tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-164135292024-03-07T09:16:21.756-05:00Crocker ChronicleThoughts on the intersection of race, religion, politics, ministry, sports and culture.scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.comBlogger904125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-13445550317713292382020-02-26T18:52:00.000-05:002020-02-26T18:52:43.246-05:00The Meaning Behind Mardi Gras, Lent and Fasting<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/100/306506409_368d7e3549.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://farm1.static.flickr.com/100/306506409_368d7e3549.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bhsher/306506409/">bhsher</a></td></tr>
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An important season in the Christian calender is upon us but many of us might not realize it. You've probably heard of the terms Lent and Mardi Gras but may not be familiar with their origins or what they truly mean.<br />
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Lent is a forty day season of focused prayer, repentance and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting">fasting</a> that takes place each year before Easter, the Sunday that commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. These forty days represent the time that Jesus spent in the wilderness immediately preceding the start of His public ministry. Christians around the world have celebrated this season for a number of centuries and many continue to do so to this day.<br />
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For those of us in the West, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, the seventh Wednesday before Easter. On Ash Wednesday, worshipers -- most commonly, Catholics -- have ashes rubbed on their forehead in the shape of a cross. This is to represent "repentance" -- or the turning from self to God -- during the Lenten season. During the time of Lent, Christians are expected to fast. It could be fasting from food completely or just meat or, in recent years, some have chosen other items like candy, caffeine or even forms of technology, like television or the Internet. (Technically, Lent lasts more than 40 days since Sundays were originally a day when one could indulge in whatever was being denied since it is the Lord's Day, a day of celebration.)<br />
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The day before Ash Wednesday is known as Fat Tuesday or "Shrove" Tuesday (or in the French language, <i>Mardi Gras</i>). <i>Carnivale</i> (which means "away with meat") is an extended festival before Lent that is commonly found in Roman Catholic societies. These are times of celebration and feasting before the entrance into the fasting period. For 2020 the Lenten season began this week with Fat Tuesday taking place on February 25th and Ash Wednesday falling the following day, February 26th. Palm Sunday is April 5th and Easter Sunday falls on April 12th.<br />
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For those of us that are Protestant Christians, the observance of Ash Wednesday and Lent is usually dismissed since many regard those as Catholic holy days. But I think that all Christians can appropriately recognize this season. For a number of years, I have participated in the Lenten season and have found it beneficial. It can be a time of dedicated Bible study, prayer, some sort of fasting and repentance and can be great preparation in leading up to the remembrance of the most significant event in world history, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.<br />
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Whatever you might choose to do or not do during this season, I trust that your focus will be on the One who loved us and gave Himself for us. Entering into a time of self-denial and focus on Jesus can help in leading us to a place of maturity where we are more committed to Him throughout the year, whether it is a designated holiday or not. May God bless you richly as we anticipate the celebration of His victory over sin and death.scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-53740731919213876822019-10-11T07:31:00.001-04:002019-10-11T07:31:32.436-04:00Where Lasting Peace Can Be Found<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://live.staticflickr.com/2354/2428338037_2a1902ef2a_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="150" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/2354/2428338037_2a1902ef2a_b.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kavehfa/2428338037">kavehfa</a></td></tr>
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From <a href="https://www.christianbook.com/new-morning-mercies-daily-gospel-devotional/paul-tripp/9781433541384/pd/541384">New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional by Paul David Tripp</a>:<div>
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"Biblical literacy does not dispel all confusion and mystery from your life because while God reveals his will for you in the Bible, he does not reveal all the things he will do in your life for your good and his glory. God surprises you.</div>
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So you ask, “Where is peace to be found?” This question is answered clearly and powerfully in Isaiah 26:</div>
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<i>You keep him in perfect peace</i></div>
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<i>whose mind is stayed on you,</i></div>
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<i>because he trusts in you.</i></div>
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<i>Trust in the LORD forever,</i></div>
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<i>for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.</i> (vv. 3-4)</div>
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This passage tells us where peace is found. It is never found in trying to figure out the secret will of God. It’s not to be found in personal planning or attempts to control the circumstances and people in your life. Peace is found in trusting the person who controls all the things that you don’t understand and who knows no mystery because he has planned it all. </div>
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How do you experience this remarkable peace—the kind of peace that doesn’t fade away when disappointments come, when people are difficult, or when circumstances are hard? You experience it by keeping your mind stayed on the Lord. The more you meditate on his glory, his power, his wisdom, his grace, his faithfulness, his righteousness, his patience, his zeal to redeem, and his commitment to his eternal promises to you, the more you can deal with mystery in your life. </div>
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Why? Because you know the One behind the mystery is gloriously good, worthy not only of your trust but also the worship of your heart. It really is true that peace in times of trouble is not found in figuring out your life, but in worship of the One who has everything figured out already."</div>
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(h/t to <a href="https://www.epm.org/blog/2019/Oct/11/where-real-peace-found">Randy Alcorn</a>)</div>
scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-14245397841546244032019-09-12T09:30:00.000-04:002019-09-12T09:30:05.140-04:00An Allegiance Greater than Patriotism or Family<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://jubilee-live.flickr.com/5508/9215522578_606714e6c4_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="800" height="133" src="https://jubilee-live.flickr.com/5508/9215522578_606714e6c4_b.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: <br /><a href="https://jubilee-live.flickr.com/5508/9215522578_606714e6c4_b.jpg">U.S. Embassy Kabul Afghanistan</a></td></tr>
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Taken from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Storm-Tossed-Family-Cross-Reshapes-Home-ebook/dp/B07GL9Z9ZN">The Storm-Tossed Family: How the Cross Reshapes the Home</a> by Russell D. Moore:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Natural allegiances are strong, and strong for reasons designed by God. The pull of a fallen universe is to make those natural allegiances even stronger, into religions. There’s a parallel here with patriotism, since the word patriotism comes from the root of the word for father. It is natural to love one’s homeland. Patriotism is a good recognition of gratitude to God and to others for the blessings one has inherited as part of a country. Patriotism or nationalism when made ultimate, though, is ugly, violent, and even satanic. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Those who are the best citizens of any earthly country are those who recognize that their citizenship in that country is not ultimate. There is a higher allegiance over the state. The problem with putting the nation—any nation—first, over the kingdom of God, is not just that such is idolatrous (the most important problem) but also that it is not, in fact, patriotic. Any state or tribe or village must have principles that transcend the body politic, and hold it accountable for its own ideals and aspirations. Where that is lost, one loses patriotism and sees it replaced with a cult. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The problem with putting family first, over the kingdom of God, is that we, first of all, replace a living God with the worship of ourselves, and, second, we lose the ability to be the kind of people who can love our families. The same is true with family. Love for family is not only good but also biblically mandated. When love of family becomes ultimate, though, it becomes, at best, Darwinist and atheistic."</blockquote>
Moore, Russell D.. The Storm-Tossed Family (Kindle Locations 1079-1091). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.<br />
<br />scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-2901585608670541292018-08-22T13:41:00.000-04:002018-08-22T13:41:19.192-04:00What Is True For The College Freshmen Of 2018?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3920/15177193870_fa44f3447e_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="640" height="137" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3920/15177193870_fa44f3447e_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit:<br /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thinkglobalschool/15177193870/">THINKGlobalSchool</a></td></tr>
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Each year at the start of the new school year Beloit College releases what they call the <a href="http://themindsetlist.com/2018/08/beloit-college-mindset-list-class-2022/">Mindset List</a> -- a list of important facts, events and people which influence the worldview and perspective that this year's college freshmen class brings with them.<br />
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This year's list, which is made up for the graduating class of 2022, represents those students primarily born in 2000. This year's class is unique for me on a personal level as my firstborn child is entering the University of Florida as a freshman this fall.<br />
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As you can see, this year's list highlights advances in technology, significant world events, and the many ways that today's college students experience the world differently from their parents.<br />
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You can read the complete list <a href="http://themindsetlist.com/2018/08/beloit-college-mindset-list-class-2022/">here</a> but I've included some entries below that I found particularly interesting:<br />
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<ul>
<li>They are the first class born in the new millennium, escaping the dreaded label of “Millennial,” though their new designation—iGen, GenZ, etc. — has not yet been agreed upon by them.</li>
<li>Outer space has never been without human habitation.</li>
<li>They have always been able to refer to Wikipedia.</li>
<li>They have grown up afraid that a shooting could happen at their school, too.</li>
<li>People loudly conversing with themselves in public are no longer thought to be talking to imaginary friends.</li>
<li>Investigative specials examining the O.J. Simpson case have been on TV annually since their birth.</li>
<li>Same-sex couples have always found marital bliss in the Netherlands.</li>
<li>When filling out forms, they are not surprised to find more than two gender categories to choose from.</li>
<li>Presidential candidates winning the popular vote and then losing the election are not unusual.</li>
<li>Parents have always been watching Big Brother, and vice versa.</li>
<li>They’ve grown up with stories about where their grandparents were on 11/22/63 and where their parents were on 9/11.</li>
<li>There has never been an Enron.</li>
<li>The Prius has always been on the road in the U.S.</li>
<li>They never used a spit bowl in a dentist’s office.</li>
<li>They have never seen a cross-town World Series.</li>
<li>There has always been a Survivor.</li>
<li>“You’ve got mail” would sound as ancient to them as “number, please” would have sounded to their parents.</li>
<li>Mifepristone or RU-486, commonly called the “abortion pill,” has always been available in the U.S.</li>
<li>A visit to a bank has been a rare event.</li>
<li>They have never had to deal with “chads,” be they dimpled, hanging, or pregnant.</li>
<li>Exotic animals have always been providing emotional support to passengers on planes.</li>
<li>Thumbprints have always provided log in security—and are harder to lose—than a password.</li>
<li>Robots have always been able to walk on two legs and climb stairs.</li>
<li>None having served there, American Presidents have always visited Vietnam as Commander-in-Chief.</li>
<li>There have always been space tourists willing to pay the price.</li>
<li>Mass market books have always been available exclusively as Ebooks.</li>
<li>Oprah has always been a magazine.</li>
<li>Donny and Marie who?</li>
<li>There have always been more than a billion people in India.</li>
<li>Films have always been distributed on the Internet.</li>
<li>Environmental disasters such as the BP Deepwater Horizon, and the coal sludge spill in Martin City, Ky., have always exceeded the Exxon Valdez oil spill.</li>
<li>The detachable computer mouse is almost extinct.</li>
</ul>
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Please remember to pray for the 21 million U.S. college students that are starting classes over the next few weeks. They are part of a changing world...and they also have the opportunity to influence how the world changes.scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-3856953786739138732017-10-30T14:42:00.000-04:002017-10-30T14:42:24.373-04:00How We Practice Contextualization In Ministry (Whether We Realize It Or Not)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container tr_bq" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3860/15117763267_927901a726.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="500" height="133" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3860/15117763267_927901a726.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/greggjerdingen/15117763267">DVS1mn</a></td></tr>
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From Timothy Keller's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Center-Church-Balanced-Gospel-Centered-Ministry-ebook/dp/B005JSGB5Q">Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
"All gospel ministry and communication are already heavily adapted to a particular culture. So it is important to do contextualization consciously. If we never deliberately think through ways to rightly contextualize gospel ministry to a new culture, we will unconsciously be deeply contextualized to some other culture. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Our gospel ministry will be both overadapted to our own culture and underadapted to new cultures at once, which ultimately leads to a distortion of the Christian message. The subject of contextualization is particularly hard to grasp for members of socially dominant groups. Because ethnic minorities must live in two cultures — the dominant culture and their own subculture — they frequently become aware of how deeply culture affects the way we perceive things. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
In the movie Gran Torino, an older blue-collar American named Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) lives alongside an Asian family in a deteriorating Detroit neighborhood. He finds it impossible to understand the cultural forms of the Hmongs, just as the elderly Hmongs (who cannot speak English and live completely within their ethnic enclave) find Walt strange and inexplicable. But the teenage Hmong girl, Sue, is bicultural — she lives in both worlds at once. So she understands and appreciates both Walt and her own parents and grandparents. As a result, she is able to communicate persuasively to both about the other. Isn’t this the very thing we are doing whenever we present the truth of the gospel to a culture that has alienated itself from it? </blockquote>
<blockquote>
In the United States, Anglo-Americans’ public and private lives are lived in the same culture. As a result, they are often culturally clueless. They relate to their own culture in the same way a fish that, when asked about water, said, “What’s water?” If you have never been out of water, you don’t know you are in it. Anglo Christians sometimes find talk of contextualization troubling. They don’t see any part of how they express or live the gospel to be “Anglo” — it is just the way things are. They feel that any change in how they preach, worship, or minister is somehow a compromise of the gospel. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
In this they may be doing what Jesus warns against — elevating the “traditions of men” to the same level as biblical truth (Mark 7:8). This happens when one’s cultural approach to time or emotional expressiveness or way to communicate becomes enshrined as the Christian way to act and live. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Bruce Nicholls writes the following: </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>"A contemporary example of cultural syncretism is the unconscious identification of biblical Christianity with “the American way of life.” This form of syncretism is often found in both Western and Third World, middle-class, suburban, conservative, evangelical congregations who seem unaware that their lifestyle has more affinity to the consumer principles of capitalistic society than to the realities of the New Testament, and whose enthusiasm for evangelism and overseas missions is used to justify [lives of materialism and complacency]." </b> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Lack of cultural awareness leads to distorted Christian living and ministry. Believers who live in individualistic cultures such as the United States are blind to the importance of being in deep community and placing themselves under spiritual accountability and discipline. This is why many church hoppers attend a variety of churches and don’t join or fully enter any of them. American Christians see church membership as optional. They take a non-biblical feature of American culture and bring it into their Christian life. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
On the other hand, Christians in more authoritarian and patriarchal cultures often are blind to what the Bible says about freedom of conscience and the grace-related aspects of Christianity. Instead, their leaders stress duty and are heavy-handed rather than eager to follow Jesus’ words that “if anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all” (Mark 9:35). </blockquote>
<blockquote>
An inability to see one’s own enculturation has other results. One of the most basic mistakes ministers make is to regurgitate the methods and programs that have personally influenced them. After experiencing the impact of a ministry in one part of the world, they take up the programs and methods of that ministry and reproduce them elsewhere virtually unchanged. If they have been moved by a ministry that has forty-five-minute verse-by-verse expository sermons, a particular kind of singing, or a specific order and length to the services, they reproduce it down to the smallest detail. Without realizing it, they become method driven and program driven rather than theologically driven. They are contextualizing their ministry expression to themselves, not to the people they want to reach. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
I have been moved to see how churches and ministries around the world have looked at what we do at Redeemer Presbyterian Church and how they have expressed their appreciation and have sought to learn from this ministry. But I have been disappointed to visit some congregations that have imitated our programs — even our bulletins — and haven’t grasped the underlying theological principles that animate us. In other words, they haven’t done the hard work of contextualization, reflecting on their own cultural situation and perspective to seek to better communicate the gospel to their own context. They have also failed to spend time reflecting on what they see in Redeemer and how we have adapted our ministry to an urban U.S. culture. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Everyone contextualizes — but few think much about how they are doing it. We should not only contextualize but also think about how we do it. We must make our contextualization processes visible, and then intentional, to ourselves and to others."</blockquote>
<br />scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-6659036635184949892017-08-05T10:19:00.000-04:002017-08-05T10:19:05.234-04:00July Web Roundup<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3942/33464820232_883066536a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="500" height="133" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3942/33464820232_883066536a.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/joanbrebo/33464820232">Joanbrebo</a></td></tr>
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Here is a collection of items from around the web that caught my attention the past several weeks:<br />
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<a href="http://ftc.co/resource-library/1/2961">A Checkpoint for Your Ambition</a> by Michael Kelley (For the Gospel)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Ambition is the strong desire to do something or achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work. Nothing wrong there; ambition, like so many other things, is neither good or bad. It is simply a desire that can either be redeemed or corrupted. Like most anything else involving desire – sex, power, eating – the question becomes how that desire is fulfilled. That fulfillment, though, is where things get complicated."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.lifeway.com/pastors/2017/07/03/six-reasons-must-seek-solitude/">Six Reasons We Must Seek Solitude</a> by Todd Gaddis (LifeWay)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I recently wore out a set of tires prematurely due to an alignment problem. Likewise, we wear ourselves out and minister ineffectively when out of alignment. Solitude helps us recalibrate. Take Elijah for example. Fearful and exhausted, he fled into the wilderness, yearning to die. Thankfully, following a period of rejuvenation, he left the presence of the Lord with a renewed outlook and updated assignment (1 Kings 19:15-16). According to Richard Foster in Celebration of Discipline, “goals are discovered, not made.” Our chances of making such a find increases exponentially in solitude. Early African converts to Christianity found time and eagerly participated in private devotions. It is said that each person had an isolated spot in the thicket where he/she would commune alone with God. In the course of time, their paths to these places became well worn. Consequently, if one grew lax in this discipline, it soon became apparent to others. They would then lovingly remind the negligent one, “Brother, the grass grows on your path.”</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/free-speech-campus/532965/">It's Disadvantaged Groups That Suffer Most When Free Speech Is Curtailed on Campus</a> by Musa Al-Gharbi & Jonathan Haidt (The Atlantic)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"In virtue of their heavy reliance on taxpayer funding and major donors, public colleges are much more receptive to calls from outside the university to punish faculty and staff for espousing controversial speech or ideas. Groups like Professor Watchlist, Campus Reform, or Campus Watch exploit this vulnerability, launching populist campaigns to get professors fired, or to prevent them from being hired, on the basis of something they said. The primary targets of these efforts end up being mostly women, people of color, and religious minorities (especially Muslims and the irreligious) when they too forcefully or bluntly condemn systems, institutions, policies, practices, and ideologies they view as corrupt, exploitative, oppressive, or otherwise intolerable."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2017/july/between-two-cultures-latina-christians-approach-leadership.html">Between Two Cultures: How Latina Christians Approach Leadership</a> by Andrea Ramirez (Christianity Today)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"What is unique to Hispanic students is their home life. If parents are not assimilated to “American” culture, there is a great disconnect that occurs with their student. There is a lack of understanding of the pressures their children are facing at school, most of it peer pressure to belong. Ironically, what may have most provoked parents to move to the United States—an education—can become the cause of a slipping apart between parents and children. I can't stress enough how great a conflict this can cause. Teen years are turbulent, anyway. Add to it the pressure that students feel in an environment they may not completely understand, and the pressure from peers, teachers, and from home ... It can be very overwhelming."</blockquote>
<a href="http://bytheirstrangefruit.blogspot.com/2017/07/implicit-bias-vs-explicit-bias.html">Implicit Bias vs Explicit Bias</a> (By Their Strange Fruit)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Racial implicit bias manifests itself in everything from assumptions about sports prowess, to who we hire/fire, to who we are afraid of as we walk down the street. To combat our implicit biases, we must first become aware of their existence (try an IAT test!), so that we can consciously combat their effects on our thought processes and actions. Implicit bias can’t be fixed with colorblindness, in fact colorblindness makes it worse. While overt racism never really went away, over the years implicit bias was allowed to take root and fester, unexamined and unchecked. The result has been decades of accumulated disparity, often perpetuated by unwitting 'basically good' people. Resumes were overlooked, mortgages and leases were declined, school applications were denied--indeed innocent people were shot. All because largely well-meaning people, acted on their implicit biases, often without even realizing they are contributing to systemic racism in our society."</blockquote>
<a href="http://philipyancey.com/reading-wars">Reading Wars</a> by Philip Yancey<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I’ve concluded that a commitment to reading is an ongoing battle, somewhat like the battle against the seduction of internet pornography. We have to build a fortress with walls strong enough to withstand the temptations of that powerful dopamine rush while also providing shelter for an environment that allows deep reading to flourish. Christians especially need that sheltering space, for quiet meditation is one of the most important spiritual disciplines. As a writer in the age of social media, I host a Facebook page and a website and write an occasional blog. Thirty years ago I got a lot of letters from readers, and they did not expect an answer for a week or more. Now I get emails, and if they don’t hear back in two days they write again, “Did you get my email?” The tyranny of the urgent crowds in around me."</blockquote>
<a href="https://urbanfaith.com/2017/07/50-years-rebellion-remembering-detroit-riots-1967.html/">50 Years Later: Remembering the Detroit Riots of 1967</a> by Candace Howze (Urban Faith)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Much of the city was destroyed during the riots, leaving thousands without a place to work or live, and businesses that were unharmed shut down for safety purposes. Taylor and his brother worked for General Motors at the time and were told not to go into work because of the hostile atmosphere throughout the city, which included curfew violations, fights, and multiple fires. Looters continued to steal millions of dollars of merchandise, including a few of Taylor’s friends who stole TV sets from a local business. “It got so bad that they canceled our work because it was too dangerous to move. Black people were mad and white people were scared and everyone was kinda scared to go anywhere.”"</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/hugh-freeze-and-the-peril-of-public-faith">Hugh Freeze and the Peril of Public Faith</a> by Cameron Cole (The Gospel Coalition)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"No matter the Christian—whether the non-drinking teenager, the stay-at-home mom, or the preacher—if he or she projects an air that righteousness comes from religious performance, he or she will be viewed as self-righteous. When that person demonstrates even a hint of moral failure, detractors will pile on the charge of hypocrisy. What non-Christians seem to hate most about believers is the perception of moral superiority. And when well-known Christians fall, some take opportunity to say, “See, you’re not any better than I am.” And they’re right. Absolutely right."</blockquote>
<a href="https://youtu.be/lmWMz8F2hUg">Little Girl Won't Let Her Mother Be Alone</a><br />
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I'm sure moms everywhere can relate to this little girl who just won't let her mom use the restroom in peace and quiet.<br />
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<br />scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-59916151340394325962017-07-01T11:41:00.000-04:002017-07-01T11:41:23.895-04:00Weekly Web Roundup (7/1/17)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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Here is a collection of items from around the web that caught my attention the past couple of weeks:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://randysrag.blogspot.com/2017/06/watch-your-mouth.html">Watch Your Mouth</a> by Randy Nabors<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The consciousness of racial injustice and its attendant social, economic, psychic, emotional, and physical realities are like a punch in the gut. We have no alternative but to spell them out, to both the ignorant and the resistant. Yet, if we allowed hate to fill us, these truths could inflame our hearts and push us to be fiery-eyed zealots and avengers, we instead seek to speak the truth in love; as Ephesians 4:15 teaches us to do. This is not always easy to do, to speak hard truths in love. We cannot be flippant about what love means (claiming we love people but producing no demonstrable proof) in our communication, especially not in having read the James passage in how the “wisdom from above” is to be imparted. In other words people who hear hard truths from us must also hear and feel the love as far as it may depend on us."</blockquote>
<a href="http://gilandamy.blogspot.com/2017/06/surprise-we-need-to-learn-from.html">Surprise! We Need to Learn from Christians from Other Cultures</a> by Amy Medina<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"When we talk about church in America with our Tanzanian friends, it's their turn to be shocked. Your church services are only an hour and fifteen minutes long? And that's the only service you attend all week? And you've never, ever done an all-night prayer vigil? Like, never? Are there even any Christians in America? In America, your devotion to Christ is measured by the amount of personal time you spend in prayer and Bible study. Am I right or am I right? Well, in Tanzania, your devotion to Christ is measured by the amount of time you spend in prayer and worship with others. Of course, you might protest that measuring godliness sounds like legalism. Which is true--but we still do it, don't we? If you are American, what would you say to a Christian who never did personal devotions, but spent many hours every week in church worship services? Would you even know where to put that person in your spiritual hierarchy? And would you be able to back up your conclusion with Scripture? It's easy for us, as foreigners, to come to Tanzania and point out what they are doing wrong. Those deficiencies pop up to us broadly and clearly. But I wonder, what if a Tanzanian Christian came to the States and was given a voice in the white American Church? What deficiencies would be glaringly obvious to him?"</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/06/23/liberal-pastor-conservative-gun-activist-we-have-to-keep-talking-amy-butler-column/103007558/">I preached about a gun rights advocate. He wasn't who I thought</a>. by Amy Butler (USA Today)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I sat there, startled briefly by the unlikely situation in which we found ourselves. We couldn’t be more different. But Todd and I share at least one fundamental belief: nobody is the stereotype we believe they are. We do ourselves and our world a fundamental disservice when we won’t summon the courage to listen to each other and try as hard as we can to find the things we share, small as they may be."</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/06/27/there-is-now-a-dramatic-generational-divide-over-white-evangelical-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/">Poll shows a dramatic generational divide in white evangelical attitudes on gay marriage</a> by Sarah Pulliam Bailey (The Washington Post)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The question for many evangelicals has been whether LGBT issues are matters where they can agree to disagree and still work together, perhaps like the question of when children should be baptized or whether women can be ordained. When the issue came up for World Vision, one of the largest Christian nonprofits in the country, in 2012, the answer was a sharp no — it lost thousands of donors right away. And InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a major ministry, announced last fall that its employees must affirm its views that marriage is between a man and a woman. Some evangelicals believe there’s a difference between supporting gay marriage as a public policy matter and gay marriage as sanctioned by churches. A large majority of white evangelicals (including younger generations) continue to see homosexual relations as morally wrong, according to the General Social Survey. The 2016 survey found 75 percent of white evangelicals saying homosexual sexual relations are always or nearly always wrong. That number is down from 82 percent in 1996 and 90 percent in 1987. The survey does not show a large generational gap, however. In 2014-2016 surveys, 70 percent of Generation X/millennial white evangelicals said same-sex sexual relations are nearly always or always wrong, compared to 81 percent of baby boomers/older generations."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/29/opinions/how-iphone-has-made-life-worse-alaimo/index.html">7 ways the iPhone has made life worse</a> by Kara Alaimo (CNN)<br />
<br />
I'm an iPhone user but I share the concerns listed in this article from Kara Alaimo. Here she lists seven ways that she feels our smartphones have made our lives worse:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
1. They're bad for our brains.<br />2. While we're busy on our phones, we're ignoring the world around us.<br />3. We're also ignoring one other.<br />4. They're ruining our relationships.<br />5. They promote FOMO ("fear of missing out") syndrome.<br />6. We have come to need constant validation.<br />7. We're expected to be available for work 24-7.</blockquote>
Smartphones can be useful if we use them and they don't use us. But these concerns are worth considering.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/trevinwax/2017/06/28/my-3-big-fears-in-parenting-teenagers/">My 3 Big Fears in Parenting Teenagers</a> by Trevin Wax (The Gospel Coalition)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"As fathers and mothers, we model the love of God to our kids in different ways. I know that whenever my children think of their Heavenly Father, they will in some way associate Him with their earthly father. The responsibility of modeling the character of God to my children makes me feel so honored and so inadequate. My fear for the teenage years is that, in the midst of the drama, the mood swings, the debates and disagreements, and the inevitable growth of independence, I will respond in ways that push my kids away from God instead of toward Him. That I will consistently model something untrue about God. For this reason, I pray that God would give me a soft and repentant heart, a willingness to own up to my sins, so that our kids would see that leadership in the home is not opposed to admitting I'm wrong, or that I need forgiveness. I also pray that God will not allow my fear of making mistakes to make me passive and thus forfeit my leadership role through apathy. A good father needs to have a combination of grace and boldness, with strands of love and authority tied so tightly you can't untangle one without the other."</blockquote>
scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-83471993083402461042017-06-25T09:45:00.001-04:002017-06-25T09:45:29.580-04:00Wisdom on Sorrow From Oswald Chambers<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container tr_bq" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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Taken from today's entry from <a href="https://utmost.org/">My Utmost for His Highest</a> by Oswald Chambers:<br />
<blockquote>
"As a saint of God, my attitude toward sorrow and difficulty should not be to ask that they be prevented, but to ask that God protect me so that I may remain what He created me to be, in spite of all my fires of sorrow. Our Lord received Himself, accepting His position and realizing His purpose, in the midst of the fire of sorrow. He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to accept and receive ourselves in its fires. If we try to evade sorrow, refusing to deal with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life, and there is no use in saying it should not be. Sin, sorrow, and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Sorrow removes a great deal of a person’s shallowness, but it does not always make that person better.<b> Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me. You cannot find or receive yourself through success, because you lose your head over pride. And you cannot receive yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining. The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow.</b> Why it should be this way is immaterial. The fact is that it is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
You can always recognize who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, and you know that you can go to him in your moment of trouble and find that he has plenty of time for you. But if a person has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, having no respect or time for you, only turning you away. If you will receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people."</blockquote>
scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-36194883432693936792017-06-21T09:32:00.001-04:002017-06-21T09:32:45.664-04:00Weekly Web Roundup (6/21/17)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/42/110619316_96f3530a93.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="402" data-original-width="500" height="160" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/42/110619316_96f3530a93.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/yehright/110619316">Richard Bromley</a></td></tr>
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Here is a collection of items from around the web that caught my attention the past couple of weeks:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/how-billy-graham-conquered-america">How Billy Graham Mainstreamed Evangelicals</a> by Frances Fitzgerald (The Daily Beast)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Graham was, as he himself said, still a country boy. Tall and awkward, he had a rough-hewn voice and was given to flailing his arms and stabbing the air with a raised finger. When he told Bible stories, he used slangy vernacular and acted out the parts—preening and strutting in the role of Belshazzar, or prancing around like an uppity pig in the story of the Prodigal Son. Calling for revival, he would stalk the platform, assaulting the audience with vivid descriptions of the horrors that came from man’s rebellion against God. According to his Youth for Christ peers, Graham had a kind of incandescence on the platform that came from his passionate sincerity."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2017/06/14/practicing-privelge-local-church/">Practicing Privilege in the Local Church</a> by Michelle Van Loon (Patheos)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Most of us are occupied trying to get our needs met for belonging and significance. Those needs are really important! God himself wired us that way. When a church staff, each holding positions of social privilege within that small community, are focused on their own “interpersonal dynamics and church politics”, it communicates that they might be focused on getting their needs for belonging and significance met. The experience B. had in the church gave him a new way to think about how he’d functioned in his previous role as pastor. Though he was a very others-focused, servant-hearted guy, he recognized he’d succumbed to the temptation to form and hoard a clique around himself so he could get those needs of his met."</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-number-one-reason-missionaries-go-home">The Number One Reason Missionaries Go Home</a> by Paul Akin (The Gospel Coalition)<br />
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I have heard it often communicated that the primary reason why missionaries leave the field is because of difficulties with other team members. Here, Paul Akin suggests five common reasons why this happens: 1) Unmet expectations, 2) Conflict, 3) Stress 4) Comparison/Jealousy and 5) Sin. He briefly offers a few suggestions as solutions.<br />
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<a href="https://hbr.org/2017/04/if-humble-people-make-the-best-leaders-why-do-we-fall-for-charismatic-narcissists">If Humble People Make the Best Leaders, Why Do We Fall for Charismatic Narcissists</a> by Margarita Mayo<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Charismatic leaders can be prone to extreme narcissism that leads them to promote highly self-serving and grandiose aims.” A clinical study illustrates that when charisma overlaps with narcissism, leaders tend to abuse their power and take advantage of their followers. Another study indicates that narcissistic leaders tend to present a bold vision of the future, and this makes them more charismatic in the eyes of others. Why are such leaders more likely to rise to the top? One study suggests that despite being perceived as arrogant, narcissistic individuals radiate “an image of a prototypically effective leader.” Narcissistic leaders know how to draw attention toward themselves. They enjoy the visibility. It takes time for people to see that these early signals of competence are not later realized, and that a leader’s narcissism reduces the exchange of information among team members and often negatively affects group performance."</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-uniqueness-of-university-evangelism">The Uniqueness of University Evangelism</a> by Tim Keller & Michael Keller (The Gospel Coalition)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Universities create environments that encourage students to rethink the beliefs of their upbringing, including their meaning in life, values, and identity. That, of course, is a challenge to students who come into undergraduate courses with a Christian faith. But it also means students from other backgrounds and communities are dislodged from them and are freer to consider the claims of Christianity than they would’ve been at home. Also, while it may be considered impolite in much of society to try to convert people to your belief system, on university campuses this is essentially what everyone’s trying to do to everyone else, with vigor. The free market of ideas and the discussions that ensue inside and outside the lecture room aren’t value-neutral exchanges, but rather places of persuasion where individuals debate and accept differing explanations of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Evangelism fits right in."</blockquote>
<a href="http://thefederalist.com/2017/06/14/parents-need-limit-screens-make-boredom-great/">Why Parents Need To Limit Screens And Make Boredom Great Again</a> by Brooke Shannon (The Federalist)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Unfortunately, the increasing ubiquity of screens diminishes opportunities for children’s brains to wander, create, and imagine. From carpools to the classroom to big sister’s sporting events to the dinner table, screens are destroying boredom. Why would a six-year-old stare out the car window or talk to a friend on the way to school when the latest episode of “Paw Patrol” is on? If a three-year-old can play a game on a tablet, why would he watch his big brother’s soccer game? Many waiting rooms have become quieter, and some dinner tables have gone silent. But at what cost? Too much screen time—and not enough boredom—can lead to poor social skills, shorter attention spans, and a need for instant gratification. How many future inventors will be lost without experiencing boredom? Where will the great orators and writers of this generation come from if imagination is not nurtured today?"</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/june/why-we-argue-best-with-our-mouths-shut.html">Why We Argue Best with Our Mouths Shut</a> by Christine Herman (Christianity Today)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The problem with persuasion is not just that people are stubborn; people change their minds all the time about all sorts of things. The real challenge arises when someone’s beliefs are tied to their identity. If changing your belief means changing your identity, it comes at the risk of rejection from the community of people with whom you share that identity. Knowing this, it’s not surprising that people tend to seek out information that confirms a belief and outright reject anything that conflicts with it, says Dan Kahan, a psychology professor at Yale Law School. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“They might not perceive it that way consciously,” he says. But research has shown that this phenomenon—known to psychologists as confirmation bias—is real. Kahan illustrates with a sports analogy: “Fans of opposing teams tend to see different things when there’s a close call,” he says. “And it wouldn’t be good if you stood up on your side of the stadium and said, ‘I think the guy really was out of bounds.’ ” Being rejected by the group around which we have formed our identity can be painful. Thus, in the face of evidence that runs contrary to our beliefs, it only makes sense that we put up our guard."</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/06/what-apple-thought-the-iphone-might-look-like-in-1995/530085/">What Apple Thought the iPhone Might Look Like in 1995</a> by Adrienne LaFrance (The Atlantic)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"To those who had been watching Apple since the 1980s, however, shrinking computers and videophones seemed to be always just tantalizingly out of reach, emblems of a future that would, fingers crossed, eventually arrive. But when? By 1995, even though Apple’s laptops had dipped to a svelte six pounds, and the transformative power of the internet was becoming apparent, the next great iteration of the web was barely imaginable. Today’s mobile web, the one that would be ushered in by smartphones, was still out of reach. But there were hints of what was to come."</blockquote>
<a href="https://youtu.be/YmzXNf3emrQ">Stuff Dads Never Say</a><br />
<br />
I had the privilege of visiting my home church in Michigan - <a href="https://www.colonialwoodsmc.com/">Colonial Woods Missionary Church</a> - this past Sunday, Father's Day. This video was shown during the service and I got a big kick out of it.<br />
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<br />scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-8489861421386811252017-06-15T12:33:00.000-04:002017-06-15T12:33:27.548-04:00Diversifying Leadership in Non-Profit Organizations<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7550/16045189205_1c281d7b1d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="500" height="133" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7550/16045189205_1c281d7b1d.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit:<br /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gpforeducation/16045189205">Global Partnership for Education - GPE</a></td></tr>
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One of the greatest challenges facing non-profit organizations that are seeking to be ethnically diverse is understanding that it is not just about having a diverse staff. Having more ethnic minorities in the top levels of leadership is critical for organizations that are seeking to become more diverse. But a multitude of barriers often exist in turning this vision into reality.<br />
<br />
A recent study by the Building Movement Project-- <a href="http://racetolead.org/">Race to Lead: Confronting the Nonprofit Racial Leadership Gap</a> -- illustrates that many attitudes about how a non-profit can increase its number of leaders of color might not be accurate.<br />
<br />
Cyndi Suarez of <a href="https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2017/06/08/nonprofit-racial-leadership-gap-flipping-lens/">NonProfit Quarterly</a> comments on the findings:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The report has a high-level message: “The results call into question the common assumption that to increase the diversity of nonprofit leaders, People of Color (POC) need more training. The findings point to a new narrative. To increase the number of People of Color leaders, <b>the nonprofit sector needs to address the practices and biases of those governing nonprofit organizations</b>.” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In other words, while many investments in people of color leadership focus on training and other capacity building for people of color, the real need for capacity building is with the people who hire for executive leadership positions. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Other studies have hinted at this. The Daring to Lead reports of 2006 and 2011 of more than 3,000 nonprofit leaders found that 82 percent of respondents were white. More recently, in BoardSource’s 2015 Leading with Intent report of non-profit boards, 89 percent percent of respondents identified as white. For over a decade now, survey reports consistently show that less than 20 percent of nonprofit executive leaders are people of color."</blockquote>
The report indicates that while it is important to intentionally focus on the development of leaders of color -- just as that is important for any emerging leader -- much greater emphasis needs to be placed on the development of non-profit leaders in the areas of cultural intelligence. In many non-profits there are structural and organizational barriers that limit the opportunity for ethnic minorities to advance in leadership.<br />
<br />
Here are some of the specific conclusions drawn from the <a href="http://racetolead.org/">report</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>› It’s NOT about Differences in Background or Qualifications</b>People of color and white respondents have similar backgrounds in education, position, salary, and years working in the nonprofit sector. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>› It’s NOT about a Lack of Aspirations</b>People of color aspire to be leaders more than white respondents. For those who do not aspire to leadership, most—across race—are looking to maintain work/personal life balance. But people of color who are not aspiring leaders are more likely to be looking for jobs outside of the nonprofit sector. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>› It’s NOT about Skills and Preparation</b>Most aspiring leaders thought they had the qualities needed to be a good leader. When asked about the training they received, people of color and whites had few differences in the areas of financial skills, goal setting, articulating a vision, advocacy, and collaboration. People of color were more likely to see themselves as visionary and able to relate to their target population, but less ready to fund raise than whites. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>› It IS an Uneven Playing Field</b>The majority of aspiring leaders feel prepared to take on an executive role. However, over a third reported they want more technical and management skills, with POC respondents identifying this need more often than whites. People of color were more likely than white respondents to see race/ethnicity as a barrier to their advancement. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>› It IS the Frustration of “Representing”</b>All respondents have challenges, but people of color are significantly more frustrated by the stress of being called upon to represent a community. They are also more challenged by inadequate salaries, the need for role models, lack of social capital/networks, and the need for relationships with funding sources. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>› It’s NOT Personal, It IS the System</b>Respondents across race squarely identify the lack of people of color in top leadership roles as a structural problem for the nonprofit sector. They believe that executive recruiters and boards could do more to diversify leadership. Whether due to bias or other factors, respondents of color were more likely than whites to agree it is harder for people of color to fund raise. They also were more likely than whites to see barriers to people of color advancing either because of smaller professional networks and/or the need for more training.</blockquote>
For leaders like myself that serve in predominately white non-profit organizations, it's especially important for us to realize that much of the work that needs to be done in becoming more diverse starts with us. If we as leaders have a myopic perspective on leadership and don't possess the understanding of cultural contexts other than our own, we will continue to create and perpetuate structures and systems that prevent some of the very things we say we want to see happen.<br />
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You can download the full report <a href="http://racetolead.org/">here</a>.scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-58804309397314087162017-06-10T15:49:00.001-04:002017-06-10T15:49:40.237-04:00Weekly Web Roundup (6/10/17)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3912/33070370920_607acd6806.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="500" height="133" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3912/33070370920_607acd6806.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pennstatelive/33070370920">pennstatenews</a></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;">Here is a collection of items from around the web that caught my attention the past few weeks:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;"><a href="http://religiondispatches.org/how-race-tests-maintain-evangelical-segregation/">How "Race Tests" Maintain Evangelical Segregation</a> by Joshua L. Lazard (Religion Dispatches)</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;">"</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.85px;">As the Bracey/Moore study alludes to, these evangelical churches are spaces that on paper claim that, to put it colloquially, “race doesn’t matter,” or “It doesn’t matter what color Jesus is.” But obviously it does. Reality shows that ecclesiastical segregation is a sociological trend that exists beyond just white evangelical churches. It also includes congregations and denominations that are decidedly liberal and stand at the opposite end of the theological spectrum. Studies have shown time and time again that this segregation has held true for a multiplicity of reasons. While these reasons range from the difference of praise and worship style and doctrinal differences, to residential segregation or the preference of non-whites creating affirming spaces of their own, white liberal churches aren’t excused from being a part of white institutional spaces as defined by this study."</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.85px;"><a href="http://www.missioalliance.org/black-woman-evangelical/">Being Black, a Woman and an Evangelical</a></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;"> by Natasha Sistrunk Robinson (Missio Alliance)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;">"</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.85px;">For those black people who are conscious of this American history and still desire to remain true to the scriptural principles of evangelicalism, it costs us something to present ourselves as evangelical. For the most part, we are able to confidently make this claim because we have been trained in evangelical institutions, we love Jesus and the Good Book, and we believe in the gospel as the ministry of reconciliation. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;">It also means that we often find ourselves leading and ministering in predominately white spaces, churches and institutions. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;">It means that we are often one of a few ethnic minorities within white evangelicalism challenging the thoughts and actions surrounding diversity (or most often the lack thereof), racial reconciliation and biblical justice. We are often on tap to contribute to conversations but rarely on payroll to make decisions."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.85px;"><a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2012/april/considering-and-surviving-unhealthy-christian.html">Considering (and Surviving) Unhealthy Christian Organizations, part 1</a> by Ed Stetzer (Christianity Today: The Exchange)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.85px;">"Many times, the leader gets a pass for the fruit of his/her leadership because of some overwhelming characteristic: preaching ability, intelligence, ability to woo others, or more. Yet, the fruit remains below-- a culture toxic to all who swim downstream. The leader is often seen (from the outside) as a great leader, but those inside know him/her as someone who is, well, more concerned about outside appearance than godly leadership."</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.85px;"><a href="http://www.sportsspectrum.com/articles/sports-spectrum-podcast/2017/05/05/new-podcast-tnts-ernie-johnson/">Sports Spectrum Podcast Interview with Ernie Johnson</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.85px;">The personal story of NBA on TNT studio host Ernie Johnson is powerful. As someone that became a Christian later in life, his family's journey of faith through cancer, adoption and other challenges related to their special needs child is challenging. This interview with Jason Romano is worth a listen.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.85px;"><a href="http://www.familylife.com/articles/topics/marriage/staying-married/communication/are-you-married-to-your-smart-phone">Are You Married to Your Smartphone?</a> by Dave Boehi (Family Life)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.85px;">"Adjusting to new forms of technology is nothing new. Just think how telephones and automobiles changed our culture. Or air-conditioning. Radio, television, computers, and many other new inventions sparked significant changes in our culture and in the way we related to our family and friends. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;">But the pace of change since 1995 has been breathtaking. We’ve seen the emergence of the internet and of mobile phones, and then the convergence of the two in 2006 with smartphones. We can now be plugged in wherever we are, 24/7. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;">The technology is evolving so quickly that most of us are barely aware of how our behavior is changing and our relationships are affected. As one reader wrote after I wrote about this issue a few years ago, “These mobile devices can take over your life.” Another said, “I understand technology has its advantages, but we are being ruled by the technology rather than using it as a tool.”</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.85px;"><a href="http://how%20the%20internet%20is%20changing%20friendship/">How the Internet is Changing Friendship</a> (The Atlantic)</span></span><br />
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<br />scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-55158841300607639862017-05-21T18:02:00.001-04:002017-05-21T18:02:53.925-04:00Weekly Web Roundup (5/20/17)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3440/3734886605_7eecb64577.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3440/3734886605_7eecb64577.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sheldon0531/3734886605">sheldon0531</a></td></tr>
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Here is a collection of items from around the web that caught my attention this past week:<br />
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<a href="http://www.russellmoore.com/2017/05/12/signposts-conversation-andy-crouch-family-technology/">A conversation with Andy Crouch about family and technology</a> from Russell Moore<br />
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In this episode of the <i>Signposts</i> podcast, Dr. Moore offers an enlightening conversation with author Andy Crouch. They discuss how parents can create healthy boundaries with their children regarding technology use.<br />
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<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/13/opinions/standing-rock-united-shades-kamau-bell-opinion/index.html">Standing Rock changed how I see America</a> by W. Kamau Bell (CNN)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I can't imagine what it must be like to be one of the indigenous people of the United States of America. I can't imagine watching the news every day -- as people debate whose country this is and who should be in charge of it and how to make it great again -- and hardly ever see your people brought into the discussion. As a black person in this country, I am always frustrated by the lack of attention my people's issues get. But at least the news and politicians are talking about not talking about our issues. Native issues are basically ignored."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2017/may/jesus-frybread-of-life.html">Jesus, the Frybread of Life</a> by Deborah Pardo-Kaplan (Christianity Today)<br />
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Here's a great profile of the work of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IV) as it pertains to Native American college students. Cru's Native ministry -- <i>Nations</i> -- partners closely with IV and is mentioned in the article.<br />
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<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-story/524490/">My Family’s Slave</a> by Alex Tizon (The Atlantic)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"She was 18 years old when my grandfather gave her to my mother as a gift, and when my family moved to the United States, we brought her with us. No other word but slave encompassed the life she lived. Her days began before everyone else woke and ended after we went to bed. She prepared three meals a day, cleaned the house, waited on my parents, and took care of my four siblings and me. My parents never paid her, and they scolded her constantly. She wasn’t kept in leg irons, but she might as well have been. So many nights, on my way to the bathroom, I’d spot her sleeping in a corner, slumped against a mound of laundry, her fingers clutching a garment she was in the middle of folding."</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.barna.com/research/people-fight-online/">Why People Fight Online</a> (The Barna Group)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"“Our most fraught conversations seem to have moved from the dinner table to the screen,” says Roxanne Stone, editor in chief at Barna Group. “However there are very few rules of etiquette in place for the internet yet. Where once family members could put a stop to an argument with a cry of ‘no religion or politics at the table!’ the digital world does everything to encourage such debates. And, of course, it’s a lot easier to be an anonymous jerk to a stranger than it is to yell at your mom. “Yet, there is a real person on the other end of that comment and online bullying has proven to be a truly destructive force,” says Stone. “The number of teen suicides attributed to it is but one extreme and horrifying example of its potency. Our level of civility and straight-up kindness should not be dependent on whether we are physically with a person or whether we know them. It’s easy to disembody the messages we read online and imagine our own posts are simply going out into an indifferent void. But real people are really hurt by the things said about and against them online."</blockquote>
<a href="http://collegevilleinstitute.org/bearings/the-blessing-of-conflict/">The Blessing of Conflict</a> by Chanequa Walker-Barnes (Collegeville Institute)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The therapeutic definition of conflict is simple: a difference of opinion between two or more people. In this sense, conflict was not inherently bad; in fact, it was evidence of the family’s capacity to allow and cope with self-differentiation among its members. In a healthy family system, members have both a strong sense of group cohesion as well as clearly developed individual identities. The way in which families managed the dinner exercise told us something about that. On this task, a healthy family was one in which people offered different ideas about what they wanted, and then they worked through it to agree upon a menu that accommodated some, although not necessarily all, of those differences."</blockquote>
<a href="https://youtu.be/KCRHAFxRu3o">This Is All of Us - Mandy, Milo, Sterling and Chrissy Surprise Fans</a><br />
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NBC's "This is Us" became one of my favorite shows this past year. This <a href="https://youtu.be/KCRHAFxRu3o">video</a> shows the stars of the show unexpectedly surprising fans of the show.<br />
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<br />scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-43064477751907453152017-05-13T14:32:00.001-04:002017-05-13T14:32:34.185-04:00Weekly Web Roundup (5/13/17)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/187/480250406_cc9f795135.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/187/480250406_cc9f795135.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/esaldivar/480250406">aka Quique</a></td></tr>
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Here is a collection of items from around the web that caught my attention the past couple of weeks:<br />
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<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-raise-an-american-adult-1493995064">How to Raise an American Adult</a> by Ben Sasse (The Wall Street Journal)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"We all know the noun adult. But I was perplexed last year to hear the new verb to adult. In social media, especially on Twitter and Instagram, it birthed a new hashtag: #adulting. As in: “Just paid this month’s bills on time #adulting,” or “Decided I couldn’t watch Netflix 8 hours straight and went to the grocery store instead #adulting.” It even got a nomination from the American Dialect Society for the most creative word of 2015. “Adulting” is an ironic way to describe engaging in adult behaviors, like paying taxes or doing chores—the sort of mundane tasks that responsibility demands. To a growing number of Americans, acting like a grown-up seems like a kind of role-playing, a mode of behavior requiring humorous detachment. Let me be clear: This isn’t an old man’s harrumph about “kids these days.” I still remember Doc Anderson standing in the street in 1988, yelling at me to slow down as I drove through his neighborhood in our small Nebraska town. I was 16 and couldn’t stand that guy. Years later, when I had children of my own, I returned to thank him. Maturation."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2017/april/teams-in-mission-are-they-worth-it-part-one.html">Teams in Mission: Are They Worth It?</a> by David Sedlacek (The Exchange: Christianity Today)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Teamwork has been a popular concept in missions theory and practice for decades, but there is a persistent sense among missionaries that teams may be more work than they are worth. Working alongside others, especially those of different cultures, is no easy task. It takes time, effort, and energy to work in a team, and it doesn’t always produce the fruit we look for. We’ve all heard this comment: our younger generation values teamwork, but the older generation doesn’t get it. Twenty-five years ago, as a member of the new generation of missionaries, I nodded my head in agreement. I thought, Yes, we value teamwork and the older generation doesn’t get it. Today, I am a member of the “older” generation. When I hear the familiar refrain, I’m tempted to respond, “Yes, the younger generation values teamwork, and we don’t get it.”"</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/06/opinion/sunday/dont-let-facebook-make-you-miserable.html">Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable</a> by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz (The New York Times)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Friends have always showed off to friends. People have always struggled to remind themselves that other people don’t have it as easy as they claim. Think of the aphorism quoted by members of Alcoholics Anonymous: “Don’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides.” Of course, this advice is difficult to follow. We never see other people’s insides. I have actually spent the past five years peeking into people’s insides. I have been studying aggregate Google search data. Alone with a screen and anonymous, people tend to tell Google things they don’t reveal to social media; they even tell Google things they don’t tell to anybody else. Google offers digital truth serum. The words we type there are more honest than the pictures we present on Facebook or Instagram."</blockquote>
<a href="https://scottsauls.com/2017/05/jenmichelhome/">Reflections on the Meaning of Home</a> by Scott Sauls<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Recently, our oldest daughter graduated from high school. To commemorate her accomplishment, Patti and I wrote her long Letters from Mom and Dad. In those letters, we walked down memory lane reflecting upon and getting nostalgic about her eighteen years of life. As we reminisced, it dawned on both of us that, while we gave the girl opportunities, we never gave the girl roots…at least not with respect to place. To date, she has lived in seven different homes and attended eight different schools in five different cities. Contemplating the quasi-nomadic upbringing that we imposed on our daughter, Patti wrote in her Letter from Mom, “I am so so so sorry…and you’re welcome.” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The “I’m sorry” part makes good sense. Moving of any kind is disorienting, especially in childhood. It uproots a child from friends, teachers, neighborhoods and familiar spaces. It digs a hole in the heart, uprooting and re-rooting like that. For better or for worse, our daughter’s story has become the same as mine. It’s a story with no lifelong friends or neighbors or houses from childhood. Instead, it’s the story of a traveler. What good could come from seven homes and eight schools and five cities in eighteen years? Why on earth would my wife feel compelled to say “You’re welcome” right after saying “I’m so so so sorry” to our daughter? I believe it’s because regret and hope don’t have to be mutually exclusive."</blockquote>
<a href="https://youtu.be/XgBbqi_rzuc">A Theology of Race</a><br />
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Here's a helpful <a href="https://youtu.be/XgBbqi_rzuc">video</a> from Jemar Tisby on what the Bible means when it refers to race or, more appropriately, ethnicity.<br />
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<br />scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-62618856195399557562017-04-29T13:17:00.001-04:002017-04-29T13:17:33.710-04:00Weekly Web Roundup (4/29/17)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8092/8506636735_6b1cdee7ea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="132" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8092/8506636735_6b1cdee7ea.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit:<br /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/departmentofed/8506636735">US Department of Education</a></td></tr>
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Here is a collection of items from around the web that caught my attention the past couple of weeks:<br />
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<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2017/april/pew-more-education-less-religion-christians-secularization.html">Sorry Weber, Durkheim, and Marx: Educated Evangelicals Are More Religious</a> by Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra (Christianity Today)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Evangelicals who graduated from college are more likely than those who didn’t enroll to attend religious services at least weekly (68% vs. 55%), to pray daily (83% vs. 77%), and to believe in God with absolute certainty (90% vs. 87%). They’re also more likely to say religion is very important to them (81% vs. 79%). Those numbers aren’t a fluke; when Pew broke the categories down further, the trend continued. Evangelicals who earned a graduate degree after college are the most committed to their faith; those who dropped out of high school are the least committed."</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.raanetwork.org/missing-piece-american-international-missions/">The Missing Piece in American International Missions</a> by Courtlandt Perkins (Reformed African American Network)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"In many places, ethnicity and faith are deeply connected to a people group’s identity, so to only see people with white skin representing Christ speaks volumes about what Christians look like. The human heart naturally doesn’t want to receive Christ due to depravity, but what if the dark skin of a missionary helps them be received into an African village, simply because they look familiar? The unreached will physically see that Jesus changes the lives of people who look like them. African American missionaries could inspire a generation of African missionaries to receive Christ, and take His message to places AA’s could never go. In the same way, sending Hispanic-American missionaries to Latin American countries, we could help deconstruct the notions of white superiority, and point to the reality that white Christians do not have the copyright of international missions. It is obvious the issues run deeper than just numbers. The reality is often rooted in inherit racial bias and historical discrimination. But my friend’s words resound deeply with me: “Diversity is a powerful (and much needed) tool for witness.”"</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.barna.com/research/6-tech-habits-changing-american-home/">6 Tech Habits Changing the American Home</a> (Barna Group)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Technology is literally everywhere in our homes—not only the devices in our pockets but the invisible electromagnetic waves that flood our homes,” writes Andy Crouch in his new book The Tech-Wise Family, written in partnership with original Barna research. “This change has come about overnight, in the blink of an eye in terms of human history and culture. When previous generations confronted the perplexing challenges of parenting and family life, they could fall back on wisdom, or at least old wives’ tales, that had been handed down for generations. But the pace of technological change has surpassed anyone’s capacity to develop enough wisdom to handle it. We are stuffing our lives with technology’s new promises, with no clear sense of whether technology will help us keep the promises we’ve already made."</blockquote>
<a href="http://reformedmargins.com/the-legitimacy-of-ethnic-churches-in-multi-ethnic-contexts/">The Legitimacy of Ethnic Churches in Multi-Ethnic Contexts</a> by Andrew Ong (Reformed Margins)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"While pursuing a church demographic that proportionally matches the community’s might be a helpful and wise benchmark for certain churches, to impose any particular vision of unity and diversity upon a local church strikes me as mechanistic. This is especially true since the automobile has fundamentally altered our conception of communities’ bounds. How many of us worship at the closest Christian church to our home? Binding local churches to the norm of multi-ethnicity is mechanistic if our conception of church unity is absolutely bound by spatial-location. Is a church less faithful if it’s attended by more people who live ten minutes away by car than people who live ten minutes away by foot? Didn’t Jesus just say that his sheep would hear his voice?"</blockquote>
<a href="https://scottsauls.com/2017/04/social-media/">One Teenager's (Supremely Brilliant) Perspective on Social Media</a> (Scott Sauls)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"When I finally spent a week “unplugging” from my phone, I realized that the withdrawals I experienced from disengaging from the app were a sign of the control it had over me. This control scared me and made me angry because I had willingly put myself in an unnecessary position to compare my insides to others’ outsides, to be controlled by my appearance and people’s opinions, and to hurt others and myself with my comments, posts, or digital footprint. This unnerved me because it was a dangerous trap that had been disguised by an attractive, socially acceptable, and necessary staple of popularity. After I deleted my social media accounts, I began to notice how other teenagers my age were trapped in the same digital world that I was. I wanted to understand why this was happening. What exactly are we as a society risking with the constant attachment to our screens?"</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/04/27/why-a-racially-insensitive-photo-of-southern-baptist-seminary-professors-matters/">Why a racially insensitive photo of Southern Baptist seminary professors matters</a> by Jemar Tisby (The Washington Post)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"But the biggest problem doesn’t show up in the picture. The presence of any person of color would have reduced the chances of this photo ever happening. But a photo like this evolves in an environment that lacks meaningful interaction with people from other cultures, especially on the leadership level. The seminary’s website appears to picture all white men in an administration and an entire preaching faculty. Even if a school has diversity in the student body, if the decision-makers all come from a similar racial and cultural background, then they will remain oblivious to their own racial blind spots."</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.detroitathletic.com/blog/2017/04/26/guide-detroit-sports-fan/">The Guide to Being a Detroit Sports Fan</a> by Dan Holmes (Detroit Athletic Blog)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"What does it mean to be a Detroit sports fan? What should we all know? What do we need to know? Not everyone has the answers to these questions, so I wrote them all down in one place. Enjoy."</blockquote>
scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-85063215708408605032017-04-15T13:54:00.000-04:002017-04-15T13:54:31.682-04:00Weekly Web Roundup (4/15/17)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5603/15475619936_9a05264dc8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5603/15475619936_9a05264dc8.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit:<br /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/worldbank/15475619936">World Bank Photo Collection</a></td></tr>
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Here is a collection of items from around the web that caught my attention over this past week:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-03-28/what-total-god-shot-understand-then-you-speak-christianese">'What a total God shot!' Understand that? Then you speak Christianese</a> by Patrick Cox (PRI.org)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"This religious dialect is spoken by increasing numbers of English-speaking Christians, especially evangelicals. And it isn't just deployed for Bible study. Everyday non-religious conversation is also sprinkled with words from the scriptures, and phrases popularized by charismatic preachers and writers. So for example, instead of "results," you might hear a Christianese speaker refer to "fruits." Instead of "thoughtful," "intentional." Christanese can also depart slightly from English grammar: "My friend spoke into my life." "I was called to move to Nicaragua." It's code, a useful way for believers to seek out like-minded people."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.russellmoore.com/2017/04/10/who-would-jesus-abort/">Who Would Jesus Abort? Confessions of a “Christian” Abortion Doctor</a> by Russell Moore<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The biggest hurdle, though, for Parker, is to redefine life itself. Like many in the abortion movement, Parker scoffs at the possibility of fetal personhood because the child is small, “no bigger, from crown to rump, than the first two digits of my pinkie finger,” and because the child cannot live, in most cases, on his or her own outside the womb. He seems to recognize though that lack of size and lack of power won’t be persuasive on their own, so he continues to what he sees as the real problem: the idea that life is “a miracle.” Parker writes that to say that “conception, or birth, or even death is ‘miraculous’ does an injustice to God.” Life is, instead, he argues, merely “a process.” As I read this abortion doctor’s repeated inveighing against the metaphor of “miracle” for human life, I could not help but be reminded of Wendell Berry’s manifesto against scientism and materialism, which he says demotes humanity from creature to machine. The rejection of the miracle of life, Berry wrote, leaves us with the coldness of abstraction."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2017/april/how-single-women-became-unstoppable-force-in-bible-translat.html">How Single Women Became an Unstoppable Force in Bible Translation</a> by Kate Shellnutt (Christianity Today)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Though women in Bible translation are well represented in the field, they remain underrepresented in leadership positions. In recent years, SIL has worked to bring more women into administrative leadership, believing that “God works through women and men of every ethnic group and age level, and calls them to be involved in leadership roles in all facets of our organizational life.” Women mostly feel free to focus on the work they were called to in the first place—getting more people access to the Bible in their own languages—but the pressure’s still there. Everyone on the mission field works hard and sacrifices much; women may notice themselves working extra hard to demonstrate their contributions."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.freep.com/story/sports/nba/pistons/2017/04/14/detroit-pistons-isiah-thomas-palace/100469076/">How Isiah Thomas became the greatest Detroit Piston ever</a> by Bill Dow (Detroit Free Press)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"And then there was Isiah Lord Thomas III, the player whose impact turned around the once floundering franchise and laid the foundation for the construction of one of the premier arenas in basketball, especially for its time. Thomas blossomed into the Pistons' fearless leader during his career, cementing a legacy befitting of his middle name. During his 13-year career, he established himself as one of the greatest “small men” in NBA history. A dangerous shooter and spectacular playmaker, he still is the franchise’s all-time leader in points (18,822), assists (9,061), steals (1,861) and minutes played (35,516). The 12-time All-Star was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000 and was named to the NBA’s 50th Anniversary All-Time team. “Simply put, Isiah Thomas was the difference maker and the key to the franchise’s success,” says Tom Wilson, the former Pistons president and CEO and right-hand man to the late club owner Bill Davidson. Wilson was the project manager of the Palace and first suggested the pioneering concourse-level suites. The arena opened in 1988. “Internally," Wilson said, "we called the Palace 'The House that Isiah Built.' "</blockquote>
<a href="https://youtu.be/yzqTFNfeDnE">That's My King Dr. S.M. Lockridge</a><br />
<br />
In honor of the commemoration and celebration of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ that Christians around the worldwide recognize this weekend, here's a video that reminds us about the King of Kings.<br />
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<br />scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-44516892111294277202017-04-12T15:52:00.000-04:002017-04-12T15:52:40.860-04:00When Stereotypes Go Bad<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/weddingwithedouard/1810510966">Peter.Lorre</a></td></tr>
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It was several years ago and I was sitting down to dinner with a number of pastors from another part of the world. I was speaking at a conference and these men were guests of the conference host.<br />
<br />
A mutual friend introduced me to them and shared that I had worked for many years with The Impact Movement, a ministry focused on African American college students.<br />
<br />
After settling into our meal and getting acquainted with one another, one of the men asked me, "Can I ask you a question? Why do Black people like fried chicken so much?"<br />
<br />
Inwardly appalled by his inquiry, I composed myself and responded, "What makes you think that?"<br />
<br />
He went onto share that although he didn't know any Black Americans personally, he inferred from watching American television programs and movies that this was true. He simply wanted to know why and thought I might be able to help him. Knowing that English was not this brother's first language, I took the time to clarify his question and to make sure that I comprehended him as best as I could.<br />
<br />
Confident that what I heard was what he had asked, I posed a question, as well as a follow-up to him:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I asked, "Have you ever had fried chicken?" </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
He said, "Of course! Many times." </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I then asked, "Do you like it?" </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
He responded, "Of course!" </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I said, "I do too. So I guess there are lot of people that probably like fried chicken, including the both of us."</blockquote>
I then went on to explain that unfair stereotypes -- ways of categorizes groups of people without viewing them as individuals -- had been woven into our country's history, especially as it pertained to African Americans. In order for those in power -- yes, even some Christian pastors -- to justify the dehumanization of those of African descent, negative stereotypes of Black people had developed over time. Sadly, many of these stereotypes persist to this day.<br />
<br />
I could have assumed there was racist intent behind the man's question but I don't think that would have been fair...nor helpful. He had little context for American history and admittedly knew no African Americans personally. His question came from a place of unawareness and not ill-intent. He had been exposed to a stereotype about Black Americans that wasn't being applied to other ethnic groups and he simply wanted to know if it was true. I attempted to address his question in the most gracious and helpful way I could.<br />
<br />
In the case of African Americans and fried chicken, the curious might wonder how this specific stereotype might have come about. <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/05/22/186087397/where-did-that-fried-chicken-stereotype-come-from">Gene Demby with NPR</a> provides some history:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"What is it with this stereotype about black people loving fried chicken? </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I asked Claire Schmidt for help. She's a professor at the University of Missouri who studies race and folklore. Schmidt said chickens had long been a part of Southern diets, but they had particular utility for slaves. They were cheap, easy to feed and a good source of meat. But then, Schmidt says, came Birth of a Nation. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
D.W. Griffith's seminal and supremely racist 1915 silent movie about the supposedly heroic founding of the Ku Klux Klan was a huge sensation when it debuted. One scene features a group of actors portraying shiftless black elected officials acting rowdy and crudely in a legislative hall. (The message to the audience: These are the dangers of letting blacks vote.) Some of the legislators are shown drinking. Others had their feet kicked up on their desks. And one of them was very ostentatiously eating fried chicken. "That image really solidified the way white people thought of black people and fried chicken," Schmidt said. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Schmidt said that like watermelon, that other food that's been a mainstay in racist depictions of blacks, chicken was also a good vehicle for racism because of the way people eat it. (According to government stats, blacks are underrepresented among watermelon consumers.) "It's a food you eat with your hands, and therefore it's dirty," Schmidt said. "Table manners are a way of determining who is worthy of respect or not." </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But why does this idea still hold traction, since fried chicken is clearly a staple of the American diet? Surely, KFC, Popeyes and Church's ain't national chains — and chicken and waffles aren't a brunch staple — because of the supposed culinary obsessions of black folks. "<b>It's still a way to express racial [contempt] without getting into serious trouble</b>," Schmidt said. (Among the Code Switch team, we've started referring to these types of winking statements as "racist bank shots.") </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"How it's possible to be both a taboo and a corporate mainstream thing just shows how complicated race in America is," Schmidt said."</blockquote>
In discussing the topic of stereotypes, it may be helpful to explore <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/93784/10-everyday-phrases-come-printing">the origin of the word</a>. It seems that the term originated as a result of the printing press. When books were being printed, it was a laborious process for the printer to have to set the type to new molds for each book being printed. With limited supplies available, it meant that other books couldn't be printed while those on the press were being created. When books that were popular had to be printed over and over, it felt even more time consuming to have to do the same process with each printing.<br />
<br />
Eventually, it was discovered that a printer could create a mold of already set type and cast large metal plates so that the book could be quickly printed again at a future date. Once the "stereotype" plates were created, the set type could be taken apart and used for other projects. This made the job much easier for the printer. They didn't have to think about searching for the right letters and carefully placing them in the right order to print the book. They could just slap the plate down and, <i>Voila!</i>, an exact reproduction of the book could be created.<br />
<br />
In the world of printing books, it was discovered that stereotyping can be a wonderful way to ensure consistency in product while saving significant time and money.<br />
<br />
But, when it comes to people, stereotypes can be destructive.<br />
<br />
Stereotypes can strip people of their humanity and leave them with nothing more than a label placed upon them that is not of their choosing. Even if a common belief about a certain group of people might be generally true (e.g. Canadians like hockey), we must resist the temptation to treat people as weird if they do not meet the expectations that we have presumed upon them.<br />
<br />
When we assume we know everything about a person because of how they look or where they are from, it prevents us from learning who they are as individuals. Each human being is a expression of the handiwork of God and they deserve much more than a stereotype to define them.<br />
<br />
The Bible tells us that <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+139&version=ESV">God created us uniquely</a> and that He even knows <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+10%3A29-31&version=ESV">the number of hairs on our head</a>. In light of this, doesn't it make sense that we would seek to know our fellow image bearers of God as individuals and not simply categorize them based on lazy stereotypes?<br />
<br />
Let us do the hard work of "resetting the machine" for each person God gives us the privilege of encountering. It takes great time and effort but, in the end, we will discover that viewing each person as an individual is better than settling for a stereotyped copy.<br />
<br />
(h/t to my friend <a href="http://www.rasoolberry.com/">Rasool Berry</a> for his assistance in writing this post and to <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/93784/10-everyday-phrases-come-printing">Mental Floss</a> on the origin of the term stereotype.)<br />
<br />scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-6633217566582039262017-04-08T12:01:00.000-04:002017-04-08T12:01:10.411-04:00Weekly Web Roundup (4/8/17)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/696/33371646922_0ab186d4a6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/696/33371646922_0ab186d4a6.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/amazadesign/33371646922">Amaza Design</a></td></tr>
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Here is a collection of items from around the web that caught my attention over this past week:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://annvoskamp.com/2017/04/how-to-be-a-tech-wise-family-manage-kids-technology-family/">How to be a Tech-Wise Family & manage kids, technology & family</a> by Andy Crouch (AnnVoskamp.com)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Some of our happiest times as a family have been spent on this first floor, lit entirely by candlelight and the glow of a wood fire. Why wait for a power outage? The Wi-Fi and cell signals are there, all right—but we can choose to ignore them, turning instead to conversation, music, books, or silence. Indeed, on Sundays that is what we intentionally do, all day long. And all the most beautiful and striking things—everything that would start a conversation or capture a child’s attention—require our active engagement. Children love this, by the way. They thrive in a world stocked with raw materials. Too often, and with the best of intentions, we fill their world with technology instead—devices that ask very little of them. A cheap electronic keyboard makes a few monotonous sounds, while an expensive one promises to make all kinds of sounds. But actually, neither the cheap keyboard nor the expensive one has anything like the depth and range of possibility of an acoustic piano. A single pencil can produce more “colors” of gray and black than the most high-tech screen can reproduce. For a child’s creative development, the inexpensive, deep, organic thing is far better than the expensive, broad, electronic thing."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/19074938/where-all-mlb-superstars-gone">Faceless of the Game: Where have all the MLB superstars gone?</a> by Jayson Stark (ESPN.com)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"For more than three decades, dating to the arrival of Bird and Magic, the NBA has embraced star power as the secret sauce for How To Sell Your League. And baseball? Not so much. "Baseball has always promoted the game," [Arn] Tellem says. "But it's been more about the game and its history. And it's been less about the individual players." Tellem sees that approach beginning to change. Finally. But in a star-driven society, he said, it can't shift gears fast enough. "Baseball is at a point now where they have to reach the youth of America," he says. "And clearly, [promoting] the game is important. But it's about using stars and developing stars and helping them become bigger names, as a way of reaching the youth. And baseball has to see that convincing [those stars] and having them participate will serve the game."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/april-web-only/s-town-explores-maze-of-divine-clockmakers-mind.html">‘S-Town’ Explores the Maze of the Divine Clockmaker’s Mind</a> by Kaitlyn Schiess (Christianity Today)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"My favorite professor likes to say that a biblical view of humanity “needs to start in Genesis 1, not Genesis 3.” In saying so, he’s arguing for a fuller picture of what Scripture tells us about ourselves—not only that we’re fallen and sinful, but that each and every one of us is made in the image of God. It’s actually the combination of these ideas that most fully explains both the goodness and evil of which humans are capable: We display—albeit brokenly and imperfectly—characteristics that point us to the perfect character of our God. Christians can find signs of this eternal truth in highly unusual places, such as the incredibly successful podcast S-Town."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/08/how-japanese-americans-survived-internment-in-ww2.html">How Japanese Americans Survived Internment in WW2</a> by Emily Wilson (The Daily Beast)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"With President Trump having issued executive orders for two travel bans for majority Muslim countries, both blocked by federal judges, the history of rounding up a group of people based on ethnicity or religion seems especially relevant and urgent. A couple weeks before the exhibition’s [<i>Exclusion: The Presidio’s Role in World War II Japanese American Incarceration</i>] opening, Eric Blind, the director of Heritage Programs for the Presidio, showed me the space that would house it. Outside the entrance visitors will see a telephone pole with a replica of the poster telling all Japanese Americans to report to that buses that would take them to the camps. “It’s an ordinary object with an extraordinary pronouncement,” he said. “We want to create this empathy with people seeing the order—not just if you were Japanese Americans, but their friends and neighbors—about how would you feel if you saw this on a telephone pole?”"</blockquote>
<a href="https://youtu.be/CcSh2F8e__8">Black Eye on America - What Is Black Twitter?: The Daily Show</a><br />
<br />
Roy Wood Jr. explains how the African-American community uses Twitter to discuss social issues and finds out why that communication is unique to black culture.<br />
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<br />scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-6797759521172097572017-04-01T19:04:00.000-04:002017-04-01T19:04:17.836-04:00Weekly Web Roundup (4/1/17)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/6/7988107_9a3c5b3103.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/6/7988107_9a3c5b3103.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/fazen/7988107">fazen</a></td></tr>
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Here is a collection of items from around the web that caught my attention over this past week:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2017/march/launch-survey-helpful-and-hindering-factors-for-launching-i.html">The LAUNCH Survey: Helpful and Hindering Factors for Launching into Long-Term Missions</a> by Megan R. Brown and John W. McVay (The Exchange)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Clearly, relationships are key in journeying toward lifelong service in the Kingdom of God overseas. Nearly all of the respondents indicated that God’s guidance and call were essential to their successful pursuit of overseas work. Additionally, having a good support network, including friends and family, a mentor, long-term workers, and a good agency, team, or leader were remembered to be helpful in the process. This is congruent with studies completed in recent years (Matenga and Gold 2016). A 2013 qualitative study with missionaries from Australia found that 100% of the interviewees were influenced by other missionaries prior to launch (Hibbert, Hibbert, and Silberman 2015). Additionally, surveys completed by the Christian Community Health Fellowship found that 80% of students who did a rotation early in their training with a Christian physician who was practicing quality faith-based medicine, as well as attending a healthcare missions conference, chose a path to serve the poor through missional medicine (CCHF Follow-Up Survey)."</blockquote>
<a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/93594/heres-how-many-books-you-can-expect-read-you-die">Here’s How Many Books You Can Expect to Read Before You Die</a> (Mental Floss)<br />
<br />
Ever wonder how many books you've read in your lifetime? Or how many you'll be able to read before the end of your life? This handy chart helps give you an idea of how your regular reading habits play out over the course of a lifetime.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2017/3/26/crux-listens-as-africans-ask-why-isnt-it-big-news-when-terrorists-slaughter-our-people">Crux listens as Africans ask: Why isn't it big news when terrorists slaughter our people?</a> by Terry Mattingly (Get Religion)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Of course, as Pope Francis has noted (in the kind of statement that draws relatively little news coverage), there is more to ideological or cultural colonization than money and political power. There is the cultural power of elite media, especially entertainment media, and the causes favored by their leaders. Who typically receives more news coverage today, a YouTube sensation pop star or a Wall Street magnate whose decisions affect millions? But there is an even larger question here: Who do ordinary readers want to read about? In other words, does this problem have something to do with the values of the marketplace, in this age when power is measured in Twitter followers and mouse "clicks"? Which story would receive the most coverage in African media, the death of Beyonce or the latest massacre of a hundred Christians in Northern Nigeria by Boko Haram? I think I know the answer to that question, even though it makes me angry."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/april/check-your-privilege-obsession.html">Check Your Privilege Obsession</a> by Tish Harrison Warren (Christianity Today)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"At their worst, privilege enforcers descend into sheer cruelty. Bovy includes a story about online commenters blasting the “privilege” of a promising 22-year-old who tragically died. No longer able to gather around a common humanity with our shared frailty and pain, we are reduced to ruthlessly sorting between those who “deserve” our sympathy and those who don’t. I wonder if our privilege obsession arises in part from an epistemic problem: In a world that considers individual experience the primary arbiter of truth, how do we navigate the cacophony of conflicting reality-claims? One way is to create a hierarchy where some voices are valued more than others. Therefore, the “privilege” framework, like fundamentalism or certain forms of religious rhetoric, can demand unquestioning adherence."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/01/america-s-cult-of-ignorance.html">America's Cult of Ignorance—And the Death of Expertise</a> by Tom Nichols (The Daily Beast)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"These are dangerous times. Never have so many people had so much access to so much knowledge and yet have been so resistant to learning anything. In the United States and other developed nations, otherwise intelligent people denigrate intellectual achievement and reject the advice of experts. Not only do increasing numbers of lay people lack basic knowledge, they reject fundamental rules of evidence and refuse to learn how to make a logical argument. In doing so, they risk throwing away centuries of accumulated knowledge and undermining the practices and habits that allow us to develop new knowledge."</blockquote>
<br />scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-84962049591732827732017-03-29T12:50:00.000-04:002017-03-29T12:50:44.016-04:0013 Books to Help You Live in Multi-Ethnic CommunityIt has been over twenty years since God started me on a journey of learning as I began a lifestyle of crossing cultures within my ministry and daily life. Initially much of this was directly related to my role as a campus missionary with Cru. But, over time, my appreciation for those from different cultural backgrounds has grown to the degree where I have a high value of regularly interacting with those whose cultural values are different than my own. <br />
<br />
Part of this journey has also involved learning about what it means to be part of multi-cultural teams and to live in multi-ethnic community. I have had the privilege of being on multi-ethnic teams where I have been both in the minority and in the majority. I have also enjoyed the opportunity to be led -- both spiritually and vocationally -- by those that are of a different ethnic background than me.<br />
<br />
In addition to the many ways I've benefited personally and learned from friends and colleagues over these past two decades, I have also found a number of books that have helped put words to the feelings I have experienced. These authors have assisted me in the process of learning more about myself and others and helped in answering questions that had me perplexed.<br />
<br />
Here are 13 books that I recommend to guide you in learning what it means to live in multi-ethnic, Christian community. I've read each of these books, except for a few. In those cases, I trust the authors and the content enough to recommend them to you. Here they are (in no particular order):<br />
<br />
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1. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Many-Colors-Cultural-Intelligence-Changing/dp/0802450482">Many Colors: Cultural Intelligence for a Changing Church</a> by Soong-Chan Rah<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Soong-Chan Rah's book is intended to equip evangelicals for ministry and outreach in our changing nation. Borrowing from the business concept of "cultural intelligence," he explores how God's people can become more multiculturally adept. From discussions about cultural and racial histories, to reviews of case-study churches and Christian groups that are succeeding in bridging ethnic divides, Rah provides a practical and hopeful guidebook for Christians wanting to minister more effectively in diverse settings."</blockquote>
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2. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Shall-Dwell-Lamb/dp/082724231X">The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb: A Spirtuality for Leadership in a Multi-Cultural Community</a> by Eric Law<br />
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"This groundbreaking work explores how certain cultures consciously and unconsciously dominate in multicultural situations and what can be done about it."</blockquote>
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3. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Divided-Faith-Evangelical-Religion-Problem/dp/0195147073">Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America</a> by Michael O. Emerson & Christian Smith<br />
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"Through a nationwide telephone survey of 2,000 people and an additional 200 face-to-face interviews, Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith probed the grassroots of white evangelical America. They found that despite recent efforts by the movement's leaders to address the problem of racial discrimination, evangelicals themselves seem to be preserving America's racial chasm. In fact, most white evangelicals see no systematic discrimination against blacks. But the authors contend that it is not active racism that prevents evangelicals from recognizing ongoing problems in American society. Instead, it is the evangelical movement's emphasis on individualism, free will, and personal relationships that makes invisible the pervasive injustice that perpetuates racial inequality."</blockquote>
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4. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Disunity-Christ-Uncovering-Hidden-Forces/dp/0830844031">Disunity in Christ: Uncovering the Hidden Forces that Keep Us Apart</a> by Christena Cleveland<br />
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"Despite Jesus' prayer that all Christians "be one," divisions have been epidemic in the body of Christ from the beginning to the present. We cluster in theological groups, gender groups, age groups, ethnic groups, educational and economic groups. We criticize freely those who disagree with us, don't look like us, don't act like us and don't even like what we like. Though we may think we know why this happens, we probably don't. In this eye-opening book, learn the hidden reasons behind conflict and divisions."</blockquote>
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5. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Living-Color-Embracing-Passion-Diversity/dp/0830832556">Living in Color: Embracing God's Passion for Ethnic Diversity</a> by Randy Woodley<br />
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"Though our Christian experience is often blandly monochromatic, God intends for us to live in dynamic, multihued communities that embody his vibrant creativity. Randy Woodley, a Keetowah Cherokee, casts a biblical, multiethnic vision for people of every nation, tribe and tongue. He carefully unpacks how Christians should think about racial and cultural identity, demonstrating that ethnically diverse communities have always been God's intent for his people. Woodley gives practical insights for how we can relate to one another with sensitivity, contextualize the gospel, combat the subtleties of racism, and honor one another's unique contributions to church and society."</blockquote>
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6. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cross-Cultural-Servanthood-Serving-Christlike-Humility/dp/0830833781">Cross-Cultural Servanthood: Serving the World in Christlike Humility</a> by Duane Elmer<br />
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"Duane Elmer asked people around the world how they felt about Western missionaries. The response? "Missionaries could be more effective if they did not think they were better than us." The last thing we want to do in cross-cultural ministry is to offend people in other cultures. Unfortunately, all too often and even though we don't mean it, our actions communicate superiority, paternalism, imperialism and arrogance. Our best intentions become unintentional insults. How can we minister in ways that are received as true Christlike service? Cross-cultural specialist Duane Elmer gives Christians practical advice for serving other cultures with sensitivity and humility."</blockquote>
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7. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/Reconciliation%20Blues:%20A%20Black%20Evangelical's%20Inside%20View%20of%20White%20Christianity%20Paperback%20%E2%80%93%20June%2021,%202008%20by%20Edward%20Gilbreath">Reconciliation Blues: A Black Evangelical's Inside View of White Christianity</a> by Edward Gilbreath<br />
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"What is the state of racial reconciliation in evangelical churches today? Are we truly united? In Reconciliation Blues journalist Edward Gilbreath gives an insightful, honest picture of both the history and the present state of racial reconciliation in evangelical churches. In his thoughtful overview he looks at a wide range of figures, such as Howard O. Jones, Tom Skinner, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson and John Perkins. Charting progress as well as setbacks, his words offer encouragement for black evangelicals feeling alone, clarity for white evangelicals who want to understand more deeply, and fresh vision for all who want to move forward toward Christ's prayer "that all of them may be one.""</blockquote>
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8. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Right-Color-Wrong-Culture-Organization/dp/0802411738">Right Color, Wrong Culture: The Type of Leader Your Organization Needs to Become Multiethnic</a> by Bryan Loritts<br />
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"Increasingly, leaders recognize the benefit of multi-ethnic organizations and are compelled to hire diverse individuals who will help them reflect a new America. [Loritts] brings a challenge to leaders in this fable of self-discovery and change, as he explores the central, critical problem leaders often encounter when transitioning their church, business, or organization to reflect a multi-ethnic reality: finding a leader who is willing to immerse themselves in the environments and lives of people who are different from them."</blockquote>
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9. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Making-Room-Leadership-Power-Influence/dp/0830834486">Making Room for Leadership: Power, Space and Influence</a> by MaryKate Morse<br />
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"You don't just lead with your voice and your decisions. You lead with your body. The way you take up space in a room, the way you use or don't use your body in group settings, influences others. And all of us hold power to lead in our bodies. Yet, pastor and spiritual director MaryKate Morse contends, most of us are unaware of the ways we do or can use our bodies to influence others. Some of us cower in the corner, trying to hide. Others try to speak but are never heard. Still others are the focal point as soon as they walk in a room. What makes the difference? And how can we learn to lead in our own individual way with confidence?"</blockquote>
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10. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bridging-Diversity-Gap-Leading-Multi-Ethnic/dp/0898276780">Bridging the Diversity Gap: Leading Toward God's Multi-Ethnic Kingdom</a> by Alvin Sanders<br />
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"In a diverse, divided world, pastors and church leaders are faced with the question of how to lead across ethnic lines to bring healing and unity to the body of Christ. How can the church more accurately reflect the vision of God's kingdom, gathering together every tribe and nation? It all begins with leaders whose minds and hearts have been transformed by the gospel. Author Alvin Sanders believes the church is facing a chairos moment—the right time—to address the issue of ethnic division and tension within the church. Through this book, he offers a how-to resource for Christian leaders to lead their organizations in a majority-minority, multi-ethnic America."</blockquote>
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11. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/United-Captured-Gods-Vision-Diversity/dp/0802410146">United: Captured by God's Vision for Diversity</a> by Trillia J. Newbell<br />
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"On the Last Day every tongue and tribe will be represented in the glorious chorus praising God with one voice. Yet today our churches remain segregated. Can we reflect the beauty of the last day this day? United will inspire, challenge, and encourage readers to pursue the joys of diversity through stories of the author's own journey and a theology of diversity lived out. It’s time to capture a glimpse of God’s magnificent creativity. In the pages of United, Trillia Newbell reveals the deeply moving, transforming power of knowing—really knowing—someone who is equal yet unique. As we learn to identify in Christ rather than in our commonalities, we begin to experience the depth and power of gospel unity."</blockquote>
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12. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-down-Walls-Reconciliation-Racial/dp/0802426425">Breaking Down Walls: A Model for Reconciliation in an Age of Racial Strife</a> by Raleigh Washington & Glen Kehrein<br />
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This is a classic resource for Christians from different cultural backgrounds that are seeking to understand one another. Breaking Down Walls suggest several principles on how we can be reconciled with one another for God's glory. This was one of the first books that I ever read on this subject.</blockquote>
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13. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Brown-Yellow-Black-White-Whos-Precious/dp/1455574953">Red, Brown, Yellow, Black, White—Who's More Precious In God's Sight?: A call for diversity in Christian missions and ministry</a> by Leroy Barber & Velma Maia Thomas<br />
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"[This book] highlights the historic patterns that have created racial discrepancies within missions. With a no-blame attitude, powerful personal narratives from a dozen other black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American and white Christians, interactive histories of missions, and the writings of MLK and Howard Thurman (the entire "Letter From Birmingham Jail" and Howard Thurman's motivational speech "Sound of the Genuine"), Barber addresses this tough issue in a way that will inspire and motivate readers of all races toward change."</blockquote>
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I hope you find these books helpful for you in your own journey toward multi-ethnic community and I'd love to hear from you any suggestions about other books you have found beneficial as well.<br />
<br />scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-6398559148470328262017-03-25T18:12:00.001-04:002017-03-25T18:12:49.237-04:00Weekly Web Roundup (3/25/17)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit:<br /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/seattlecommunitytech/33267466422">City of Seattle Community Tech</a></td></tr>
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Here is a collection of items from around the web that caught my attention the past couple of weeks:<br />
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<a href="https://www.cru.org/train-and-grow/help-others-grow/discipleship/god-made-me-hispanic-and-it-was-good.html">God Made Me Hispanic. And It Was Good</a> by Rebecca Gonzales Kelsall (Cru.org)<br />
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"God opened my eyes to the values I’d grown up with, Latino values, scrawled all over His Word after a conversation about the beautiful differences among cultures. I realized, because Christian Latinos didn’t teach me about Christ, I learned a lot about how majority American culture reflects Christ, and nothing of my own. But we, Hispanics, were His brainchild too. Each of us and each of our cultures, reflects Him in specific, amazing ways. In learning more about our ethnic identity, we learn more about ourselves and more about the great God who created us in His image."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2017/march/key-to-raising-kind-kids.html">The Key to Raising Kind Kids</a> by Rebecca Randall (Christianity Today)<br />
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"Until more recently, parents did not concern themselves with cultivating their child’s happiness and self-esteem. Weissbourd address this dramatic cultural shift in The Parents We Mean To Be. He writes, “It’s important to pause and consider how unique this belief is—that many parents are conveying that happiness or self-esteem leads to morality appears to be unprecedented in American history and may be unprecedented in the history of humankind.” He also points out that “many vital moral qualities… do not spring from happiness or self-esteem.” These “missed values” include fairness, justice, and caring for others. In Huck’s Raft, Mintz makes a similar point. Although historically, children’s contributions to the family provided a type of service beyond self, “young people today have fewer socially valued ways to contribute to their family’s well-being or to participate in community life,” he writes."</blockquote>
<a href="http://time.com/4705023/leaders-bad-behavior/">Why Leaders Fail to Stop Bad Behavior</a> by Jessica A. Kennedy (TIME)<br />
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"Although the failure to stop an unethical practice is often attributed to character problems such as greed, sexism or the relentless pursuit of self-interest, our explanation is subtler. According to our studies, ethical failures like these can also stem from a psychological factor endemic to very successful teams: identification with the group or organization. Identification is a feeling of oneness with the group. When you identify highly with a group or organization, you define yourself in terms of your membership in it. When asked, “Who are you?” your answer will reflect a category (e.g., you might refer to yourself as a man, a Texan, a Yankees fan, an environmentalist, a Christian). You focus on the traits that you and other group members share, rather than on personal traits that distinguish you. </blockquote>
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We found that holding higher rank increases identification. People in high-ranking positions feel more connected to their group or organization and value their membership in it to a greater degree than do lower-ranking people. This trend has benefits for the group, as strong identifiers cooperate more readily and contribute more to the group’s goals. But stronger identification has an ethical cost: It makes it more difficult to perceive ethical problems within the group."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.si.com/college-basketball/2017/03/18/michigan-wolverines-derrick-walton-ncaa-tournament-greg-harden">Meet the man who helped transform Michigan's Derrick Walton (and Tom Brady, Desmond Howard and Michael Phelps, too)</a> by Pete Thamel (Sports Illustrated)<br />
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"The emergence of Walton as one of the elite players in college basketball can be linked to another success story for Harden, who for three decades has served as a mentor, confidant and advisor for all of the boldfaced names in the Wolverine athletic department. He came to Michigan in 1986 at the request of Bo Schembechler, who valued Harden’s background in social work to address alcohol and drug problems. Since then, Harden has worked with everyone from Desmond Howard to Tom Brady to a volunteer assistant swim coach named Michael Phelps. Harden’s hair is far more salt than pepper, and in his 31 years at Michigan the 67-year old has shared blunt advice and deep bass laughter with everyone from Glen Rice to Mike Hart to Tim Hardaway Jr. “I wouldn’t be the person I am today without having Greg Harden in my life to help me with development,” said Warde Manuel, Michigan’s athletic director who arrived on campus with Harden in 1986. “There’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of student athletes—both men and women—who feel that way.”"</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-bbc-professor-video-asian-wife-nanny-stereotypes-20170310-story.html">That Asian mom is not the nanny. Why do so many people assume she is?</a> by Jessica Roy (Los Angeles Times)<br />
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Here are some helpful insights about how a recent viral video uncovered racial stereotypes that often go undetected.<br />
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<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/10/us/first-time-white/index.html">The first time I discovered I was white</a> by John Blake (CNN)<br />
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"But the evolution of whiteness is so much more complex. It was invented; not inherited. Some race scholars say it was created around the 17th century as a legal term to confer certain protections and privileges on Americans of European descent. It was also used to reinforce the notion of a superior white race -- and to justify slavery. Dow gives some of this historical context in the "Whiteness Project" in between interviews with his subjects. But I think the most fascinating part of his project is seeing white people grapple with their racial identity. Some people denied their whiteness. Others were apologetic. One young white man said "I'm not happy that I'm white," citing the historic oppression associated with his people. Another guy wondered why black people still get hung up on "the slave thing.""</blockquote>
<a href="https://youtu.be/tp4mIONS51E">Body Language Matters – Geno Auriemma on body language and the type of players he recruits</a><br />
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Geno Auriemma, the women's basketball coach at the University of Connecticut, offers a challenging perspective on his values when it comes to his players. Even though Coach Auriemma has been highly successful on the court, there are other qualities beyond winning and losing that he wants to see from his teams.<br />
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<br />scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-2107756797578137432017-03-16T11:24:00.000-04:002017-03-16T11:24:01.384-04:00Mary Kate Morse on Leadership as a Stewardship of Power<div style="background-color: white;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pedrosimoes7/1301014184">pedrosimoes7</a></td></tr>
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From Mary Kate Morse's book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Making-Room-Leadership-Power-Influence-ebook/dp/B002VLZR5Y">Making Room for Leadership: Power, Space and Influence</a>:</div>
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"When we walk into a room, the visuals and viscerals of our presence are quickly calculated by the members of the group as they figure the amount of influence they will give us. The process of addition and subtraction are continually active.</div>
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We all do this in social settings. We make snap decisions about whether newcomers are safe and can be trusted with who we are and what we're about. These decisions have sticking power; once they're made, they're hard to change.</div>
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Each of us is given a measure of power. There is a steady exchange of power potential negotiated within groups. Like dance partners, we move in social space exchanging meaning in a quiet rhythm of relational cues and discernment. Some people are given more power and some less, but everyone is involved. Power doesn't belong to any one person -- it belongs to the group that constitutes it. The exception is when force is used to make the group follow the will of the leader. </div>
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So the use of power is not just a moral issue...it's also a stewardship issue. God called us to steward the resources of his creation, and I suggest that power is one of those resources. The acquisition, management, consumption and distribution of resources are economic issues. So also are the acquisition, management, use and distribution of power for equipping people to do the work of God's kingdom. Anyone who has an interest can learn to understand the economics of the forestry industry or small business. <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">But how can we understand and manage the economics of power?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Even though we value servant leadership, which has a lot to do with the use of power, we usually aren't mindful of the stewardship of power. We tend to equate servant leadership with spiritual, internal character qualities manifested in a leader's public behaviors. However, authentic servant leadership involves stewardship of power, power used thoughtfully for God's purposes as an exchange with a group. It is a kind of bean-counting that acknowledges gestures, invitations and "time attended to" all add up and matter. What a leader brings into a social space plus what happens between people in that space results in influence. </span></span><b style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Everything about the leader, from the first hello to the final decision, is a reflection of his or her stewardship of power - either for service of for personal gain</b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">."</span></span></div>
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scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-7276514569618761772017-03-11T09:36:00.001-05:002017-03-11T09:36:16.414-05:00Weekly Web Roundup (3/11/17)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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Here is a collection of items from around the web that caught my attention the past couple of weeks:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://thomrainer.com/2017/03/five-reasons-pastors-getting-fired-social-media-posts/">Five Reasons Why Pastors Are Getting Fired Because Of Their Social Media Posts</a> by Thom Rainer<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"By the way, churches will not always tell the pastor the specific reason for the firing. But, once we begin to infuriate our church members with our posts, many will find a myriad of reasons to give us the boot. I recently recommended a pastor to another church. I think very highly of him. Indeed, the search committee chairman seemed genuinely enthused when I recommended him. He contacted me a couple of weeks later with this comment: “We can’t consider him. He’s just too snarky and sarcastic on social media.” Of course, this pastor was not fired. But he never had a chance to be considered by another church."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.missioalliance.org/bonhoeffers-black-jesus-bonhoeffers-journey-helps-us-black-history-month/">Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: A Reflection on This Last Day of Black History Month</a> by David Fitch (Missio Alliance)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"As he spent time there with African American people, working alongside them in their struggles, he was able to see a new Jesus, a Jesus not entombed by German nationalism, and, he went back to Germany a different man. He resisted the sinister forces of the Deutschen Christen movement who had amalgamated their Christianity with the German nationalist Aryan agenda of Hitler. Bonhoeffer became a singular force in resisting the powers of evil and injustice of the Nazism infested culture. Anytime I read about Bonhoeffer’s life I am immensely challenged. But this book, gives us insight into how to decontextualize ourselves from our own culture-bound Christianity, being with people of another culture (even those within our own country), and how that becomes the means of transforming our own church. This singular truth is why I am so committed to the study of contextual theology."</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/03/talking-trump-with-college-republicans/518607/">Conversations With College Students on a Politically Divided Campus</a> by Emily Deruy (The Atlantic)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"On Tuesdays, the group arranges a few desks in an unlocked classroom in a circle, sits down, and talks. It can get tense, but no one yells, no one storms out, and everyone has a chance to explain why they feel the way they do. Afterward, they sometimes go for drinks and late-night snacks at the Applebee’s nearby [the Central Michigan University campus]. The society is one example of how, at a time when Washington and much of the rest of the country is gripped by political polarization that can make substantive conversations about policy differences difficult, college students on politically divided campuses, who are part of a generation many older Americans expect to be apathetic, have found a way to have those conversations in a productive way."</blockquote>
<a href="http://danreiland.com/leading-someone-who-dislikes-you/">Leading Someone Who Dislikes You</a> by Dan Reiland<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I’m confident you love the people you lead, but that doesn’t mean you show it and they know it. You may show you love them, but not in a way they receive it. The pace of ministry leadership is often fast. That reality combined with the pressure to get things done can squeeze out the foundation of all good relationships, which is love. And for leaders, loving means giving more than you take. If you are not careful, the pressure to produce will cause you to take more than you give. When you are yourself, and give more than you take, people will trust you. If they trust you, they will follow you. I can almost guarantee that the individual who doesn’t like you, doesn’t feel loved by you. And if that is the case, they will never let you lead them."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/angela-duckworth-grit-more-important-than-iq-or-talent-2016-5">A UPenn psychologist says there's one trait more important to success than IQ or talent</a> by Shana Lebowitz (Business Insider)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"For instance, she [Angela Duckworth] conducted a study that found "grittier" kids — those who studied more and competed in more spelling bees — were more likely to perform well in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. To be sure, verbal intelligence also mattered, but verbally talented spellers didn't necessarily study or practice more. Similarly, Duckworth found that West Point cadets who scored higher on the grit scale were more likely to stick it out through "Beast Barracks," an intensive seven-week training program. (The grit scale includes items like "I don't give up easily" and "I have overcome setbacks to conquer an important challenge.") Grit was a better predictor of who would stay through Beast than things like athletic ability or SAT scores. As Duckworth writes: "Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another."</blockquote>
<a href="http://religionnews.com/2017/03/07/christian-singer-steven-curtis-chapman-trust-god-through-tragedy/">Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman: ‘Trust God’ through tragedy</a> by Adelle M. Banks (Religion News Service)<br />
<br />
Here's a nice profile on my favorite musical artist -- Steven Curtis Chapman -- and the story behind his new book, <i>Between Heaven and the Real World</i>.<br />
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<a href="https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/stewarding-a-multiethnic-campus">Stewarding a Multiethnic Campus</a> by Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra (The Gospel Coalition)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Campus Outreach was started by the predominately white Briarwood Presbyterian Church on the campus of Samford University, a Baptist affiliate that resisted integration until the American Bar Association pressured Samford’s Cumberland School of Law to admit the university’s first black student in 1967. The rest of the university followed; however, in a city nearly three-quarters African American, the school is still more than 80 percent white. So it’s no wonder that in the beginning, Campus Outreach ministered primarily to white students. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But within the last decade, the ministry has undergone a remarkable change. The Campus Outreach franchise in the Dallas/Fort Worth area is about half black. So is ministry at the University of Memphis. And across the 87 American campuses, the share of black students has reached 13 percent, which matches the overall percentage of black students at schools where Campus Outreach is working. Moving to a multiethnic Campus Outreach hasn’t been an easy process; to those working at Campus Outreach, it also seems frustratingly slow. But what they’re doing—shifting gears mentally to steward students of every shade—is proving enormously effective."</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-this-is-us-makes-us-cry-1489075088">Why ‘This Is Us’ Makes Us Cry</a> by John Jurgensen (The Wall Street Journal)<br />
<br />
Here's a piece explaining why NBC's new hit show, This is Us, has connected on an emotional level with so many viewers.<br />
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<a href="https://youtu.be/4nHsTCCpxk0">BBC Expert's Kids Interrupt Important Live Interview</a><br />
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This is simply too funny not to share. I'm sure anyone with young children that attempts to work from home can relate.<br />
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<br />scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-2157853898559887052017-03-08T12:46:00.000-05:002017-03-08T20:01:10.530-05:00Dealing With Change When You Don't Want To Change<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tarale/5014065540">tarale</a></td></tr>
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In his popular 1998 book dealing with organizational and personal change, Spencer Johnson famously asked, "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Who-Moved-My-Cheese-Amazing/dp/0399144463">Who Moved My Cheese?</a>" Johnson helps the reader address the anxieties often associated with change and emphasizes the role that our attitude can play in positively managing change.<br />
<br />
But what happens when you feel like someone has not just moved your cheese...but taken it altogether?<br />
<br />
In many ways I am experiencing a profound season of change.<br />
<br />
I'm personally going through changes. Now in my mid-forties, I'm not as "spry" as I used to be. The aches and pains from enjoying a game or two of pickup basketball don't go away as quickly as they once did. A Saturday afternoon of yard work often means a Saturday evening of ice packs and heating pads. The gray hairs seem to multiple by the week.<br />
<br />
Simply put, I'm getting older. <br />
<br />
Our family is going through changes. Of course, there are the expected adjustments that come with a growing family. Our family of six now includes three teenagers -- and all the hormones and calendar activities that go along with that stage of life. My kids don't find my "dad humor" as funny as they once did. The only child that will still hold my hand in a parking lot is our nine-year-old son.<br />
<br />
Simply put, my kids are growing up.<br />
<br />
Our church is going through changes. A church plant of which we've been a part since its beginning eleven years ago, we're experiencing the normal challenges that a growing church goes through. People leave the church. Key members receive job transfers to far away places. Staff members transition. New opportunities are given attention.<br />
<br />
Simply put, our church is maturing.<br />
<br />
Our ministry is going through changes. After 25 years of one structure, the department in which I provide leadership -- <a href="https://www.cru.org/communities/campus.html">Cru Campus</a> -- is changing how we're organized. Though our mission and calling is not changing, how our leadership structure is set up is undergoing a massive overhaul. Jobs that once existed will no longer be there. Some teams will change. Some people will have to move. Our ministry is positioning ourselves to better reach the students and faculty of the world with the good news of Jesus.<br />
<br />
Simply put, our ministry is adapting to a changing world.<br />
<br />
If I'm honest with myself, I realize that I am a creature of habit. My morning routine of getting ready for each day is consistent. My daily driving route to the office doesn't vary. I like to eat dinner at the same time each day. I follow football in the fall, basketball in the winter and baseball in the summer.<br />
<br />
Simply put, I like things the way I like them.<br />
<br />
Now, many of the things I like are changing...and I have very little control over it.<br />
<br />
Part of my processing of these changes is acknowledging that I haven't chosen to go through much of it. There are emotions I need to experience in order to positively deal with the change.<br />
<br />
It's a healthy thing for us to allow for the full range of emotions when dealing with unexpected or unwanted change. Not only are things like grief, mourning and lament good for the soul, but they are quite biblical (Ecclesiastes 3:1-14, Matthew 5:4, II Corinthians 1:3-4, I Peter 2:19).<br />
<br />
As true as these things are, it's also important to realize that we have control over our response to change. In other words, we have jurisdiction over our attitude. In confronting reality, we tell ourselves: "This happened (or is happening). I don't like it. What do I do now?"<br />
<br />
Look at what Chuck Swindoll says:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes.”</blockquote>
Another way of saying it is that how we <b>respond</b> to change might very well influence how we <b>experience</b> the change we're facing.<br />
<br />
Whether I'm responsible for the change or whether I feel like the change is happening to me, I'm responsible for my attitude.<br />
<br />
It's helpful for me to remember that.scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-83203412730148632572017-02-25T10:32:00.001-05:002017-02-25T10:32:51.285-05:00Weekly Web Roundup (2/25/17)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mnuernberger/14540436388/">Marco Nürnberger</a></td></tr>
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Here is a collection of items from around the web that caught my attention this past week:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://qz.com/895101/in-the-time-you-spend-on-social-media-each-year-you-could-read-200-books/">In the time you spend on social media each year, you could read 200 books</a> by Charles Chu (Quartz)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Here’s the simple truth behind reading a lot of books: It’s not that hard. We have all the time we need. The scary part—the part we all ignore—is that we are too addicted, too weak, and too distracted to do what we all know is important… All it takes to start reading a lot more is to take “empty time” spent Twitter-stalking celebrities or watching Desperate Housewives and convert some of it to reading time. The theory is simple. It’s the execution that’s hard."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/february-web-only/why-your-denomination-is-segregated.html">Why Your Denomination Is Segregated</a> (Christianity Today)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Not all denominations’ equally reached enslaved people with their message, says Eric Washington, a history professor at Calvin College. The “stodgy” and “erudite” tradition of Anglicanism didn’t resonate as broadly—although former Methodist Absalom Jones was ordained as the first African American Episcopalian priest by the end of the 18th century. In contrast, many African slaves were drawn to Methodism’s theological emphasis on born-again conversions and total depravity and its preachers’ open-air, multiethnic services, says Washington. “[In Methodism,] there was no education requirement to be an exhorter or lay preacher,” said Washington, who is also the director of Calvin’s African and African Diaspora Studies. “So enslaved men who had a recognized gift to preach or exhort—they were encouraged in that.”"</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.missioalliance.org/prophetic-without-self-righteous-know/">Being Prophetic Without Being a Self-Righteous Know-It-All</a> by Dennis R. Edwards (Missio Alliance)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Being a prophet often means being rejected—for what one says and does for God, not for being a jerk! Furthermore, biblical prophets were known as godly people. That same Elijah is hailed as an example of one who knew how to pray (Jas 5:17). God constantly reminds me of the importance of cultivating an inner life that glorifies God. I know I will never pray well enough or fast consistently enough, or spend enough time in silence, or meditate enough…but I’ll keep trying. It was when Elijah was depressed that he took a pilgrimage to Mt. Horeb and heard God’s gentle voice. Prophets hear from God as we pursue God."</blockquote>
<a href="http://yosoykristy.com/the-single-voice/">The Single Voice</a> (Yo Soy Kristy)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"What this means is that as ministry leaders seek to diversify their organizations-with speakers at conferences, VP’s on executive teams, or simply diverse leadership at all levels- they tend to only want ONE person from certain ethnic groups to be their token minority. What this creates is a scarcity mentality among minorities who are all vying for that one space. It ends up pitting women of color against one another. Rather than fighting to make room for more of us, we often quietly shut the leadership door behind us, secretly glad we got the spotlight for that moment."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2017/february/give-your-kids-gift-of-absence.html">Give Your Kids the Gift of Absence</a> by Amy Julia Becker (Christianity Today)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Jesus sent his disciples out into the villages without him so they could learn about leadership, make mistakes, and return to him to learn more. As parents, we too can send our kids out into the backyard, the neighborhood, or the woods so they can make mistakes and grow. We can send them to school with incomplete homework, send them to our friends to talk through problems, and, when our own resources prove inadequate, send them to the church (and other communities) for equipping."</blockquote>
scottmcrockerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12443168472392620197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16413529.post-38900488518893708282017-02-18T17:33:00.000-05:002017-02-18T17:33:21.377-05:00Weekly Web Roundup (2/18/17)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/portishead520/4678724059">Moody Man</a></td></tr>
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Here is a collection of items from around the web that caught my attention this past week:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://gotherefor.com/offer.php?intid=29561">When Ministry is Unglamorous</a> by Tara Sing (GoThereFor.com)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"What is an unglamorous ministry? It’s a ministry where nobody sees you serving. It includes faithfully walking besides someone through years of grief or pain. It’s the ministry that cuts into your personal time, for which the reward seems little and almost not worth it. It’s the faithful and quiet service of driving someone to and from church weekly, knowing they may never repay the favor or buy you a tank of fuel. It is being an ear for those whose burdens are great—and a patient one when they refuse to address problems that they could solve themselves. It is washing the feet of weary travelers or, in our modern context, putting fresh sheets on the bed and providing a hot supper when they arrive. It is cleaning toilets and sweeping empty halls when everyone else has gone. It is spending time with the person at church who is awkward and avoided. It is praying with all your might for those who are lost. Sometimes it is simply devoting yourself to caring for family members or friends who are enduring one season of hardship after another. It’s the ministry that we think is hard, that we can’t be bothered with, or that we struggle to do joyfully."</blockquote>
<a href="http://careynieuwhof.com/5-things-that-can-make-you-feel-like-youre-leading-when-you-arent/">5 Things That Can Make You Feel Like You’re Leading When You Aren’t</a> by Carey Nieuwhof<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Sometimes people think they’re leaders because they have ideas. Ideas help leaders, but in and of themselves ideas are not leadership. Life is filled with people who say things like “I had that idea 8 years ago.” To which I always ask myself “And what did you DO about it?” Often the answer is nothing. And that’s the problem. Thinking is not leading. Creativity is not leadership. Generating incredible ideas is one thing. Acting on them is quite another. A B+ strategy, well-executed, trumps an A+ idea every time."</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/december/my-home-has-murder-in-its-name.html">My Home Has ‘Murder’ in Its Name: How Russell Jeung met Jesus among the Southeast Asian gangs of Oakland.</a> Interview by Morgan Lee (Christianity Today)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Meanwhile, as a sociologist, Jeung has devoted himself to learning about California’s Asian American population, a topic with deeply personal resonance. His great-great-grandfather arrived in the United States in the 1800s. “Since my family has been in California so long,” he says, “we sort of reflect Asian American history. All the injustices and issues that Asian Americans faced throughout their time in the US, my family has personally gone through them.”"</blockquote>
<a href="http://mike%20ilitch%20was%20famous%20for%20his%20fortune.%20but%20his%20surprising%20connection%20to%20rosa%20parks%20reveals%20something%20more./">Mike Ilitch was famous for his fortune. But his surprising connection to Rosa Parks reveals something more</a>. by Sarah Larimer (The Washington Post)<br />
<br />
Mike Ilitch, Little Caesar's Pizza founder and long-time owner of the Red Wings and Tigers, passed away recently at the age of 87. A well-known champion for the city of Detroit, Mr. I's connection with civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks was not as widely known. This article shares about the role that Ilitch played in helping to pay for Mrs. Parks apartment near the end of her life.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://qz.com/31376/40-of-foreign-students-in-the-us-have-no-close-friends-on-campus-the-culture-shock-of-loneliness/">40% of foreign students in the US have no close friends on campus: The culture shock of loneliness. </a>by Andrea van Niekerk (Quartz)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Many international students respond to the “adjustment fatigue” by sticking to their own. An Indonesian student at the University of Florida laments that, “Their [American students’] conversations revolve around things I am not familiar with. As a result, international students tend to stick closely with each other. Even until today, I still always sit down together with other international students in the dining hall and hesitate to mingle with American students.” Many, however, find themselves even without the solace of their countrymen. The Journal of International and Intercultural Communication reports that 40% of international students had no close friends amongst their American classmates, a rate that was especially high amongst East Asian students (and incidentally slightly lower for those attending universities in the South). So despite actual numbers of foreign students on the rise, this casts one of the sadder lights on the true internationalization of American campuses."</blockquote>
<a href="https://youtu.be/axkik-8oFTs">Baseball Star Kris Bryant Gets Pranked by Hall of Famer Greg Maddux</a><br />
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