If You Want to Go Far.... the Power of Collaboration

You’ve probably heard the African proverb,

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.” [see note below]

Have you seen how it can take forever to get people moving? As a person who tends to operate (like it or not) with a fairly high degree of personal autonomy, I am taken off guard by this. For example, when you’re trying to herd a family, small group, or – say – a short-term mission team, the lag time between “Where should we go to eat?” and actually putting the first bite in one’s mouth can be - well, huge!

So if you are working with a group of people you may need to schedule a lot more time to accomplish things.

That’s why when I organized a church event a few weeks ago I did most of the work myself and held the event in the church lobby so people wouldn’t have to go anywhere.

On the other hand, projects undertaken together are usually stronger, and better, and wiser, and tend to produce relational fruit that may last much longer than the impact of the actual project.

So ultimately it’s a better approach. Next time I’ll handle the church event differently. I need to deal with some of the internal obstacles that keep me from being as effective in collaborating as I might be.

Thursday I had coffee with a guy I met more than a decade ago in a class about fostering collaboration. Although I do not know him well, Dave and I share a good deal of common ground and I was pleased that he wanted to get together and talk shop. Dave serves on a small team with Phill, and Phill is one of my all-time ministry heroes. Phill’s ministry had put on the training event where I met Dave.

One thing we talked about is how in American churches as in many other kinds of communities individuals have a tendency to say, “Hey, I have a great idea. How can I get people to rally to me and carry out this great idea?” We try and try to interest others in the things we’re doing and then get prematurely discouraged and give up when this approach doesn’t work.

We might be a lot more effective if we started asking different questions. Changing our focus from “what can I do?” to “what should be done?” can make a huge difference in how we go about things - in ministry or other endeavors. Here’s how Dave puts it:

The Four Key Questions of Collaboration

A culture of partnership is created and sustained by realizing that neighborhood- or wider-world partnership can power your vision and scale up the objectives your ministry can accomplish.

The goal is no less than reexamining everything we do through the lens of partnership. This is the choice for those who want to make collaboration the default setting under which we operate because it is who we are, not just what we do in certain isolated situations.

Those with this commitment will at some point – and again and again! – ask these four key questions of collaboration:

1. “I have a ministry vision that God is calling me to do! Do you suppose God has given this vision to others as well?”
   
   
2. “Would it make sense to find them and see how we could work together to accomplish this ministry vision better than by working apart?”
   
   
3. “Is there a set of skills that we might need to successfully meet and collaborate?”
   
   
4. “How and where might I gain those skills?”

Read the rest of the article here.

Note: To all who googled that particular proverb seeking a source - I found it many places but have not been able to confirm a more specific origin. If you're feeling generous and find something solid, let me know. And just for fun, check out this:

http://twitter.com/AfricanProverbs

Water

I love Puget Sound. Here's a view of the marina at Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island. Dad and Jennie and I took their boat there from Everett. It's about a four-hour trip if you're going 7 knots.

I didn't take any pictures on the way up, but spent at least an hour looking out from the flybridge, admiring the silver sunlight on the waves, and pondering the color of water.



More pictures here.

Pesky Emotions

“Emotional reactions can surprise, even ambush us,” says Gordon MacDonald in his book on resilience. It was due back at the library and I had to race through the last chapters so I could return it before leaving town. In this section, though, I slowed down, reading it through twice and copying down the salient points for further reflection. This is an area of struggle for me as well.

I live much more in the world of ideas and would rather not have to deal with emotions. Especially my own. Probably the emotion I’m most comfortable with is anger. Rather unfortunate, eh? In vain have I wished I could be one of those girls who, when upset, just melts prettily into tears. But maybe that only happens in the movies and on TV.

If I don’t pay attention to and make peace with my emotions, though, they have much more control over me than they need to. MacDonald comes to the same conclusion: neglect emotions at your peril.

As in other sections of the book, he reflects on the aspects of his life and development that brought him to where he is. As a boy he had been an emotional person, quick to cry over injustice, or sentiment, or hurt. As he grew up he was encouraged to push such emotions away.

And as he became a pastor, he found even more reasons to do so. “It became less important for me to know how I was feeling and more important to deal with the emotions of others. But my own emotions? I ignored them as much as possible … I used to pride myself on the fact that I kept my emotions to myself.”

Or so he thought, anyway. His wife knew better. He had emotions, all right. He just didn’t know what to do with them. “I suspect that this failure to respect and then to discipline my emotions – to give them their due – led me toward some midlife difficulties that could have been avoided.”

How do we recognize our emotions and the power they have over us? How do we listen to them and harness that power, rather than either denying it or being controlled by it? MacDonald answers those questions not so much with do’s and don’ts as a series of descriptive, diagnostic statements which I found rather helpful:

“First, I discipline my emotions when I make sure that they are not blocking the truths I need to hear.”

“Second, I am disciplining emotions when I make sure that they do not overrule what I know in my heart is good and right.”

Ah. Are we so sensitive, one way or the other, that we can’t be approached by someone speaking truth? That seems pretty common. Easier to recognize in others than in ourselves, perhaps. I remember a short-term team member for whom I was responsible who was greatly struggling with a situation that was largely a mess of her own creation. But nobody could help her and speak the firm words she seemed to need because she was so touchy about the matter that to approach it would send her into tears. Just one way to build walls that keep the truth at bay. I said, “there, there,” when what I wanted to say is, “Don’t be a dummy, now; we can make this better!”

I, too, may cover my eyes with my hands and peer through them at my problems. That does tend to distort things and lead to fear-based reactions rather than thoughtful responses. There’s a better way.

“Third, I am disciplining my emotions when I take moments to pause and ask, what are my prevailing feelings right now Do they accurately reflect my situations? If I feel down, do I have reason to be down? If I am elated, does the reality of the moment justify that feeling? Is the anger I feel justified; is it in proportion to the situation?”

He gives the example of Saul, consumed by rage and jealousy and chasing David around the desert. MacDonald suggests, mildly, “This would have been a good time for Saul to stop and say to himself, what’s happening here that explains my conduct?” I had to laugh at the picture of Saul stopping to cogitate on his conduct, but I’ve been in Saul’s position. Maybe I haven’t “slain my thousands” (jealous of those who slay more) but there have certainly been people I’d rather not share the planet with. I’ve had lots of battles with them in my mind, battles in which they say and do really terrible things that I can then put on my imaginary list of offenses. (I hope you never do this!)

“Finally,” says MacDonald,

“I am disciplining my emotions if I am careful to translate them into responsible action.”

There it is. Let’s strive to be those who can hear truth, choose what is right and good, put our emotions into perspective, and respond to them like responsible people.

Quotes from Gordon MacDonald, A Resilient Life, pp. 164-179

Fun New Cubicle?

My co-worker was getting ready to place an order for office supplies. She was going to get them from Office Depot or Corporate Express or someplace boring like that.

But somehow I got on the list for Constructive Playthings, and their catalog had just come in the mail.

"Wouldn't it be fun if we only ordered office supplies from here?" I joked. Or at least office furniture... This is what I'd like for my next cubicle. Green is such a peaceful color, too...

We also liked the look of the Rainbow Retreat Canopy:

Science, Religion, and Geneticist Francis Collins

I owe S. an email. She’s an old high-school friend, just about the only one I’m in touch with, thanks to – you guessed it – Facebook. S. is a scientist and nature-lover, a journalist and broadcaster, and also a fifth-generation atheist. We haven’t been having wild debates about faith and science, but she wrote to me recently about this guy Francis Collins who has been nominated to hold what may be America’s highest scientific post, as leader of the National Institute for Health.

Have you heard about this? From what S. says it sounds like Collins’ nomination is being fiercely debated. Most seem to agree that he’s extremely well qualified for the post. But he is also an evangelical Christian who has made some statements that seem, well, not very scientific. He is perfectly comfortable with his faith and his science and finds them in delightful harmony, but others on both sides find that a red flag. Surely there are SOME tensions?

Some scientists are worried at having a leader who thinks science has its limits and provides religious explanations for things they believe we’ll eventually be able to explain scientifically. For example, Collins believes that ethics, morality, and conscience come from God, while some scientists are developing and testing theories about how these things evolved. Collins supports the theory/fact of evolution, an old earth, etc. but he doesn’t seem to be absolutely on the science “side,” if indeed science and faith exist in tension.

Forgive me if I’m not doing justice to the issues here. I’m not, as it happens, much of a scientist. When I read the summary of Collins' views, I thought: fair enough, though I said the same when I read the critiques of him. Personally, even if I'm ignorant, I’m thrilled with science and rely on it not only to keep on working but to actually progress (something we don’t see so much in morality, ethics, theology, religion, or human civilization in general, right?) And the best thing about science is that it's supposed to be fearless. You form a theory and try to disprove it. Some say that evolutionists betray this very principle, and I suppose that may sometimes be the case. They're only human (!) I haven't probed the depths of all this or felt the need to do so.

You can read some more coherent writing about this debate here (and I'm sure you could find much more with a quick search).

• Science Is In the Details, Op-Ed piece for the NY Times, by Sam Harris
• Francis Collins: Fit to Head the NIH, debate piece in the LA Times
• Obama to Nominate Prominent Christian Geneticist to Head NIH, Associated Baptist Press
  

I haven’t written back to S. She’s probably wondering if I’m going to. If/when I do, I might try to reassure her: haven’t a huge percentage of the world’s greatest scientific discoveries been made by people of faith? The question of whether being a person of faith is an asset or a liability, in science, is not clear one way or the other, is it?

In America’s – or indeed the world’s – secular humanist subcultures, I can see how religion could seem a handicap. Yet across the whole American population, not to mention the world, S. knows she’s in the minority here. Reflecting on it, I realized that in other subcultures she would be considered the dangerous one. A person with no religion? Sounds unstable. There are quite a few countries where it’s not only socially unacceptable to be an atheist, but even discouraged or sort of prohibited by law. She’d be safe in China, of course, but what about a place like Indonesia, where you have to have your religion printed on your ID card? It’s a multiple choice question too, so you can’t express your conscience (God-given or evolved!) but must choose from the short list.

Surely religious liberty ought to include liberty from religion. Though I suppose everybody has faith and values and a worldview, and I'm not sure how that's so different when you put it all out on the table. Anyway, S. has the right to be an a-theist and to be squeamish about putting her fate in the hands of an evangelical. (We don't have a spotless track record.)

About Collins, apparently some are saying: As long as he keeps religion and science separate and doesn’t abuse his post, we’ll be OK. As long as he’s a good scientist it’s OK if he’s a Christian. But S. is not so sure. Can – or should – people compartmentalize themselves so much? Can someone who is on record as an evangelical Christian and a Creationist (as well as an evolutionist) really be expected or asked or trusted to keep his religion to himself and to be a good scientist? I mean, what kind of evangelical Christian would? (At least, that's the question raised by the editor of "Skeptic" magazine, who says he should know since he was raised one.)

Are Collins' positions syncretistic?

Creation and Engineering

It’s work-at-home Wednesday, and I was up early. I opened my eyes to see what time it was in anticipation of turning off the alarm (set – too optimistically I was beginning to think – for 6:00 am.) Yet the acts of thinking that one through and opening my eyes to verify the time (plus the discovery that it was already 5:10) were enough to move me across the threshold from sleep to wakefulness.

The sun had not risen. Yet when I opened the blinds of my bedroom window I could see the nearest street light. It was on. This light sits in exactly the place where the light of the sun is first visible for much of the year.

Funny how many centuries it takes and how much labor and cost goes into imitating the creation, though perhaps it is the sincerest form of flattery.

Once I watched a seagull trying to open mussels for his breakfast. He flapped his wings and rose straight up in the air, dropping them on the dock to crack them open. I wondered how much we spend to build aircraft that can go straight up in the air like that seagull.

On one hand I’m impressed by how much we, human beings, can do: that we recognize good stuff all around us, imagine what is possible, and can build such amazing things. Engineering can accomplish fabulous works.

On the other hand, I notice how much easier the Creator seems to make it look in pulling off the same things and better ones.

Well, an expert does tend to reach the point where he or she can make things look easy, right?

July Reading Roundup - Part 2: Nonfiction

(See also part 1: fiction)

Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortensen and David Relin

I suspect most of my readers are familiar with this story of a mountaineer who commits to build a school for the children of the Pakistani village that takes him in. Keeping his promise takes several years but he learns much about himself, the region, and community development along the way, and discovers his calling in bringing education to those who do not have the opportunity, otherwise – especially girls. I’d love to see everybody who considers Muslims the enemy read this book. Mortensen avoids taking on politics or religion head-on, just works tirelessly on behalf of the kids and shares the story with others.

"I've learned that terror doesn't happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren't being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death." (Three Cups of Tea, p. 292)

I’d highly recommend this book, and when I asked a friend who also works in that region about Greg Mortenson, she said: We could use a dozen more like him.

In one powerful scene the head of the village smilingly hands over his community’s wealth, in the form of 12 perfect rams, so that the building of the school can continue. He declares that his enemy will eat tonight, but their village will have a school "forever."

I found this a bit naïve. Building schools and educating a generation is good but hardly eternal. The world is not so reasonable or reliable as that. Another friend who has lived in that part of the world many years says:

“Sadly I think much of the work he did is now under Taliban-controlled areas and whatever he did may have been lost to their fundamentalist views. Unfortunately that is reality in much of the world; good deeds do not last as long as we wish.”

I think that anyone who puts his trust in human progress and goodness is likely to experience great disillusionment. (Though spiritual changes in a community do not last forever, either.)

I've been wondering lately what things that I've done will outlive me or continue to bear fruit after my life is over. Deep question, I know. But I would like to live in such a way as to make a lasting difference. I feel pretty good about what I've done with what I have but I'd like to see some improvements, as well.

A man I know lost his wife last year; their family set up a fund in her memory to continue helping with things she considered important - long-lasting things that reflected her values. I really like that idea. I just got a letter with a report about some of the initial things this new foundation the family ended up establishing has begun to do. It's really good stuff.

Even if some or even many of the specific projects Greg Mortensen completed have been wiped out (and I'm not saying I've researched that question!), his real goal has been investing in empowering local people. That will last far longer than some building.

An interview posted on the Three Cups of Tea website adds:

Also, one consideration, very under-reported in the western media and specifically related to the war on terror, is that in Islam, before a man leaves his home to go on any jihad—he must get permission from his mother. An educated woman will much more be unlikely to support her son in terror activities and deny or delay his departure.

Also read in July - and still reading: A Resilient Life, by Gordon MacDonald (post about that here).