Aqua Leadership

Leonard Sweet wrote a book entitled Aqua Church that I never read. I like the title as it seems to communicate that the church is ever-changing, ever-growing, and evolving to speak truthfully to its own context. Maybe the book isn’t about at all but it has got my mind churning about this same idea when it comes to leadership in mission work. Aqua leadership perhaps.

I have had a series of conversations this week about seeing church planting and mission work continued in ways that are not solely centered on a leader. Though I’m not sure that we’ve done that successfully around here, I have tried to hold things with a loose fist, clinging only to those things that are absolutely necessary to see the Gospel race through the streets in our hood. If anything, I am probably too fast to turn things over when people have an idea or desire to serve. Take it or leave it, this is what we’ve become and we continue to try to figure out how to serve our neighbors from three different parts of the world who practice three different religions. That all being drawn out of some wonderful leaders with very, very different ideas on how to accomplish our mandate.

I find it frustrating, perhaps even troubling, that books and conferences are often pitched from the standpoint of doing mission from an exclusive style of mission and vision. Of course we need hands and feet to mission, vision, and purpose, but this often is the starting point. I have watched friends and colleagues be unwilling to bend on the styles of how much mission is accomplished that they end up producing mini-versions of themselves, doing mini-versions of what God may have actually had in mind. This all has been a very difficult process as I think I’m right about most things. Letting go and letting people run wild with the passions god has placed inside of them is the only way I know how to lead. I have been straight-jacketed and I’ve done my share of the same; we all hate the way this stifles. I’m so thankful that I have had a team that follows the Lord where He is leading them, not simply blindly following some mission statement we put on a website somewhere.

It is true that we run the risk of seeing churches and ministries run in all sorts of directions when we have this aqua leadership thing going on. If we don’t discern the Spirit’s voice, we’ll just do everything imaginable. It is the classic quote by Stephen Neill, “When everything is mission, nothing is mission.” Surely there is more truth in that statement than we care to realize. Perhaps the words of Neill and other plausible advice about narrowing our vision in a community have actually made us experts at minor realities. What I mean to say is that many teams and organizations tend to define their mission not so much around a narrow Gospel mandate, but more around a how-to strategy to serve a certain niche of the population. What if the Gospel was for everyone? And what if all under our gaze were neighbors entrusted to us by the Lord? I wonder if we would spend so much money on advertising, promoting, and being cool to attract attention as we would on the thought of. . . “Man, we have to see this whole village transformed by Jesus!”

The organization I serve with, International Teams has the vision of bringing all people, affinity groups, and organizations in a small geographical community together to see the Kingdom of God reign there. Societal re-creation. I like it. This isn’t rocket science is it? Jesus gave us a mandate to make disciples of all the nations and we as leaders have been given a mandate to see things ebb and flow in our community. Maybe everything falls apart when we leave. Maybe no one follows our style. Lots of maybes, but when fully empowered by God to engage in mission that has nothing to do with our reputation and everything to do with the Kingdom of God, people can’t help but fall in love with this Creator Everyone has this sense that there is something wrong in the world. Society is jacked up. Together we can join with Jesus, leading from the bottom.

This could very well be the only leadership blog I’ve ever written. It isn’t a topic I muse over too much. Yet, it is a topic close to my heart. Aqua leadership – leading sideways, desperate for His Kingdom. Let people go crazy . . . let His glory fill the earth like waters cover the sea.

2 Weeks Left of Blind Training – I Can See the End!!

If you look back 10 or so entries, you can read my blind bootcamp blog. This was an entry I wrote when I first entered the program at Blind Inc. in Minneapolis. I have never made it a point to write too much about going blind and adjusting, but since so much of my journey over the last few months has centered on this, I try to keep this blog as an accurate reflection of what’s really going on in my head and heart. The good news (definitely lower case) is that I will be completely graduated within the next couple weeks! What a relief and feeling of accomplishment.

The program is a comprehensive blind immersion which includes the classes of home management/cooking, industrial arts, travel, and communications (braille and computer use) and all done under sleep shades to prepare us all for total blindness. I had gone to 3 months of talking computer training a little over a year ago so when I came into the program, I decided to focus on cane travel and braille. I had a goal of being able to go anywhere, anytime totally on my own. The school is designed to get you there. The travel class has benchmarks of 3 drop-offs where the student is totally blindfolded and taken to an undisclosed location, primarily a place the student has never been before. The goal: get back to the school. You can ask one question on the journey. I have my third drop-off next week and have learned to navigate, ask the right questions, and go just about anywhere I want. I am confident that I could fly anywhere in the world on my own. What a relief and reason to rejoice.

The braille has been slow. It is a very challenging process but I’m getting to the point of reading fluidly. I can listen to text, books, etc at about 500 words per minute on audio so the fact that I’m reading 35 or so wpm in braille isn’t a replacement by any means. But this will help tremendously in continued language learning, teaching, and public speaking. The school has provided accountability and discipline to plow forward this way.

It has been such a joy to watch other students move along in their progress as well. This is certainly a real testament to the training and caliber of teachers at the school. This is no place for the faint of heart. I count it an honor to stand alongside some of the most dedicated and courageous folks on earth. We may have vision sucked away, but we’re not done yet baby. There is life to be lived . . . .and in my case a Kingdom to be announced and demonstrated. So thankful the progress has moved me along in that direction.

So, when I do my 4 mile graduation walk under the sleep shades, I’m already anticipating the feeling I’ll have once finished. This crap has been one of the most exhausting things I’ve ever attempted spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. As I stated in a previous post, I am so thankful for those at the drop-in center who stepped up during this time and especially to Charity who has had to listen to me go on and on about this little blind sub-culture I’ve found myself in for the last 7 months.

So, just as with college and seminary, graduation day has come. I’m not too worried if the school gives me a piece of paper to say I completed something – what I have are the skills to better take this Gospel to the ends of the earth and live with a large degree of independence. That’s my little blog grad speech. I’m not trying to inspire people really. This is just part of the journey. Go back and read from 2005 asI’ve kept this blog. Man, it has been a ride. Still holding on. . . not done yet!

Never a good time to get training

For the last several months I have been attending a blindness adjustment training school five days a week, four hours a day (not including the bus commute). It has been an intense, exhausting commitment as all my ministry involvement hasn’t really been pulled back much. I visit later or get up earlier and adjust my schedule accordingly.

I was talking to a new teacher at the training program who commented about how there really is never a good time to do this sort of training and how we make a million and one excuses for not following through. As I think back, I see how true that has been.

It also got my mind spinning toward the idea of seeing lives and communities transformed. There is so much seed scattering, tilling the ground, facilitating trust. . . . it is a slow process comparable to training. In some ways, going to 4 years of Bible college right out of high school is a super-easy task pitted against the commitment to train ourselves to listen and work alongside the very people who live in our neighborhoods. These last several years have been fun, painful, trying, hard. . . not sure what other adjectives – they’ve been real. Real people with real trust and real transformation.

I sat over pizza with our dear friend and teammate Tonya (because that is what anyone should do) and we talked about this idea of community transformation led by those from within. I smiled as we went back to the basics. Tonya with her PhD pursuits. . . us with our many years of ministry and educational experience. At the end of the conversation we yet again concluded that building trust and relationships is long. It takes a while and this sort of training never comes when you want it to. It comes in those midnight conversations. . .. the broken text messages. . . the prayers of sighs or spiritual tongues when we run out of English words. .. it is this training that we must make time for. In it we find the Kingdom of God in our midst.

I’m trying to get a couple guys I know to take an honest look at semi-formal Bible training in the next year. The way I pitched it to them this time around wasn’t all compelling or catchy. I just admitted that we never have time to do anything that we know we should do – or at least we don’t think we have time for it. That is the American lifestyle squeezing us into its mold. I think I Cor. 12 said something about that?? Yep. But the challenge, was to really seek Jesus and see what He had to say about taking next steps. I’m really praying that one of my friends in the neighborhood responds to the challenge of training.

Learning is never over. I wrote on that topic recently. We are forever learners if we’re following Jesus and trying to be friends with our neighbors. It is in this friendship and service that we find the Kingdom. Not doing servants tasks or tasks of training. . . but to be servants. That too I find pretty difficult. Yet, it is in this difficulty and in my millions of excuses of not serving or not being trained that I find God’s grace pushing me yet again to serve. Praying this over many of my friends and neighbors near and far.

It Doesn’t Matter Who Gets the Credit

I had a great chat with leaders from International Teams this morning where we discussed the idea of working with people in a given community. So many are instructed to lead from the place of expertise and power. The tone of the conversation today though was leading from the bottom. Coming in humble, asking lots of questions, and allowing the community around you to teach you in various ways. Even on the organizational level it was remarked that at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what organization gets the credit for any sort of Kingdom transformation that takes place. That God is seen and glorified is where our hearts are.

This is easier said than done in the midst of selfish hearts, selfish people, and a self-promotional age that screams for the attention of all onlookers. But somehow in our brokenness this morning, I just believed my friends and colleagues. As much as possible in our deceitful hearts, we want God and His Kingdom to get all credit and glory. I walked away from the chat with a great respect for my brothers and sisters and a desire to commit and recommit to Jesus and those we serve.

Leading from the bottom is tough. It is one of those things that gets a lot of “amens” but not a whole lot of action. Can we honestly say “I don’t care who gets the credit.”

The last two weeks I have attended a larger church in our area where we have been involved with the establishment of a Bhutanese and Karen background church. I use the word “involved” because so many have contributed and ultimately God inaugurated His own kingdom. We simply came alongside where we could, pushing where we thought we need to push, and retreateing when the time was right. In the end, I stood next to some of the most amazing servants I’ve ever seen. I had the visual image of us putting our hands in the team pile saying to one anotehr “Let’s do this! Go!” In all my years of running, sports, and great teams I was part of, nothing compared to the emotion I had when surrounded by a bunch of people committed to Jesus, not themselves.

And that was the feeling I got again today. It truly doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t matter, who gets the credit. If it does we’re probalby living out some jacked up kingdom of this world dresssed in Kingdom of God clothing. For today I’m riding the wave with my friends and family in Jesus. All for One.

Different is Different: Worldview Change as we roll with friends

As a student of culture and person who lives cross-culturally, it is often stated that there isn’t a right or wrong thing about the ways a culture does things. It is simply different. It is our way of life. While most of us would agree with the notion that many things about a culture aren’t bad, it isn’t particularly easy to accept and embrace ways quite opposite of our own. My thoughts here are not to evaluate the morality of a culture or how close to the Biblical mandate one culture follows over the other, but to honestly reflect on the journey to enter into different ways.

Naturally I’m a pretty cranked up, task-driven sort of dude. I like to stay busy and often feel there is more work to be done and not enough time to do it. However, I have spent close to a decade now around Asians and Pacific islanders who have chipped away at that taskyness. Little by little they have shown me how to chill, enjoy life, and hang out with the very people God has put in my life. For me, learning to embrace that difference between East and West has been a huge mountain to climb but I’m learning more day by day.

I remember when I lived in the Mariana islands I was often desiring to present the message of Jesus in the most culturally relevant way as possible. I spent so much time in missions literature and read one too many books on cultural relevance. My conclusions often raced back program or task to filter this cultural snsitivity through. In some wys it was like trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole.

10 years around people who know how to slow down changes you. Eating food that you probably wouldn’t eat or hear stories you wouldn’t probably hear if you weren’t in such a context changes lots of things about how you view the world. Things I once considered bad, slower, more inefficient, and so on are simply non-issues these days. Relaxing and being with those you love flips that stuff on its head. I am indebted to my friends showing me a different way. I’m sure that I too have rubbed off on them and we meet somewhere in the middle.

It seems like I’ve been able to flex quite a bit and adjust. Some would say we have. We have. But, I am so prone to try to make everyone fit into another version of myself. My way is the best. Their way is dumb. Why don’t they go about learning lnguage this way? Why would you come up with that idea of ministry? Why do you continue to run around the neighborhood in chaos trying to meet needs that there is no way possible to meet? I have teammates and co-workers who simply do things so different from me. They probalby look at me and think, “Wow, the Trotters are nuts. They are partying hard at 3rd-shifters homes until midnight all the time. Why? Isn’t that intrusive and disrespectful to their friends?” Then we have other teammates who respond to social needs that are far over my head. I couldn’t even think to address them. We have people running after their passion and when I look at it from the outside I get tired.

I think this is the beauty of having a team whose worldview has been so shaped and re-shaped by the very people they roll with. As people have crossed cultures and been influenced by one another, combined with their God-given strengths and personaility, they just function so differently from me. We’re all so busy and so much is always going on. I don’t think about it m uch, but most on our team and in our church have either voluntarily or involuntarily taken a vow of poverty. I was sitting with a team member this last week thinking, “You guys are crazy. I couldn’t never do that. I won’t actually.” Tehn I smiled realizing how happy this particular teammate is in serving at that pace.

Then there are the steady, cautious people. They actually count the costs before jumping in. They research everything and analyze every angle. They too seem to be loving their style of incarnational ministry. I’m trying to learn to let people enjoy their life and fly with the gifts God has given them. Not easy for this task-master, turned into a guy who just wants to chill with friends.

In the midst of all our tasks, work, adjustemnts, etc, different is just different. I’m not sure it is bad or good. . . it is just different. And it seems to be working in a powerful way with the different personalities around here. Sometimes we just have to get out of the way and give people room to run. Sometimes they need a firecracker put in their pants. . . . but that doesn’t mean that they’ll run the direction I want them to run once I put that firecracker in. Sometimes they’ll just dance in the road. And maybe dancing is okay too. Learning to work. Learning to dance. Learning to climb. Learning how to do chaos. Learning to sing. Learning to fall in love, sort out conflict, party together. . . isn’t this what we were created for? Different is different and Jesus leads us on.

A Night Traveler

Many of you who know me know I have been unable to travel alone for pretty much my whole life at night time. My world has pretty much shut down in the evening for as long as I can remember. To think that with the skills I’ve obtained at my blind immersion school that this is no longer the case is amazing.

Tonight I took a couple different buses back from Minneapolis to St. Paul with relative ease. This is an exhilarating feeling and a testament to BLIND Inc where I am studying. I have no fear and the skills that I have gained are awesome. I appreciate so much all my co-workers and friends who have been willing to endure with me through all this along the way.

I mostly appreciate those of you who endured with me at night time through the years. I totally should have done this sort of training before now. Better late than never. I’m getting more confident to travel anywhere, any day, anytime. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

I am reminded of how Christ identifies with us in all our journeys and how he walks with us. Some of my closest friends reflect this sort of long-suffering in my life as I faced and continue to face sight loss. You guys have identified with Christ in this way.

Just because I have to give a missions parallel . . .
The goal in mission is to make disciples of all nations, taking the Gospel to where its never been before, so the very recipients of that message will follow this wonderful Jesus in a biblically faithful and culturally relevant way. They will in turn take the message, share it, and run wild with the freedom they’ve been given. How I’ve seen people walk with me, be patient, and eventually release me into freedom with blindness is a similar process. The fingerprints of God’s mission are all over my life and everywhere I look. I want to remember these days of freedom as I go along in living out the Kingdom. And this is just earthly freedom. .. how much more is an eternal freedom that can never be taken away. Couldn’t we all give our lives to something so glorious and unending?

The Worship of communication

A couple weeks ago I blogged about social networking and it’s impact on mmission workers ability to bond with culture. I think I’m still on the same strand here as I sit in silence tonight. I have been trying to spend the first few days of Lent (a tradition that I really didn’t grow up with) sitting in silence, followed by a time of singing to Jesus.

It is the simplicity of this fellowship with Jesus that grounds all of us. It centers us on the most important thing in the universe. We all know the whole vine, branch, life flows out of communion with Jesus. . . it rolls off our tongues with ease. But man, the silence and true communion with the Lord is hard to come by.

Once upon a time, I lived on a small island far from here. There were no conferences, no big churches, no Christian concerts, no Christian bookstores, none of the things that seem to be in my current context. I found it easier at times to go for bike rides or walks surrounded by God’s creation than I do these days. It was on the islands that I learned to relax and simple be with Jesus and be with people. But that just seemed too simple. I started reading lots of books on contemporary church and mission trends, longing that I could bring some USA version of the Gospel to my little island. I got irritable. I basically became a jerk because of my rigidness and desire for relevance. The wonderful, good thing of simplicity was replaced by a longing to bring something more interesting. Something more interesting than Jesus? So, I thought.

Lately I’ve gotten into conversations here and there with people who talk about their favorite preacher. Their favorite theologian. The latest book. Even watching interviews of christ-followers who are in the limelight seems to draw out so much dialogue. Blogs of leaders thoughts are everywhere. And it seems to be climaxed in a conclusion that says, “wow, that was great.” Or, “man, he is so humble and said something so good.” It is these sorts of conclusions, though not bad by any means, that have started to drive me crazy. The written word, podcasts, blogs, video clips of Christian stuff – it is everywhere we look. I just wonder if we actualy worship communication around God. Communicating about God. Hearing clips about others attempts to draw near to Him. I wonder if we actually start to worship communication.

It makes sense how this would happen. After all, communicating is the only way to stay in tune with one another. I am constantly thinking about how to communicate in Nepali – how to say it clear enough to get my point across. How can I help our little ESL church understand the Gospel. Communication this, communication that. After all 1 Cor. 14 sure does seem to have a theme of clear communication as we form fellowships of believers. But what about the islands? What about the days of just sitting, listening, and obeying? That’s kind of where I am this week.

I’m tired of listening to everyone else but Jesus. There is so much noise in our world. I have found it so hard. So, so hard to focus as I try to return to this simple listening and singing to Jesus at night. I usually have to wait until I find no one else awake in our apartment building as my mind is so fluttered and distracted by just about everything. These times have been precious.

I think this may be one of the reasons I so enjoy hanging around people who have an opposite worldview to mine. Of course I’m motivated by Jesus and his rule over my life. But there is also part of me that knows many of my friends from a world apart will ask me the right questions. They’ll ask me what I think about late at night. We’ll get to talking about the longing of their souls and the rat race here in the States. And if I’m not full of Jesus, I’ll say the stupidest things imaginable. Worship of communication is disastrous in that moment. I’m so thankful for a God who loves me enough to put me in relationship with the people he has so that they’ll call my bluff. Singing and listening. Focus Johnny boy. Focus.