Missing blogger found, Cyberspace reacts...

Yawn? Sigh of relief? It's hard to know after six weeks away from blogging, but I do know that I am getting ready to get back in the blog game.  If nothing else, for my own sake.

So, where have I been?  What have I been doing?  The short blunt truth is...I have been learning.

For months now I have been kicking around ideas that I think are taking shape as another book.  Indeed, I was about to launch out when I posted my last entry in mid-April, intending to blog on the topics as a rough draft of sorts for feedback.  But even before I could get a thought hammered out, I read, experienced, or thought of something that either contradicted or nuanced my original thought.  So, for over a month I have not posted anything, all the while thinking that I would really do so...tomorrow. 

But then I'd learn something new and would have to think again about what I wanted to say.

In the past six weeks,

• I ran the Big Sur Marathon for a P.R.  It is only noteworthy, because Big Sur is hilly and hard and not considered a P.R. course.  So how did that happen?  What did I do differently this time that led to me surprising myself by running a marathon a full 40 minutes faster than I planned or predicted?
• I have been moderating a group for our presbytery called "The Odyssey Group".  We are charged with reconfiguring our vision statement, goals, and structures of our Presbytery.  I have never worked on this kind of stuff at a "governing body" level and I am learning that bringing change is as much about THE WAY we bring change as the change we want to bring. 
• We had to cut our church budget for next fiscal year by $300,000 (the largest deficit reduction I have ever had to be part of). It has meant eliminating five staff positions, eliminating support to five long-term missionaries, and reducing our program lines dramatically.  Through all the pain of it, I have never seen a leadership team (or Session) do better work.  A member of our church who just returned from Afghanistan where he worked with the Department of Homeland Security to set up the Afghanistan Customs Office (how would you like that job?) said it was about the finest work of budgeting based on principles that he'd ever seen.  So what did we do differently?  And how did a church that one consulting firm has called one of the healthiest they have ever seen get into a position where we needed to cut so much money?  And why, in the midst of some of the hardest professional decisions that I have ever had to make and with a congregation that is feeling some deep grief am I more excited about our future than I have been in a couple of years?
• I have been reading a lot.  A really interesting book on leaderless organizations called The Starfish and the Spider.  A sensitive, wise book on change in the church today called Who Stole My Church? What to do when the church you love tries to enter the 21st century.  A short, helpful book called  Thriving Through Ministry Conflict.  And an enthralling read on what separates those who survive tragedies and wilderness experiences called Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies and Why. A lot of reading based on the work of Ronald Heifetz, Chris Argyris and other organizational leadership types. 
• I have been getting ready to do another consulting project with a business.  I am fascinated that what we are learning for bringing change in the church has something to offer for-profit companies for thinking through the kinds of changes that they will need to be competitive.
  
• I have been spending a fair amount of time with a mother whose young son died of a horrible disease last year. Walking with her through her grief and how she is using it to energize herself to raise awareness for organ donation and bone marrow transplants has been both inspiring and challenging.  She would tell you that without a doubt she wants her son back and is in, at times, unbearable agony.  But she would also tell you that she has a purpose for her life, and a sense of vision and focus that seems divinely inspired.  Why does great change for good seem to only come amidst terrible pain and loss? 
• I have been watching the Ken Burns DVD on Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery thinking about what leadership into uncharted territory demands of us. 
• I have been preaching a kind of "midrash" on learning the Spiritual Life from The Road to Emmaus story in Luke 24. There are so many lessons to be learned from spiritually blind people.  Maybe the blind can lead the blind. 
• I joined Weightwatchers online.  I've now lost almost 20 pounds in three months.  This is only significant, because I gained that 20 pounds while 1) training and running the Chicago Marathon, 2) completing the Vineman half-ironman, and 3) completing the Solvang Century (100 mile ride).  It's weird to be both in great shape and overweight at the same time and I had to figure out what I need to do differently so that I could keep my weight down and keep from beating up my body. WW was the very LAST thing that I wanted to do.  But when I figured out how to do WW without a meeting and in a way that worked for me...well, there is a lesson in here someway.
  

And all of these things are rolling around in my head trying to come forth in a different synergistic way. 

But, I am back.  At least I think I am.  I will not being blogging on any regular schedule, but I will be bringing things in "rough draft" form to the blog for consideration.  (If you truly are interested, you may want to subscribe to the feed so you'll get an email when I post.)

I will jump in on my main topic soon, but I do have some housekeeping to take care. Posts that I have either promised others I would put up, or that I have wanted to do for a while but couldn't do during my "unintentional sabbatical".

I'll get those up soon and then I want to return to my visit to Maine last fall and how the questions that I got asked was the trigger for all of this.

Comments

[steve]

Phew. I am exhausted reading this. What will you for an encore, split the atom? Oh, wait, they already do that just down the beach from you.

Welcome back.

[KC]

About time pastor hobo-blogger dude

[It'sMe]

It's good to see you blogging again...looking forward to seeing what you'll have to say :-)

[Bumble]

You didn't give any additional insights for the following:

And how did a church that one consulting firm has called one of the healthiest they have ever seen get into a position where we needed to cut so much money? And why, in the midst of some of the hardest professional decisions that I have ever had to make and with a congregation that is feeling some deep grief am I more excited about our future than I have been in a couple of years?

Will you?