that last reference was about.)

It was very cool to connect with family I hadn’t seen in decades (for better or for worse, funeral are always good for that) and have some “small-world” moments that we’re really not so far away from each other to have let the relational gap to remain. It was also great for me to hear everyone’s stories about Dad… things that make you say “oh, that’s so classic Dad” or “wow, I didn’t know that about Dad” or best yet, “oh that is so ‘me’ – I guess that’s where I get it.” One of the things I thought was most interesting is that no one seemed to know my dad sang. He’d thrown a big party for the church’s choir at one point and I assumed that he was “in” the choir, but no. Not only was he not in the choir, but they didn’t even know he sang.

Since music was one of the earliest connections between Dad and I, in meant a great deal to me to be able to honor him at his funeral by singing. Amazing Grace was one of his favorite Hymns so I sang Chris Tomlin’s “Amazing Grace – My Chains Are Gone” and for the cowboy in my dad, I sang Brad Paisley & Dolly Parton’s “When I Get Where I’m Going.” And although I felt my voice shaking through the whole thing (like Dolly Parton’s vibrato on steroids), I think the lyric choices really honored Dad and he would have been pleased.

I also think Dad would have been pleased with the celebration and “party” that followed his service. Led off by Pastor Mark’s remarks during the service about scotch (the Presbyterian equivalent to the Catholic’s sacramental wine, I think) right into the heavily imbibed party back at the Ranch, this was one funeral and celebration of life my dad wouldn’t have complained about attending. But far more important, Dad was at the party we all aim for – the one with our heavenly Father when we are welcomed home for an eternity with our Lord.

Love you, Dad. Hope you’re singing in God’s choir and saving me a spot next to you!

Where Were You When…

2010-09-11T16:43:00.002-04:00

I remember when I was little, my mom telling the story of when John F. Kennedy was shot. She remembers where she was, what she was doing, who she was with and probably what she was wearing when she heard the news.

For me, having missed the Kennedy assassination by just a couple years, the big news story I always identified with “where were you when” was the Challenger space shuttle disaster. Our school was following the Challenger flight pretty closely as it was the first space shuttle to take a school teacher along. Over 11,000 teachers applied and even though it wasn’t our teacher that made it, it opened the door of possibilities that not just astronauts can go to outer space. I was actually in astronomy class (believe it or not) when a student came running through the science wing shouting the news into each class room and we all just sat there stunned – teacher included – by the news. There was an element of disbelief until the announcement came over the PA system. Nothing else happened that day, we didn’t continue on to our next classes when the bell rang, but clustered around radios to listen to the news reports. My husband, who was already been in college at that time, had no recognition of all that happening and placed no life-memory importance on it. Perhaps it was regional, perhaps it was because I was still in high school and the school placed importance on it where a college likely wouldn’t. Anyone else remember that?

September 11th. Nothing regional about that. It’s not just the people in New York, DC or Pennsylvania that remember. It’s not just the people who work in the airline industry or the WTC or the Pentagon who remember. It’s not even limited to the US in the impact it had on peoples’ lives from the macro to the micro.

I was living in Florida at the time and I was working for a military weapons manufacturer. I saw someone run past my office down to the CEO’s office – they’d heard it on the radio and ran down to his office because he had a small black and white TV. Before I could even get out from behind my desk to see what was going on, three more people went running by. When I got down there, the grainy rabbit-eared picture on the screen was showing the picture of the first tower burning and before anyone could explain what had happened, the second tower was hit right before our eyes. A state of shock… but only for a moment. We quickly turned to each other and did a management risk-assessment. We manufacture weapons for the military, President Bush was just up the road from us visiting his brother Jeb who was beginning to campaign for his second 4-year term as Governor and we honestly wondered if we could be in a convenient target area. We didn’t really give it much weight, but after the Pentagon and Pennsylvania, we began to wonder if we should have.

The boys were 1st grade and preschool at the time. I asked them this morning if they had any independent memories from that day (versus memories of what they’ve been told) and they were just too young. Derek, who was older, remembers that they gathered all the kids to the center of the school court yard to tell them what had happened and the following year they had a memorial and sang a song at that same spot. For Quinn, in preschool, they probably didn’t say anything to the kids at all.

It’s interesting how every generation has that “something” that they identify with of remembering where they were what a particular thing happened. Perhaps it was President Reagan being shot, perhaps it was Hurricane Katrina hitting the Gulf, perhaps it was Apollo 11 landing on the Moon – there are many memorable news events to identify with over the years and generations, but September 11th stands in a rare and exclusive category.

I asked the boys, now teenagers, if there has been a news story in their lifetime that they identify with in this way and they both said there really wasn’t anything. Part of me was relieved that, with the way the media places importance on things that aren’t really important, that they didn’t answer something like “Michael Jackson’s death” or “Lindsay Lohan’s arrest” but the other part of me recognized that we can be quite certain that it will be something – something that has yet to happen – that will be ever burned in their memories as the day their perception of the world or society we live in changed forever.

Diners, Drive-ins, and Derek's Birthday Breakfast

2010-08-26T10:31:00.010-04:00

For better or for worse, I watch a lot of food shows on the Food Network and the Travel Channel. My two favorites are Man v. Food with Adam Richman and Diners, Drive-ins and Dives with Guy Fieri. In the last week, both of these hosts visited restaurants that had interesting breakfast concoctions so this morning I thought I'd give one a try for Derek's birthday breakfast.

Now, I've done the fried egg in the middle of the pancake before and the boys love it (me too) and this one was a variation of that. Now I'll tell you, the first time I tried the fried egg in the middle of the pancake, I was pretty happy with myself that I only destroyed the first one in the flipping process. But by the second one, I'd drawn the perfect hollow circle of pancake batter, cracked the egg into the center and flipped it without breaking the yoke for the perfect over-easy egg surrounded by a golden buttermilk pancake.

So as I decided to try this pancake with sausage circle filled with scrambled eggs I thought "how hard can this be?" Four funky-looking blobs later, I decided there has to be a better way. The cook on TV poured the batter circle, decorated the batter with sausage, poured the eggs in the hole, flipped it and voila! Unfortunately, every time I flipped it, the sausage prevented the flip side batter from touching the griddle (like stilts) and the second side didn't brown or lay flat. Don't get me wrong, it still tasted great but it just didn't look right.

My Solution? I put the sausage in a circle on the skillet first (like clock numbers) and poured the pancake batter over it to create my circle and then filled with the eggs and ... voila! Now that's pretty AND tastes great. Try it! The restaurant that was making it also did it with bacon in stead of sausage. I bet that would be good too.Yum!

Happy Birthday Derek!

Heaven on Earth

2010-08-12T19:55:00.005-04:00

reflections of serving in worship ministry

If you’ve listened to Contemporary Christian Music at all, you’ve probably heard the song I Can Only Imagine by MercyMe. This song spoke to me the very first time I heard it on a multitude of levels.

It’s become a very popular song at funerals (I’ve actually sung it at a funeral myself) because of its inspiring message of wonder and hope, but to me, where it speaks loudest in my life, is the unrestrained joy of eternally serving my Lord.

My favorite line in the song is “I can only imagine when all I will do is forever, forever worship You.”

Music has been a central theme in my personal and spiritual development - I wasn’t even a year old before I started pawing at my dad’s guitar. I even tend to “mark” my life by music – a song that represents an event or something I was going through – refreshing that memory every time I hear it. To this day, when I hear “Here I Am To Worship” I am brought back to the moment of my salvation when I gave my life to Christ, tears streaming down my face as voices sing “I’ll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross….”

When I sing “when all I will do is forever, forever worship You” it is the most exciting part of my vision of eternity in Heaven with my Lord. Yes, of course, worship is so much more that just singing or playing music, but it is the most natural way I connect with God and I believe he wired me that way for a purpose.

I have been so blessed, honored… humbled even, that for the last year and a half I have gotten to experience just a taste of Heaven on Earth as I have served a auxiliary role in the worship ministry at Fair Oaks Church. Being a part of the team that leads worship for the Wednesday night services has been an amazing personal and spiritual journey for me, but more so in those moments when others have let me know that something we sang had special meaning for them or that they were moved by it – well, THAT’s what it’s all about and I know I am fulfilling God's purpose.

This week, the staff and leadership at Fair Oaks Church had to make a very difficult decision. As the church grows and energies could get split in so many directions - it was time to reevaluate and focus on the essentials. It was announced this week that Fair Oaks Church would be discontinuing the Wednesday services to dedicate more energy to everything happening on Sunday on our campus (which is so much more than just the two services!).

I have full trust that every decision my church leadership makes is God-led and support them unconditionally. On a personal level – having felt a bit like I was just expelled ... from Heaven – I went through a tissue or two, which is a bit uncharacteristic for me. I cried less when I was processing the news of my cancer diagnosis. But I trust God as he closes this door that He will open a window to where He wants me to be, and so will I wait. (I’ve gotten very good at that over the last couple of years.)

I want to thank Joel Slater, Mike Zizolfo and Debby White for seeing something in me, for seeing my heart for God and blessing me with this amazing opportunity to help lead others in their worship during the Wednesday services. It has been a true honor and blessing to work with talented and godly musicians like Adam Miller, Nate Miller and Phillip Bassham who also brought their heart for the Lord as well as their instruments every Wednesday and to many practices. It was a joy to work with you, play with you, and worship with you, my brothers!

Stay tuned for new and exciting things to come at Fair Oaks Church. I’ve been there long enough to know that when one ministry is retired, something really cool is around the corner.

Over the summer, the Wednesday praise band had been working on some new music, and one in particular I wanted to share because it captures how how special that small group of people who would meet on Wednesday night are. It has meant so much to me to be a part of this gathering of brothers and sisters in Christ and not just benefit from an amazing bonus sermon from Pastor Stokes, but to be able to share our brokenness with one another and lift each other up in prayer.

This is the song that will forever "mark" this chapter in my spiritual walk.

Personality Type & Family Relationships

2010-08-12T07:45:00.004-04:00

A New MBTI Workshop Offered at Fair Oaks Church

At the end of a terrible day, you need a quiet evening with a book to shake it off, but your spouse needs an evening out with friends to unwind from a bad day. You need a check list to get things done, but your teenager needs the TV and the iPod going to get their homework finished. These simple differences can create havoc in the home if you don't understand them. The MBTI is a great tool for gaining insight into your spouse or... children to improve communication and understanding while reducing conflict.

2 million people a year take the MBTI, usually through their employer, to help them make constructive use of their differences and promote understanding and effective cooperation. Those same basic MBTI principles applied to couples and families can improve communication and interpersonal relationships, promoting positive attitudes towards different styles, and facilitate understanding, appreciation and respect between husband and wife and parents and children.

In the summer of 2010, I was privileged to have the opportunity to bring these concepts together in a marriage and parenting workshop at Fair Oaks Church (see dails here). I have been working with the MBTI for years as a business and coaching tool, but have been a great beneficiary of its application in my family life.

It was a great joy to be able to share the tool with other married couples and parents and have already seen fruits of success from the MBTI seeds planted during that workshop!

This workshop will be offered again at Fair Oaks Church in the Fall of 2010. If you think you may be interested, you can keep your eye out for it by signing up for Fair Oaks Church's E-Newsletter at http://www.loudonpurpose.com/.

I had the honor of discussing this topic on the air with Pastor Stokes while he was sitting in as guest host for the Don Kroah show on WAVA 105.1 FM. Listen here: Radio Interview

For more information on the MBTI, visit the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) Resource Central.

Type in Marriage and Family

2010-08-12T07:39:00.004-04:00

Personality Type & Family Relationships

"And above all, have fervent love for one another: for love shall cover the multitude of sins." - Peter 4.8

When you and your spouse know your own types AND know each other’s types, it can help you with understanding your spouse better, appreciating your spouse’s differences and unique contribution to the marriage, recognizing the reasons for conflict or difficulty which enables two-way discussions that achieve healthier resolutions, and recognizing your spouse’s needs from the marriage which will enable you to work together in a way that both of your needs are met.

Although the materials in this website are focused on the relationships between husband and wife and parent and child, the “family” that you will have relationships with, communicate with, have expectations of, are so much more than your spouse and your children.

Everyone has the overly competitive brother who gets you bickering like a 12-year-old every time he visits or the mother-in-law that knows how to push your buttons (even through the phone) or the uncle who doesn’t communicate with the family for months at a time and just shows up on your doorstep for a surprise visit and stirs everyone up.

You may never know what their 4-letter Type is, but the more you know about your own, the more you’ll be able to deduce about theirs, and the more you will be able to recognize patterns of behavior which you will see through a different lens (the MBTI lens) and be more understanding or tolerant of.

For more information on the MBTI, visit the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) Resource Central.

What Are The Odds?

2010-08-12T07:20:00.004-04:00

Personality Type & Family Relationships

Were the two of you meant to be together? Did your 4-letter preferences influence your attraction to each other or was this God’s plan from the beginning? How about BOTH! Reflecting back on Proverbs 22:6, if God wired us each with our own “bent” and that bent can be defined through the language of personality Type, that God may have designed you with your Type with the express purpose of drawing you to your spouse’s Type.

Now, the MBTI can’t (and shouldn’t) be used to select the “right” spouse (or dismiss a potential mate). There are no magical combinations that make the perfect couple and no horrible combinations that are destined for divorce.

It is interesting, however, that research can show us patterns of choices that people tend to make for their spouse. It doesn’t make one set of choices better or worse, just more or less common.

We often here that opposites attract, but research would support that, if anything, similarity attracts more than difference. The most common Type combinations between husband and wife are with 2 or 3 letters in common.

Looking deeper, people tend to choose partners who are more similar in their functions (S/N and T/F) and primarily the perceiving function (S/N). Where the “opposites attract” is more likely to play a role are in the attitudes (I/E and J/P). Ironically, it’s in the attitude areas that cause the most conflict when they are opposites, especially the outer-world orientation (J/P).

Are there certain Types that may have an easier time understanding each other and communicating? Perhaps. Are there certain Types that are more prone to conflict and misunderstanding? Probably. But rather than focusing on those differences as opportunities for conflict, perhaps focus on what God wants you to gain from this pairing of Types. Did He bring a Judger together with a Perceiver to help one learn to relax and go with the flow more while teaching the other to be more direct and organized? Or perhaps the different combinations are simply the gift of "heavenly sandpaper" and they were sent to refine you (or you, them).

Sixteen Ways

There are 16 different Types that each husband and wife could be, creating 136 possible combinations. Just as each Type is unique, each of the different combinations has unique attributes, benefits and challenges that are consistently observed in that Type-union.

Two of the best resources for couples looking to explore Type more deeply as a tool in their marital toolkit are Just Your Type by Paul D. Tieger & Barbara Barron-Tieger, and 16 Ways to Love Your Lover by husband & wife team Otto Kroeger & Janet M. Thuesen.

Just Your Type gives a specific breakdown of each of the 136 combinations, identifying the joys, the frustrations, and specific type-to-type tips to reaching your partner. Many of the type-to-type descriptions are quite applicable to other family relationships like parent to child and between siblings.

16 Ways to Love Your Lover approaches Type and marriage in a more organic way covering how Type plays a role in the different aspects of marriage such as communication, sex and intimacy, finances, and conflict. This is light and informative read that will have you chuckling out loud and reading passages to your spouse.

For more information on the MBTI, visit the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) Resource Central.

Moms and Dads Working Together

2010-08-12T07:04:00.006-04:00

Personality Type & Family Relationships

When Mom and Dad both know and understand their Type, it can be a great benefit to the co-parenting team. When parents have different preferences, children get the opportunity to experience a balance and variety of styles from Mom and Dad. This can help the child feel freer to explore and express their own type preferences when they can connect with one parent or the other in different areas of their Type.

When parents’ have many preferences in common with each other, it’s easier to establish a home environment that well-defined and consistent. If the children also share those preferences, they will feel in sync with Mom and Dad, but children with opposite preferences may feel disconnected from the family and a bit like an outsider.

Parents with similar Types can be great at creating a unified front with the kids, but it can also leave them a bit short-handed and perhaps resentful when they need a rescue from their own blind spots and their partner is struggling in the same area.

When parents have mostly different Type preferences, they have a great advantage in being able to call on their partner’s differences when they aren’t syncing with a particular child in an area. If a child of opposite preferences are exhausting one parent, the other parent can provide relief for their partner who might be energized by that same behavior.

Parents with different Types can complement each other’s weaknesses nicely but those same differences can also be a source of conflict and they should be cautious of letting children sense that conflict and misinterpret a preference they share with one parent or the other as bad.

For more information on the MBTI, visit the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) Resource Central.

Modern-Day Miracles

2010-07-23T17:43:00.005-04:00

You know, you’ll hear people say that the miracles of the Bible don’t happen in modern times, yet our last two years seem to be a living testimony that they do.

We have always been a two-income family – it’s a financial necessity, not a lifestyle option. We’ve certainly never lived a lavish lifestyle – never even been able to buy a house, but we were saving for one… along with saving for the boys’ college and retirement and the unknown rainy day. So in February of 2008 when the rain of unemployment came for Edward we felt slightly prepared financially for a short-term gap but greatly prepared spiritually that it was part of God’s plan and that He would open new doors and always take care of us.

Being the chronic planner that I am (which I’m sure gives God a good laugh from time to time) I sat down and mapped out our finances to see how long the severance and savings would take us and I knew it would be several months before we really had to panic. But since you never know, we started making deep cuts to most of the non-essentials, but having faith that something would come through before the reserves dried up, we still continued to contribute to retirement, college fund, pay extra to the credit cards, but first and foremost, tithe.

It never even occurred to us to cut tithing out of the budget. Everything we had, whatever amount that was now, was still all from God. We were going to be trusting Him with our lives and our future why would we suddenly stop trusting Him with our finances? Of course, we had no idea that shortly after Edward became unemployed, the market would crash, our retirement would lose almost half its value, unemployment levels in this country would reach record highs and it would be over 2 years of faith and finances tested. But each day at a time, each week at a time we had faith that God would provide when the time was right and take care of us until that time came... until His time came.

On my financial spreadsheet (which I fondly nicknamed the countdown to poverty) I had drawn a line in the financial sand that was the official “panic point.” And by God’s miracle, every time we got close to it, God pulled us away from it. Over these last two years we experienced miracle after miracle as unexpected needs were met with unexpected resources. Sometimes it felt like God was just dropping money out of the sky when we needed it. When the car needed repairs, I got a promotion at work; when money was tight at Christmas, an anonymous donor from our Fair Oaks Church family paid for the boys to go to Winter Meltdown; when I was diagnosed with cancer and needed surgery, our tax refund exactly covered all my medical bills and deductible; the list goes on and on. Every time we had a specific need or came close to our financial “panic point,” God came through or sent one of his angels.

Over these past several of years, I have been blessed abundantly at work with several promotions and with each one, I immediately increased my tithe and was blessed again. And not only did we continue to faithfully tithe all this time, but somehow we managed to never miss a bill, pay off one car and two credit cards, and last month, feeling so blessed by God, we stepped out on faith and signed up for a regular online donation to Vision T.O. and within days, Edward got his job.

And as if all that wasn’t testament enough to God’s hand in our life and our checkbook, here’s the real miracle….

After Edward got his job we sat down to layout a financial recovery plan (there’s me planning and God laughing again) and realized that in this last year alone, the outgoing expenses that we actually paid exceeded the money that came in by over $60,000. How is that possible? Mark 9:23, that’s how! We sure didn’t have that kind of money in some reserves or savings. No credit cards. God paid those. I don’t know how He did it, but I sincerely believe that our faithfulness to trust God with our lives and our finances and to continue to tithe without fail was returned to us in blessings 10 fold.

And the final miracle was that on the day Edward got his job, our savings account was within $30 dollars of the exact balance it was the day we started this journey. Again, how can that be? Luke 6:38!

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

There is no doubt in my mind that God took care of us and stretched what we had to meet our needs because we trusted Him to. We trusted Him with our future and we trusted Him with our finances and only begins with tithing.

Now if that’s not a modern-day miracle of Biblical proportion, I don’t know what is.

876 Days of Hope

2010-06-25T18:50:00.006-04:00

….or, 125.14 weeks
….or, 31.29 months
….or, 2.40 years
….or, 2 years, 4 months and 20 days

But who’s counting?

Without question, Edward and I are filled with joy to be putting this agonizingly long chapter of our lives behind us, but there are parts of it that I walk away knowing they were some of the best years of our family’s history and growth.

If God had given us a sneak preview and told us that Edward would be without work for nearly 2 ½ years, I’m quite sure I would have experienced some severe anxiety and been tempted to doubt that God knew what He was doing.

But because God only lights our path one step at a time, it actually made it easier, not harder, to put our hope in Him each day – having ultimate confidence that He would keep His promise and take care of us and reward us for our faithfulness and trust.

And He did! It’s still remarkable to me that we were able to stretch my single income and our savings this long, all while faithfully tithing to our church and giving to other charities, and we’ve never missed a household payment. Sure, there are many things we’ve done without and our family savings account is way behind where it could have/should have been by now, but some of life’s best lessons came from this chapter, many I hope to carry into the next.

I learned that God has always got my back. God has a plan and it's always better than mine. And God's timing is perfect! People can say those things, and they can’t believe they mean it, but not until it’s really tested with life’s trials can you really know you meant it.

I learned there’s a lot I can live without. God knows, we didn’t live a lavish lifestyle before, but even things like going to the movies every Saturday. For four people it’s almost $80 dollars a trip, over $4000 a year. Although my teenagers may disagree, cutting back and only going to the movies once every few months didn’t cause any lasting psychological damage and it made the trip to the theatre that much more special.

I learned celebrations are richer without the presents. I suppose as adults, we all actually “know” that, but when we reinforce the opposite message with our actions, it’s hard to sell that message to our kids. Christmas and birthdays especially had probably gotten excessive, especially for the kids. But establishing a “one-gift” expectation really made you appreciate the value of that one gift and drew the focus back to the purpose of the celebration.

I learned that we have really good kids. Well, of course I already knew that, but they have been real troopers with all the things that we’ve had to cut back on and are more appreciative of the things we are still able to do and get. Today we took the kids to the movies for the first time in months and I think they thanked us four or five different times. They’ve grown a lot through this chapter, in more ways than one.

Edward and I were also very humbled by how incredible, generous, caring and thoughtful our family, friends and especially our Fair Oaks Church family are. Not that there was ever a doubt that those characteristics applied, but more, perhaps, that we were deserving recipients of the friendships, prayers and generosities extended. Edward and I are both introverts and pretty quiet people and I think we were a bit surprised that with all the many people who might need support (whether it be a well timed prayer or the delivery of a home cooked meal) that we would be on anyone's radar.

One of the things that I things that meant the most to me during this chapter, and that I will actually miss, was the low-hanging-fruit opportunities to witness to people asking how I could be so positive and full of joy and hope while watching my financial security and life savings evaporate before my eyes and not knowing when or if things would ever turn around. Talking about my security being in God’s sovereign will for my life and knowing that things would turn around just in time – God’s time – and how much God was blessing our lives in other ways, were a great window of opportunity.

Now, as we anticipate what the next chapter holds for the Yost family, I am grateful for the lessons learned over the last 2 ½ years and can’t wait to see how God is going to use us and what He is going to teach us next.

Thank you, again, for all the prayers and encouragement we were so blessed by.

GOD IS GOOD!

GOD IS FAITHFUL!

GOD HEARS OUR PRAYERS AND ANSWERS THEM!

AFTER 2 ½ YEARS OF "WAIT" ... TODAY GOD"S ANSWER IS "YES"!!!

Daddy Guy

2010-06-19T19:46:00.005-04:00

My dad lives out in Prescott Arizona with stepmom Sandy so we don’t get to see them very often. As this Father’s Day was approaching, I started to think about some of my favorite moments with my Dad and thought I’d share some of them here.

When I was little, I called my dad “Daddy Guy.” I don’t why … and I don’t know if I actually remember that or if I just remember being told that, but darn cute just the same, right?

My earliest and most enduring memory of my dad was of him playing the guitar. One of my favorite pictures of my dad and me was of me at about 8-months old sitting on his lap between him and his guitar, me peaking over the top to watch his fingers. The photo, unfortunately, was lost in hurricane Katrina (but that’s another story).

There was always music in the house growing up. Sometimes we would just sit around in the living room with one of Dad’s favorite song books and sing. A great memory. Dad’s electric (a vintage Supro that he still has and I covet) was very cool, but the one he played the most (and the guitar from the lost picture) was the Giannini classical acoustic which was made in Brazil. I have that one now and it’s the one I started teaching my son Derek on years ago.

When I was in the first grade, I had Pneumonia and was home sick for several weeks. I remember one day after my dad got home from work, he sat down on the couch to watch TV and I came out and sat with him to watch a bit. I snuggled up next to him and put his arm around me and I promptly started vomiting all over him. My dad swiftly scooped me up in his arms and started running my down the hall to the bathroom, me vomiting the whole way, with my mom chasing after us yelling “Stoooooooop!!! I rather clean one spot than three rooms!” A classic memory.

A true testament to my geek-dom, one of my favorite memories of my dad is when I was in the 2^nd grade (or so) and he helped me with my math homework. It was dividing single and double digit numbers onto three and four digit numbers and I was struggling with all the steps to remember in the long division. My dad (an engineer) looked at it, somewhat dismissed the need to learn that stupid-long-division crap, showed me the short way (which – light bulb - made total sense to me) and I walked away thinking my dad was a genius. He had taught me some "secret trick" that my dumb old teacher probably didn’t even know (I thought). I looked at my dad very differently after that. It may have been the first time I realized he was a person outside of being my dad in our house, and that I really had no idea who that was. A transformative memory.

A couple of years later, my dad came to my class for career day and demonstrated a safety restraint that he had designed for General Motors (a seatbelt to all the other 4^th graders) but I remember thinking how cool it was that my dad invented that. I actually blogged about that and Dad’s patent back in April (Embrace Life).

My Father and Bride dance at my wedding was one of my favorite moments with dad. It’s one of those things that I’d always wanted to do as a part of a girl’s “dream wedding.” It wasn’t something that we got to rehearse so I was surprised how perfect it was and discovered that my dad is a really good dancer. So good he made me look good, like we’d been dancing together for years. He made that moment perfect for my wedding day. A precious memory.

When the boys were just 1 and 2-years old, my life took a hard left for the surreal and my young family ended up moving in with my dad and Sandy for 6 months. What could have easily felt like a major life setback ended up being such a blessing… especially for the boys. At just a few years old, the boys got to experience a concentrate of their grandparents just before they moved out to Arizona which created a lasting bond and memories that might have otherwise been a void. Of course, I have a lot of fond memories of my own during that 6 months as well. As a young adult and early in my professional career, I was able to have conversations with my dad on a level we’d really never experienced before together. It was cool and I wouldn’t have traded that time for anything. A personal growth memory.

So here were are, Father’s Day, and the last time I actually saw my dad was for a Father’s Day trip he made out to the DC area in 2006. Edward and I took him and my stepmom out to Gettysburg for a horseback ride through the battlefield. I wish we could afford to see each other more often (trips out West are way overpriced) so for now, this trip down memory lane is the closest thing to a visit we can afford.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad!

Birthday.... Cake?

2010-05-22T18:37:00.007-04:00

My husband's Peanut Butter Fudge is a family favorite (although I think the love of his fudge goes pretty far outside the family too). A "secret family recipe" passed down from his mother's side of the family, this glorious concoction was typically only made once a year for Christmas and parcelled out to a select few at work and church.

For the last few of years, our son Quinn has requested Dad's peanut butter fudge for his birthday in stead of a cake. The first couple of times we just made regular batches and cut it up to eat, but this year I tried to make it resemble a cake. From the look of it, I'm not so sure it was worth the effort, but I think it will taste as good as ever. I poured the hot peanut butter fudge into a chocolate crumb pie crust and decorated it with chocolate frosting. Yum!

We made two because he wanted one for the "party" day and one for his actual birthday, with enough leftovers to bring to rehearsal Wednesday night (bet you wish you were in the Fair Oak Church youth praise band now, don't you?).

So now, for the last several years, not only have we ended up making it twice a year, but last Christmas we made nearly 29 pounds of it to give away to friends and family. And if you only clicked into the story to see if the recipe would be revealed... sorry. Not happening. Only after Edward and I are too old to keep making it, we will pass the recipe down to Quinn who can take over the tradition. Sorry Derek, it's a "youngest" tradition.

If you missed it this time around, just wait. Christmas is only 7 months away!

Myers-Briggs and Family Dynamics

2010-05-16T20:36:00.005-04:00

Although I began working with the MBTI as a business tool to coach staff and leadership, from the very beginning I saw the more global opportunity to apply those same principles of behavioral insight and communication to relationships outside the workplace.

When I’m working with couples, parents and families, there’s rarely a situation where knowledge and application of Type wouldn't benefit the individual communication issues so I frequently use it in those one-on-one settings.

In all the years I’ve been conducting MBTI workplace workshops and been using Type with families, I’ve never actually put the two together and prepared a workshop curriculum for marriage, parenting or kids … until now.

More of a draft at this point, I’ve put together and 86 page booklet (which needs to be much shorter), traded my tried and true PowerPoint for about a dozen poster-sized visuals and trying to take what is realistically 4 hours of material and hoping I can do it justice in the 90 minutes allotted for this maiden voyage.

After testing the waters with this upcoming “Personality Type and Parenting” workshop, my plan is to develop and deliver a more traditional ½ day workshop this summer followed by one targeted for married (or soon to be married) couples and one for kids and their parents together.

There may be other family oriented MBTI workshops out there (although, I certainly found no canned curriculum for one that a practitioner could buy) the thing I enjoyed the most in pulling these materials together was discovering that there are still things I can learn about Type and Type Dynamics and the challenge of figuring out how to best layer in a spirituality element into the program.

Although in the workplace, my workshops really must be straightforward and secular, the consulting I do “off the clock” allows me to choose opportunities that can reflect who I am as a Christian and incorporate Christian elements into helping people discover not only how they can best communicate in their earthly relationships, but perhaps look further in how they communicate in their heavenly relationships. How does a person’s 4-letter type and personality preferences impact how they communicate, love, parent and worship?

I don’t believe God and psychology are separate. And a parent can’t ever be the best parent they can be if they’ve checked God at the door. In reality, there are more formal resources (books, articles, websites) connecting MBTI to spirituality than there are on MBTI and parenting.

My favorite translation of Proverbs 22:6 is the one that starts “Train up a child according to his bent…” because it makes clear that God has hard wired us – given us a “bent” of some kind – with a specific personality that should be appreciated for what it is, not forced to be something it’s not.

I my search for new parenting and Type resources, I’ve collected a few trusted websites (along with a few new pages of my own) that may be of use to you in your parenting journey. As always, if you find other sites that you find reliable and consistent with CPP’s standards, please share them.

Internal Links:

Your Type, Your Parenting Style

Stages of Type Development

The Parenting Pyramid

Myers-Briggs (MBTI) Resource Central

External Links:

The Eight Personality Types of Kids Under Twelve

Personality Portraits for Children 7 - 12

Personality and Kids

Parenting Styles by Dichotomy

Children and Young Adult Personality Type Characteristics

Relationships and the Sixteen Types

Parenting by Temperament

The MBTI® Type Summaries Categorized by Temperament

Your Type, Your Parenting Style

2010-05-15T23:48:00.002-04:00

Myers-Briggs and Family Dynamics

Your ideas about parenting – what it should be and what it shouldn’t be – began forming when you were a child. A cherished moment with your dad that you looked forward to having with your own son some day, or the teenage declaration of “when I have kids, I’m never doing that,” there were elements of your mom & dad’s parenting that “fit” your expectations and style and some that did not.

Surely not an issue of “good parenting” versus “bad parenting” or of being a “good child” or a “bad child,” many of these style compatibilities and differences are due to your personality “Type” similarities or differences. And for any one who has two or more children, you already know, what may be the perfect approach for one child, will inevitably be the absolute wrong approach for the other child.

How can that be? They were raised in the same home with the same parents, with the same values and teachings, yet they are so very different from each other.

Or perhaps you find one of your children a breeze to parent (the one your spouse is frequently frustrated by?) and the other child, is just a struggle to get through to (yet your spouse gets along with that child fine.) The answer will most likely come down to Type – your personality preferences as defined by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (or MBTI) – starting first with yours, as a parent, but also in the type of your child if you are able to discern it.

Most of us have fantasized that the best relationships are effortless. Whether it be happily-ever-after marriages, friendships that transcend time and space, or a bond between parent and child that supersedes the need to work at it. We'd all like to believe that our most intimate relationships are unconditional, and strong enough to endure any challenge, but the reality that all good relationships require effort.

Somewhere along the line we’re told this about marriage, and although we resist the idea that it actually applies to our marriage, eventually we figure out that marriage is actually work. What’s interesting is that we don’t naturally transfer that recognition of “good relationships are hard work” to our parent/child relationships.

For some, there is an inherent expectation that the parent will be a respected authority and the child will be compliant and obedient. That may work if both parent and child are Sensor/Judgers (SJ temperament) who have a natural bent for traditional roles, authority, obedience, loyalty, duty, etc. but SJs only make up 38% of the population (with even lower odds that both will be SJs), leaving a vast majority of parent’s and children with a natural bent for miscommunication, misunderstandings and conflict.

Although different relationships have very different characteristics and specific needs, there are two basic areas which seem to be critical to the success of all relationships: Expectations and Communication.

What do we expect from ourselves and the other person involved in the relationship? How do we communicate these expectations, and our feelings and opinions to the person in the relationship? And (most importantly) how does our personality Type affect our expectations and methods of communication?

As a parent, knowing your own Type is a good start, but having a knowledge and understanding of the personality preferences of the other people in the home can substantially improve communication, level-set expectations and reduce conflict (see Parenting Pyramid).

For more information about Type and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, visit the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) Resource Central.

“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.” - Colossians 3:20-21

For more information about Type and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, visit the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) Resource Central.

Stages of Type Development

2010-05-15T23:35:00.005-04:00

As children grow and develop, their personalities take shape and the typological preferences that influence their actions and attitudes begin to reveal themselves through observable behaviors.

Ages 2 to 6
For children between the ages of 2 to 6, the “attitudes” of energy flow and outer-world orientation begin to show themselves allowing us to identify 2 out of 4 of the preferences, the first and the last letters of the four letter Type. From observing their behaviors, we can recognize:

Extraverted Perceivers (EP)
Introverted Perceivers (IP)
Extraverted Judgers (EJ)
Introverted Judgers (IJ)

Ages 7 to 12
Between the ages of 7 and 12, the child's auxiliary function is often not exercised enough to be recognized through observed behaviors. The dominant function, determined by their outer-world orientation, is much more obvious. Accordingly, we can identify 3 out of 4 of the personality preferences for children aged 7-12. They are as follows:

Extraverted Sensing (ESP)
Introverted Sensing (ISJ)
Extraverted Intuition (ENP)
Introverted Intuition (INJ)
Extraverted Feelers (EFJ)
Introverted Feelers (IFP)
Extraverted Thinkers (ETJ)
Introverted Thinkers (ITP)

To narrow in on all four preferences for the 7 -12 group, there is an MBTI based assessment called the Murphy-Meisgeier Type Indicator for Children®. The MMTIC is designed for Type assessment up to the age of 18, but since the MBTI is written on a 7th grade level, children 13 and up can typically take the traditional MBTI for assessment.

Ages 13 and Up
By the age 13, a child's baseline personality is fairly set, and we can usually identify which of the sixteen "adult" personality types a teenager fits into through observable behaviors as well.
Adult Type Development
Type development is the life-long process of gaining greater command over the functions of perception and judgment. This implies a greater sense of quality in their use.

Type theory asserts that we each have and use all four of the “functions” (S, N, T and F) but, as driven by our preferences, we use them in a specific and strict order – Dominant, Auxiliary, Tertiary and Inferior. In layman’s terms, we develop our preferred functions first, then our non-preferred functions.

The stages of adult Type Development are:
1. Development of excellence in the favorite, dominant process.
2. Adequate but not equal development of the auxiliary for balance.
3. Use of each of the four functions for tasks for which they are best fitted.

In theory, full type development occurs by the time a person reaches the age of 50 and, although Type is hard-wired and doesn’t change, someone with fully developed preferences and non-preferences can demonstrate behaviors as both S & N and both T & F as needed in any given circumstance.

For more information about Type and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, visit the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) Resource Central.

The Parenting Pyramid

2010-05-15T13:09:00.009-04:00

Myers-Briggs and Family Dynamics

Just like the nutritional food pyramid that advocates fruits and vegetables as the foundation of a healthy diet, followed by grains and dairy, and then a sparing consumption of fats and sugars, the balanced “nutrition” of parenting uses a similar pyramid showing where to put your attention for healthy family dynamics and effective parenting.

The foundation to healthy parenting is to first, know yourself. Knowing and understanding your personality preferences through Myers-Briggs is a good start. Being aware of how your preferences influence how you parent will help you be more aware of alternative styles and approaches when conflict arises.

Knowing and understanding the personality Type of your spouse and children can greatly enhance the communication and help establish clear and reasonable expectation within the family dynamics.

Ultimately, the more you know and understand yourself and the other members of the family and what motivates the actions they take and the decisions they make, the easier it is to anticipate behavior, adjust the communication style to turn a potential problem into a “teachable moment” and reduce the volume of correction, discipline and punishment needed.

Parents are freed up to focus on connecting with and loving their kids in a way that resonates with their Type. Learning how to communicate and adapt to each other’s needs and styles will replace the volume of time spent on conflicts and arguments. Discipline will get the least of the family time and attention.

“Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.” - Proverbs 1:8-9

Hesitant to Pray

2010-05-06T09:29:00.004-04:00

On this National Day of Prayer, I might have spent my morning quiet time with God the way I always do, praying the things I always pray, but for some reason I was more struck by the things that are hard for me to pray for.

I frequently pray for my leadership (church, work and country) because I see that as not just a Biblical directive, but essential key to successful and Godly outcomes and I have witnessed the fruits of those prayers time and again.

I easily pray for my friends’ and co-workers needs, like the Dowdy family needing a home in Toronto or for my colleague Rich to come through his second back surgery with full recovery and minimal pain or for the 15% of my staff that I’ve had to lay off in the last 2 months…

Where I really struggle is praying for myself or my own needs. God has been so good to me. I feel abundantly blessed far beyond what I could ever be worthy enough to receive or deserve that I feel like praying for anything at all for myself is an ungrateful dismissal for all that the Lord has already provided.

For example, our family has faced some pretty significant financial challenges over the past two years with Edward being out of work, but through it all I have faithfully put God first in my finances and never missed a tithe, and God has faithfully taken care of us, stretching our single income and meager savings far longer and further than I would have ever dreamed possible. Now, as those reserves get ever smaller and the nation’s unemployment rate reaches historical record highs, the prayers for Edward to find gainful employment should be the easiest thing for me to start my prayers with, yet they are not. I should be asking my friends and church family to pray for his employment, yet I do not. Each Wednesday in Chapel when Pastor Philip asks for prayer requests I know I should be raising my hand and asking, each and every week, for everyone to pray for Edward’s job search, that God would lead him to the job he’s supposed to find… yet I sit silent. Why?

There’s this fine line I have trouble reconciling about my will and God’s will. How dare I question God’s plan for this chapter of our lives by suggesting that we need something He didn’t already think of? It’s like I can hear God’s retort, “What do you mean, Edward needs a job? Haven’t I taken care of you? Hasn’t every bill been paid? What… are you all about the money now? Have you suffered? Didn’t I cure your cancer? How could you be so ungrateful? Don’t you trust Me?”

If I’ve learned nothing else in this life it’s that God’s plans are always better that my plans and to trust Him. When things aren’t going according to “my plan” it’s because His plan is taking over and there is a purpose. Even if I can’t discern that purpose in the moment (or perhaps ever) I trust Him.

So I find myself in the throws of these somewhat disingenuous convoluted-wordsmithed prayers that, “God, if it’s part of Your will…” or “God, if it’s not contrary to Your will…” or “as long as this doesn’t impede on Your plan, God…” How silly is that? I can have a good, sincere, natural conversation of prayer with God, right up until I get to something for myself.

Help me out here. Does anyone else experience this, struggle with this? How do I reconcile my “want” with God’s “will” …?

Because Geeks Are the New Cool

2010-04-29T22:11:00.008-04:00

Okay, it's hardly a secret that I'm a bit of a geek. It comes with the territory when you're an INTJ. Back in November, I blogged about my favorite INTJ-geek commercial put out by Intel, although most of their commercials get a chuckle out of me.

Well, Intel's done it again and it's running a close second for favorite geek-commercial, but this one resonates for a slightly different reason. A couple of months ago I published an article in P & R Magazine on Social Media in which I joked about how dramatically technology has changed over the years I've been in the workforce. Intel just put my very sentiment into a commercial that I have to laugh at every time I see it.

They stole this from my life (pretty sure):

Embrace Life

2010-04-18T19:17:00.007-04:00

My father worked for General Motors for a third of a century (a tenure unheard of, these days). A design engineer in the safety restraint arena, he earned several patents during the time he worked for GM.

I remember in the 4th grade for career day he came into the class and brought in a seatbelt that he had designed the latch for and explained how the lock and release mechanisms worked. Very cool (for a geek like me).

Long before there were federal or state laws about wearing seatbelts, there was Dad’s Law. There was no way in our household you were going anywhere without your seatbelt on. Sure, I went through a little teenage rebellion (who didn’t) but it only takes one good 55mph rear-ending that throws your car into a poll and the seatbelt kept you in the car to bring that lesson home. Of course the two pizzas sitting on the passenger seat were not wearing their seatbelt. They were not as lucky.

Last week my sister sent me this video and it just really brought me back to the bizarre slow-motion experience of that accident (and one other I experienced as an adult with my babies in the car) and why it’s so important to wear your seatbelt.

Try Me

2010-04-18T17:40:00.008-04:00

I have this particular curse. I’ve had it all my life (my mom has it too, so it must be genetic) and I married a man with the same curse, so my kids have no shot at all of avoiding it.

What curse?

Once I have decided I like something – a product, a television show – it immediately goes on some cosmic list to be discontinued or cancelled. I have even killed car models!

In my lifetime, three times I have liked my car model enough to buy it twice in a row but when it came time to get a new car again found that that line had been discontinued (sorry, General Motors).

I have that effect on television shows too. If I watch a new show and decide that I like it enough to neglect one of my old standards in the same time slot, that’s pretty much a guarantee it won’t be picked up for a second season – if it even lasts a full season. (For those of you wondering what happened to Sports Night, Dead Like Me, Firefly, Jouneyman, Thank God You're Here or Accidentally On Purpose, sorry ... that was me)
For the last 10 years, my curse has really targeted my hair products. It’s so long ago that I don’t remember the Genesis product it started with, but it was discontinued and I had to find a replacement before the stock I scooped up from every drugstore in town ran out.

Eventually I would find something that works and within 8 – 15 months it will go off the market and again I’d be back to a new search. I’ve kind of gotten used to it at this point, but here’s the part I feel bad about….

In my quest to find just the right replacement product, I end up with bottles and bottles of perfectly good (sometimes expensive) hair products that have been used once so I can’t return them to the store, but I’ve only used them once so I don’t want to throw them away. They may not be right for me, but they could be perfect for someone else.

I’d love to put them all in a basket somewhere with a big sign that says “Try Me” or “Free to a good home” so someone could get use out of them and they’d stop taking up room under my sink.

I’d add to that basket the 20 tubes of lipstick that looked perfect in the store (through the closed, plastic sealed packaging with a color dot on the bottom that looks nothing like the color inside) but looked horrible on, once I got it home. Again – used once, sitting in a box… exiled to the island of misfit cosmetics.

I’m I alone here? Do you have your own stash? What would you do with your perfectly good rejects?

Who Do You Think You Are?

2010-04-09T14:43:00.002-04:00

I’ve always been interested in genealogy and my family’s history. I always enjoyed listening to my elders tell the family stories (even if I’d heard them before) but wish I’d had the presence of mind to write it all down.

My family’s history in this country isn’t that long. Most of my ancestors – on Mom and Dad’s side – came over around the turn of the century. On my mom’s side, they actually still have relatives in Ireland that they know, have connected with and even visit in the mother country fairly regularly.

My husband, on the other hand, has a lengthy American history filled with veterans of the Civil War, the Revolutionary War and, according to a genealogy Edward’s mom had done about 20 years ago, a direct descendent of Daniel Boone.

We’ve been watching that new show on NBC “Who Do You Think You Are?” (Friday nights at 8:00) in which celebrities are tracing their family tree to learn about their roots. It’s been cool to watch and has generated new interest for us in tracing our family tree.

In just the few weeks since we registered with ancestry.com, we’ve been able to find 725 direct ancestors going back more than 14 generations on Edward’s side, tracing many of the lines back to their country of origin.

That may sound like a lot, but not when you do the math. Everyone has:

2 parents
4 grand parents
8 great-grand parents
16 2nd great-grand parents
32 3rd great-grand parents
64 4th great-grand parents
… and so on, and so on, and so on.

So if you look at the one line on Edward’s side that I was able to go back 14 generations to Reverend Henry Dillingham, born in 1568 in Cottesbach, Leicestershire, England. At the 14th generation, you would have 16,384 12th Great-Grandparents in that generation alone. When you add it up from your 2 parents to the 12th great-grands, that’s 32,766 relatives to find (and that doesn’t include brothers, sisters, cousins). So my 725 seems like a drop in the bucket. I don’t expect to find them all – nor will I try – but it’s been an interesting journey.

I’ve teased Edward a few times about some of the things I’ve stumbled on in his “Tree” like a great-grand father in the late 1600’s who was a juror (twice!) in the Salem witch trials and a blood line that leads to the Whites of New Jersey in the 1500-1700s joking that he may be related to his buddy David.

In the bigger picture, of course, because I believe in the word of God as a literal Truth, I believe we’re all direct descendants of only one person, but I don’t think Ancestry.com would ever get us back to Noah (I’d say Adam, but Noah and his family were Adam’s only surviving descendants after the flood, right?).

Anybody else out there watching the show or tracing their roots?

Beware the Ides of …. February?

2010-03-15T10:59:00.001-04:00

I just realized that my last post on my blog was February 15 and I feel like I’ve been in a black hole since then, having put in more than my fair share of 12-hour days at the office.

Work has been very stressful these last 30 days and, although the crisis is far from over, we’ve gotten to that point where, we’ve done all we can do and now we just wait for the chips to fall where they may and pray…. and pray …. and pray.

In a snap shot, the economy is hitting the business hard. Not that we didn’t anticipate it, but this particular stage of financial chaos came sooner than we predicted and alternate revenue streams are not fully up and running yet. So, after we just laid off 23% of our staff last year, we’ve just laid off another 17% last week and the remaining staff will have to take 3 weeks off work, half of that unpaid (furlough).

My heart and prayers go out to the individuals (and their families) that have lost their jobs. Our family knows, all too personally, about the financial devastation of unemployment. It’s been over two years now for my husband and the savings that someday would have been a down payment on a house have been eroded by electric bills and rent.

I count myself blessed that I have a job at all, and it’s a good job that I enjoy. God has been managing my checkbook and He has been working some miracles with those plusses and minuses that we’ve made it this far, but I’m still praying and petitioning for God to quickly reveal my husbands new job to him so we can feel normal again and have even more to give back for the extension of His kingdom.

As a Shakespeare geek, I couldn’t let “The Ides of March” go without explanation (for anyone who doesn’t already know). The Ides of March refers to March 15th, 44BC when Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by his Senators. There was little significance placed on the date of March 15th until William Shakespeare penned the line in his 1599 play “Julius Caesar,” Beware the Ides of March.

A Destiny Decades in the Making

2010-02-15T13:28:00.005-05:00

My darling husband and I "met" at a mutual friend's Christmas dinner on a warm, snowless Christmas day. Although Edward and I became fast friends, best friends with a frightening number of things in common, it was another year before we saw God's hand moving us from best friends to best relationship anyone could ask for - we married another 18 months later.

Those of you who have been blessed enough to marry your best friend, you know how lucky you are, but you also know God frequently has a sense of humor in that situation.

One of the things I find most amusing about God's plan to bring us together is the number of times He crossed our paths prior to that pivotal Christmas dinner.

One year before that, Edward and I worked in the same office building for about a 3 month cross over where, although he was on the 3rd floor, and I was on the 2nd, we came in at the same time and there were only two elevators. We HAD to have been in that elevator together at least once, if not frequently.

A decade before we "met" the recruiting firm I was working for was working with his company to assist with building up a new staff at a new location. I remember being the liaison to that company ... we HAD to have spoken on the phone one or several times.

Over two decades before we met, although I was living in Michigan and Edward was living in West Virginia, our families both took summer trips to Cedar Point - a popular roller coaster park in Sandusky, Ohio. I'm sure that every little kid that's been to Cedar Point has had their picture taken in one of those silly blue hippos.

I have to wonder how many times Edward and I actually encountered each other throughout our lives and just never realized it was all part of God's plan for our future as husband and wife.

You gotta love God's plans ... and the way he executes them!

Bible Busting Bulletins and Stokes in the Margin

2010-02-06T17:05:00.002-05:00

My Bible cover is getting harder and harder to zip closed - I have flashes that soon my husband will have to sit on it like an over-stuffed suitcase just so I can get it to church and back. Edward bought it for me as a gift about a year before we moved up here, and since then I’ve kept all of my Sunday church bulletins (or more accurately, teaching notes) in it, at whatever page was the focus of the sermon or message.

I actually went through them all this morning (what else do you do with 26 inches of snow outside your door and covering your TV’s satellite dish) and found that, with well over 200 bulletins bulging out of my Bible, about a quarter of them are in the Old Testament and the other three quarters in the New Testament. There are nearly 20 message notes from my old church in Florida, Creekside Alliance, but the majority of them are from Pastor David R. Stokes’s sermons at Fair Oaks Church.

Although over a year ago Edward created a special filing system where I could keep all of my sermon/teaching notes by Bible chapter so they’d all still be in the same order, I resist taking them out of my Bible. I love sitting down for the Sunday sermon, looking in the new bulletin to see where we will be today, and opening up to that page in the Bible to be reminded what I learned from this passage before from a previous message.

If they were tucked away in a very well organized 3-ring binder on the shelf, I might miss my weekly reminiscing of Stokes-isms in the margin. I realize I’m biased here, but Pastor Stokes is an amazing preacher. And, as great as his messages are, and how catchy the alliterations in his teaching notes are, sometimes there’s real gold in the margins: the spirit-led Stokes-isms that flow from the pulpit, but weren’t a part of the outline so you franticly jot down them in the margin.

Here are some of the nuggets I found in my margins:

~ Faith is conviction based on revelation. (Lather, Rinse, Repeat series)
~ The next time you feel like your leader isn’t pleasing you, ask yourself if they are pleasing God. (Detour series)
~ The L.S.D. of the Bible – Lust brings forth Sin, Sin brings forth Death. (Notorious series)
~ Trials are placed in your life by God to draw out the best in you; Temptations are placed in your life by evil to draw out the worst in you. (Faith series)
~ F.E.A.R – False Expectations Appearing Real. (Guilangriefear series)
~ Lust: any desire that is out of bounds or out of balance. (You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out series)
~ Be content with what you have, but never with who you are. (Chapter 11 series & Worship series)
~ Conviction is constructive, guilt is destructive. (For Crying Out Loud series)
~ Tactics without strategy = business without purpose. (Current Events & Coming Attractions series)
~ Sometimes when you get into ritual, you get away from reality. (Worship series)
~ The will of God – nothing less, nothing more, nothing else. (Wasted Series)
~ Can’t afford to tithe? Do the math… you’ve spent more than 10% of your income on bad choices and what did it get you? (Wasted series)
~ You don’t have to wander too far to get outside the Will of God. (Wasted series)
~ Sin is spiritual leprosy. (Marvel series)
~ The shortest distance between the human heart and the Truth is a story. (Grace Anatomy series)
~ Repel sin through insulation, not isolation. (The Others series)
~ Seasons of loneliness are unavoidable, even for the faithful and committed. (The Gospel According to The Beatles series)
~ If you spiritualize without spiritual eyes, you’ll find spiritual lies. (The Flip Side series)
~ What a person does is what a person believes, regardless of what he says. (Church? Why Bother? series)
~ To the extent you are working for God, you are fulfilling the purpose of your salvation. (The Flip Side series)
~ Works are not the root of salvation, but the fruit of salvation. (The Flip Side series)
~ The only part of your salvation people see is what you do, not what you think. (The Flip Side series)
~ The closest thing a believer will experience to Hell is this Earth; the closest think a non-believer will experience to Heaven is this Earth. (Rabbit Ears series)
~ People are incurably religious – if you’re not worshiping God, you’re worshiping something. (The Flip Side series)
~ Some people are “dating” spirituality, but not willing to get married to it. (Faith series)
~ Motivation without implementation equals frustration. (Faith series)
~ Embrace the pendulum – finding deeper joy in deeper crisis. (Faith series)
~ Success is not what you are compared to someone else; success is what you are compared to what you could be. (Add It Up series)
~ Church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. (Add It Up series)
~ The greater the purity of your heart, the greater the clarity of your vision. (Simply Worship series)

There were a few others I couldn’t make out and a few that, out of context, I couldn’t figure out (on one of them I had “Cool Hand Luke” written next to a chapter:verse) but there are some of my Stokes-isms from the margin.

Did I miss any of your favorites?

GROUNDHOG DAY!

2010-02-02T05:43:00.007-05:00

One of these days, Edward and I will make it to Punxsutawney for Groundhog Day. It a special movie for us and a special day for us for a handful of reasons from the films "Somewhere In Time" connection, to my husbands uncanny ability to spot 20 groundhogs on any trip we take (including wandering in the middle of a theme park once), to the coincidental milestones that have been marked by February 2nd throughout our relationship. Either way, a great movie - a great day.

I love this website - http://www.groundhog.org/ - The official website of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club. Check it out. It's hilarious!

More of my favorite clips...

Unlikely INTJ Occupations

2010-02-01T21:55:00.003-05:00

A few days ago I published tongue-in-cheek a post about INTJ's in the role of counselor. Unless the editors at CPP were drunk when the MBTI bible went to print, you won't find empathy and compassion on the INTJ "common characteristics" list. Not that we're not capable (I like to think I transcend many of the INTJ stereotypes) it's just not likely for an INTJ to choose an occupation that exercises those muscles. Although I might make the observation that since INTJ's like to dissect and solve puzzles and may be far better suited to be empathetic in dealing with other people's feelings (as long as they don't have to disclose their own feelings) they could make excellent counselors, but I digress ...

Although counseling is certainly a part of what I do, the better part of my last two decades have been spent in the Human Resources discipline. Another unlikely career choice for an INTJ for similar reasons. Although I thank God for my verbal filter, this cartoon certainly has played through my head on more than one occasion when handling employee complaints:

I also discovered a Google group a few months ago of INTJ pastors discussing their common challenges in ministry roles related to their type. Talk about a Typological challenge!

Of course, the INTJ loves a challenge. Even the grim reaper will have trouble taking the most stubborn INTJ down!