The Three

1. One of the themes I worked on for the first few chapters in the book was how valuing authenticity and brokenness in the church leads toward a comfort with sin. It’s difficult for people (at least it was for me) to understand what I have to be broken about if I don’t have a past. Brett McCracken wrote a post last week on a similar theme, exploring the danger of equating brokenness with authenticity and how authenticity has been given higher value than holiness.

Brokenness and sin may seem the natural or more “real” state for us, but it’s not the ideal. We were made for more, and Christ’s atoning sacrifice allows us to become more human. That is, less broken and more healed. More together; not less. In Christ, more complete.

2. Speaking of the book…it is available for pre-order on both Amazon and Barnes&Noble. If you want to save a little money on the purchase price (a good reason) or you’d like to help me get a few pre-orders so both companies buy more copies (an even better reason) I’d greatly appreciate it. Both sites have it available at a really cheap price right now…under $8 a copy. Now’s the time to buy.

3. I ran across a great article on millennials in the workplace this week, which focused on how MTV, a company largely run by Generation X executives, used their own studies on the millennial generation to change how they interacted with their own millennial employees. They came up with the idea of “reverse mentoring” where a millennial-aged employee would meet with a Generation X executive to provide perspective on the direction of the company. Truly genius idea that I’ve mentioned to people countless times and usually people think I’m crazy. Definitely a must read article for those trying to understand my generation better.

An important distinction about Millennials in the workplace is that they actually want a “perpetual feedback loop.” Whereas Xers may have eschewed any feedback — even an annual review — Shore says, “Millennials are like, ‘Can you give me daily reviews?’ Their drive to self-improve is extremely high, and it reflects the world they grew up in, because they’re in a constant feedback loop.”

A little bonus coverage today, thanks to my friend Jeff who posted this incredible video from one of the most beautiful places on the west coast that I still need to see for myself. It was the best 4 minutes of my morning, and having some M83 as the video soundtrack definitely helped. Enjoy.