Sunday, August 16, 2009

New Site

Launching my new site: steveblumer.com

go check it out and subscribe to those feeds please.

let me know what you think.

if you're wondering why I haven't written lately, it's because it's all moved over at steveblumer.com, I've been writing things that you really need to read or at least that's what I tell myself.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Nerds Need You

One of my strengths according to Strengths Finder 2.0 is Intellectual which simply means: "They are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions." I often keep to myself and need time to think or have already put much thought into the topic before making finally decisions. However, mix that with another one of my strengths, Learner, which is to: "have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them;" and I'm a magnified nerd.

I read technology blogs, follow html/css code writers on twitter, and can go on an on with someone about anything computer (hardware or software), camera, or graphically related. I also have a Master of Divinity from a bible seminary. I read church leader blogs, follow pastors on twitter and enjoy talking bible verses on youversion.com and with other bible thinkers.

I really don't find myself an expert at anything and not even a jack of all trades. I seem to always be trying to learn something new and the moment I do, I realize there's so much more I don't know.

There is a limit to my learning. I like to learn things if I have a reason to learn them. If they make my job easier, I'll learn. If someone I know knows something, I'll try learning a little about it. I like this aspect because it allows me to talk with another person about something they also enjoy talking about. It allows us to go past the "hi, how are you, again?." The downfall is that the moment I don't have these common ground areas, I scoot along.

Building lasting relationships have to move past the initial "hi, how are you, again?" as well as move past merely the work or hobby talk. Without nerds in the world, there would not be any iphones, power tools, or microwave ovens, but we need you to reach out and get to know a nerd. We need help in the relationship forming arena unless you count facebook, twitter, texting, blogging and instant messaging as a complete way of getting to know someone. Ha ha.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Do Managers Do Anything?

When I started the work force at a young age, I respected or at least had this fear of power of managers, bosses, ceo's, etc. The more years I worked and knew these managers and how they worked and what kind of work they did, I became less respectful of them for their seemingly "laziness." By the time I was in college I worked my way up in the company I worked for and became managers of different departments as well as ending as the Second Manager, only under the direct store manager.

This "climb" of experience was good for me I think, because 1) I appreciated the value of someone doing the actual labor of things; and 2) I knew that the laborers valued the manager as long as it was evident that they was functioning at all.

The same experiences, I believe, are true for the church I work in. I started out 5 yrs ago volunteering where I could and it was primarily in the sound booth, running the visuals. Now I'm the executive pastor.

In the book Leadership Pipeline, it talks about the struggles most make when making a managerial change with more responsibility. If the change happens too fast or you don't recognize the value in your more people skills and planning skills and taking the time to think skills versus labor skills or you become too disconnected from the laborers, you will not only fail in that function as a leader, but you also let the team down and really halt any kind of growth for your company.

The idea behind a leader is a person who can both manage multiple tasks and people, but also foresee and plan for future problems and areas of growth. Without the leader working in this fashion, the day to day tasks get down but years down the road, the company will wonder why it's on the verge of death. It hasn't reached out to new people. New workers are only introduced with a spot opens up. There's no creation of new spots to create future growth. It hasn't tried new things. It's hasn't found new ways of doing things better. It hasn't gotten rid of things that don't really work.

Both leaders and laborers are essential, but both functions have to ask key questions to themselves.

Do you as a leader know that your role is to take time to think about the future of the people and the business? If you're stuck in doing, doing, doing, who's leading, leading, leading? Man up or woman up and set the bar high for leading the team to the next level. Your team might work harder if they know you're busy about developing their future.

Do you as a laborer not value the function of the leader to think and plan and do less of the doing? Do you support your leader by doing all you can so they can lead? Giving your leader grief all the time for being "lazy" can really affect the leader mentally. They want to please the team and they probably already struggle with this battle to think and plan versus jumping in and helping out physically all the time.

Do you as a leader value the function of your support staff? Are you still in connection with them to value their input on what's wrong and what's working? Maybe it's good for you to get busy sometimes back into the laboring so you don't lose touch of what it takes and what are the challenges to working for you. Often times it's good to accomplish something where people can see something was done. Even something small like cleaning up the room where most of the people work or changing out the light bulb that has been out for a month.

There's this fine balance as a leader to not just sit in an office and plan with straw figures or to always keep ourselves busy with tasks to the point that no one is planning for the future.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

God? Love Swats? How Dare He!

God is Love. Jesus loves the little children. The Lion and lamb lay together. These are these sweet, peaceful ways most Christians view the God of Christianity. These types of messages are predominantly preached in our churches of love, hope and assurance. Such things are most definitely true. God is love. He wants to call us friend. There is real hope for those persevere in suffering because God has poured out his love to us through His Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). God is faithful and just and will forgive us of our sins when we ask (1 John 1:9).

I think often times with this thinking of love and forgiveness comes this exclusion of "fear" and idea of "discipline" for wrong doing. The writer of Hebrews in the New Testament does a good job of showing how we live in this perfect time of God speaking to us through his one and only Son, Jesus, and how we now live in this perfect time of a complete and final death substitute for our sins through Jesus Christ. Something of which people for thousands and thousands of year eagerly anticipated.

But with this privilege comes warnings to remain faithful and strong and to persevere and to remain connected to His church because we do live in this special age. Hebrews 10:28-31 says, "28 Someone who rejected the law of Moses was put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.s29 How much greater punishment do you think that person deserves who has contempt fort the Son of God, and profanes the blood of the covenant that made him holy,t and insults the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know the one who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,”s and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”s31 It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

Read that after you read the punishment described for Israel in Jeremiah 25. Why has the "fear of the Lord" become a taboo topic of modern Christianity? Why can there not be a proper balanced perspective of love and Godly discipline that a Righteous Father knows how to administer? We want God to destroy the earth of evil doers, but we cry and whine and throw fits when we get a little swat from God about our ongoing refusal to do what He asks us to do.

Can there not be love in discipline?