Executing Ideas

It’s now about four months since you resolved to:

• get in shape
• read more
• spend more time with your kids
• stop gossiping
• read the Bible this year
• learn to sew

How’s that workin’ out for ya?

If you made a resolution in January, you have almost certainly given it up, forgotten it, and basically remained the same person you were on December 31^st.

Why?

It could be that you didn’t really need to change. Or perhaps you sincerely changed your mind. Or maybe you already accomplished.

Yeah, right.

I can tell you—in one word—why you gave up on those New Year’s resolutions…

February.

In my neck of the woods, February is cold, dark, and desperate. We even made February one day shorter than even the 30-day months. That wasn’t enough, so we trimmed off another day.

February is a grind. You’re inside all the time. If you don’t have Seasonal Affective Disorder, you almost wish you had a diagnosis, some indication of why you want to stick icicles in your eyes. There’s snow and slush and more snow. Everybody bundles up and looks at the ground when they walk.

No one is grilling out.

No one is tossing a Frisbee around.

No one is smiling.

No one is stopping to smell the roses, because they’re under ugly white Styrofoam, like giant upside down coffee cups from church social hour. Oh, and those are covered by snow.

It’s enough to break anyone’s resolve. February is no time to make a change. It’s no time to kick a habit or start a new one. It’s the month to hunker down, to make do, to survive.

But May is a month with potential! The snow’s gone. The days are longer (and getting still longer). The slush and slop has all dried up. Flowers are starting to open. You leave your jacket at home. Baby ducks cross the road in front of you on the way home from work.

So how about some spring resolutions? The time is ripe! Choose what you will change. Make some plans. Tell a friend. Drop some pounds, lift some weights, throw some parties, smell the roses, and give someone a big sloppy kiss.

Now is the time. Tomorrow is Saturday. Most of the country’s going to have a pretty nice day (sorry, Tennessee). So start something good.

Who’s with me?

Yesterday, I spent eight hours at my office, like usual.

Today, I will travel 1300 miles, from Madison, Wisconsin, to Orlando, Florida, with a layover in Cincinnati.

I will get more done today, with security checkpoints, three airports, and Cinnabon. (At least I hope there’s Cinnabon.)

Simply put, I will get more done today, because I am forced to go into Airplane Mode.

I have three hours on flights where I first have to shut down my phone and laptop, and then can only use them offline. (I have yet to be on a flight with free wi-fi, and I wouldn’t use it anyway, as you’ll see below.)

Forced into Airplane Mode, I do not have distractions—no social media (which, though part of my job, still can distract

me from larger projects), no interruptions from colleagues (again, part of my job, but still sometimes problematic), no videos of ridiculous compound fractures or Do You Even Lift.

Rather, I have a list ready of important tasks:

• documents to read (as hard copies),
• magazines I’ve been wanting to get to (tip o’ the hat to Greg Jao for that), and
• a couple of projects that need my undivided attention, like strategic plans, upcoming talks, an app I’m dreaming up (it’ll be helpful to many, if I can find the right co-conspirators), or outlines for books I might want to write down the road.

Now, here’s the rub—I realized how effective I was in Airplane Mode on a trip back in January. It was confirmed by another trip in February. I told myself, “ I should do this a couple times a week, even when I’m in the office!”

Despite my plans, I’ve not done it even once, except while traveling. The wise words of Clif Morton, my high school forensics coach, come to mind: “Good intentions are worth a thimbleful of donkey urine.” (Click to tweet this.)

So, I’m going into Airplane Mode today and again on Friday. And I plan to do it again next Monday…when I’m back in the office.

Do you get more done while in Airplane Mode? What trick are you trying this week to get more done and decrease your stress? Comment below.

You have options:

Stuff your stress way down deep and get ulcers.

Meditate on the word “peace” until the knots in your shoulders melt away.

Revert to a preschool state and let ball pits, nap time, and pudding pops calm you down.

Take some hard drugs.

But the absolute worst thing you can do?

Vomit your stress all over a spouse, friend, or coworker. (You will likely ruin their outfit.)

I realized this a couple weeks ago. I was on my way out of the office after a full and frustrating day. I did not get to the things I hoped to accomplish. And as I packed up and walked out, I barfed it all over my friend Dan:

Oh, I have so much to do! I didn’t get anything done today. I had five and a half hours of meetings and three hours of interruptions! I have 75 emails I’ve not read—just from today! I need to have a difficult conversation with somebody in the office tomorrow, and I’m not ready! My boss says I have to report on that big project tomorrow, and I have a cavity to fill! I haven’t been able to exercise in weeks, my car needs new tires, it’s raining today, my kid got yelled at by the bus driver, the paint’s peeling on my house, and we have a houseguest I don’t know arriving tonight and staying through the weekend!

Barf. I threw up the vile bile of stress all over Dan, the innocent bystander. He was now covered in my stinky, orange, chunky…stress.

Did this help Dan? No way. Unless he’s really rotten—“Golly, I’m glad I’m not Adam!”—he’s pulled down by my load. He might even feel pressure to share all the ways he’s stressed, even if he’s not really stressed, just to empathize a bit. Yes, good friends bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), but I’m not sure this fits the bill.

Did this make me feel better? Not really. It can be helpful just to articulate what’s stressing us out but vomiting it onto someone else doesn’t help. It’s really a selfish move—“Oh, look at me, feel sorry for me, buy me a drink, tell me how I’m such a good victim!” At its best, this is taking mental stock of my life in the presence of someone else. At its worst, it’s trolling for assurance and comfort, while covering others in our mess.

I am stressed today. I have a lot to do. I have a lot of meetings. I am behind. Others are waiting on me. I want to do a good job. There’s not enough time.

But today will be different. Today, I won’t vomit stress on innocent passerby. (Click to tweet this.)

Am I alone in this? Do any of you barf stress on others? (Or get barfed on?)

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak at the University of Buffalo about why human trafficking exists and why Christians care about it.

Take a listen, and let me know what you think.

Click here to listen.

I don’t often repost things from This Ordinary Adventure, the blog I write with my wife. But this one seems like it fits on Executing Ideas, too.

Here it is:

Read the rest…

Yesterday, I left home on a work trip. When I arrived at our destination, I started freaking out.

I forgot them! This trip is going to be terrible! I always check for them! How could I forget? Why didn’t I stop for half a second to make sure I was all set?

Yes, there are a lot of important things to bring on a work trip. For me, my mental list include a minimal amount of clothing, my always-packed toiletry caddy, a book or three, my laptop and phone, power cords, ID, and money. (Leave your ideas in the comments.) But there is one item—or two depending on how you look at it—that I forgot this time. And my reaction to leaving it behind indicated it was probably the thing I needed most.

Sleep is important all the time, but while traveling, it rises even higher. And there are additional challenges while on the road—new noises outside, people in the hall or even sharing a room, different lighting inside and outside of where you’re sleeping, different energy levels due to the work going on, jetlag, and the bed and pillow themselves.

I have one silver bullet for making everything alright, one tool I use to solve all of these problems. And yesterday, I freaked out when I realized I’d forgotten them.

Earplugs.

Earplugs have a psychosomatic effect on me. When I put them in and close my eyes, I know I’m supposed to fall asleep. Noises are shut out, and everything else is put in perspective. My earplugs tell my brain and my body, “Knock it off! You need to sleep now.”

I use the rubber kind with stalks that stick out. They block more noise than other types, in my estimation. I look like a weird alien with them in, but it’s worth it.

So as I panicked about never falling asleep last night, I ripped apart my travel gear in desperate hope they’d made it into my roller bag. No dice. But then, an idea flashed.

I reached into my bag for work that I’d also brought. Down in the bottom was a pair of earplugs I’d thrown in a week ago. “Yes!” Earplugs are my secret weapon as a travel ninja. (Click to tweet this.)

And it’s a good thing I did. I was sharing a room at a retreat center with a coworker. Watch the video, with your volume all the way up, and then mentally double the volume, and remember what time it is.

I was very glad I had the earplugs.

What are you always sure to have with you while on the road? Leave a comment.

Last week, I was in some fascinating meetings about how technology might be used to encourage and facilitate living how we ought, according to the Bible. (Read my post on the problems and possibilities of a prayer app.)

Andy Crouch, the author of Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, said something there that intrigued me: “The form is more formative than the content.” He went on to say that the Facebook Like button itself is forming our culture more than the content people are “liking.”

As someone who spends a lot of time thinking and working to put good content up with Like buttons on it, I had to follow up. I asked if he’d written anything more on the “culture making” of social media platforms, or if he’d like to guest post on this for the InterVarsity blog. He replied that he hadn’t, he wouldn’t, and “You should write it.” I really respect Andy Crouch.

Here I am.

Now, I’m not a brain scientist or a software engineer or a theologian. But I am employed to use social media for good, to equip others to do the same, and I think critically about what I do. So I aim here to reflect a bit and start some conversation on this.

So what are the effects of the Facebook Like button?

We share only what is positive, and its corollary, don’t be a downer. This might be overstating it, but there is a clear preference of one over the other.

We’ve all seen friends lament the lack of a “dislike” button. Is it appropriate to click Like on a post about someone finding out they have cancer and that they’re going to fight it? You like the latter but not the former. So, we are subtly pushed to share what will cause others to read, smile, nod, and Like.

Does this keep us from important topics that are difficult? Are those reserved for face-to-face conversations? As more of our relationships are mediated, do we lack the time and physical space to deal with the hard things in our lives? (Click to tweet this.)

We are inordinately focused on others’ opinions, and its corollary, these are the opinions that matter. I think it’s human nature that we want to be liked, and that this even has some positive social norming to it. We may be more desirous of a life that is worth living—that others commend—as a result of the Like button.

But more often than not, we can end up chasing the approval of the crowd, even if the crowd is headed in the wrong direction. Rather than hearing heroic voices, those who are living—and thinking—in exemplary fashion, we are voted up and down by people who may be trying to feel good about their choices. This is why we need to choose our Facebook friends carefully. (Click to tweet this.)

We have an illusion of action and relationship when we use the Like button. (Click to tweet this.) Does it really matter that I’ve liked a friend’s update or the page of an anti-human trafficking organization? I may have an undue sense of accomplishment from the weakest of all responses: clicking a virtual button while sitting on a couch.

A million little actions can build up into something significant. Maybe the publicness of Facebook inherently fights off hypocrisy. But there is certainly a temptation to Like something and then not write a thank you letter to someone or a letter to your public official, right?

Other effects of the Like button come to mind: it’s hard to have respectful disagreements, we may inflate ourselves, we substitute a thousand shallow connections for a few deep ones, we waste time, numbed to the effect of the tool itself.

So, do you think “The medium is the message?” How is this form forming us? Let’s interact in the comments.

Can your phone help you connect with God?

This week, I had the opportunity to meet with some talented, smart people about using technology to encourage Christian practices.

We gathered in a well-designed, shared workspace, listened to Andy Crouch, and the team from YouVersion, and then split into working groups. I was in the one on the group’s first solid initiative: a prayer app.

Consider some of the possibilities:

• Prayer is a cornerstone of relating to God, and most Christians struggle with it.
• You could see where in the world people are praying for the same issue as you (e.g. conflict in Mali, the fiscal cliff, human trafficking).
• Maybe you could connect with others around you who are praying.
• You could read stories of answered prayer and see them coming in real time.
• People who do not follow Jesus could share needs and connect to someone to be prayed for and counseled.

Consider a few of the pitfalls:

• The Bible warns about public prayer: “When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6)
• People have radically different ideas about what prayer is (and Who it is with).
• We are questioning our technology and our own disembodiment and disconnection.
• Prayer is messy, and sometimes it seems like God is not answering our prayers.
• Smartphones are for the wealthy and privileged. We need some of our sisters and brothers with limited resources to be teaching us about prayer (and the rest of the life of faith).

We had the question posted to us, “What problem do you personally face in prayer that this might address?”

That’s a great question.

First, I am cynical about that moment, that exchange, where someone says, “I’ll be praying for you.” I know my own failings in remembering to pray. I suspect lots of people are like me in this.

Today, if I mean something I say, I often pull out my phone to do something. “Hey, let’s get together!” If I mean it, I get out my phone and look for a time. If I don’t get out my phone, I’m just being polite.

I would use an app to grab those moments. This could have categories and reminders built in.  If I would find myself saying, “I’ll pray about that,” I would get out my phone. And I bet I would say it more, and I would actually pray more.

Second, I lead a small group at our church. I gather up prayer requests from our time in my journal, then I often later enter them into The City, a web-based tool we use to stay organized. Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I’m too busy.

It would be much easier if I could do this through my phone, right as we are gathered. An app, along with an associated site, could help everyone track with one another, reminding us and telling us about answers to what we’re praying about.

Again, I think we’d actually pray more because of this. I do think it would be fascinating to have data displayed about where prayer is happening and to some extent on what issues. Doing this anonymously would avoid some of the theological questions raised by Matthew 6.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve not blogged here much lately. I have good excuses:

• This fall our book, This Ordinary Adventure: Settling Down Without Settling, came out.
• Chrissy and I started a new blog related to that.
• We wrote a column for six months for Relevant, and you can read them here.
• And I worked on InterVarsity’s huge Urbana Student Missions Conference.

I have been part of the 10-member leadership team for Urbana. During the conference, I led our social media efforts and live stream content for the 16,000 people on-site (and everybody else who couldn’t be there).

We had not done either of these before. It seems like we did a pretty good job.

Here’s one article written about what we did, and here’s another. We had a lot of people tweet things to us like @amybethritter: “inspired and fired up by your approach to social (media).”

And to get down to results, we had nearly 40,000 tweets on our hashtag (#u12) or about seven tweets per minute around the clock for the duration of the event. My team tweeted over 3,000 times (with a large percentage being interaction with individual participants) and we were retweeted 6500 times.

We posted over 300 photos on Instagram, with over 6,000 likes. Another 6,400 photos were posted about the event by people using our hashtag (#u12).

Our live streaming content had over 10,000 viewers on YouTube. We posted individual videos and segments on Urbana.org, as well as on Vimeo, with total views passing 15,000 during the conference, including 5,500 of David Platt’s message and another 1,000 on a powerful and eloquent call to faith by Ram Sridharan. DJ Chuang also wrote a liveblog for us.

At Urbana 12, we had about 3,700 people recommit their lives to Jesus, 6,500 people commit to study the Bible with friends who aren’t Christians, and a staggering 4,000 people commit to long-term service in God’s global mission. Think of what 4,000 leaders can do in the coming decades!

I wonder if in some small measure God used the efforts of my team to connect participants to the content and to each other in a stronger way than ever before.

How did we do this?

Who really knows how to facilitate social media interactions amongst 16,000 participants, including over 260 organizations, and hours of diverse content from 150 overlapping seminars? This week, I quoted Indiana Jones to a reporter on this topic, “I’m making this up as I go.” Here’s what we did…

Assemble a large, diverse, skilled team (the “social squad”) of people—different experience levels with Urbana and missions, different involvement with social media, different ethnicities, from different parts of the country.

Set vision. Our aim was to “be a conduit for God’s action to move upon as many people as possible as deeply as possible through Urbana content and related conversation to help compel our generation to give our whole lives for God’s global mission.”

Enable others. Our main job was not to push content, but to interact with people. We answered questions, we shared their observations and stories, we connected them to some of the 250 mission organizations on-site.

Listen well. We knew what was going on with participants in way we haven’t in any previous Urbanas (and we’ve been doing this since 1946). We captured important quotes and stories from students that otherwise we never would have found.

Learn as you go. I explained to my team from the beginning that we’d be experimenting, measuring, evaluating, and innovating again. With social tools, feedback is very fast, so you can morph in the midst of a long five-day conference like Urbana.

This is ministry. I kept our focus on facilitating what God was doing in the lives of people at the conference. I stressed the need to be pastoral for participants, to help them process as they drank from the fire hose.

Share great content. This was easy, as the Urbana program team brought together leaders from around the world who are very gifted. We used as much visual content, strong quotes, and student stories as possible.

Coordinate. If there was an area we missed, it was this. We used the @UrbanaMissions and @InterVarsityUSA accounts, but lots of other parts of our organization were also actively producing content. I’d like to pull us all together a little bit more next time.

Did you follow along during Urbana 12?

What was good?

What could have been better?

Leave a comment below.

“The lazy man does not roast his game, but the diligent man prizes his possessions.” –Proverbs 12:27

After living overseas, including a year in abject poverty in Nicaragua, I struggle with how to deal with money here in the U.S. We have a lot. Others have a little. I don’t like it. I try to be generous. I try to not be greedy.

I’ve never written about stuff before. (Well, I’ve not written much of anything around here lately. This fall’s been active over on the blog for This Ordinary Adventure.)

But this holiday season, as I’ve swung from Thanksgiving into Advent, I’ve heard that song from The Sound of Music:

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

The proverb I opened with seems to me to indicate we should slow down to appreciate what we have. So sometimes thinking and talking about stuff is how we ensure we’re not caring too much about stuff. (Tweet this.)

So what are my favorite things?

1. The Nields’ All Together Singin’ in the Kitchen first came across our radar when we checked it out for a family vacation last summer. This album is by some professionals but it pulls in their whole family. It’s folksy, it’s smart, and it’s funny. We’ve been singing it around the house to each other throughout this fall. It’s entered our family vocabulary.
2. Tetley British Blend Tea is as good as any that I had in South Africa, but I can buy it here. I think it’sfresher and fruitier than any other mass-produced tea here in the U.S. At $.04/bag, it’s cheap, too.
3. Reading books aloud to our kids is a fun tradition we’ve been doing for almost a decade. It started with But Not the Hippopotamus and other cutesy little board books. Last night there was a murder in our passage of Holes, by Louis Sachar. (We’ve come a long way.)
4. Equate Junior Acetaminophen Tabs have been very helpful this week. Phoebe’s had a high fever, and I saw these, at 1/3 the price of liquid meds. Phoebe’s lovin’ ‘em.
5. Prayer: Does it Make Any Difference by Philip Yancey has been on my morning reading list for the past few months. I’ve been a serious Christian for about 20 years, and prayer is still a confusing thing for me. This book is well-written, thoughtful, and honest, not smarmy.
6. The Born Loomis II Oxford is comfortable, well-made, and I think it’s sorta stylish. (But I’m not the best one to make that call.)
7. Duke Otherwise’s Creepy Crawly Love has recently supplanted The Nields as the most-played album in our family. We met the Duke at a concert a couple weeks ago. His songs are fresh, funny, and smart. I woke up this morning singing about “monster spray” today (yesterday it was “this song is not about bananas”), and I don’t even mind.
8. Hot showers continue to amaze me. Ever since that hard hear with new friends in a remote village in Nicaragua, I say a prayer of thanks every time I step into running water. It’s a miracle, something we find totally commonplace but is the result of a lot of technology, planning, and wealth.
9. Planet Fitness continues to amaze me. They just opened up a few blocks away. I joined for $10/month, no contract. I kept my expectations appropriately low. But it’s large, clean, always open, and has excellent equipment. I am very impressed.

There you have it, stuff that I am noticing, that make life easier or more enjoyable—a few of my favorite things.

What are yours?