I’ve never been one to take breaks from anything. I value discipline and consistency in just about all areas of life.

I read everyday. I run 3x a week. I go to bed and wake up at almost the same time everyday. When I pack myself a lunch it usually has the same things I always pack inside.

Ask anyone who knows me, I’m intentionally consistent in the way I live day by day. But I decided to change it up last week. With Spring Break coming to the Portland area schools I wanted to create some extra margin in my life to do nothing. I’ve taken a week off from blogging here or there, but I’ve never quit my use of all social media for more than a day or two.

Last week I didn’t blog, tweet, or Facebook from sundown Sunday March 25th until this post which goes up early Monday morning, April 2nd. I find that, especially for me, changing up my routine lends new perspectives and last week was no different. Here’s 7 things I learned during my 7 day hiatus from social media. I hope you can learn something too.

1. Social media is as much a news source for me as it is a place to connect with people. Even though I didn’t engage on Twitter I did check several accounts when I needed to know about specific pieces of information I could only get on these accounts. Rather than going to a bunch of different websites to get quick information, I follow people and organizations who distribute the information in 140 character pieces, which I much prefer.
2. Social media makes me lazy with friendships. I have little to no idea what has gone on with so many of my friends over the past week. Most of them, along with myself, use social media to distribute information about themselves rather than taking the extra time to individually select the people who need/want to know. Too often I resort to the mass blast approach to social media with friendships rather than reaching out to individual people. I don’t see this as much of a good thing.
3. Running my life through the lens of social media isn’t healthy. When I read an article, or take a picture, or finish a blog post, I immediately start thinking of how I can “package” this on Twitter or Facebook so people will take notice. When going through life becomes about showcasing everything into creative 140 character bits, we limit ourselves from the deeper level of thinking and processing that is often needed. We also tend to value things that only others will value too. Not everything needs to be shared or needs to be valued by others.
4. I’ve built genuine friendships that I genuinely missed. I used to be wary of using the word “friends” when it came to referring to people I know only through the social media world. But I’m far beyond that now. I can name plenty of people, though having never been with them face to face, genuinely missed hearing about their life and their thoughts over the past week. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with them.
5. Getting back into a habit is not easy to do. Toward the end of last week I thought I’d starting writing on a few ideas I had. While working on my manuscript I had gotten used to writing pages and pages everyday, but for several days I did not write anything. Jumping back into that habit of writing was not easy. My thoughts weren’t flowing easily. Every sentence was taking twice as long to form. This is one of the big reasons I have for not taking a break from something that has value.
6. I spend far too much energy manicuring the online perception of who I am. I’m a 27 year-old guy who is about to become an author and I spend so much time trying to show people why I deserve to become one. I know perception matters, but I don’t think all the time I spend trying to create a strong perception of who I am is healthy.
7. I should have done this a long time ago. There’s no substitute for taking a break from something to understand how deeply entrenched into it you are. While I do take a break from social networks on most Sundays, the week long break was the extended time I needed. It’s one thing to understand the pros and cons of using social media, it’s another to experience them fully by fasting from using all things social media.

Those of you who have taken an extended break from social media, what have you learned?

Who are the 2nd class citizens within our churches? I’d argue they are the introverts who don’t have enough of a flamboyant personality, enough energy to win over a crowd, or enough relationships to be considered leaders.

Introverts make up anywhere from 40 to 50% of our society and yet so much of church life seems focused around creating frenetic environments of noise, busyness, and talking.

If you haven’t read Introverts in the Church by Adam McHugh add it to your must read list. If you’re an introvert you’ll feel like he understands all your frustrations. If you’re extroverted you’ll begin to think about how your church can create better environments that value people of all personality dispositions. Here’s a favorite quote of mine from his book that gets at the heart of this 2nd class citizen idea:

“People who enjoy reflection and solitude, and listen more than they speak, are often viewed as enigmatic, antisocial and passive.”

A great challenge for our churches, and society in general, is to create space for introverts and extroverts to both be welcomed and given the freedom to be themselves.

A few weeks ago Susan Cain (fresh off releasing her new book on introversion) gave a TED talk on introversion that meets well with this 2nd class citizen idea Adam McHugh speaks of in his book. It’s 19 minutes long, but highly valuable for all of us to consider when it comes to how we interact with others and how different personalities operate best.

I love so much about this video and the line of thinking Cain is presenting toward how we view introverts. Probably what I love best though is that she doesn’t shy away from her introversion. It comes across as she struggles to think of her next line or as she leaves longer pauses than is typical for most TED talks. She embraces this part of who she is instead of apologizing for it.

Here’s a great line from Cain’s book which dives into how Christians often view personality dispositions:

Evangelicalism has taken the Extrovert Ideal to its logical extreme…If you don’t love Jesus out loud, then it must not be real love. It’s not enough to forge your own spiritual connection to the divine; it must be displayed publicly.

Have you experienced the idea of introverts being 2nd class citizens?

I recently read Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders as I studied for a paper I wrote in seminary. I always struggle with this idea of leadership in the church. I fundamentally believe all Christians are leaders in some way. Every Christian has influence over at least one other person and therefore, even if it is only being a leader of one person, that is still leadership.

My struggle with leadership, in the church and among Christians, is that we often make it out to be a glorious thing, rather than a dying to self thing. I go back to what Tom Lin said a few weeks ago as a challenge to myself, “The American church has made leadership a sexy thing, made it cool – we don’t teach our youth to engage in suffering. When we look at Scripture, Jesus asked leaders to die to the things they care most about.”

With that picture of leadership in mind, I then feel comfortable talking about improving leadership potential by looking at specific things we can focus on to get better at using the influence we have for good. As the church welcomes in a new generation of millennials into the church as leaders, many are still left knocking at the door and looking for things they can focus on now to help them with their ability to lead later.

Why are we focusing on leadership potential and not just simply leadership? Many people, especially younger individuals only have influence over a few people but are looking for ways to grow in their ability to be strong leaders, hence the focus on potential, though there is clearly some overlap here.

Sanders highlights some principles he took from Hudson Taylor (the well known English missionary to China) on how leaders can improve their leadership potential. I found some invaluable insight in these six areas of focus from Sanders with my personal commentary:

1. Organization: Good leaders are able to analyze which areas are functioning below standards and are able to come up with a plan to remedy the situation. Granted, a church organization and spiritual leadership isn’t all about (or shouldn’t be all about) bottom line efficiency, but we also shouldn’t just accept inefficiency either. Improving leadership means giving more focus to administrative details.
2. Spiritual Focus: What are we bringing those around us closer to? I like the saying, “water rises to the level of the source” as a helpful reminder here.  The spiritual health of the people around us should be the primary concern. It is out of that health they are able to be truly efficient. Improving leadership means we are leading others toward God, not us.
3. Engagement Level: This takes hard conversations that either help build or rebuild trust and honesty. Bad leaders shy away from hard conversations. When problems are neglected, morale drops and performance decreases. The churches I’ve interacted with, growing up as a pastor’s kid and now as someone working in church ministry, are largely defined by political maneuvering that puts a stranglehold on the morale of those involved in the leadership of the church. Improving leadership means understanding the morale level of those around and making an intentional effort to improve on it.
4. Relationships: This should go without saying, but growing leaders continue to invest more and more into the lives of people, not the machine that gave them a title. The best leaders know how and when to get off their platform in order to engage with the people around them. Improving leadership means giving more notice to those relationships. One area I’ve been greatly challenged in lately is listening as apart of my relationships. Even though I love one-on-one interaction I’m a fairly horrible listener. This is a great thought from Henri Nouwen: “The beauty of listening is that those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their true selves.”
5. Problem Solving: Leaders must be able to solve tough problems. Think of the quote, “creating problems is easy, solving them is difficult.” This one goes hand in hand with the previous areas of focus because it will take problem solving to improve administration, morale, and relationships.
6. Creation: This is an area of struggle for me personally. I tend to be great at implementing ideas, not creating them. Because of this I have to be extremely intentional about giving myself space each week to think outside the box. I also try to work with people around me who come up with creative ideas all the time. “Criticizing plans is easier than creating them,” is a good saying to remind ourselves of. Improving leadership means we are more apt to create than criticize.

What advice do you have for those who want to improve their leadership potential?

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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

Yesterday a lot changed. Rose walked away from the best job she’s ever had.

And really there is no comparison to any of her previous jobs. She made good enough money for me to attend school without taking on loans, while paying my previous student loans, and she had health insurance that her employers covered 100% of the cost for. She was doing a job she went to school to do and she worked with people she loved being around.

About a month ago she called me to let me know she had been offered a job at the one place in Portland she had on her radar since she began her massage education. The offer was for a part-time job. The job payed about the same per hour but was almost half of the hours and had no health insurance connected to it.

When we sat down to talk about it I told Rose flat out, “Taking this job, on paper, would be the dumbest decision we’ve made since we got married.” It might be harsh to say it that way, but it was absolutely true.

But there’s another side to the story. When you feel God has created you to do something and to extend your life to that end, it doesn’t matter what kind of money you get paid to do it, you do it anyway. This new job for Rose afforded her the opportunity to work at her dream job and to grow in her ability with maternity massage (what she feels a burden from God for).

When you sense God leading and calling you in a specific direction do any of the specifics ultimately matter? Sometimes God calls us to dumb decisions, right?

Don’t get me wrong I’m still scared out of my mind about all this. I’m a mess of faith and worry right now. So much of me is happy for Rose and knows this is the right direction for her long-term. But then there’s this side of me that wonders why God has to make things difficult just as things were getting comfortable for us. Between normal living expenses, paying off student loans from undergrad, and paying for seminary out of pocket, I’m not entirely sure how it all will get paid, but I know that God is faithful to provide where He calls.

I don’t know what happens if Rose breaks a bone. I don’t know what happens if her new job tanks quickly because of a bad economy in the area. I don’t know. The unknown is a scary place to be.

And for some reason what keeps me going is that I know God wouldn’t have it any other way.

The faith it takes to walk through the unknown is what God uses to stretch us in becoming more like Jesus.

So here we are making dumb decisions on purpose. We’re making the dumbest decision in our five years of marriage, and all the assurance we have in it is that God has pushed us in this direction.

What better way is there to live?

I often find myself pondering what the future will hold. I can get so caught up in my hopes and dreams for the future that I get pulled out of my present reality. It’s normal to want our present circumstances to change, or to get better, and it’s normal to hope for the greener pastures of life in the coming days.

I’ve found myself in this stage of life–hoping and dreaming of what the future could hold.

There’s this one big, major problem though, the future is not here.

It’s out there. Somewhere. Off in the distance. It does not exist within life right now.

I find this struggle to make its way into all stages of life, but especially for those in the post-graduation from college life stage. Especially when I’m in conversations with my friends from college it seems the discussion eventually gets to the point where we’ll all be happier once the future arrives.

I had the chance a few weeks back to have coffee with a local pastor and author, Chuck Bomar. He spoke at my church recently and we made some plans to get together to talk life, ministry, writing, and faith. Toward the end of our time together I asked Chuck what advice he would someone like me who is waiting in anticipation for some changes the future might bring. I haven’t forgotten what he shared with me since that day and I’m using his thoughts to help drive me to be present in each moment rather than keeping my eyes fixed on the future.

Here’s two specifics dangers that come up when we’re focused on the future.

1. Don’t look into the future too much, it breeds discontent.

By looking into and dreaming about the future we tend to devalue our present circumstances. We start to think about all the things we’d change–all the things that aren’t going well. But doing so only makes us frustrated so we spend the rest of our time thinking about how much better the future will be when those things change.

Rather than becoming more joyful about life we end up being even more discontent because the present circumstances are not changing fast enough.

2. Continue to recognize what God is currently blessing.

When Chuck said this, it shot right through me. In all my hopes for the future, I realized that I was thinking only about how God would be blessing me when the future became a reality. And, in turn, I had failed to recognize that God was still at work in a mighty way all around my life right now.

Even in the midst of our desire for things to change as quickly as possible, God does not leave the present circumstances and places we find ourselves in. He’s continually at work. It’s us who become better at ignoring His presence.

What are other ways being fixated on the future negatively affect our present circumstances?