The conventional wisdom of career advisers, management scientists and entrepreneurs says that if you want to be happy and engaged in your life’s work you should focus on things that you are deeply passionate about.

That by focusing on your passions, you will bring a level of energy and commitment to your work that will lead to both enjoyment and long-term success.

While I don’t disagree with this, I believe encouraging myopic pursuit of one’s passions fuels self-important self-supremacy.

In doing so we are training up generations to think that “following your dreams” is the most important thing one can do. And my fear is what happens when life’s circumstances inevitably don’t allow you to (to quote the Stones) get what you want.

Passion is finite

Passion is often compared to a fire burning inside of you. And the heat and intensity of that fire can propel you to do great things. Passion can spread like a fire, consuming others so that they too are swept up your momentum.

But fires can be extinguished.  Passion is fueled by progress, by successes that move us towards whatever goal. But work or ministry or family or life or whatever is not perfect. Progress is often frustrated by our surroundings. The circumstances in which we operate rarely support our efforts.

It seems, more often than not, for the work that we do it is one step forward ten steps back.

Passion is great because it will often carry you through these rough patches, if only by brute force.

But not every time. Entrepreneurs and church leaders and founders of non-profits burn out all the time because the relentless pursuit of a passion and the power of sheer will does not always carry them through.

Hope transcends

Unlike passion, when you give others hope it lifts them up out of whatever brokenness plagues their world. Hope gives people the power to raise their eyes and their heads up and to see beyond their suffering and oppression, loneliness and isolation; above disease and death, to see that there is something better. Where passion fails hope thrives.

Hope is the foundation for the faith and love that transforms lives and creates real impact in this world. As a giver of hope you are a catalyst for real change in this world, the type of change that passion could never achieve. Hope is the force behind movements and revolutions. Hope is what changes the tides of history.

The neat thing about hope is that (like love) when you give it away you find you get more of it in return.

There is something powerful about giving someone a hope that takes them beyond what they imagined possible. It fills you up. Hope ignites a joy inside of you unlike anything you have ever experienced before. And best of all, hope is eternal.

Give hope

So next time you ask yourself what you are going to do with your life, don’t search inside of you for your passion. Find something through which you can give others hope and pour yourself wholly into it.

And if you are able to find a way to give hope that you just happen to be passionate about… well, that’s even better.

How are you giving hope to others? What gives you hope?

– Albert Einstein

I’d get presented with a combination of words like “lazy” and “worker” or “heavy” and “foundation“. Never anything overt, but always a combination that could have another meaning implied if you read into it. And always something slightly derogatory.

Of course I would dismiss it every time because acknowledging it as more than just coincidence would give credence to the fact that a mischievous and malicious computer program was out to get me. I have a hard enough time maintaining outward appearances of sanity, this type of paranoia would not help my situation.

But today, as I was subscribing to the RSS feed of a new blog I found, here’s what I was presented with:

After about 15 minutes of searching for the “diamond” key on my keyboard it dawned on me that maybe CAPTCHA is out to get me. It reminded me of a quote I heard from Michael Bloomberg, “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean I’m not right.”

I mean seriously, what am I supposed to do with that?

“While accomplishing this task [loving in word and deed], Francis Schaeffer said, Christians may at times be ‘cobelligerents’ with the Left or the Right, but never allies. ‘If there is social injustice, say there is social injustice. If we need order, say we need order … But do not align yourself as though you are in either of these camps: You are an ally of neither. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is different from either — totally different.‘”

“The ideology of the Left believes big government and social reform will solve social ills, while the Right believes big business and economic growth will do it. The Left expects a citizen to be held legally accountable for the use of his wealth, but totally autonomous in other areas, such as sexual morality. The Right expects a citizen to be held legally accountable in areas of personal morality, but totally autonomous in the use of wealth. The North American ‘idol’ — radical individualism — lies beneath both ideologies. A Christian sees either ‘solution‘ as fundamentally humanistic and simplistic.”

“The causes of our worsening social problems are far more complex than either the secularists of the Right or Left understand. We wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with powers and principalities! We have seen there is great social injustice — racial prejudice, greed, avarice — by those with the greatest wealth in the country (and sadly, within the evangelical church itself). At the same time, there is a general breakdown of order — of the family and the morals of the nation. There is more premarital sex (and thus there are more unwed mothers), more divorce, child neglect and abuse, more crime. Neither a simple redistribution of wealth nor simple economic growth and prosperity can mend broken families; nor can they turn low-skilled mothers into engineers or technicians.”

“Only the ministry of the church of Jesus Christ, and the millions of ‘mini-churches; (Christian homes) throughout the country can attack the roots of social problems. Only the church can minister to the whole person. Only the gospel understands that sin has ruined us both individually and socially. We cannot be viewed individualistically (as the capitalists do) or collectivistically (as the communists do) but as related to God. Only Christians, armed with the Word and Spirit, planning and working to spread the kingdom and righteousness of Christ, can transform a nation as well as a neighborhood as well as a broken heart.”

“Cobelligerent With the Left” sounds so much cooler than “Democrat” anyway…

Thoughts?

Here are 22 ways that I see these organizations adding Fast Follow to their social media strategy.

Church social media uses

• Sending time-sensitive messages
• Sending service time or event reminders
• Notifying people of inclement weather service cancellations
• Promoting ministry-specific events
• Communicating prayer requests or member needs
• Sending daily devotionals
• Providing supplemental information (such as additional Bible verses to read) during services
• Communicating to parents whose children are in the church nursery
• Providing online giving or tithing instructions during collections
• Connecting with youth group participants through out the week
• Facilitating impromptu gatherings by inviting all church members who are currently in a specific area to get together

Ministry social media uses

• Sending specific ministry-project updates
• Integrating it into giving campagins
• Ministry workers and missionaries can use it to send updates from the field to supporters
• Promotional campaigns
• Using it for staff/team communication
• Using it during emergency response situations

Business social media uses

• Creating real-time promotions and special offers
• Combining it with location-based social media tools (like Foursquare) to stage live events or promotions (e.g. the first X people who show up where your marketing team just checked in win a prize.)
• Use it to send tips or advice on ways to use your products.
• Create a real-time FAQ – forward questions from customers to the account and direct people to a link where they can find the solution
• Use it to build a community of customers

There are many more ways this tool can be put to good use as part of a social media strategy.

A word of caution

It’s important to keep a few things in mind, though, when using Fast Follow.

• Fast follow is a broadcast tool - the main value of Twitter is in the community of other users that you connect with. It’s important not to sacrifice the quality of your two-way conversations as you integrate these one-way broadcasts.
• To that end: Separate the Twitter accounts you use for each purpose - if I’m signing up to receive daily devotionals from a church, I probably don’t want a text telling me that some kid named Jimmy just threw up.
• Remember that Fast Follow is an opt-in service – users choose whether or not to subscribe so make sure you are using the associated Twitter account to add value to all subscribers. People aren’t going want to text messages of @replies or trivial tweets.
• Be mindful of the financial cost to users - not everyone has an unlimited texting plan. Keep in mind every time you tweet that it may be costing an audience member money.
• Be mindful of the other costs to users - remember that with every tweet you are interrupting your subscribers. Be respectful of your subscribers by:
  • using the service sparingly;
  • only tweeting at hours that are appropriate to the type of message you’re sending;
• Make the most of each tweet - you only have 140 characters to get your message across. Before you send a message make sure you’ve thought about what you’re trying to communicate and what you want the recipient to do. If you can’t achieve clear and actionable in 140 characters then you probably should find a different means for communicating.

What other ways do you see for churches, ministries and businesses to use Fast Follow in their social media strategy? Add your Fast Follow use cases in the comments below.

Fast Follow. Anyone in the US can receive Tweets on their phone even if they haven’t signed up for Twitter. This is a simple way for people to get information they care about in real-time. For example, let’s say you want to get Tweets from New York City’s office of emergency management (@NotifyNYC). Just text ‘follow NotifyNYC’ to 40404 in the US.

Fast Follow functionality allows people to subscribe to an organization’s tweets via text messaging regardless if they have a Twitter account or not… effectively extending the reach of Twitter as a communication tool. Now churches and ministries can use Twitter to reach anyone with a mobile phone.

Fast Follow has the potential to be a great tool for churches and ministries to communicate important, time-sensitive messages to their members.

There are numerous potential applications. I see it being very effective for churches to use in emergencies. It also could be used for things like announcements, prayer requests, and event details. It could also be incorporated into fund-raising campaigns. The possibilities are endless.

How to incorporate Fast Follow into your church’s social media strategy

Since this feature is best used as part of a rapid notification system, I recommend that churches set up a separate Twitter account (I went ahead and signed up for @Notify4th for my church). Setting up a separate account will keep people from being barraged with your normal Twitter stream.

I think it’s a good idea to protect the account (requires you to approve people before they can follow you) but I’m not sure at this point whether or not Fast Follow works on protected accounts… so I’d leave it unprotected for now.

Once you’ve set up your notification account, it’s simply a matter of informing your audience how to sign up for notifications via SMS. Twitter has made it very simple. All anyone has to do is text ‘follow Notify4th’ (substitute your account name where it says Notify4th) to 40404.

That’s it. You now have a notification network set up for your church. It’s easy and it’s free (except for the cost of your members’ text messaging plans).

What other ways do you see to incorporate Fast Follow into a church social media strategy?

We seek it in our work, our relationships, our pursuits. Anywhere we can, we look for it. We believe that when we find significance we will be content. Somehow we will be filled.

So great is the desire for significance that entire industries have grown up seeking to make some money in return for giving people’s lives meaning. The formula’s always the same:

1. Name a discontent and show an example of someone who is dissatisfied or suffering
2. Present a cleverly-named solution
3. Show the amazing change that has taken place in your example’s life as a result of your solution
4. Take your money to the bank

The problem is that the promise of significance is a lie.

I can not give your life meaning because it already has it.

You are significant not by virtue of who you are or what you do or where you work or what clothes you wear or how much you give to charity.

You are significant because you were made significant. You are significant because you were created by a Creator. You are significant because God imagined all of life, all of history, this entire world and he imagined you as part of it.

God’s vision for his creation includes you. It would be incomplete without you.

Despite the hardship and suffering, the pain and the loneliness of life. Despite all that you endure that tears you down, pulls you farther and farther away from the source of God’s perfect love, your significance is secured in the very fact that you exist. Because this is how God chooses for it to be.

You are you because God would not have it any other way.

How would you live life differently if you were freed from the persistent need to find significance?

On the radio they were laughing at how during this impassioned rant he is able to regain enough composure to respect parliamentary protocol. Which, I admit, is quite impressive and comical.

But here’s the thing, Rep. Weiner is reacting to the defeat of a bill that would have provided $7.4 billion for healthcare for the 9/11 first-responders and workers who are now suffering serious health side-effects from spending so much time breathing in the dust from the collapsed World Trade Center buildings. Apparently House Republicans banded at the last minute to defeat the bill.

Say what you will about the motives of those who would deny healthcare to September 11th first-responders… I think Rep. Weiner is right in his response. The men and women who would benefit from this bill deserve nothing short of our fullest gratitude for their courage and sacrifice in the hours and days and weeks that followed that fateful morning.

How can anyone in good conscience look at the sacrifice these brave souls made and what it has cost and in turn deny help to them? What message does it send when we have an opportunity to help those who helped us and we say “no“?

I’m angry. I’m outraged by this.

I was there that morning and I saw first-hand the courage of these men and women. I saw that morning two types of fear: the kind that runs and the kind that stays.

These people stayed!

We saw a form of evil that morning that many of us had never known. In that moment, these people looked straight into the eyes of the devil and chose to run into the fire.

I’m angry because these people’s courage is our triumph in the face of tragedy. By failing to honor their sacrifice we undermine that victory.

It is a grave injustice that we would let anything stand in the way of serving these people. I recognize the complicated considerations of the situation but this is not a time for measured response. Cautiousness insults their virtue. We should not be asking how we can do this, we should be asking what more can we do.

C.S. Lewis says, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”

I believe that virtue can not nor should not be meted. There is no other measure of virtue except for full. How much should we be willing to sacrifice? Nothing less than “more than we think possible” will do.

These people did not measure their response. They did not say “Just how much service, courage, and sacrifice am I willing to give?“. No. They ran into the fire.

Rep. Weiner is angry that we would say, “Just how much gratitude, respect, and justice are we willing to give?” Virtue should never NEVER be restrained. Yet we have failed because justice has been restrained.

I hope that ignites a fire within you. I hope it makes you angry.

Google is watching you right now

The amount of information that Google collects from your web browsing session is staggering. Yet we don’t hear as much backlash against Google, largely in part because the data collection happens behind the scenes with most users unaware of how frequently they’re sending data to Google.

The guys at Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) Lab have developed a clever browser plug-in that demonstrates this by sounding an alarm every time data is sent to Google from a web site. Watch this video to see just how deeply Google has become entrenched in most web sites:

Click here to watch the video on Vimeo.

Privacy issues and the local church

Sharing of personal data has become the “cost of doing business” of the web. It is a significant issue for churches who are looking to use their web sites and social media tools to do ministry online. Here’s a snapshot a 2,000+ member church’s top concerns about using social networks .
This data was collected as part of an audience profile I recently did (contact me if you’re interested in conducting this type of research for your church or non-profit).

While the data is unique for this church, it does highlight an important point. One in three (36 percent) members of this church believe that social networks expose their private information to others. Significantly more people people are concerned about privacy than about wasting time online. Church leaders need to be prepared to address the privacy concerns of their members.

I’d love to hear what you think. Were you aware of how integrated into the fabric of the Internet Google has become? Does this concern you? Why or why not?

 
The power of inspiration is that it lifts us to heights that would be unobtainable if left to our own devices. It awakens something lying deep inside, releasing the floodgates of unimagined potential and causing us to come fully alive.

We live under the burden of death. Weighed down by sin. Bent low as a consequence of the fall. Our senses become dulled and our spirit is dampened by the incompleteness of this world. We become accustomed to living an almost-life; shuffling through the day-to-day is all that we know.

But inspiration (along with love and peace) is nostalgia for the way things are meant to be, for kingdom-come. It is a glimpse of the presence of God free from sin. It is the taste of holiness, of glory. It is pure, it is sweet, and it is good.

To often we give up on inspiration, instead choosing to wallow in the mundane. We trade in our dreams and rationalize it as being realistic, pragmatic… after all there are bills to pay, deadlines to meet.

I reject that. Why in a world of vibrant, vivid colors would you choose gray or worse choose to close your eyes?

We must be moved to greatness. We must become agitated, stirred into action, inspired to reach far above and beyond anything conceived as possible in this world. Because THIS IS NOT OUR WORLD.

So don’t give in, don’t settle. This is not your world. You are meant for so much more than this.

Find inspiration.

Be reminded of who you really are. Be reminded of what it’s like to be in the presence of God. The presence of Him from Whom all blessings flow.

Find inspiration.

Surround yourself with it. Drink it in until there is no room for boring or unimaginative or mundane. Reject possible because possible is beneath you.

Find inspiration that lifts you up to great heights where nobility and righteousness and glory reside.

Find inspiration to reach to strive for more than what this world offers… and the world will be better for it.

I find inspiration when watch the West Wing. Where do you find inspiration?