Lucky or Smart?

Just finished a book by Bo Peabody "Lucky or Smart?". Subtitle is Secrets to an Entrepreneurial Life. Very good read, (a bit of language) and great insights for the Innovative Pastor that is trying to do it all. I especially liked his view on A students and B students. 62 pages.

Information Overload

I have noticed an odd thing lately. I seem to find too many books that I want to read.

Let me share some of my background. I was raised by a NASA engineer and a school librarian. Yuu can't imagine the number of books around our home. Reading was something that my two older sisters did for fun. No me - I wanted to make stuff. I would build, wire, hammer - anything. But I would not read unless absolutely required to do so.

For many years it just seemed to be the way I made my place in our family. It wasn't rebellion, I just fell asleep when I picked up a book. That did make the practice of doing my homework on my bed even a worse idea than it is for most people.
In college, I found out that I have an eye problem. My eyes do not track smoothly as I read - and thus - fatigue sets in. They gave me some eye muscle excercises to do and encouraged me not to give into the fatigue.

Over the years, things have gotten significantly better. I take breaks in my reading and studying, and have developed my eye muscles (I can still flip my eyelids too!)
As I look around my office I easily have a hundred books within reach. I have countless others at home on shelves or in boxes, and have given many away.

Back to the "odd".

I seem to have read so much that at times I can get stuck. There are so many people claiming to have the right way to do something, but many of them are in conflict with each other.

What I have found is that I have to give myself time between books to reflect on what I read, and let what I need to know surface from the rest of the information. Time alone or journaling can help these cobwebs clear - and let me develop an integrated spproach to the issues that I am facing.

It now takes longer to get throught pile of "to be read" books, but I hope that the result of reading them will be better.

Policies and other boring stuff

We are in the process of updating our staff job descriptions. It is not an exciting task, or a particularily creative one, but it is a nesessary part of getting us where we want to go.

Often times, the Innovative Pastor is not interested in such mundane things as policies and proceedures. That lack of attention can be the very thing that keeps them from being successfully innovative. Here is what I mean.

By nature, the innovator is looking at things as they could be or should be. He or she is not focused on the way things are. This ability is a great gift in many circumstances, but on the day to day of implementing a vision, it can be the weakest link that breaks. Your team has to know what is expected of them. Keeping the vision out there is important, but how does that impact them at their desk?

If you desire to be relavent and reach people that the traditional churches are not reaching, then that is a great and compelling vision. You will probably get a group of staff members behind you quickly. Now comes staff meeting. Why have staff meeeting? Do you ned one? Every church you have worked for has had one (and you hated it) so... Let's be innovative and not have one. Or should we?

The vision is important, but the nots and bolts of how to implement that vision must be figured out. It will dramatically impact how effectively each team memeber is able to do their job. Policies and proceedures are vital to giving a system the boundaries that it needs to function. A church, innovative or not, needs a system to carry out its' vision. The good news is that you don't have to be the one who writes it all down!