Influencers- Part 2

Some additional thoughts from the book Influencers:

• When you give of your time, you give of yourself – and by the way, there is no such thing as quality time.  If you want to persuade people you are serious, sacrifice your time.
• Anyone who sacrifices money to serve customers cares about customers.
• Nothing makes a new vital behavior seem more credible than when you sacrifice time, money, ego, and other priorities to demonstrate that what you say is important to you really is important to you.
• What’s the first step to changing norms?  It’s breaking the code of silence around the problem that always sustains the status quo.  When you make the undiscussable discussable, you openly embrace rather than fight the power of social influence. Changes in behavior must be preceded by changes in public discourse.
• Don’t use incentives to compensate for your failure to engage personal and social motivation.
• People are so often out of touch with the message they are sending that they inadvertently reward the wrong behavior.

Influencers

Some thoughts from one of the better books I've read:

• A measure won’t drive behavior if it doesn’t maintain attention, and it certainly won’t maintain attention if it’s rarely assessed – especially if other measures are taken, discussed, and fretted over a hundred times more frequently.
• Most of us are in such a rush to influence others that we fail to stop and thoughtfully decide what behaviors we want to change.  Influencers are scrupulously careful about identifying vital behaviors before setting off to create change.
• At the end of a day a person asks “Can I do what’s required?” and, “Will it be worth it?”.  The first question simply asks, “Am I able?”  The second, “Am I motivated?”
• Influencers use four tactics to help people love what they hate:
• Allow for choice
• Create direct experiences
• Tell meaningful stories
• Make it a game
• Influencers are far more reluctant to conclude that others enact unhealthy behaviors simply because of a moral defect.  Rather, they suspect the misbehavior might be caused by something less severe.  In fact, they think the misbehavior may actually be curable. 
• When you swap coercive methods with personal choices, you open up the possibility of influencing even the most addictive and highly entrenched behaviors by gaining access to one of the most powerful human motivations: the power of the committed heart.

More thoughts tomorrow . . . 

Hillcrest Q&A: Homosexuality

The question(s) I was the most uncomfortable answering:

Question:  Can gay people have a partner to live with?  Can gay people have sex?  Can a gay couple (or single) adopt a child?

Answer:

·         These questions probably meant “should” rather than “can”!
·         What happens when we replace “gay people” with “unmarried heterosexual people”- does our response change any?  Because it seems we’re ok with heterosexual folks living together, having relations together, adopting together but when it comes to a gay person or couple doing these things, then we draw the line and say it’s wrong.
·         According to the Bible sex is meant for marriage between a man and a woman.  Sex outside the context of marriage- premarital, extramarital, homosexual, etc- comes with emotional and spiritual repercussions.  So should a gay person have sex?  According to Scripture, the answer is no.  See texts such as Genesis 2, 1 Timothy 1, and Romans 1 for more information.
·         However, as we’ve previously discussed in this series, the church errs when it singles out this issue as the bad issue.  In the Timothy and Romans passages the idea of homosexuality is listed with other sinful behavior- sins that each of us would be guilty of.  In Jesus’ sermon on the mount, he expands adultery to include lustful thoughts and marrying a divorced person and expands murder to include hateful thoughts and anger with others.  This is an area where we need to as Jesus said consider the log in our own eye before we talk about the speck in someone else’s.
·         And on the subject of adoption, I'll get perhaps somewhat controversial and argue that yes, a gay couple and/or single person (male or female) should be able to adopt a child.  There’s no proof text for this one.  While this may sound scandalous at first, if the choice is between an orphanage where the child will receive minimal care or a home with a single parent or gay parent where the child will receive all of the resources (food, clothing, shelter, love, medical care, education, etc) necessary to flourish in life, the choice- politics and religion aside- should be a no-brainer.  The loving home- no matter the marital affiliation of the parent(s)- is always the best choice.

Hillcrest Q&A: Christians Gone Wild

Should have perhaps added the disclaimer earlier in these posts, but these thoughts are mine and not necessarily representative of Hillcrest Church, the elders, etc . . . !

Question: Why are our churches following what the people want to hear and not what the bible teaches? It seems to me that there is no difference between Christians and non-Christians these days. Christians can go to R rated movies, drink, smoke and here I thought we were to be examples and not followers!

Answer:

·         Jesus in John 13:34-35- everyone will know you are my disciples if you love one another

o   This is where we are to be examples and where we are to be different- in our love for others

o   Living life this way will lead to questions (1 Peter 3:15) and opportunities for us to communicate the hope we have

·         Christians and popular culture/drinking/movies/etc

o   Cautious Objection- Philippians 4:8 (think on these things); 1 Corinthians 8:9 (causing others to stumble)- as followers of Christ we're wise to be thoughtful and hesitant on our participation with items of popular culture without being isolationists because 

o   Cautious Participation- Jesus’ own ministry (wedding at Cana, who he hung out with, etc); Jesus in John 17 for us to be in world but not of it- Jesus' own example compels us not to take an isolationist bubble approach but a thoughtful 'in the world' approach.

Hillcrest Q&A- I Saw The Sign

Question: How do we know when something is truly a “sign” from God? I often hear Christians say that this or that in their life was a “sign.”

Answer:

·         Anything God clearly reveals you and I to do (love others, pray, encourage one another, give, etc) or not to do (lie, gossip, hate, be divisive, etc) through the scriptures are signs from God!
·         I suspect this question might have more in mind with life’s bigger decisions- jobs and careers, spouses and children, moving or not moving, etc.  Are there signs God gives on who to marry (or not marry) or where to work (or not work)?

o   Does God have your life scripted for you or are you free to make your choices?  If life is scripted for you, then figuring out the signs is a matter of life or death.  If, on the other hand, you have some freedom to make choices, then it’s not so much of finding the person you are to marry or the job you are supposed to have, it is to make these choices and decisions against your biblically informed worldview.

o   The story of your life- your likes and dislikes, your passions, your strengths and weaknesses, your personality and temperament, your hobbies and skills- all of these were given to you by God and are incredibly useful for determining things like careers, family life, and purpose of life.  Tools such as journaling, having a spiritual mentor, and studies such as Emerging Journey (which we offer each fall at Hillcrest) or Storyline (which Tarina and I will be going through this school year with our small group) can be incredible tools for determining God’s signs!

Hillcrest Q&A- The questions I didn't answer

Took some time off from the blog mostly because there wasn't much to say and partly because "it's a busy time" (also explains several 'resigned' Words with Friends games!).  Anyway, this past Sunday at Hillcrest we had a Q&A time where myself and three others answered questions that folks- both within and outside of Hillcrest- had submitted throughout September.  I'll post the ones I answered in a couple days, but I wanted to start with the ones I didn't get to answer first.

Note: You can hear the panel answer these questions as well as see the other questions we didn't get to by clicking here.

Question: Have you ever considered preaching from scripture in the Bible instead of from a pre-made series that has little scripture reference?

Note #2: We actually got to this one in the 10:30 service but not the 9:00 service . . . 

Answer:

·         Not sure if this question is from a recent visitor who found this current series to be a little on the lighter side or someone who’s been here for awhile and is generally dissatisfied with the teaching here.
·         Our church is consists of folks with a wide array of spiritual backgrounds.  This current series is aimed for people who are newer to church or newer to following Jesus.  We recognize people who are newer to church/faith often come to Hillcrest and so we design series and messages to best fit where these folks are at in their faith walk.  We knew when doing this series more mature believers wouldn’t necessarily get a lot out of it.  We know that.  When we do topical series like this, we expect our more mature believers or folks who been coming to church for a long period of time to put their need for deeper teaching aside for a period of time so that we can reach people where they are.  We hope everyone gains something out of this series but we are also confident that when we do this- we have provided other opportunities such as bible studies, small groups, and the Soul Provider- our weekly devotional tool- to help folks get more meat in the event they didn’t get enough on Sunday.
·         But we don’t stop there.  We just came off of doing the Story for the first 8 months of 2013 and next month we’re doing a series that looks at familiar hymns and the stories and scriptures behind them.  These series are designed with more of our longer attenders and mature believers in mind.
·         The goal with teaching is for people to follow Jesus.  Look at Paul’s example.  You look at Paul in Acts 13 and he’s referencing the Old Testament (more of a meatier approach) throughout his sermon, but later in Acts 17 when Paul is Athens, he spots an unknown god the Athenian people are worshipping and engages in a philosophical discussion with the local people and rarely mentions the Old Testament.  Is he watering it down here?  Is his Acts 13 message a meaty one and his Acts 17 message a cotton candy one?  Or does he vary his approach based on his audience?

Tomorrow- 'signs' from God