Unless you’re Elton John (who wrote most of his hits within 30 minutes’ time), it’s unlikely that you actually do your best work at the last minute. Elton wasn’t even writing tunes last-minute, he was just quick. But, many of usthinkthat we do our best work last minute. I hear it often at the college form students. Rarely does it show up in their writing or projects. Sure, they get the work done and get a decent grade, but the level of work doesn’t cause me to pause in appreciation.
What is happening, rather, is that the deadline pressure helps them (and you/me) produce adrenaline. We’ve developed the habit of requiring it to get work done, which means that the deadline pressure aids us in pumping this powerful drug into our bodies. We don’t really do our ‘best work’ under pressure of the deadline. We get work done, but it’s not our best. As I mentioned recently, it’s not the kind of ‘art’ that people read or encounter and respond, “How did you think of that?”
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Posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2012 at 7:11 AM in CONNECT EFFECTIVELY, LEAD WELL. No comments
Most of us have read and heard Seth Godin talk about our work as ‘making art.’ To be honest, I am not sure I quite understood what he meant until recently when I heard Ryan Yazel speak. Ryan shared how in high school he used to ‘draw’ a house on his Texas Instruments TI-83 Plus Graphing Calculator
. Classmates were amazed and asked, “How did you draw that?”
Ryan them compared his dot matrix creations to moments when we encounter true art. We don’t ask how they were created, we ask, “How did you think of that?” Art takes us somewhere beyond mechanistic manufacturing. We feel differently, we are challenged in new ways, and we for a moment in time see life differently.
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Posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2012 at 7:11 AM in CONNECT EFFECTIVELY, LEAD WELL, THE WORLD. No comments
Looking for something more than a certificate for your next youth ministry degree? Do you value gaining depth in biblical theology, Christian apologetics, and pastoral counseling to round out your studies? Does the option to have your degree delivered online or in convenient 3-day seminars make it more attractive? 
And, when you showed up in South Bend, would you love the option of hanging out on Notre Dame’s campus, one of the worlds’ most prestigous colleges with a world-class library?
Then, you will want to strongly consider taking the Master of Ministries degree from Bethel College.
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Posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2012 at 7:18 AM in CONNECT EFFECTIVELY. No comments
I shouldn’t be surprised that so many leaders want to have more impact on others lives. But I am taken aback at times when people ask me how to get published, become a seminar speaker at a conference, or get ‘known’ within a particular world, a world that is much smaller than it seems at first and few outside of it know of it.
At the same time, I understand the drive. Leaders are a gifted group of forward-thinking people wired for maximum impact. Often driven to not waste their days, we want to make as big of a splash as possible. We want to do something that matters. The problem is that we don’t know what makes the biggest splash.
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Posted on Tuesday, July 17th, 2012 at 7:11 AM in LEAD WELL, YOUTH MINISTRY. One comment
When people stand by our grave sites (and there will be far fewer in attendance than we think will be there) people will reflect on an discuss our lives. And they’ll be engaged a bit of an evaluation: Was ours a live well lived? Did our life matter in some way? And, crazy thing, all of the evaluation tools at the end of life of what it means to be ‘great’ are not in the least connected to work.
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Posted on Monday, July 16th, 2012 at 7:02 AM in LEAD WELL. No comments
Love to pray. Feel often during the day the need for prayer, and take the trouble to pray. Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God’s gift of himself. Ask and seek, and your heart will grow big enough to receive him and keep him as your own.
- From A Gift for God
by Mother Teresa
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Posted on Sunday, July 15th, 2012 at 8:05 AM in BELIEF MATTERS. No comments
I was prompted recently by a speaker and pastor Dave Engbrecht to consider our appetites in life. Not just eating, of course, but ones where we say “I want more _____” and then we fill in the blank with all sorts of desires. In a country that already has so much more than most, we Americans still crave the bigger, better, and best. Our economy is crafted to create these appetites through constant marketing. And consumerism is shaping our faith practices too. And we can’t always see that, like eating, the appetite for more is never satisfied forever. We want more … beyond the more.
When I teach youth about this topic, I sometimes begin by having them fill in the blanks of this phrase with as many options as they can: read more…
Posted on Friday, July 13th, 2012 at 7:27 AM in BELIEF MATTERS, THE WORLD. No comments
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