Vision - who needs it?

Sam Farrow reckons it's not that important.

Some people reckon it's absolutely essential.

I'm in two minds. Or maybe one and a half.

Sam works in a government department whose job is essentially reactive - to provide great service, accurate information and be accurate. It's not heady stuff, and it's not exactly visionary stuff either.

But can't that department have a vision of how they want to be? Sure they can. Is it essential?

What replaces vision if there's no vision? An awareness of the present, of the needs you exist to fill.

I used to freak out about vision and end up not making any long term plans. Why? Because I looked back over my life and saw sweet serendipity. I am where I am because of a whole range of things that have happened to me, and that I have done.

I intended to become a screenwriter, and ended up being a better business communicator.

I intended to study music at university, and ended up promoting music concerts on a radio network.

I kind of don't trust myself, but I do trust God to make sense of it all. Other people trust "the universe" ... close, but I prefer the personal touch.

So when people encourage me to visualise my vision in excruciating detail, I shrink back. I'm almost entirely sure I'll get it wrong, and I don't want to be so focused on a vision that I miss the really good opportunities.

But I misconstrued the purpose of a vision. A vision's probably not where I'll end up, but it is a focussing tool.

Even if I'm aiming at the wrong thing, the act of aiming makes me see what's at stake. And because it's a big, long term vision, I'm able to make course corrections as necessary. Unless of course I win the lottery and make a stupid big decision simply because I have enough money to do so. Not buying Lotto tickets keeps me out of that danger.

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Follow up: Bwagy has a great post about vision.

And while I haven't had any comments here yet, it did get some good comments on Twitter:

johnfrombluff @audaciousgloop The problem with "Vision" is that it's meaningless management-speak most of the time. "We'll be excellent", etc.

ophil @audaciousgloop vision is purpose articulated; its the end as a realist painting to 'show' what success looks like; necessity is contingent

I said nice definition - yours? What if there is no end, or the end is undefined, or it's actually counterproductive to have an end?

ophil @audaciousgloop guess its mine! no end is not necessarily terminal thats why 'purpose' works better than vision as a guide

	ophil @audaciousgloop ends are not necessarily terminal either (despite the word!) ends themselves may be means to larger acheivments 20 minutes ago

imho i would consider ends counterproductive perhaps 70% of the time (in the strategic sense) as they blind u 2 opportunity
but ends good for measuring progress, motivating and communicating to unfamiliar stakeholders

I said: little ends. Ends that you can put KPIs on can be good, as long as they get reviewed every 6 months to see if the aims are right

	ophil @audaciousgloop hmmm sort of KPI's tend not to be ends but proxy's that can be observed and are related to the ends 4 minutes ago

Relationships - the future of business

Marketing Online Live interests and frustrates me.

It interests me because Paul and Alex have some good stuff to say, and I like the entrepreneurial way they think.

It frustrates me because they try to reduce everything to a system - which may well be the secret to their success. Even in their latest episode, Alex (who admits he doesn't actually run his own Twitter account) suggested coming up with a set of rules for Twitter ettiquette - as if everyone was on Twitter for the same reason.

I did some soul searching to figure out why this bugged me. Two reasons:

a) It oversimplifies reality.
b) It goes against my worldview, which is shaped by my Evangelical upbringing and the gospel message. In a nutshell, it says that life is not about keeping the rules, but it's about relationships. This resonates strongly with me, because most of my life, I haven't fit into the "norm" for whom rules are mostly written.

You don't have to be a Christian to believe that the universe is about relationships vs rules. But what about the world of business? Isn't that necessarily about systems?

I was willing to think so, and believe myself to be hopelessly idealistic, but it seems business may actually be about relationships after all.

The book Disrupting Class predicts that schools - in fact, any form of educational institution - will soon change (will need to change!) from a value-chain model where products are designed for one-size fits as-many-as-possible, to a facilitated user network model, where people use tools to help each other, in the way that suits them.

I haven't got to the bit that explains the economics yet, but it's an interesting shift away from monolithic systems, towards real human relationships.

Look out for my review of Disrupting Class in the next issue of Idealog.

Signs

I finally caught Signs (2002) last night. What a refreshing take on the War of the Worlds scenario!

I remember hearing some criticism of it because it didn't fit comfortably in the box of horror or sci-fi, but I felt that was it's strength!

I particularly liked the movie's take on faith - something I've often thought about in horror/sci-fi/thriller situations when people are pressed beyond their limits.



This central bit of dialogue is brilliantly written, and brilliantly acted by Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix:

People break down into two groups when the experience something lucky.

Group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them.

Group number two sees it as just pure luck. Just a happy turn of chance. I'm sure the people in Group number two are looking at those fourteen lights in a very suspicious way.

For them, the situation isn't fifty-fifty. Could be bad, could be good. But deep down, they feel that whatever happens, they're on their own. And that fills them with fear. Yeah, there are those people.

But there's a whole lot of people in the Group number one. When they see those fourteen lights, they're looking at a miracle. And deep down, they feel that whatever's going to happen, there will be someone there to help them. And that fills them with hope.

See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, sees miracles?

Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?

Phoenix's character then puts himself into group 1, a believer. Then - to our great surprise - Gibson's character puts himself into group 2:

There is no one looking out for us. We are all alone.

Not to give away any spoilers, but Signs is less about an alien invasion than it is about Gibson's character working his way through what he believes.

It made me think about life in general, and how my faith in God has often been borne out of an awareness of the otherwise overwhelming complexity of life.

Not that I've never disbelieved there is a God. In fact, sometimes, that thought can be kind of comforting. This world is all there is, and it's up to me what I make of it. But that thought only lasts for a brief while, and is only comforting when things are generally hunky dorey! :)

Major kudos to M Knight Shyamalan for tackling this most contemporary of issues in a genre (or genres!) that often ignores faith.

Having said all that, it was also a very human and funny movie, with great one-liners like "Everybody in this family needs to just calm down and eat some fruit or something."


In other movie news, Marie and I saw Tropic Thunder on Friday. Three-word review: best. laugh. ever!

Tremendous

I've just come back from a business breakfast where I heard Charlie "Tremendous" Jones talk about - well, all sorts of things.

He's a motivational speaker with 60 years' experience in business. Yes, 60.

He talked about being a giver not a thumbsucking numbskull, why reading is better than talking, and how he came to know Jesus.

But more than anything he said was just the fact he was standing there. He's not only in his 80s, he is fighting cancer which he knows will take him sooner or later.

Marie and I bought some of his books and I got him to sign one. He gave me the warmest, most affectionate hug I've ever had from a complete stranger. There is someone who is giving as much as he can until every little bit of life is gone from him. That's more than words can say.

4 ways Twitter is like God

Twitter is like God. Not in that it's omniscient, omnipresent or omnipotent, but in that Twitter is:

* experienced in many different ways (on the site, using Snitter, Twitterific, Twitteroo, Tweetr, Twitterpost, Twitterlex, Twhirl, several IM clients or cellphone)
* a source of genuine fellowship (=having something in common)
* ignored by many in the world, who don't even know it exists.
* maligned by people who haven't tried it for themselves and can't see the point.

Okay, so I'm not a theologian. But don'tcha reckon?

What does a real community look like?

This post covers spiritual topics, but it's relevant for anyone who's part of a community - or wants to be, or wishes they weren't.

So you don't want to go to church anymore is by Jake Colsen, a pseudonym for two authors who have opted out of the organised religion game that many people call church.

This book, a fictitious story based on the two authors' experience, does a fantastic job of raising concerns that many people have about church, and offering some solutions that are simple, but very, very scary.

It's not only fantastic reading and thinking in and of itself, it's also a powerful example of storytelling as a way to communicate complex ideas. It's a journey, this book.

And there's a podcast to go with it, appropriately called "The God Journey". Some very good listening to be had.

Don't misunderstand what this book is about. It's not simply saying don't do church in buildings any more. It's saying set aside the shackles of structure and set your relationships free. Advice that's just as much needed for the corporate world as for the church world.

As one of the authors said in a recent podcast, they're not against the "organised" part of organised religion, but against the "religion" part. It's become a cliche, but that doesn't make it any less true: God wants a relationship with us, not for us to try to please him with religion.

What is the 21st Century's A-bomb?

From the 1945 through 1989, the biggest thing in world affairs was the atom bomb. Now, it's religion.

That's actually good news, because while many of us would struggle with nuclear physics, religion is arguably easier to understand. Or at least, we've had more exposure to religion than to radiation.

Like many readers of this blog, I've grown up in a western country, in the Christian tradition. But even as a member of the Bible-believing Open Brethren, I never learnt that much about the history of the Bible.

So it was very interesting to read Karen Armstrong's The Bible: A Biography. It's a whirlwind tour through all the versions of the Bible - the Torah, the Talmud, the New Testament, the Kabbalah... and so on!

Armstrong has done some serious homework here, and made the complex simple. Instead of delving too deeply into theology, Armstrong tells simple stories about people, and what they believed.

It's not an unbiased book. In fact, Armstrong is making a strong case against fundamentalism of all kinds, and a plea for understanding and love, ignoring the parts of the Bible that are negative or harsh, and meditating on the parts that are loving and kind - quoting many theologians, both Jewish and Christian, orthodox and otherwise, through the years, who have also advocated this approach.

I appreciate this book, but tentatively disagree with some of its conclusions. I say "tentatively", because I have no scholarship to base my disagreement on, just a tiny bit of subjective experience, and gut feeling.

And I say "some" of its conclusions because overall I believe Armstrong has written a rational, emotionally intelligent and respectful biography about a book that means so much to so many people, and it's an attitude I agree with.

I'd recommend The Bible: The Biography as a (somehow) very thorough yet very fast tour of one of the books that has shaped western civilisation, and continues to wield a lot of influence today.

I started this post by comparing religion to the atom bomb. Like nuclear power, religion can be a force for good or for evil. It's also the force that's driving world issues - yet unlike the atom bomb, which was a single, big thing, religion is a complex, fragmentary issue. We've got a lot of learning to do.

Want to learn about Islam? Read my review of The Q'uran: A Biography.

Need some other spiritual thoughts? See my posts tagged spirituality, or my old blog Oh God, I think I'm a fundamentalist.

Do you love....?

Work without love is slavery.
Mother Teresa

I don't look like Jesus any more

(but hopefully I act like Him!)

In a rash moment (actually, it was dry skin) I went all the way when shaving. Not sure how long this clean-cut will last.

Anyway, speaking of Jesus, I watched Walk the Line again last night.

That is such a good film. Brilliantly put together, raw, powerful, harrowing, touching. A true tribute to a genuinely honest man. When the same guy impresses Billy Graham and Quentin Tarantino, I'm impressed!

My favourite scene - the very last scene in the movie. It's not very eventful, but it stands starkly in contrast to the rest of the movie. For once John is not escaping his troubled family, but going back in an opposite spirit. Instead of returning his father's emotional poverty, he's able to love the loveless.

Anyway. I'm raving. Must be time for lunch. It's a bit cold out though, especially around the face!

Evan Almighty review - a God who's safe to like

Like most of New Zealand, I took some time away from the computer today and spent some quality time with Marie - including a trip to the movies. We saw Evan Almighty.

I'd heard some pretty iffy reviews, but a comedy seemed the best on offer. (Doesn't say much about what's on at the theatre! The Kingdom wasn't on until late tonight... )

We laughed - and also, surprisingly, felt closer to God. Although the film was generic enough to be spiritually acceptable to people of many faiths (although less generic than Bruce Almighty), it also seemed pretty compatible with the mainstream, fairly orthodox (I guess) Christian faith Marie and I call our own.

Some of my favourite moments:

• God (Morgan Freeman) appearing to Evan's wife Joan as a waiter, with the name tag "Al Mighty" - smart. What he said to her was just inspiring.
• A smarmy journalist asking Evan (Steve Carrell) cynically why God would call him. Evan's answer: "He's called all of us." Yes!
• Evan's little shrug of the shoulders as he holds up his staff and the animals board the ark. He says, without words, "Hey, I have no idea how this is happening. I'm just doing what I do - and this stuff happens!"

I was pleasantly surprised by Steve Carrell's acting. As another reviewer commented, he has a gift for doing "frustrated", but he also has a gift for doing very sincere people caught up in circumstances beyond themselves. That's a sentiment we need to see because, a) a lot of us feel the same way, and b) it gives us hope.

Morgan Freeman was great, as he was in Bruce Almighty. He combines seeming omnipotence with homespun friendliness - which I imagine is not an easy task.

On a theological and philosophical level, I'm reminded of the writings of Adrian Plass, particularly his "controversial" statement that "God is nice and he likes us" ... which is somehow better than we could imagine.

It also reminds me of a conversation heard on The God Journey podcast a few weeks ago. The guys were talking about two Gods: the mean God and the nice God. We desire the nice God, but secretly fear the truth is he's the mean God.

From memory, the conversation went something like this:

So this guy, he tells me he's sticking with the mean God, because he's covering his bases. See, if God is actually nice, but I'm following the mean God, the nice God won't mind. But if God is actually mean, and I'm following the nice God - I'm in big trouble!

So I said to him, would the mean God go to the cross for you? Instinctively, without thinking, he said no. What does that tell you about the mean God?

Finally, this reminded me of the best things I enjoyed about A Generous Orthodoxy, as well as the mystic poetry combined with deep Biblical teaching combined with folk and celtic music that is the catalogue of Michael Card.

Always good to be reminded of something I already knew. Marie and I went and talked to God for quite a bit after seeing this comedy. Who'd have thought.

This video should play in every church

Spotted on ThinkChristian.

While I think it's absolutely worthwhile for Christians to get out and about a bit, and see how others perceive them, it's also good for "the other side" to examine some of their own prejudices.

Case in point: Dr Dave came across someone at the APA get-together recently who was looking into the prejudices of researchers when they labelled as "homophobic" those who believe homosexual behaviour is morally wrong. Believing a behaviour is wrong is not the same as believing the person who does the behaviour is inferior or less than human. But don't get me started on that...

Another great example of inter-confessional learning I stumbled upon today is Revolution in Jesusland, a fascinating look into the evangelical Christian subculture by Zack Exley, a political progressive. Refreshing, thought-provoking. Thanks to David Weinberger for pointing it up on his blog.

Notice what I'm saying ... It's not just great that Zack is saying nice things about the church, but that he's really listening to what's being said. A little more of that from the church, and maybe as a society America could really get somewhere!

Meanwhile, in New Zealand... ? Hmmm.

Dogs and sheep

On a spiritual note...

While walking this morning I saw a dog running across a field towards a man who was walking. Must be his owner? No. The dog stopped, looked a little confused, then started running towards me!

It didn't take the dog long to realise I wasn't the one he was looking for, either. I held out my hand so he could sniff it, but he gave me that funny look dogs do when you're not the right person - you know, head slightly cocked, ears perked so as to suggest a frown.

He was a good boy (I guess it was a boy?) - he kept a safe distance from me, and then stood around looking for where on earth his person was. He was going to wait.

If I were that dog, would I wait for my master? Or would I go along with whoever held their hand out to me?

Jesus talked about sheep, and hearing voices. Specifically, hearing his voice. That's a skill I'm working on today.

Gerontius is famous!

My Second Life avatar Gerontius Wunderlich has been snapped on BlogMinistry .

The occasion, a fantastic conversation between me, Dan (the blogger in question) and the Dalek about God, church and the way churches reach people.

It's a matter not just of interest to religious people. Mission organisations are discovering their role is sparking conversations, rather than simply preaching. In fact, missionaries have known this better than "local churches" for years.

As society fragments and gets more niche-ified, marketers need to treat their customers with curiosity and respect, the same way that the best missionaries have for years. Maybe marketers should consider missionary positions? ;)

Christian virtual ghettoes - why?

Thanks to Russell Brown's Hard News, I've recently discovered two Christian web resources, GodTube.com and Conservapedia.

Conservapedia claims Wikipedia is biased, anti-American and anti-Christian; that's why they need to reinvent the wheel (while copying the design verbatim from Wikipedia).

While the site looks lame, I can understand the perceived need to set up your own game if - and that's a big if - the claims of bias are true, and if you have enough volunteer power to create something as extraordinary as wikipedia. Otherwise, just do an ordinary website, don't call it a wiki.

But GodTube - why?? As far as I know there's no rules against posting explicitly Christian material on YouTube. It's a very nice, slickly presented site, but it makes me think of what a mistake Christians make when they lose track of the mission - to love God and love your neighbour - and instead set about building a deeply irrelevant subculture.

I heard a brilliant sermon recently on the Emergent Podcast about "finding our God in the other". It asks, why are Christians uncomfortable participating in conversations we cannot control? It's an honestly asked question, partially answered in a respectful, challenging and thought provoking way.

Rites of Passage

On February 20th, 1860, one of New Zealand's first indigenous Maori Anglican vicars - Reverend Raniera Kawhia - was ordained at Whareponga Marae in the remote eastern village of Ruatoria.

I was privileged to be in that exact spot, 147 years later to the date, as Raniera's great-great-great-granddaughter, Pane Kawhia, followed in his footsteps.

About 30 of us from theSanctuary congregation journeyed to the East Cape this weekend to celebrate with Pane, who until recently was among our congregation before "going Anglican".

After a traditional liturgical service in English and Maori, hundreds of people gathered for a massive banquet in the town centre of Ruatoria. As people stepped up to the mic to share their thoughts and best wishes for Pane, I marvelled at how much influence just one person can have.

The whole weekend also got me thinking about rites of passage. Pane was in a unique and privileged position to hear what people were saying about her. Normally those words are saved for eulogies, where they - sadly - can't encourage the people they speak of.

Both the traditional Anglican service and the Maori protocol of being welcomed onto a marae have traditional roots that somehow reach the heart, even if you're neither Maori nor Anglican. If I were thinking about efficiency - as we Westerners are prone to do - both of these traditions seem outdated and long-winded. But what purpose do they serve?

Maybe they create space for reflection. As my eyes glazed over during the Maori sermon (although I tried to pick up as many words as I knew), I noticed wild mountain goats climbing on the rock face above. Amazing.

The weekend also brought home to me the amazing power of community. By being in each other's space for three days, we got to know each other, warts and all. Thankfully our trademark is "being real" and there were no surprises - except perhaps for the odd standout performance on the karaoke floor.

An amazing story about cable TV and love

Jason Harper is a pastor somewhere in America. He preached a message about the importance of "getting into the gutter" with people, only to be chastised by an old lady in his church.

"How can you talk about getting into the gutter when you work in a church all the time?" she asked.

It got to him, and Jason set about looking for one of the hardest jobs he could take. He wanted to keep it legal, so drug dealing or pimping was out of the question, but debt collection seemed to fit the criteria of "despised profession".

His experiment: to see if he could do the job, and also bring the reality of the gospel message into people's lives.

How did he go? Can you do the work successfully, as well as loving people?

Find out.

How seeing God as judge could cause world peace

I've been reading with interest some of the comments and columns following Auckland Anglican Archbishop Richard Randerson's admission of agnosticism.

I particularly enjoyed Keith Rowe's piece on a "chance to renew a sense of God". But I had to pause at this paragraph:

Some want to recapture a sense of God as the all-powerful being whose chief work is that of judge. It is the very image of God that has authored wars, crusades and intolerance.

I see where he's coming from, but I disagree.

What Keith may be drawing on are the times in history when men took themselves to be God's natural agents of judgement, and did really stupid things that had less to do with God and perhaps more to do with the politics of the day.

He's not seeing the other times in history when great good came from people becoming aware of God's judgement. The English revival spearheaded by the Wesley brothers helped prevent a revolution in England like the one in France. The Welsh revival of 1905 had such a powerful effect on society that the police had to form a choir for lack of law enforcement work. The principles of law became internalised, as people met the Source of all truly just laws.

When God is judge, that means I am not. Nor is anyone else on this earth. Yes, there is social responsibility and leadership at all levels of society, but it is all delegated authority. That means there is an element of stewardship - responsibility that goes along with every privilege.

I have had experiences where I have known the utter fear of God. There's no other word for it - it is genuine fear. But it is a fear that liberates as well as convicts. It's very hard to describe unless you've experienced it. And the counterfeit - fear of God as imposed by humans - is truly awful.

Those times when I have experienced the fear of God stay with me. They remind me of my responsibility not just to other people, who can't watch my every move, but to God who chooses to live inside me.

If we really could grasp who God is, the judge and the healer, this world would truly be a better place. But that can only happen one person at a time. And for right now, I guess that one person is me.

Understanding Islam from its source text - and its people

I've just finished The Qur'an: A Biography, and I've only started to scratch the surface of the world's second-largest religion.

I was particularly struck by the story of Robert of Ketton, the first Westerner who attempted to translate the Qur'an into a Western language. He was, like me, a pen for hire, hired in this case by Peter the Venerable, a Christian Abbot who challenged the spirit of his times (the Crusades) by seeking to understand Muslims rather than slaying them.

From the book:

"In such a charged atmosphere, the effort to 'honour' the pseudo-prophet of Islam by translating his lies (the Qur'an) was itself an ecumenical act ... It may seem that most European Christians, including the Pope, had already made up their mind about the evil of Islam and the falsehood of the Qur'an. Peter suggests as much when he calls (in vain) for Islam to be approached, not 'as our people often do, by arms, but by words; not by force, but by reason; not in hatred, but in love.' "

(NB: The words "pseudo-prophet" and "lies" above refer to the mediaeval title of Robert of Ketton's work - "The Law of the Pseudo-Prophet Muhammad" - and don't reflect the views of the author of this book, Bruce Lawrence.)

I really respect this approach, particularly in the atmosphere of the crusades. He knew the difference between acceptance and agreement, a crucial difference that I learnt about in a discussion on improvisation.

More from the book:

"You may dislike someone or some idea, but still try to understand both the person and the concept that are alien to you. ... Though hostile to Islam, Robert was willing to trust Muslim scholars in trying to unravel what Muslims found believable in the 'false' prophecy of Muhammad."

As a follower of Christ (in training), I don't consider Muslims "the enemy". That's why it's downright embarrassing to read some of the nonsense that comes up in discussions like this one.

Thankfully, there are other, more thoughtful responses from the Christian community, like this one. Might be a good one to add to my reading list. (Sigh - it never stops!)

Even for non-Christians, I think it's important to understand - even respect - the book and the belief system that has shaped and continues to shape huge parts of the world. And while you're at it, it wouldn't hurt to understand - and even respect - the other book and the belief system that has shaped the Western world.

It can never hurt to truly understand.