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MLK on Creative Street Sweepers

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I love this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.:

If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep the streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that all the host of Heaven and earth will have to pause and say, “Here lived a great street sweeper, who swept his job well.” (Quoted in Tom Nelson’s Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship to Monday Work.)

Here’s what I love about it: He calls everyone to high expectations and recognizes that creativity and excellence can be exercised in any and every type of (lawful) work.

This stands in contrast to the thinking I encounter sometimes among some Christians of the more cynical variety. Most Christians don’t think so poorly, but sometimes I encounter people that actually have a problem with the call to exercising creativity and finding meaning in our work. They say things like “how can this or that person find meaning in their work — they sweep streets [or whatever]. You have your head in the clouds. They need to focus on just paying the bills, not finding meaning and purpose in what they do.”

This view is then justified on allegedly spiritual grounds as being “liberating” by “freeing” people in difficult jobs from the “obligation” to find meaning and purpose in their work.

But in reality this perspective is fueled by cynicism and low expectations. It is a very un-Christian way to look at work.

The call to find meaning and satisfaction in our work is not a new burdensome law; it is, rather, an invitation. The point is not “you better find meaning in your work.” Rather, it is: “guess what: you  can find satisfaction in your work, whatever it is.” It is pointing to an opportunity, not one more burden a person has to carry.

And MLK here captures it perfectly. We can all find meaning in our work, whatever it is, by doing it for Christ and doing it with creativity and excellence. This is something any person can do in any vocation — even street sweeping or collecting the garbage.

In fact, in my view, a sweet sweeper who does his work with excellence and diligence and creativity is creating just as much a work of art as anything Michelangelo did. Michelangelo’s art was on the canvas; the street sweepers is on the streets and the beneficiaries are everyone who walks by.

Art is more than just paintings and poetry. Anything you do with emotional investment and creativity is a type of art, and all work is to be done in an artful — rather than merely utilitarian — way.

How Can Work in the Church and Marketplace be Equally Important?

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It is an important truth that work in the marketplace is just as important as work in the church.

Nonetheless, sometimes saying this doesn’t necessarily feel right. For example, we can easily think something like this: “But work in the church seems more directly connected with issues of eternal salvation, so how can that not be more important?”

Part of the answer lies in recognizing that the gospel is not just about individual salvation, but also entails the renewal of all creation. So even the work we do in the secular arena is connected to God’s ultimate work of redemption. Further, all work is equally valuable because all work can be done as worship.

But I think another key part of the answer may also be this: when we say that work in the marketplace is of equal importance to work in the church, sometimes we can unconsciously interpret that to mean that work in the marketplace is more important than work in the church. We can almost hear this great truth as a diminishing of church work rather than an elevation of marketplace work.

If the equality of all vocations is taken to subtly mean that church work is less important, that should feel off-kilter. But when we recognize that the equality of all vocations truly means the equality of all vocations, we see that it is an affirmation of the significance of church work just as much as it is an affirmation of the significance of marketplace work.

This is a very liberating reality. If you work in ministry, what you are doing is incredibly important. And if you are working in the marketplace, what you are doing is also incredibly important. The equality of all vocations means that both marketplace work and ministry work matter immensely.

The equality of all vocations is a radical affirmation of the significance of work in the marketplace as well as work in the church. 

So no matter where you work, be encouraged and know that your work has immense value.

 

John Stott on Christian Ambition

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A great quote on ambition from John Stott, via the blog That Happy Certainty:

Ambitions for self may be quite modest. . . . Ambitions for God, however, if they are to be worthy, can never be modest. There is something inherently inappropriate about cherishing small ambitions for God. How can we ever be content that he should acquire just a little more honour in the world? No. Once we are clear that God is King, then we long to see him crowned with glory and honour, and accorded his true place, which is the supreme place. We become ambitious for the spread of his kingdom and righteousness everywhere. (The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (IVP, 1993), 172–173).

Introducing MereChurch: Get a Usable, Effective Website for Your Church

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This week, Mere Agency is launching a brand new service called MereChurch. MereChurch provides powerful and effective websites for small churches and ministries.

If you need a church website, or if you are looking to improve your church website, MereChurch is absolutely worth checking out. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

There are two things especially that set it apart.

First Distinctive: Usability
The first thing that sets it apart is the usability that it offers for your site. Good usability is the key to an effective website. Yet, many web agencies tend to overlook this, or at least fail understand the principles behind what actually makes a site usable. This is the reason that so many church websites are hard to use and sometimes very frustrating.

Mere Agency understands usability and has built MereChurch on the basis of world class usability principles. Matt Heerema, the founder of Mere Agency, worked with me at Desiring God, where he served as the web manager. We have the same usability philosophy, and his thinking on and attention to information architecture and the basics of good usability were key in helping make that site great. (For more on usability, you can see the various articles and presentations I’ve done here.)

Second Distinctive: Price
The second thing that sets MereChurch apart is its price. It’s the most competitive price among all the comparison offerings I know of.

Hence, you don’t need to choose between saving money or having a usable website. Now, it is possible to bring both together.

And a Bonus Example: Mere is Behind the New Look on This Site
One last thing: You may have noticed that my site has a new look! That is thanks to Matt Heerema and Mere Agency as well. He took it upon himself to update my site to this new look and template, for which I am super grateful. I love it. Thank you, Matt! This is just a small example of the type of work Matt does, and has been doing for almost 15 years now.

For more on MereChurch, check out the site and this video where Matt talks more about it:

Introducing MereChurch from Mere Agency on Vimeo.

Why You Will Fail to Have a Great Career. Unless…

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This is a fantastic TEDx talk by Larry Smith. In a very compelling way, he shoots down all the excuses people make not to go after what they are truly passionate about in life.

The worst thing (though he doesn’t talk about this) is when people claim that these excuses have biblical authority. I see people do it all the time — and then judge people who disagree, claiming that they are somehow “less spiritual.” It is a truly, truly horrible thing because it is using the Bible as justification for low expectations and false thinking.

Go after what you are truly passionate about. Just do it for the glory of God and according to his standards. And quit thinking that there has to be an unavoidable dichotomy between accomplishment and relationships. Embrace the genius of the and.

Was the Seahawks Final Play in the Super Bowl as Bad a Call as Most People Are Saying?

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With just one yard to go in order to pull ahead of the Patriots in the final seconds of the Super Bowl, most people have found the Seahawks call for a pass to be inexplicable. Why pass on that play when you can run the ball with Marshawn Lynch?

I don’t think the play was a good call. And, as a huge Patriots fan, I’m super glad things turned out the way they did.

However, when evaluating that play call after the fact I think that there’s a slight distortion that comes about due to hindsight. Here’s why.

If the Seahawks had only one play to get into the end zone, then passing instead of giving the ball to Marshawn Lynch would make little sense.

But the Seahawks had three plays left to score. So it could be argued that it wasn’t unreasonable to try a pass, when you are looking at this from the perspective of three plays, rather than just one.

In other words, due to the fact that the play failed, it’s easy to end up evaluating the situation as though this single play was to be their only chance to score. Of course, that’s how it turned out, but they didn’t know that. When you look at the situation from the assumption, which they had at the time, that they would have three opportunities, then throwing one pass play and then switching to the run can make a bit more sense.

Of course, that perspective doesn’t take into account the risk of throwing an interception that comes with a pass play.

And so, we are back to where we started: it was indeed a bad call, given the abilities of Marshawn Lynch.

My point, though, is just that it’s easy to assess this call in a way that accidentally implies the Seahawks knew they only had one play to get into the end zone. When you look at it from the perspective of thinking they likely would have three opportunities, it is at least a slightly smaller blunder than it can seem at first.

 

 

Come to Together LA This February

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I’m very excited about the TogetherLA conference, which will be this February 26 – 28 with Tim Keller as the keynote speaker.

Tim Keller has helped call our attention back to the importance of cities in the mission of God. But what does it look like to actually love your city (in this case, LA)? That’s what this conference is about.

The aim of the conference is thus to “engage pastors, ministry leaders, non profit leaders, lay leaders, and marketplace leaders on what it means to love Los Angeles.”

I love the fact that it is for people in all areas of life, not just ministry. Christians in every type of vocation are called to engage and love their city for the glory of the gospel. TogetherLA is thus seeking to bring together Christians from every sector of society to learn about what this means for whatever vocation they have.

It is also bringing together an amazing and diverse range of speakers. Here is part of the description from the website:

At this event we will hear what churches and church planters are doing.  We will learn about partnerships in the city and ways to partner together.  We will discuss how social problems impact LA.  We will learn how LA is integral in shaping culture and why culture is important.  We will hear from leaders in the entertainment, arts, political, and business community.  And we will discover how the men and women of LA, Asians, Caucasians, Hispanics and African Americans are loving and engaging their city for the Gospel.

The conference will be divided into four parts:

Thursday:  The Church (church planting, church partnership, church renewal, and so forth)
Friday morning: Social problems in Los Angeles
Friday afternoon and evening: Culture and Los Angeles
Saturday: Faith and work

This conference will be an incredible opportunity for equipping and encouragement for those who are in LA. And even beyond that, it is in itself a model for how all of us, in any city, should be seeking to ask and answer the question of how we can love our cities most effectively.

You can learn more about the conference at the website, and register online.

Here is the trailer for the conference:

And here is also a brief video of Tim Keller talking about why you should come to TogetherLA:

Writing Good Business Documents

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These are notes I took several years ago over something I read on writing good business documents. I can’t recall what I had read, but these notes have always been helpful.

 

General principles for proposals, memos, letters, and reports.

“Organization is the key writing principle. If you organize your documents well, you almost surely will have successful documents–even if you violate other writing principles….The ideas presented in a document should be structured in a natural but emphatic sequence that conveys the most important information to readers at the most critical times.”

Beginning Principles

1. The document should announce its organizational scheme and stick to it.

2. The ideas in the document must be clear and sensible, and comprehensible, given the readers.

3. The document should conform to the readers’ sense of what the most important points are and of how those points are arranged.

Main Principles

1. Organize information according to your readers’ needs. Consider their perspective and what they need to know, then order it so that the most pertinent goes at the beginning.

2. Group similar ideas. If you separate similar ideas, you create chaos.

3. Place your most important ideas first. Lead from major ideas, not to major ideas. This is not a science paper. If you lead to, you will provide unnecessary detail and be hard to follow. The strongest part of a document is the beginning, by virtue of its position. So begin with the most important ideas, and then support them afterward.

– The scientific format. If you are writing a scientific paper, then you do lead to. This process is only acceptible if the readers will be as interested in the process of arriving at the conclusions as they are in the conclusions themsleves (in business, this is typically not the case–people are busy, and the point is not exegesis). In some scientific reports, therefore, this scheme is used: Abstract, summary, introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion (Fact 1, Fact 2, Fact 3, therefore), conclusions, recommendations (optional), summary (optional).

– The managerial format. Follow in all dcouments except sicentific documents written for scientific peers. It is the reverse of the scientific format. A desirable format is: Summary/Executive summary, introduction, conclusions (and recommendations), (because of) [Fact 1, Fact 2, Fact 3, Fact 4], results and discussion. Having the conclusion early in the report facilitates reading becasue the reader is given a perspective from which to understand the facts and data being presented.

Note: The principle of emphasis through placement extends to all documents and all sections of documents. Most important ideas should appear at beginning of the documents and of individual sections. The most important idea in most paragraphs should appear in the opening sentence. The most important words in a sentence typically come at the beginning of the sentence.

Note 2: A corrolary of this is that you should always subordinate detail. Place it in the middle of sentences, paragraphs, sections, and documents. Detail includes data, explanation, elaboration, description, analysis, results, etc.

Note 3: In lengthy documents, begin and end with important ideas.

4. Keep your setups short. Do not delay your major ideas any longer than is necessary. Do make sure to set up negative information well.

5. List items in descending order of importance.

6. In most business or technical documents, preview your most important ideas and your major content areas, and reveiw (summarize) major points at the end of sections.

7. Discuss items in the same order in which you introduce them.

8. Use headings, transitions, key words, and paragraph openings to provide cues to the documents organization.

9. Other. Most effective letters or memos should have a clearly identified action (a to-do statement). If no to-do, then needs to begin with a to-know statement. Title/subject line should reflect the to-do or to-know statement. The repitition between the to-do statement and title/subject line is deliberate.