Barnabas File

As a task-oriented person, I like to make lists.     Even more, I like checking off things on the list that I have completed. In fact, when I do something that is not on the list, I sometimes add it to the list so that I can mark it completed. Lists are most effective when we prioritize the items on the list.  Most of us have more things on our “to-do” list than we have time to do.  This means that we must make choices. There are a number of ways make choices.  Recently I came across the Eisenhower decision matrix.   This comes from a quote attributed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower:  "I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent." Eisenhower did not claim this insight as his own but attributed it to an (unnamed) "former college president." The four quadrants of the Eisenhower matrix are  urgent and important, important, urgent, an...

Last year at this time I was dealing with some severe back problems.  During that period, I devoted most of my efforts to getting over that condition through exercise and physical therapy, so some other activities took a back seat. I thought about this in recent days as I began preparing for a class where we would discuss vision.  There are many different understandings of what vision is but, at the core, vision is the preferred future for a person, group, or organization.  It provides focus, commitment and a wise use of resources. Much is made in larger churches of the need to have a well defined vision and this is certainly true if the church is to be effective.  Having a clear vision is even more important in a smaller congregation. The small congregation is somewhat in the situation I was in last year with my back problem.  I only had limited resources, so I devoted most of them to getting better.  A smaller congregat...

While waiting for a flight at the airport, I used  my phone to send a message to  my wife, respond to a request to serve as a reference for a friend, and check the weather at my destination.  As I made a necessary visit before boarding, I noted a Bathroom attendant who was multitasking--cleaning up and taking what appeared to be a personal call at the same time. I started thinking, "What did we do when we did not have cell phones to keep us connected 24/7?"  In reality, we did rather well.   It's nice to be connected but this availability may well perpetuate the myth that somehow I am  indispensable.  If the world can't get in touch with me instantaneously, will things grind to a halt? I doubt it. In the past, we might be out of touch with family and friends for days at a time.  Few of us have had the experience of founding father John Adams  who spent years in Europe separated from his beloved Abigal, but their experience shows us tha...

“I don’t have enough time.”  I have heard this often in coaching leaders.  In reality, everyone has the same amount of time.  How we chose to use it is up to each one of us but those choices are not always easy.  I have come to realize that when I consider the tasks before me, I have three choices. First, there are those things I need to do.  These are the things that are of primary importance.  One of these is my relationship with God.  Another is my relationship with family. Everything else is negotiable.  Those things that I need to do are usually those things that I am gifted to do.  This does not mean that they are easy to accomplish.  They may take work, but I have the skills to do them or I can acquire those skills.  These are usually the activities that bring me the most sense of fulfillment. For example, I have just finished the manuscript for my first e-book.  Since it is based on my experience, ideas, and ...

A favorite expression in my family of origin was, “Don’t bite off more than you can chew.”   It was not used just at the dinner table but also as a reminder that sometimes we attempt more than we are capable of completing.   I thought of this when I heard someone use the term "mission creep" recently. Wikipedia defines “mission creep” as “the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original     goals, often after initial successes.   Mission creep is usually considered undesirable due to the dangerous path of each success breeding more ambitious attempts, only stopping when a final, often catastrophic, failure occurs.”  Journalists coined the term in reference to the United States’ disastrous involvement in Somalia in the 1990s, but it can be used to describe our nation’s experiences in  Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq as well as Somalia.  Our intentions were good, we invested lives and resources in the fight, but we were in over our h...