The Litmus Test

I’m a fan of the Enneagram.   There I said it.  I know it’s super trendy, and you might want to stop reading right now just because so many people are talking about it.  But read on anyway.  The Enneagram is typically classified as a personality assessment tool.  It’s usually lumped in with Meyers-Briggs , DiSC , SDI , Strength Finders , or Working Genius .  I’m actually a fan of most of these personality assessments (except DiSC - I just couldn’t figure out how to make it useful in the real world). They all have some value in acquiring a level of self-awareness, which is an essential component on our spiritual journey.    However, the Enneagram aims much deeper than any of these other tools.  The Enneagram, when properly understood and applied, aims at helping us uncover the layer below our preferences and behaviors: our motives.  The Enneagram understands that two people can have the exact same behavior, but for two very different reas...

A few weeks back, I passed my Project Management Professional exam and received my certification.   In these PMP posts, I want to share some of my experience before it starts to fade.  In accordance with the PMI code of ethics (and the little waiver I agreed to before taking the test) I won’t be disclosing any proprietary details or any questions on the test.  I already shared my experience of taking the exam .  With this posts, I want to share everything that had to happen to be able to even take the exam.   PMP Exam Requirements PMI has some hefty requirements just to get accepted to take the exam.  I wasn’t initially aware of these, and so I’ll mention them here up-front.  For this, and everything else in this article, these were the stats at the time I took the test in March of 2023. You should check PMI.org to get the official word.   You have to demonstrate three things: 35 hours of PMI-accepted training Prior project management experienc...

Let's talk about a better model of leadership. In the first part of this leadership post , I discussed the unfortunate popularity of the Moses model of leadership in the Church and in the business world and its two greatest weaknesses: organizational demotivation and toxic centralized power.  Its final great weakness is that it stands in direct opposition to the second model of biblical leadership I want to discuss: servant leadership, the Jesus model of leadership.   The majority of followers of Jesus adopt a New Testament expression of their faith.  We don’t live under the Law laid out in the Torah, we have the Holy Spirit residing inside us which means that God is literally with us everywhere we go (unlike the prophets of old), and we look to Jesus’ life and teachings as a practical example of the God we love and serve.  You want to know what God is like?  Look at Jesus in the gospels.   That’s why I continue to be amazed (and disappointed) when people a...

I woke up this morning exhausted and consumed with the tension of my job search.   I’ve been unemployed for almost five months now, and the tension of not knowing what will happen next or how it will turn out is gnawing at me.  It’s like a Rubik’s Cube that never solves, but I keep turning it this way and that trying to figure it out. It’s like a maze that just keeps extending into the infinite distance.  I keep walking, but the next corner is just a new alley with another turn in the hazy distance.   When I was younger I played the original Warcraft game (ca. 1995).  When the game map loaded, everything was black, shrouded in darkness, except for the little circle of light where your character stood.  As you walked, the darkness parted around you and you could see more of the map, until finally the entire map was revealed.  When the darkness parted, you might find treasure or essential resources - joy!  Or you might find enemies waiting to kill...

Recently, I was talking with someone who declared to me that his lead pastor was God’s “anointed leader” for their church.   As we talked, he described his lead pastor this way:  the lead pastor was the one with the vision for the church,  God had granted him spiritual authority over the congregation, and  that everyone in the church community (especially those on staff and in leadership) needed to submit to the lead pastor’s vision, come under his authority, and support him in making the vision a reality.   I’m familiar with this view of church leadership, because I endorsed it for years.  I’ve known many leaders - both in the church and non-church worlds - who practice this model of leadership.  Outside of the church, these types of leaders don’t attribute their leadership and vision to God, but it’s essentially the same idea. They're "large and in charge," and if you want to keep your job, you'll do what they say.   This is the model of leaders...

What is the connection challenge? The prevailing opinion in church philosophy today is that it’s the local church’s responsibility to assimilate people into the church community culture.  This is why we have connection pastors, assimilation pastors, hospitality directors, and many other titles for the staff member whose job it is to come up with ways to help people get connected to the church community.  But here’s something I get to say now that I am no longer a full-time pastor on staff at a church:  The burden of connection is on you, the attendee.  Any church that has read even one of the church 101 books knows that you have to be thoughtful and intentional about creating easy ways for people to get connected to their church community.  Churches spend a lot of time on this because the number one reason someone stays at a church is because they make a meaningful connection to someone in the church community.  Using tithe money to pay for a connection pas...

  Earlier this week, I took my  PMI Project Management Professional  certification exam, and… …I PASSED! Thank you, Jesus! This is a big win for me. Ten weeks of studying, 650+ flashcards (terms and definitions), and a whole lot of grinding out practice exams.  And the result?  Above Target in all three categories.  That's good! The test is 180 questions that must be answered in 230 minutes - that’s 72 seconds per question.  Many of the questions are long - three to four sentences - describing a detailed scenario.  Most questions are multiple choice, but still very challenging.  There are four choices, two of which are obviously not correct.   The diabolical part is that the remaining two choices are viable responses.  You’ll have to think like a PMI exam writer to discern the correct answer.   You get two 10-minutes breaks during the test.  The advice I’d read online was to make sure you take them - so I did.  I agre...

What is the "litmus test" for being a follower of Jesus? A litmus test is done in chemistry to determine the acidity level of a solution. According to Merriam-Webster , sometime in the 14th century scientists discovered that “litmus”, a mixture of colored organic compounds obtained from lichen, turns red in acid solutions and blue in alkaline solutions and, thus, can be used as an acid-base indicator.  What a great science lesson! For our purposes, “litmus test” is used figuratively to refer to “any single factor that establishes the true character of something or causes it to be assigned to one category or another.”  The question I’m asking today is, “What is the one definitive indicator that someone is a follower of Jesus?” Jesus’ Church has answered this question a lot of different ways over the centuries: You’ve said the sinner’s prayer. You’ve been baptized (Christians killed each other over this one) You’ve gone through confirmation.   A literal interpretation of th...