Always great to hear about Westboro Baptist in the news again…This time they’re picketing Steve Jobs’ funeral because “he taught sin.” Ugh. It’s fairly pointless to judge people but these folks make it pretty easy.
1. Being that Catalyst is going on in Atlanta this week, it seems fitting to highlight a post from the Catalyst leader, Brad Lomenick. Brad understands my generation and how to help others understand us very well. He wrote a great post titled “20 Points on Leading Millennials.” Don’t miss it.
“10. Give them opportunities early with major responsibility. They don’t want to wait their turn. Want to make a difference now. And will find an outlet for influence and responsibility somewhere else if you don’t give it to them. Empower them early and often.”
“14. Deeply desire mentoring, learning and discipleship. Many older leaders think millenials aren’t interested in generational wisdom transfer. Not true at all. Younger leaders are hungry for mentoring and discipleship, so build it into your organizational environment.”
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2. Ann Voskamp is simply an incredible writer. If you haven’t heard anything about her most recent book, you live under a rock or just don’t read very often. I think she nails the struggle most Christians have on a daily basis in her post about brokenness and fragmentation. Absolutely spot on:
“We don’t need to change activities from monetary work to missionary work to be devout. That very construct is false. All Christians are in full-time ministry. So we can stop tearing our lives into the categories of worldly and spiritual. We can put away the scissors of selfish ambitions and self-seeking comfort and self interests. If our lives feel fragmented, it’s because we are tearing up God’s one-piece fabric.”
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3. I’m so happy someone had the stones to write a post about this. One of the difficult things of blog writing is that people don’t take time to read long posts that don’t have bullet points. On top of this, Google can categorize a post more easily for SEO that includes lists or bullets. This promotes the idea that good blog writing has to be about “the top 5 things” or “how to fix your life in 3 easy steps.” To me, all this promotes bad reading and bad writing. So I loved this post that calls the whole thing into question:
“One of the reasons I wanted to become a writer is that I was fascinated by a journalist’s ability to shape public opinion. Yet, the more information I have about who actually reads my words, the further removed I feel from the field of journalism. Sometimes my writerly self takes a back seat to my other personality, the one that’s obsessed with getting strangers to like me for something I wrote. As a slave to data, my success as a writer now hinges on how often I get Stumbled Upon, Voted Up, Promoted, Ffffound, Dugg, RTed, and Liked.”
Have a good weekend friends.
