Step RIGHT into 2011!!!

How do you plan for a New Year?

Do you just imagine all the stuff you would like to do? 

Do you plan at all?

My brother, we can’t afford to enter a year slippin’ or slackin’.  If you fail to plan, then you must be planning to fail.  Dr. Stephen Payne said to me that the “first rule of leadership is to lead yourself with excellence.”

Here are a few pointers I continue to practice that I got from Stephen Covey in the classic 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

1. Know Your Role (s): Every man should know his roles.  Are you a husband?  A father?  What is your career/profession?  For example, I am a husband, father, fulltime ordained minister and men’s ministry director (these are a few of my self-defined roles).  I don’t do anything that isn’t tied to one of my roles.  A man shouldn’t have more than seven roles in his life or risk being overwhelmed.  In each of these roles list the key people involved and write a clarifying statement that will provide you with focus.  A man might object and say, “our roles should be obvious because we live them everyday.”  But do you live these roles in spirit of excellence?  Are you intentional about your roles or have you dropped the ball in 2010 more times than you care to count?  If you are serious about your life then take the time to write down a clear definition for each of your roles.  To quote Francis Bacon, “Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”  Be exact about your roles.


2. Live Your Values: What do you value?  If you value peace do you keep your money in order?  If you value faith then do you have time allotted for prayer and study?  It is said so often that it can be counted as a cliché but it is not: I can tell what you value by how you spend your time and your money.  So clearly define your values so that you know what they mean and why they are your values.  The trick is to have a list that can be memorized and used as a filter for all the choices that will come your way.  For example, AR Bernard has summed up his values and the values of Christian Cultural Center down to four: Faith, family, community and education.  Priorities and values are synonymous.  If I claim to value family, yet neglect them for other companionship then I am pursuing or valuing something other than family.  Inconsistency between words and deeds, between confession and practice are not “mistakes” but decisions that reflect our priorities.  To quote Tim Elmore, “Life isn’t about prioritizing your schedule but scheduling your priorities.”  Are your values clearly reflected in your goals?  Are you a man of your word?

Do you know the difference between a flood and a river?  Tim Elmore says that the difference between a flood and a river is focus. Both may be bodies of water but floods spread out causing chaos and destruction.  Rivers on the other hand move in one direction and provide a source of energy and transportation.  Rivers are focused.  Knowing your roles and clearly defining your values provide you with your focus and foundation for setting meaningful and attainable short term and long term goals.

For example, in my role as “father” I want to be more than just “involved” I want to be intentional and strategic.  So I am already sitting with my wife not just to plan the birthday parties in 2011 but how we are going to create a meaningful age-appropriate experience for our children.  Because I am a fulltime minister (role) and my wife is a fulltime domestic engineer (role) we have to discuss our children’s extracurricular activities (based on what we value).  After all, we aren’t raising children we are raising adults!  We want our children to be fully functional independent citizens with a clear sense of identity and purpose (value).

Look guys, I am not an expert.  This is one student of life speaking to another.  There is a lot more to Stephen Covey’s process for goal setting (and ultimately writing a mission statement) but I think these two points are great for starters.

Make 2011 count for time and eternity.  Live intentionally.  Live life on purpose.

The Nile River

As men we are called to be kings. The mark of kings is vision. Start with where you are by identifying your roles and your values. This is the foundation for personal vision and even for qualifying you for a vision from God.

God will give more to the man who is faithful in the little they have been given.

I would love to hear from you and so would your brothers (and sisters) who read this blog:
- How do you plan for a New Year?

- What do you think about setting goals based on your roles and what you value?

- Who do you know that lives life more like a flood than a river?  How can you encourage them to be more focused in 2011?

- How do you schedule your priorities?  Monthly?  Weekly?  Daily?

My brother, step RIGHT (intentionally, strategically, prayerfully) into 2011!!!  Attitude determines approach, and approach determines success or failure.

In whatever process you use to set goals for 2011, bathe the process in prayer to your Father in Heaven.

And I pray that our Father would pour out His Spirit and you’ll have a renewed vision and strategy for taking territory for the Kingdom.  I pray that 2011 will be a new season of blessing for you and that you will be an intentional blessing through your clearly defined roles. And I pray that your values would make you known as a man of honor and integrity to all.
 

Happy New Year!

Grace and peace and Happy New Year!

Your brother,

Minister Onorio

What if God was one of us?

Why is Jesus Christ the blueprint for manhood?

Because Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human.

The belief that Jesus the Christ is fully God and fully human
is unique to Christianity and central to our faith

Sorry.  This is not a theology blog so I’m not going to justify this central revelation and truth of Christianity.

If you are a Christian then this is a matter of faith and study of our sacred Scriptures found in the Old and New Testaments.

Jesus the Christ was (and is) fully God and fully human.  There is One God who eternally exists as three persons; Father, Son & Holy Spirit.

Moving right along…

I write this in case you are wondering why Jesus Christ and not King David or Arnold Schwarzenegger is the blueprint for our manhood.

We can learn plenty from David, Arnold or any man.  But only if we have God’s standard can we make a right judgment about what is Christian manhood.

Jesus Christ is the prototype for Christian manhod.

Christians believed that there has always been “types” of Christ found in the Scriptures.

Isaac was a type of Christ by being the son of promise offered up as a sacrifice.  Joseph was a type of Christ in being betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery and then to return as savior.  King David stripped the natural enemies of Israel just as Jesus stripped Sin and the Devil of their power.

In Jesus’ earthly ministry He reminded the people of the prophets. They thought that Jesus was one of the prophets alive from the dead.  Jesus had the boundless energy and passion of Elijah who ran faster than a chariot.  He reminded the people of Jeremiah whose writings demonstrated personal transparency and sorrow over the sins of Israel.

Even advertisers know the power of archetypes

But Jesus Christ is the archetype or “original model after which other similar things are patterned.”  Psychiatrist Carl Jung defined archetype as “the images, patterns and symbols that rise out of the collective unconscious and appear in dreams, mythology and fairy tales.”[1]  The hero the world collective longs for is actually Christ Jesus; the true hero, king & warrior of man’s dreams.

The Living God warns us over and over again about making images of Him or anything to worship.  To worship is not just praying to something, but passionately pursuing and setting our affections on someone or something.  We can tell what we worship by where we spend our time and money.  This is why we need to “renew” our minds because we can sing a hymn on Sunday and cuss our neighbor on Monday.

And the principal is that you become what you worship.  If you worship money you become shallow and greedy.  If you worship man then you become fearful and insecure.  When we worship something blind and deaf we become spiritually blind and deaf to seeing and hearing God.

God is invisible in part so that we can always pursue Him.  So that we can remember that everything that we see may be good but it’s temporary.  Everything we see is to be filtered through the Word of God.

We are meant to seek an invisible God by listening carefully to His Word…

We are meant to hear His Word so we can worship in spirit and in truth…

We are meant to worship the invisible God because transformation is from the inside out…

There was a song that asked the question, “What if God was one of us?”  There seems to be more than one person who sang this, and I don’t want to judge the writer/singer incorrectly.

But the only way you can ask that question is if you flat out reject that God became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth.  He is “God with us” so the question was already answered; the image of the invisible God in word & deed.  Jesus is the new man making us sons of God through His grace.

This should ignite our imagination!  Let's study how Jesus handled His relationship with His Father, His human family, His people, His enemies and even how He died as the blueprint for our faith and identity.

When we accept the answer we are on the path to renewing the image of God in us.  Then we worship in spirit and in truth.  Then we will be transformed to reflect the image of Christ.


Jesus was not only the reality of the "archetypes" He was a genuine human being.  He was born in poverty to parents who were unprepared.  The circumstances of His birth were scandalous to say the least from human eyes and His early life was spent as a political refugee.  Jesus learned to submit to parents who didn't really understand Him and He grew up in a ghetto community that rejected his ministry.  I could go on but I think you understand.

"Through Nomadic Eyes" artwork
from the Stations of the Cross
in Lodwar Cathedral, Kenya

In His divinity Jesus was the archetype of all heroes.  In His humanity Jesus is a man that any man can easily relate to as a brother.  He fully presents to us the heart of the invisible God. He reveals what men (and women) would be like if we had no sin.

How did Jesus transform your image of God?

How does Jesus transform your imagination concerning masculinity and men?

C.S. Lewis said, “God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man.”

Imagine Jesus according to all the Scriptures not sound bytes and popular verses.  Let the Scriptures help you imagine Jesus on the job with you.  Imagine how His character would be expressed to your parents or to your children.  And re-imagine yourself because Christ is living through you.

Be blessed.

Your brother,

Minister Onorio

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[1] Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/archetype (accessed: November 28, 2010).