You would be better if you did

You may not know Jeffrey Waters, but your life would be better if you did. You probably wouldn’t guess it at first blush and if you knew him back when you certainly wouldn’t have predicted it, but he is one of the wisest men I know. There was this one time when I had reached the end of my rope and had no idea of what to do or where to turn and in all honesty was paralyzed by despair. I needed some chairs, lots of chairs, and I could not find any anywhere. I walked into a room and in utter frustration proclaimed, “I give up! I can’t find any chairs. ” Jeffrey simply smiled down from some scaffolding where he was working and simply said, “Well, I guess it’s time for you to go pray some up.”  You see Jeffrey understood in a way that most of us don’t.

 

Last night I was leading a small group and asked the classic question: “If you could have a personal audience with Jesus and could ask him anything you wanted what would you say to him?”  That is a good question for us all to take a minute to ponder. What would you want to know? What mystery would you like revealed? What insight would you like uncovered? What would you say? Seriously, think about that for a moment. How would you use that opportunity?

 

Jeffrey answered immediately. He knew right away what he would say. Jeffrey said, “If I had a personal audience with Jesus I would say I am sorry!”

 

Jeffrey understands in a way most of us don’t.

 

By the way I did go pray for chairs and the phone literally rang while I was praying and we got all the chairs we needed absolutely free.

Conforming

I bought a car one time that I never intended to keep for very long. I had just changed jobs and had to travel a lot so I needed a vehicle that I could take on the road. But the stress indicators in my life were high. Within about two or three months: we moved into a new home, I started a new job, our one-year son had brain surgery and we had a baby girl. 

 

Obviously buying a car was not a high priority.  I picked out a little used white Honda civic. My first car out of college had been a BMW and then I traded to a classic red CJ7 Jeep with tons of personality. So when I bought this little civic I remember thinking, “I better never become this car”.

 

Soon “The pill”, which it was named because it looked like a little capsule became synonymous with me. I think I had the car for 8 or 9 years. It took me to two seminaries in two different states, both different than the one in which I lived.

 

I know we aren’t the cars we drive or the clothes we wear, but have you ever noticed how pet owners start looking like their pets? We conform to stuff and that scares me.  My Church is buying a building. We need it. It will provide us with incredible opportunities and I think it is a great thing. But I hope we don’t conform to it. Besides the fact that it is really ugly, we must fight the temptation to think the building is the church. WE ARE THE CHURCH. The building is just where the Church meets. I am trying to get our staff to not refer to this new location as “The Chapel”, but rather as “the place where The Chapel meets”. Some might think it only a small mater of semantics, but I think the concept is huge.

 People still ask about “the Pill”.

Growing?

This week I read a great book by Howard Hendricks entitled, “Teaching to Change lives”.  In the book he commented that you will not grow if you are not reading. (Just so you know he would define reading to include books, people, circumstances.) I was completely with him, but then he added this twist on the logic. If you are reading and not growing then you are reading too much and you are reading too much if you are not reflecting enough. Taking in information but not translating it into your life isn’t really learning. Consistent growth requires a constant processing and assimilating of new insights.  

So here are my reflections on this book:

#1 The law of the teacher: “If you stop growing today you will stop teaching tomorrow.”

#2 The Law of education: “The way people learn determines how you teach”

            Goal #1 – Teach people how to think

            Goal #2 – Teach people how to learn

            Goal #3 – Teach people how to work  

#3 The law of activity: “Maximum leaning is always the result of maximum meaningful

involvement.”

#4 The law of communication: “Find common ground with your students”

Ø      All communication has 3 components: intellectual, emotional, volition.

o       (thought, feeling, action)

Ø      “If I know something thoroughly, feel it deeply, and am doing it consistently, I have great potential for being an excellent communicator of it.”

#5 The law of the heart: “Teaching that impacts is not head to head but heart to heart”

Ø      Who you are as a person, your character is what makes what you say credible to your students

Ø      Your passion about what you say is what makes your students motivated to learn.

Ø      “You can impress people at a distance, but you can impact them only up close and the closer you are to them the greater and longer lasting the impact.”

 There are actually two more laws, which are just as good. I thought I would let you read those for your self.